The Mails: Turning the Tide

Like locusts, unsolicited mail has always been a durable plague. It keeps coming back. To stem the descent, an instructor of English at Eastern Michigan University has developed a novel defense. Roger C. Staples, 34, recently complained to local postal authorities that several firms, ranging from Sears to J. C. Penney, were deluging his Ann Arbor home with unwanted “lewd” mail.

Not so, said local postal officials. The department-store and other ads that offended Staples could not be considered pornography. Chacun à son gout, said Staples, obscenity is in the eyes of the recipient; and he took his case to Washington. He argued: “I consider the advertisements for beds, sheets, pillows, girdles and intimate feminine articles offensive.” He turned out to be right. Postal laws do indeed say that the recipient of mail is the sole judge of what is obscene. So out went a federal order to all the firms that had been blithely inundating Staples like any potential customer: they must delete his name from their mailing lists. If they do not, the Post Office will turn their names over to the Justice Department for possible prosecution.