THE POST OFFICE: The Bluff That Wasn't

Persimmony, parsimonious Missouri Democrat Clarence Cannon was at his pinch-mouthed, pinch-pursed best. "I have never known of a previous instance," snapped House Appropriations Committee Chairman Cannon, "in which a Government employee came up to the Capitol and issued an ultimatum to the House and Senate." Against that ultimatum, the "United States Congress, the greatest legislative body in the world, that stood up to Hitler, that stood up to Mussolini, that stood up to Stalin, stampeded like a regiment dissolving at Waterloo—before a Postmaster General."

Cannon was still sure that Postmaster General Arthur E....