London Bridge in the Mail

Sometimes simple is better. For a thank you card I wrote, I used a card with a black and white image of a famous London bridge - from the same box as this card, placed it in a white envelope with a shiny black liner, and stamped it with a London travel stamp.

This particular note had absolutely nothing to do with London or travel, I just wanted to make it stand out. See, simple.

Letters and The Law: Letter to the Editor!

On a not-so-recent trip to my hometown, St. Paul, Minnesota, I paid a visit to the old federal building, now called Landmark Center. While touring the courtrooms of the floor once occupied by the federal courts, I ran across a provocatively titled placard:

In the midst of World War I, Congress passed and the President signed the Espionage Act, which in part, "empowered the postmaster general to declare any material that violated any provision of the Espionage Act or that urged "treason, insurrection, or forcible resistance to any law of the United States" unmailable. Use of the mails to transmit such materials was punishable by imprisonment and a fine." Source. While no one was convicted of espionage or spying under the Act, federal prosecutors used the Act's lesser provisions to obtain over 1,000 convictions.

One of those prosecuted under the Act was Rose Pastor Stokes, a known Socialist who, despite disavowing the party's opposition to the war and being married to a member of the armed forces, was found guilty at trial and sentenced to ten years in prison for transmitting a prohibited message via post to a local newspaper:

No government which is for the profiteers can also be for the people, and I am for the people, while the government is for the profiteers.

It seems it took some Minnesotan sensibility to determine Mrs. Stokes' right to free speech trumped an aggressive reading of the Espionage Act. Two years after her trial, a Minnesota judge authored the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decision overturned Mrs. Stokes' conviction. And, with the war then over, the federal prosecutors declined to press forward with the case, leaving Mrs. Stokes free to continue advocating her causes and writing letters to the editor.

Friday Night Favorite Reads

Letters Outside the Box at Letter Writers Alliance

Andrew Meyer, Capitol Hill Bar Goer, Stiffs Bartender, Leaves Rude Note, Gets World Wrecked by Internet at Seattle Weekly

Free Printable Postcards: Save America's Postal Service at Afternoon Pity Party

10,000 Lakes at Because I Really Felt It

Handmade Personalized Stationery

What do you do when you haven't any fancy stationery on which to write a letter to your pen pal? Why, if you're All My Hues, you create your own. Every letter I've received from her has given me a kick, and every letter has been kept. That's the power of personalized correspondence.

If They Can Find the Time...

I learn the darndest things in the most unusual places. Though I already knew Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a major philatelist from an exhibit at the National Postal Museum, it took me a trip to the Hummingbird Inn to discover how thoughtful the 32nd President of the United States and his wife really were.

During FDR's first term in office, following the textile workers' strike of 1934, Eleanor Roosevelt went to inspect conditions at the Stillwater Springs textile mill, nestled between the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, in the town of Goshen. A brief visitor, Mrs. Roosevelt spent only one night in Goshen, as guest of Pearl Teter-Wood and her husband, Joseph, proprietors of what is now the Hummingbird Inn.

Upon her departure, the Woods sent a basket with Mrs. Roosevelt as a gift for the President. A short time later, the Woods received a pair of notes.

It seems the basket found its way to the President, and he appreciated it.

From Mrs. Roosevelt's account, the President appreciated the basket a bit too much, as she was caused to "promptly take it away from him." In addition to kind letters of thanks, Mr. Wood received a call to lunch with the First Lady, and to meet the President.

If the First Family can find the time - in the midst of the great depression - to write thank you notes, surely any of us in the 21st century can do the same.