Bacon's Rebellion

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The Post Office’s Explanation for This Makes No Sense

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by

Dick Hall-Sizemore
in ,

Montpelier Station Photo credit: Orange County Review

by Dick Hall-Sizemore

The United States Postal Service has shut down its Montpelier Station office because a display depicting racial segregation in Virginia was “unacceptable to the Postal Service.”

A brief history of the site is included in an article about the closure in the Culpeper Star-Exponent that is reprinted in today’s Richmond Times Dispatch.

In 1910, the wealthy industrialist William duPont, who had purchased Montpelier, the home of former President James Madison, and was living there, built a railroad depot on the property. Montpelier Station, as it was called, was served by the Southern Railroad. In accordance with custom and law, the station had separate waiting rooms and ticket windows for Black and White customers. In 1912, a post office opened in the same building and has been there since.

In 2010, the Montpelier Foundation, which now owns the mansion and surrounding property, restored the train depot. Included in the restoration is an exhibit that “tells of African American life in Orange County and the nation during segregation, as well as the train station’s peculiar history with the duPonts.” According to the article, the exhibit consists of “a panel on one exterior wall of the depot and on panels inside the 1912 station.” The post office had its own entrance, separate from the rooms in which the panels are shown.

In the first week of June, the Postal Office, with little advance notice, announced it was suspending service at the Montpelier Station office. Postal customers were given no explanation until a Postal Service spokesman told the Culpeper Star-Exponent on August 9, “Service at Montpelier Station was suspended after it was determined the display at the site was unacceptable to the Postal Service.”  The spokesman declined to answer follow-up questions about what the USPS found objectionable about the exhibit.

The approximately 100 residents of the area who picked up their mail at the Montpelier Station will have to get their mail at the post office in Orange, about four miles away.

My Soapbox

With the Postal Service facing well-known financial problems, it makes fiscal sense to close these small country post offices. They are quaint relics of a bygone era. However, to blame the closure on the presence of an exhibit about segregation that has been in the building for more than 10 years is bizarre.

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45 responses to “The Post Office’s Explanation for This Makes No Sense”

  1. DJRippert Avatar
    DJRippert

    It is bizarre. In the worst case, one would think that the Post Office would ask that the exhibit be taken down or contextualized. Sounds like they made an excuse to close an office that just wasn’t sufficiently busy.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      I agree, but why not just say so?

      1. DJRippert Avatar
        DJRippert

        An interesting bit of Jim Crow / Post Office history that happened at about the same time that the Montpelier Station Office came to be.

        https://apwu.org/news/post-office-department-and-jim-crow

        Maybe the modern Post Office is embarrassed by their actions.

    2. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      That would have put the USPS right in the middle of the current high profile and angry “tussle” as DH-S calls it. That could well be “the worst case” as far as the USPS was concerned. Choosing to quietly close up shop and walk away instead of engaging in that fight seems a pretty sensible choice.

    3. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      That would have put the USPS right in the middle of the current high profile and angry “tussle” as DH-S calls it. That could well be “the worst case” as far as the USPS was concerned. Choosing to quietly close up shop and walk away instead of engaging in that fight seems a pretty sensible choice.

  2. JayCee Avatar
    JayCee

    Its time to phase out the USPS, its a junk mail factory, they literally sell junk mail services and operate like a self licking ice cream cone.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      Sorry, but some of us still use the USPS a lot. Much to the consternation of the companies I deal with, I’m sure, I don’t like paying my bills electronically, so all my bills come in by mail and payments go out by mail. I get numerous packages delivered by USPS; we also get several periodicals in the mail, along with an out-of-town newspaper. It would be a great loss to the country if the USPS were eliminated.

      1. Eric the half a troll Avatar
        Eric the half a troll

        USPS has a better package delivery service than UPS and Fedex, imo.

    2. Lefty665 Avatar
      Lefty665

      There is that pesky Constitution thingie:

      “Article I, Section 8, Clause 7 of the United States Constitution, known as the Postal Clause or the Postal Power, empowers Congress “To establish Post Offices and post Roads.” The Post Office has the constitutional authority to designate mail routes.”
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Clause

      Nowhere in there is the authority to make a value judgement as to what is my precious mail and someone else’s “Junk Mail”.

  3. LesGabriel Avatar
    LesGabriel

    “Bizarre” is a mild description. It would be interesting to see the substance of the exhibits, but from what is described, it sounds like a serious effort to tell a balanced story of a sordid period of Virginia life. Are we at the point that 2010 wokeness is not woke enough a dozen years later? I assume that the USPS has a long-established process for closing under-utilized P.O.’s, and that this process gets scrutinized by politicians at all levels to protect their constituents from arbitrary actions. No mention that this action was questioned by anyone representing the citizens of Montpelier Station.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      According to the article, Rep. Abigail Spanberger has called upon the Postal Services for an explanation.

