Americana: Letters of Introduction

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Tom Smith, who has been delivering mail in Wilmington, Del., for about 25 years, likes to know everybody on his route personally. So when he was assigned to a new route and faced 400 strangers, he dropped them a letter of introduction—in their mailboxes, without postage.

One person complained, apparently because of a postscript in which Smith offered membership forms for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. What he did was illegal, and superiors warned that he could be fined $300. Smith has offered to pay $60 in postage to end the matter. Meanwhile, he is obeying the law and making sure that others do so too: he is removing all papers that other people, including politicians, place in mailboxes without postage.