Posted by SOB on September 13, 2000 at 08:35:52:
In Reply to: Re: memorial stamps posted by Ron Martini on September 12, 2000 at 18:05:06:
Ron:
Lest this subject slip by unnoticed, I'm certain that almost everyone who visits this BBS, lurkers and posters alike, sincerely THANK YOU for your efforts.
Getting "the stamp" was important and to wind up with five was totally unexpected. It is likewise appropriate to note that the USPS did take the prevailing first class rate, 33cts, and issue singles of that stamp so that it became readily usable by everyone.
Your comments re the Citizen's Stamp Advisory Committee are 100% accurate. For those who don't know, when FDR was president, he was also an avid stamp collector.
Upon assuming office in his very first term, January 1933,(Reliable information has it that Bob Harrison was a senior in college at the time) FDR appointed James Farley as Postmaster General. Bob worked his way through college by filling Farley's inkwell, a chore that he did quite admirably, I'm told.
In any event, and certainly against Bob's most profound advice, FDR personally not only "promoted" (read: forced) issuance of an unequalled number of US stamps which he personally wanted to see, he also sketched many of the designs.
Primitive as those sketches may have been, Farley was "grateful" that the president himself could spare enough time from his busy schedule to inspite the designers and modellers who ultimately created the designs for production of the stamps.
In those days, the USPOD and Bureau of Engraving developed and produced all of the stamp designs. They went from "models" to "essays" to "color proofs" to "trial proofs" to "plate proofs" to production stamps.
In FDR's case, he often personally signed the "plate proof" which, in turn, authorized production and distribution of that stamp issue. Normally, the Second Assistant Postmaster General was responsible for production and he signed the plate proof except for the era in which FDR was interested in (read: demanded the prerogative) performing that duty.
FDR and Farley also gave many stamps to friends that were in special formats (generally ungummed full sheets plate proofs) which were unavailable to the stamp collecting and otherwise taxpaying public.
There are also episodes of Farley gumming gift sheets for cronies while the ungummed versions were sold to the public that public furor ultimately forced the USPOD to take sheets owned by the public and gum them if the owners requested it. Practically, the USPOD finally distributed gummed versions and the owners could do an over-the-counter exchange at designated post offices.
Serious collectors of US stamps are well aware of the "Farley Follies" and the abuses of FDR.
FDR was not the only abuser of the US stamp issuance program, congressmen and FDR's friends also loaded the USPOD system with their particular demands for special commemorative stamps as well.
The government's answer to most problems is more government - so Congress finally appended legislation to an appropriations act (which FDR would be hard pressed to veto) which established what we now know as the Citizens' Stamp Advisory Committee.
The sole legislated mission of that particular committee is to decouple the US stamp program from prevailing politics and special interest groups. The Postmaster General (and now Chairman of the USPS) was the only person with statutory authority to authorize a commemmorative stamp issue that the Committee has not approved. There are but a very few examples of this since 1944. I can think of 3 and perhaps there are a few more.
Why the Committee chose to deny the request for a submarine service centennial stamp when it appears that Rontini was already at work on that very project is a mystery. Perhaps it is yet another example of the proverbial left and right hands' collective ingorance of what the other is doing.
Or maybe the submarine community's reaction to the Committee's initial decision triggered the effort Ron talks about.
But given the Committee's legislated role in selecting topics to be commemorated by US postage stamps, all of the sidebar efforts are, as Ron indicated, superfluous to the result, even the nonbinding "Sense of the US Congress" that Congressman Sam G. sponsored. Dozens of such proclamations are duly ignored by various dark nooks and crannies of government every year. That is a fact.
I'd really be interested in hearing Ron's comments on the topic, especially the timing of the Committee's public and private actions. Surely any nondisclosure oath has expired by now?
By whatever mechanism you became involved, Ron, thanks for your efforts. The five designs selected and the prestiege booklet may not suit everybody's fancy, but we submariners past and present "did get our stamp." In the end, that is really what counts!
///SOB aka Bill Parker