    2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
      Eric the half a troll

      Interesting that I read the article to mean that the postal service did not like the history of its segregationist past being so well publicized – in other words “too woke” in your terms.

  4. James McCarthy Avatar
    James McCarthy

    Federal and state agencies do make bad decisions. This one is bone-headed.

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      Oh what DeJoy!

  5. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Without having seen the exhibit, this sounds bizarre. Segregation is part of our history, and it’s a story that must be told. It’s not “woke” to tell honest history.

    An exhibit is “woke” only if it’s used to peddle a narrative that U.S. history is one long series of oppressions without acknowledging that (a) hierarchy and servitude were universal features of mankind in the 18th century, (b) that our nation is the first to articulate the ideals we hold dear today, (c) that the nation has worked over its nearly 250-year history to fulfill those ideals, and (d) oh, by the way, we swept monarchy, fascism and Leninist communism into the dustbin of history.

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      Right — no Leninist states left on the face of the Earth. We defeated them all. We can relax about China, Russia, Cuba, Venezuela, North Korea, etc. Not commies at all…That’s not a monarchy in Saudi Arabia, either. The dustbin must have a hole in the bottom. The mullahs and Taliban in Afghanistan and Iran are big believers in liberty and democracy — there’s a form of pure theocracy that had actually died out and is now back.

      My grandmother was a postmaster (-mistress). Her little PO in Bluefield had one of those glorious WPA murals….probably long gone, too. Maybe some hidden FDR-era socialistic messaging, I can’t recall. I suspect that little PO in Montpelier just died for economic reasons.

      1. James A. Bacon Avatar
        James A. Bacon

        OK, get technical on me. I should have been more precise: We helped defeat the German monarchy during WWI (which along with the Russian, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian monarchies was relegated to the dustbin of history), and we defeated Soviet communism. No, we didn’t expunge all evil from the world. But we moved it toward more democracy, more human rights, and freer economies.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          For the moment. But it’s not too late. You can still change it by doing as you are.

    2. Eric the half a troll Avatar
      Eric the half a troll

      The US has a history of really significant oppression, that is true, but I have not met anyone who believes that oppression is the whole of our history. For quite a long time, the very real oppression in our history was completely ignored and the narrative was nothing more than your four points (as Haner noted, inaccurately). Call me “woke” but I see no harm with focusing on the oppression in our history for a while so we can sweep it as well into the dustbin of history – never to re-sprout again…. and, no, we do not need to offset every discussion of the oppression in our history with a rehashing of your four points…

  6. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Who is Postmaster General? ‘Nuff said.

  7. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    As part of this plan, DeJoy said USPS will close annexes around the country “that add cost, transportation, and foster inefficient and ad-hoc operations.” Annexes are USPS facilities separate from post offices used for mail delivery functions, but may not offer full retail services to customers.May 18, 2022

    https://federalnewsnetwork.com/facilities-construction/2022/05/dejoy-outlines-usps-plans-to-close-consolidate-facilities-across-its-delivery-network/

    But might as well kick up some dust while you’re at it…

  8. Lefty665 Avatar
    Lefty665

    Spanberger is in an election cycle. Dangerous to get between her and an opportunity for publicity.

    Look at the exterior signage. You can see why the USPS might not be pleased. It is not unreasonable that they would choose not to join the current Montpelier pissing contest about CRT and systemic racism over an office that serves a very small population. Just close it and walk quietly away.

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8b00f001826d9b42da22de3463dbed46b31a7a8d34c370d1448cb8cc6909d41a.jpg

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      But the exhibit has been there for more than ten years, long before the current tussles.

      1. Nancy Naive Avatar
        Nancy Naive

        “Hey! Ya know, I just notice sumthin’. If you read that sign wrong…”

        1. Lefty665 Avatar
          Lefty665

          If ‘ya believe Sherlock’s recent confabulations and jumping to conclusions about Rubenstein and Youngkin having once worked together, and Rubenstein’s charitable contributions to Montpelier and Monticello, that “wrong” reading would be Rubenstein’s intent, purchased with charitable donations, and a basis for Dems to attack Youngkin sometime somehow.

          Sherlockian judgementalism: The plot thickens. Now that the USPS is dragged into it during a woke Dem administration, and there is a letter from a Dem congress critter, it must be a conspiracy. Go for it Sherlock nota Holmes.

      2. Lefty665 Avatar
        Lefty665

        Dunno how long the exterior sign conflating segregation and the USPS, intentionally or not, has been up. The pissing contest is recent, and who knows when any of it caught the attention of anyone at the USPS beyond the carrier who serviced the place daily.

        Asking for the sign to be “clarified” would have put the USPS right in the middle of the “tussle” as you so politely put it. Quietly closing up shop and walking away seems a pretty sensible decision that also saves a little money.

