LETTERS
LETTERS Postal partum depression The article on the U.S. Postal Service ["The Twentyfive Cent Stamp," Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, November] is riddled with errors. Contrary to SzegedyMaszak's...
...Next, the article stated that postal employee wages are inflated...
...This figure was interesting, so I checked it...
...ROBERT J. MORTON New York, New York Mr...
...The Reagan-Watt-Hodel administration is as unhappy with my ideas as he is...
...The decision to close the dumps was made before any studies were done to determine whether Yellowstone has a habitat to support a population of grizzlies...
...Still, one thing is certain: postal workers earn a premium...
...The Service has a debt of just over $3.5 billion—minimal for a corporation of its size and representing only a third of the modest debt authority granted to it under law...
...Until that time, thanks to food available at the dumps, the bears flourished...
...The problem of integrated housing, which Mr...
...I would suggest for the sake of fairness that both economists may be manipulating figures...
...BRUCE BARTLETT Washington, D.C...
...The U.S...
...How else can one explain the fact that he characterizes my article as taking "tenets" from former Interior Secretary James Watt...
...Following the story of the grizzly, we come back to the challenge of maintaining the quality of habitat...
...It is, instead, the more subtle "institutional racism" that permits commentators to analyze issues as though black people were little more than statistics...
...Time, the number of persons employed by the Postal Service increased by over 100,000 in recent years (not, as she suggests, in a single year...
...By anyone's standard, one half is no modest proportion, and the simple fact is that the first-class rates are rising while the rates are going down where there is competition...
...Contrary to SzegedyMaszak's suggestions, the Postal Service i^ not drowning in debt nor is its monopoly all-inclusive...
...The New York City Tribune and the Spanishlanguage Noticias del Mundo are the only other papers founded by Unification Church members that we know of...
...Church besmirched Tom McNichol's article, "Moonie Journalism" [October] claimed that "many Unification Church papers, particularly the New York City Tribune, are dressedup propaganda sheets produced almost exclusively by church followers while the [Washington] Times's reporters are mostly professional journalists...
...But the major portion of those deaths would not have occurred if the government had not placed campgrounds, logging roads, and other human-serving developments on the very best land in the Yellowstone region...
...McNichol's world, inevitably be amateurs...
...It is possible that by counting imputed rent one may derive a figure as large as the $700 billion figure implied by the ad, but I think most people would consider this to be nonsense...
...Unfortunately, many environmentalists cannot understand how someone could be both a conservationist and disagree with them...
...Marianne Szegedy-Maszak replies: I would like to thank Mr...
...All asked for money, and the whole thing—a fairly typical day's mail at our house— reminds me to write and applaud Marianne SzegedyMaszak's article...
...Maintaining ecological balance requires active management...
...Sauber illustrates the wrong-minded thinking of the Postal Service...
...He seems to take many of his major tenets from former Interior Secretary James Watt...
...But for unskilled workers or paraprofessionals, government service is still a gravy train...
...Danville, Illinois, settled a prospective voting rights suit out of court, and now has two blacks on its council, whereas before it had none...
...Perhaps this helps explain why, as Mr...
...Such steps will not be taken while NPS and the environmental community are caught up in less important issues such as Fishing Bridge...
...But, assuming they were, would they, in Mr...
...Chase is most certainly correct in his contention that "eviction" of humans from the overnight facilities at Fishing Bridge "would not in itself reverse the grizzly's slow but steady decline" in and around Yellowstone...
...Such a study would show that white flight, coupled with the out-and-out discrimination against AfricanAmericans before the Civil Rights Act of 1968, made a mockery of Schuck's picture of "communal, integrative politics...
...Even at 25 cents, the first-class stamp will be a bargain...
...The Postal Service faces competition not only in parcel and express mail delivery, but also from private firms for magazine and newspaper delivery, and from television, radio, and print media for the delivery of advertising messages...
...Sauber is a staff economist for the National Association of Letter Carriers...
...I just got a letter from Elizabeth Taylor and she used a 5.5 cent stamp...
...What is at question is not persona...prejudice on the part of Peter Schuck ["What Went Wrong With the Voting Rights Ace,' November] or Abigail M. Themstrom, whose book Schuck reviews...
...The facilities at Fishing Bridge have to go...
...The Wachter and Perloff findings were developed by Wachter when he was a paid consultant to Postal Service management during collective bargaining in 1981'and 1984...
...Tacitly racist The Washington Monthly does not publish many stories dealing with racial issues, but when it does, invariably the articles are burdened with implications that are tacitly racist...
...LANCE OLSEN Missoula, Montana Mr...
...In the same mail were letters from the Animal Protection Institute of America and H.O...
...Is Katherine Fanning, editor of The Christian Science Monitor and president of the American Society of Newspaper Editors, a professional sworn before God never to publish a word of propaganda only if she denies being a Christian Scientist...
...The interest on this debt is paid by taxpayers, not angry shareholders...
...When I look at the volume of less-than-first-class mail that comes to me, I can't but think that postal rates are giving somebody a whale of a bargain...
...But it has been the cumulative effect of minor events that has brought the grizzly close to extinction, and it will be the cumulative effect of minor victories that gets them back on their feet...
...Finally, Szegedy-Maszak decries the considerable growth in Postal Service employment...
...Anyone with whom they disagree must not only be wrong, but mischievously motivated...
...Economist Joel Popkin's research on behalf of labor found that postal employees did not enjoy a wage premium...
