Commentary: Say goodbye to Saturday mail? By Bob Greene
(CNN) -- On this sultry weekend in the middle of August, take a look at what's on your kitchen counter.
Or maybe you've left it on top of the wooden table in your front hallway.
Or tossed it onto the chair next to the couch in your living room.
Chances are it may still be there:
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TheSaturday mail -- the bills, magazines, promotional fliers, and maybe afew actual letters that showed up in your mailbox as always thisweekend, and that you haven't quite gotten around to dealing with yet.
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Look at it closely, because soon enough, it may be gone. Not this weekend's envelopes and magazines specifically. But the Saturday mail itself.
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Ithas been a counted-on part of American life, something as certain asthe sun coming up in the morning, and it seems to be on its way toextinction.
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If you're not aware of this, you're really notto blame. Other high-decibel and seemingly more urgent stories havedominated the news this summer.
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Yet this jarring potential change in thenation's social fabric -- the possibility that you will no longer haveyour mail delivered to you on Saturdays -- is more than hazy theorizing.
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Thepostmaster general of the United States, John E. Potter, has gone toCongress and officially asked for permission to do away with Saturdaymail.
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His reasoning is hard to argue with. In the e-mailage, usage of the U.S. Postal Service is plummeting. Just abouteveryone claims to love the look and feel of a handwritten letter, thegiddy anticipation of seeing the mail carrier strolling up the sidewalkand wondering what he has inside his bag for you, the orderly,set-your-watch-by-it routine of mail delivery to your home every day ofthe week except Sunday.
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Weall say we love it, but we don't use it, at least not enough to offsetthe prodigious costs. The Postal Service says it will loseapproximately $7 billion this fiscal year. Americans have mailed 20billion fewer items this year than they did last year. Over the past 20years, some 200,000 mail-collection boxes have been removed from U.S.streets because not enough people were dropping their letters intothem. The Government Accountability Office has officially declared thePostal Service to be a high-risk agency.
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What to do about this? Onething, according to Postmaster General Potter, is to stop deliveringmail on Saturdays. He has told Congress that this will save more than$3 billion every year. If and when it happens -- and it's beginningto seem inevitable -- the texture of the nation's life will be altered,probably forever. Saturdays without mail will feel like ... well, whoknows? Maybe they'll feel like Sundays.
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Wemay fool ourselves into thinking that it's e-mail alone that hasaddicted us to the expectation of hearing from each other all the time.But it's not the obsession that's new; it's just the means of delivery.When the post office was the quickest way to get the latest word fromfriends and from businesses, Americans seemed just as eager andimpatient about it as they are now. According to the Postal Service, atthe beginning of the 20th century, letter carriers in U.S. cities mademultiple delivery runs each day. In New York, there were ninedeliveries a day; in Baltimore, Maryland, there were seven; in KansasCity, Missouri, there were six. People weren't checking their computerscreens compulsively, but they were checking their mailboxes.
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From the very beginning, the government'smandate to the post office was to deliver the mail "as frequently asthe public convenience ... shall require." The key word was"convenience," and the public found it convenient to have lettersdelivered all the time. It wasn't until 1950 that, "in the interest ofeconomy," residential delivery around the country was permanentlyreduced to once daily.
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ButSaturday delivery has remained sacrosanct. Once -- in 1957 -- there wasan attempt to do away with it. The postmaster general at the time, afellow by the name of Arthur E. Summerfield, decided, in the name ofbudgetary prudence, to end Saturday mail deliveries nationwide.
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Itlasted for exactly one Saturday. On April 13, 1957, the mail did notcome to America's homes. There was such public anger and outrage overthis that President Dwight D. Eisenhower promptly signed a bill toprovide more funding to the post office, and by the next Saturday, thecountry's mailboxes were being filled again.
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Would the elimination ofSaturday delivery be met with the same public outcry now? WouldPresident Obama, like President Eisenhower half a century ago, beforced to bring back the Saturday mail?
We won't knowuntil and unless it occurs. Logic and ledger sheets would seem to tellus that, in our new digital age, hand-delivery of the mail on Saturdaysis not absolutely necessary.
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But the romanceof the mail has never been about logic. The little daily thrill ofseeing the mail carrier approaching is not because we know for a factthat he, or she, has something good for us in that bag. These days, heprobably doesn't.
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But he just may. That has always been the lure, every day but Sunday: He just may.