  9. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    There has been tempestuous upheaval at Montpelier itself. I’d not be surprised if this issue is entangled with the other – perhaps on a personal level involving the ousted leader and the local post office leadership.

    ” Christy Moriarty, the foundation’s communications director, said in a statement Friday that the exhibit has co-existed with the post office in the Montpelier depot since 2010, having won wide public acclaim.

    “We are proud of the exhibition that presents the realities of life during the Jim Crow era, showing the original segregated ticketing and waiting facilities,” Moriarty said.

    The foundation was not consulted in advance about the Postal Service’s decision and was surprised by it, she said.”

    Ms. Moriarty herself, was embroiled in the back and forth over representing Montpelier’s slave history and was fired with others, then rehired:

    ” Dr. Chew, who took office May 25, swiftly reinstated four staff members who on April 18 were terminated or suspended by the previous administration. She herself had been terminated from her former role as the plantation’s executive vice president and chief curator.

    Backed by The Montpelier Foundation’s new board of directors, Chew lifted the suspension of Mary Furlong Minkoff, assistant director of archaeology and curator of archaeological collections, and field director Chris Pasch, on May 26.

    Matt Reeves, director of archaeology and landscape restoration, and communications director Christy Moriarty were rehired effective Monday, May 30, according to a post on montpelier.org, website of the Madison family’s Orange County seat.

    Now committed to an equitable relationship with the Montpelier Descendants Committee, Montpelier is “poised to offer the public a more expansive history,” the historic site declared Friday.

    The staff members’ reinstatements follow The Montpelier Foundation’s accomplishment of a historic milestone—“institutional empowerment of those descended from the plantation’s enslaved community,” it said.”

    https://fredericksburg.com/james-madisons-montpelier-rehires-staff-fired-suspended-by-ex-ceo/article_a2588164-d0a8-5334-86a8-cd234b3f66df.html

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/804c2cb80767619c6bfc8371886b894de1e98f49703e819213122789f2c3dc4e.jpg

      https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/8de321ca603655805f7bf4eba6cb67e8a6ea6dd5ce93d1f9e77306844e7a28fc.jpg

      https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=31723

  10. VaPragamtist Avatar
    VaPragamtist

    “it makes fiscal sense to close these small country post offices. They are quaint relics of a bygone era”

    For a better understanding of the history of these post offices and their purpose, I encourage you to read:

    Gallagher, W. (2016). How the Post Office created America: a history. Penguin.

    The USPS is in need of mission clarity (is it a business or a public good?), and innovation, but closing rural post offices isn’t the answer.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      I essentially agree with you. However, Congress decided some years ago that the USPS should use a business model. But, it will not let it operate as a business. For example, no business would charge the same amount to deliver a letter sent from Richmond to a remote village in Alaska as it does to deliver a letter cross town in Richmond. Nor would a business continue to operate small branches in rural areas with few customers. However, members of Congress balk whenever the Postal Service tries to close one of these offices. In summary, Congress should decided once and for all if the Postal Service should be treated as a business or a public good. I vote for public good.

      1. LarrytheG Avatar
        LarrytheG

        Even when the GOP held Congress and the POTUS, they would not do away with the PO even though the rhetoric was that they would if they ever got legislative control.

        What the PO is doing in my mind is similar to what Dominion does which is to charge the same rate for electricity no matter their costs in providing it across geography and differences in infrastructure and M&O costs. And they cross-subsidize marketing mail and basic mail.

        Or even Walmart where they sell some things like Milk at cost or below but they offset it by selling soda at 5 times their cost.

        It’s a universal service that virtually anyone could use no matter their income level. Imagine how some things like electric bills would get paid if it cost $6 (or more) to send the payment. All kinds of payments would be affected if it cost $6 in some places and $20 in other places to send the letter.

        I’m not opposed to efforts to make it operate more like a business but the GOP-inspired rule to make them pre-fund their pensions is unlike any other business or institution and that rule imposed on other businesses and institutions would be destructive with no real benefit.

      2. DJRippert Avatar
        DJRippert

        Once upon a time, private mailboxes (like the one at he end of many driveways) were only accessible by employees of the US Postal Service – regardless of what the mailbox owner wanted. Is this still the case?

        1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
          Dick Hall-Sizemore

          Yes. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1725

      3. Lefty665 Avatar
        Lefty665

        I vote with you on public good.

        Note that Amazon charges its Prime customers an annual flat rate for shipment of infinitely variable quantities, sizes, weights and distances. The flat rate for a 1st class letter anywhere in the country is a pretty modest proposition in comparison.

    2. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      Yes. If Dominion were allowed to not serve the most expensive rural areas unless they could charge according to geographic costs. Some rural folks would be paying 2-3 times as much for electricity than dense urban customers.

