<--PREV Doc #1447  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1449 Document #1448; March 9, 1960 To Wilton Burton Persons Series: EM, AWF, DDE Diaries Series The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XX - The Presidency: Keeping the Peace Part IX: Shattered Dreams; March 1960 to July 1960 Chapter 21: "Progress in a knotty problem"   Memorandum for General Persons: Here is a letter sent by Tom Murray of the Post Office Committee to General Summerfield. Please note the marked paragraph.1 It would seem to me that there is so much partisan politics involved in Post Office affairs that it would be difficult to have a profitable bipartisan meeting.2 What do you think? 1 We have been unable to locate this letter from Thomas Jefferson Murray, the Democratic chairman of the House Post Office and Civil Service Committee, to Postmaster General Summerfield. The letter almost certainly addressed Eisenhower’s request for postal rate increases. In his budget message the President had urged Congress to raise rates in order to eliminate the large postal service deficit (for background see nos. 784 and 930). He would send a special message to Congress on March 11, and, after an unenthusiastic Congress failed to enact legislation, would again request the increase in his budget message for FY 1962 (Public Papers of the Presidents: Eisenhower, 1960 - 61, pp. 65, 71, 288 - 89, 977 - 78). 2 On this day Summerfield had met with Eisenhower to discuss scheduling a bipartisan conference on the postal deficit, an idea that he said came from Murray. While the President felt the situation had become "too political now," he had referred the proposal to General Persons for consideration (Ann Whitman memorandum, Mar. 9, 1960, AWF/AWD). On May 10, the day Congress would begin hearings on a rate increase, Eisenhower would discuss postal services and the Post Office budget with legislative leaders. Since improvements in the two areas were incompatible so long as Congress refused to raise rates, the President suggested that it might be a good idea for Summerfield "to inject some life into the situation by reducing service to the point justified by revenues" (Legislative leadership meeting notes, May 10, 1960, see also Feb. 16, AWF/LM; New York Times, Feb. 17, 23, and Mar. 12, 1960). Congress, however, was being pressured by the postal unions (see no. 1578 for developments) and was proposing and would eventually approve a pay raise for postal workers, a move that constituted a further setback to efforts to erase the deficit (Congressional Quarterly Almanac, vol. XVI, 1960, pp. 240 - 46, 249). For more on Eisenhower’s support for a balanced postal budget see Arthur E. Summerfield as told to Charles Hurd, U.S. Mail: The Story of the United States Postal Service (New York, 1960). Bibliographic reference to this document: Eisenhower, Dwight D. To Wilton Burton Persons, 9 March 1960. In The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, ed. L. Galambos and D. van Ee, doc. 1448. World Wide Web facsimile by The Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission of the print edition; Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/second-term/documents/1448.cfm <--PREV Doc #1447  |  Memorial Commission Home Page  |  Second Term Table of Contents  |  Presidential Papers Home Page  |  Doc#  |  NEXT--> Doc #1449

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