...Olsen is president of the Great Bear Foundation...
...I wish someone in high places was paying attention to what she's saying...
...Moreover, the postal monopoly applies to only firstclass mail—that is, to a little more than 50 percent of total mail volume...
...They also fail to note that grizzlies and Fishing Bridge coexisted up until the park's backcountry landfills were closed 16 years ago...
...I did not belittle the importance of habitat for the grizzly bear nor did I say there is anything wrong in calling for expansion of public lands...
...Simpson cites, actually underscores my point...
...Sauber's argument that federal workers are underpaid may hold up for comparable highly-skilled professionals in the private sector—lawyers for instance...
...Such appears to be the perception of Mr...
...Chase and Watt notwithstanding, the dependency of wild animals on their habitat is so fundamental as to be axiomatic...
...Postal Service, with all its faults, is still the cheapest in the world...
...That the work force at USPS fluctuates wildly is further evidence of mismanagement and poor planning...
...White flight usually strengthens incumbent politicians' hold over "minority-packed" districts, as does housing discrimination in districts to which whites can flee but blacks cannot...
...Federal wages are not determined through collective bargaining as are postal wages...
...To analyze African-American electoral opportunity without giving attention to housing discrimination and all of its effects is to invalidate reasoned inquiry...
...A distinguished arbitrator, Clark Kerr, found Popkin's analysis more convincing than Wachter's and decided that only a small (3 percent) wage premium existed— a far cry from the 33 percent claimed by Wachter and Perloff...
...lb be sure, not all nor even a majority of our writers and editors are members of the Church...
...Bartlett is a senior policy analyst at the White House...
...In this instance, isn't "McNichol's journalism" guilty of unprofessionalism even though it eschews "Moonie journalism," and isn't his reference to the New York City Tribune, moreover, merely propaganda...
...JAMES P. SAUBER Washington, D.C...
...Chase pooh-poohs every environmental organization that expresses concern about the lands where grizzly bears still live...
...The Postal Service is a huge bureaucracy with many shortcomings—some of which Szegedy-Maszak identifies...
...Williams, sheriff of Bullock County, each carrying 7.1 cents of postage, and one from the Cousteau Society with 8.5 cents...
...In addition, politicians in of :her districts from which black voters have now been drained to create safe black seats, are under even less pressure to challenge white flight or housing discrimination...
...Having surveyed our editors, I learned that McNichol had phoned no one here for information...
...Yet tragically, neither the environmental community nor the National Park Service understands this...
...Alston Chase replies: I know that my views on wildlife and park preservation please neither the environmental community nor its critics...
...Now the evidence suggests that due to NPS mismanagement, the grizzly habitat is indeed in poor repair...
...But the picture she paints is grossly distorted...
...I'm tired of paying the share of all these other people...
...It's not that postal pay is too high, it's that federal pay is too low...
...Simpson reminds us, true integration is so elusive Rent control In the November issue I noticed an ad which asserts that land rent is 5.2 times corporate net profit after taxes...
...Although a $3.5 billion deficit may not constitute "drowning," by congratulating the United States Postal Service for maintaining a deficit level below that authorized by law, Mr...
...The grizzly's need for free access to good quality land is especially critical, because grizzlies have been eradicated from all but 1 percent of their range in the American West, and even that last acreage is threatened by everything from oil-drilling to ski resorts...
...While the U.S...
...Magazines perhaps ought to be a little more careful about the ads they run...
...In that same passage, I predicted that the act's current implementation, which rigs safe seats for a few black politicians by sacrificing black voters' influence over the more numerous politicians who represent the rest of the community, will impede that goal...
...However, this has been driven by significant mail-volume growth and the need to recover from the cutbacks of the 1970s...
...Olson...
...which] will be the firmest foundation for enduring racial justice...
...Olson...
...Merely comparing postal wages to those of federal employees as Szedgedy-Maszak did in her article does not tell the whole story...
...In making this assertion, she cites economists Michael Wachter and Jeffrey Perloff, who believe postal wages exceed those of similar private sector employees by a third...
...first-class mail may cost less than West Germany's, the point is not to compare but examine the rate increases within our system...
...In the case of the Schuck article, the result is an extraordinary display of naivete...
...According to the Economic Report of the President, however, net corporate profits amount to $133.8 billion, but gross rental income of persons amounted to just $60.6 billion and net rental income to just $15.6 billion...
...Sauber for his unintended substantiation of my major points...
...BESS CHRISTENSEN Lompoc, California Bear with us Alston Chase is an adroit polemicist, but many of his arguments about the grizzly disintegrate upon closer inspection ["Smokey Would Never Believe This," November...
...I suggested that land preservation alone, while necessary, is not always a sufficient means of saving wildlife...
...WILLIAM SIMF'SON Park Forest, Illinois Peter Schuck replies: I wrote that a "return to the act's original vision of equal political opportunity...would encourage a more communal, integrative politics...
...British mailers pay 32 cents for a first-class stamp, Japanese 44.5 cents, and West Germans nearly 48 cents...
...Morton is editor in chief of the New York City Tribune...
...Indeed, I have news for Mr...
...Chase correctly identifies government officials as a major force behind the deaths of grizzlies in and' around Yellowstone National Park...
...He also argues that the USPS, like any good business, is engaged in the competitive marketplace for 50 percent of its total volume...
Vol. 19 • January 1988 • No. 12