      1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        Dominion is different, maybe. By law, it is allowed to set its rates so that it is guaranteed approximately a 10 percent profit.

        Until 2006, federal law required that first class postage to be the same for any letter delivered in the United States or its territories. That specific provision was repealed in 2006 and I can’t find a similar requirement in current law. (That was a revelation for me.)

        The federal law still has this provision: “No small post office shall be closed solely for operating at a deficit, it being the specific intent of the Congress that effective postal services be insured to residents of both urban and rural communities.”

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          Yes. It’s basically universal access with the costs spread over all customers so that rural folks pay about the same as urban folks.

          Just the number of rural POs alone compared to the number of urban POs is a significant cost difference both the infrastructure and labor cost.

          I suspect this is why the GOP backed off the idea of reducing costs – most rural is GOP-represented and they’re caught between their principles of less govt and more business friendly and the needs/wants of their constituents.

          Sorta like them talking about Medicare, Social Security, etc. Many of their rural constituents totally depend on these programs so Conservatives talk the talk politically but then go the other way when having to vote against.

          Pretty sure they heard/hear loud and clear from their rural constituents on the PO issues.

          I note how Amazon does shipping of late if you decline “Prime” which I do. If it comes to your house, there is often a shipping cost unless, you choose a longer shipping time or you pick up at an Amazon locker – which I also will do.

          but all things equal – I’m getting free delivery for the same price that others are paying for per shipment or Prime, etc.

          I have no idea of exactly how Amazon configures their business with regard to shipping and I suspect many of us have no better idea of exactly how the PO is doing their costs but in both cases, I suspect there is a type of cross-subsidy going on where shipping costs are NOT precisely and equally allocated on a per item basis per the actual cost of shipping.

          I note also that both FedEx collaborates with USPS on a service called SmartPost where Fed Ex delivers to the PO and the PO takes the package to the final destination.

          there are a lot of moving parts to the USPS these days that have to do with increasing efficiency and reducing costs which includes closing some POs and of here lately slower deliveries.. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a6c3d1996d1b281853e9fd7a9fac576f13f1e4004fb05895eb0414949fd6a741.jpg

      2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        Dominion is different, maybe. By law, it is allowed to set its rates so that it is guaranteed approximately a 10 percent profit.

        Until 2006, federal law required that first class postage to be the same for any letter delivered in the United States or its territories. That specific provision was repealed in 2006 and I can’t find a similar requirement in current law. (That was a revelation for me.)

        The federal law still has this provision: “No small post office shall be closed solely for operating at a deficit, it being the specific intent of the Congress that effective postal services be insured to residents of both urban and rural communities.”

  11. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Delivery of mail to the house began during the Civil War. The Postmater General at that time found post offices were depressing as too many people received the bad news from the front lines.

  12. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    This is not about “efficiency” and cost-cutting. It actually would have been quite easy to explain the cut on that basis but whoever made the decision chose not to. This is about something else.

  13. JayCee Avatar
    JayCee

    “During Woodrow Wilson’s 1912 presidential campaign, he promised African Americans advancement. He stated, “Should I become President of the United States, [Negroes] [sic] may count upon me for absolute fair dealing and for everything by which I could assist in advancing the interests of their race in the United States.”(1) Believing in his promise, many African Americans broke their affiliation with the Republican Party and voted for Wilson. He did not, however, fulfill the promises he made during the campaign to the African American community during his presidency. Less than a month after his March 4, 1913 inauguration,(2) President Wilson’s Administration took the first steps towards segregating the federal service.

    The question of federal segregation was first discussed in high administration circles at a closed cabinet meeting on April 11, 1913.(3) At the Cabinet meeting Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson argued for segregating the Railway Mail Service. He was disturbed by whites and African Americans working in the Railway Mail Service train cars. The workers shared glasses, towels, and washrooms.(4) He said segregation was in the best interest of the African American employees and in the best interest of the Railway Mail Service.”

    (https://postalmuseum.si.edu/research-articles/the-history-and-experience-of-african-americans-in-america’s-postal-service-3

    1. LarrytheG Avatar
      LarrytheG

      this was pretty much right in the middle of the Jim Crow era… right? And Wilsons attitudes about race are fairly well known… I thought.

  14. JayCee Avatar
    JayCee

    Postal history
    African-American postal workers in the 20th century.

    https://about.usps.com/who/profile/history/african-american-workers-20thc.htm

  15. James Wyatt Whitehead Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead

    One headache for this closing. Montpelier the museum is going to have to change the address. The paper pushers are going to love that.

  16. Nancy Naive Avatar
    Nancy Naive

    Bothersome mail deliveries… got my mail again today. Hasn’t rained in 3 days but the envelopes all had a wet spot on the long edge about 3″ in diameter. I think my carrier tucks things under his arm to sort while walking…

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