No More Snail Mail?

Although officially founded on July 1st, 1971, the United States Postal Service can trace its roots back to 1775, when Benjamin Franklin was appointed the Postmaster General by the Second Continental Congress. In the days of E-mail, phone calls, and instant messaging, letter carrying business is now slowly becoming obsolete. Traditionally, because of the Christian Sabbath, the post office is closed on Sunday, but now with fewer and fewer people actually using the post office, the United States Postal Service has decided to close on Sundays as well, a decision that has been met with much controversy. Mailmen have been an important part of our daily lives for decades, so should their hours be cut back even more?

The author of this political cartoon is Walt Handelsman of the Chicago Tribune Media Services. His main commentary is his disappointment in that people no longer use letters to communicate with one another and that a sighting of one has become rarer than a unicorn. The author is able to achieve his purpose of chastising the USPS for cutting their delivery services from six to five days. His intended audience is the general public, because he wants to make them realize just how important the postal service is, and the United States cannot afford to have it slowly disappear.

As an interesting side note, the first postal service in America arose in February 1692, originally funded by grant money from King William and Queen Mary.