Services: A New Postman Cometh

Shades of Wells Fargo and the old Pony Express. In cities throughout Oklahoma last week, a pair of young businessmen, Thomas Murray, 43, and Darrel Hinshaw, 31, were operating their own private postal system in direct competition with Uncle Sam—and making money at it too. No wonder. The U.S. Post Office these days is a monument to inefficiency, and week after week the catalogue of complaints grows fatter. Curious to learn what was in the badly battered package delivered by the postman, a Cleveland physician ripped off the wrapping and released a swarm of furious bees. Intended for a beekeeper in Columbus, Ga., the parcel had mysteriously acquired the doctor’s address en route. In Los Angeles, a couple delightedly opened a two-pound box of Dutch chocolates, only to find a soupy goo inside. Their gift had languished for six months in a local postal warehouse before delivery.

The surprise is that the U.S. mails move at all. The Post Office work load is staggering. Last year 716,000 postal workers coped with 80 billion pieces of mail. Next year 84 billion pieces will go down the chutes into a system plagued by inadequate buildings, antiquated equipment, eleven militant unions, and a patronage system that makes political plums of the nation’s 32,000 postmasterships. Yet Congress is reluctant to reform the system, has cast a cold eye on a recent recommendation by a presidential commission to replace the Post Office Department with a Government-owned corporation.

First-Class Third Class. Murray and Hinshaw decided that they could only do better. Last winter, on an investment of $2,000,000, they formed the Independent Postal System of America. Right now their corporation handles only third-class “junk” mail (which accounts for 27% of all mail), mainly in Oklahoma, with outlets in Tulsa, Ardmore and Oklahoma City, plus one in Dallas. Independent postmen pick up the mail, sort it at central clearinghouses, truck it to delivery routes. Then white-uniformed, bonded carriers trudge to each house, put the mail in plastic bags, which are hung on doorknobs (nobody but a U.S. postman is allowed to place anything in mailboxes). Supervisors conduct frequent checks to make sure that carriers do not resort to dumping circulars in convenient garbage cans —a constant temptation for carriers who get paid on the basis of how much they deliver.

The service is cheap—only $25 per 1,000 pieces, v. $42 per 1,000 pieces for the U.S. mails. And it is fast. While the U.S. Post Office spaces delivery of third-class mail over several days, the independent postmen guarantee 100% delivery on the date specified by each client. Says Bill Overstreet, sales promotion manager of J.C. Penney’s Tulsa stores: “A while ago, some of our advertising was delivered by the Post Office ten days before our sale was to begin, and customers started coming in expecting the bargains that were in the circulars. Now, with the Independent system, we don’t have that problem.”

So far, Independent has served 110 companies in Oklahoma. It expects to do at least $1,100,000 worth of business this year, and has announced plans to expand to Little Rock, Denver, Salt Lake City, Wichita and St. Louis. “Within two years,” predicts Co-Founder Hinshaw, “we will be operating in all 50 states.” Nor is Independent’s ambition limited to third-class mail. Murray and Hinshaw have asked to appear before Congress to propose a takeover of fourth-class parcel post mail. Eventually the organization hopes to handle second-class magazines and newspapers—for which the U.S. Post Office ought to be everlastingly grateful.