| 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 |
