Note 152 — Chapter II · The Power of Congress to Establish Postoffices

Postmaster General Blair in 1861 excluded from the mails twelve treasonable publications, “of which several had been previously presented by the grand jury as incendiary and hostile to constitutional authority.” Report of the Postmaster General, 1861, p. 584. In 1914 the postmaster at Greenville, Pa., threw out of the mail several thousand cards containing facsimile appeals over his signature by Colonel Roosevelt, calling upon all good citizens to oppose Senator Boies Penrose. The local postmaster held the cards to be defamatory, but his decision was reversed by the authorities at Washington. See N. Y. Sun, October 31, 1914.