The Role of Small Rural Post Offices in America.

Section 101(b) of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act states that “The Postal Service shall provide a maximum degree of effective and regular postal services to rural areas, communities, and small towns where post offices are not self-sustaining.”  That same section also specifically states that “No small post office shall be closed solely for operating at a deficit, it being the specific intent of the Congress that the effective postal services be insured to residents of both urban and rural communities.”

   That same law provides a formal procedure which the Postal Service must follow before it is allowed to close any small post office.  Among the matters it must consider are the views of the local community that would be affected by the closure of the small post office.  

   The reasons that these provisions are in law is that small rural post offices do far

more for their rural communities than just deliver the mail.  Small rural post offices are the lifeblood of American rural life.  They provide the essence of social cohesion in rural areas, and that is what creates “community” in these areas.  Healthy rural post offices are absolutely critical to keep rural American healthy, and that in turn is vital for the political, economic, and social well-being of America as a whole.  

    The glue that binds rural America together is our postal system and the local post offices.  Rural America has not gone out of style nor about to.  Communication by paper has not disappeared from our system.  Nor is it about to.  If we want to keep rural America strong, and by extension to keep America strong, we need to keep our rural postal system strong. 

    The rural post office is an institution that literally binds rural America together, culturally, socially, politically, and economically.  It, along with the rural newspaper, set the framework within which rural communities operate.  To interfere with either is to interfere with the fundamental dynamics of rural communities and to risk the destruction of them.  

     It is in the rural post offices where community members encounter one another each and every day, greet each other every morning, and daily reinforce their ties of community.  Rural Post Offices serve as gathering places where social news is exchanged and political issues are discussed, often with some heat.                                                    It is in the rural post offices that political questions are addressed, sides argued, and opinions formed. 

     It is where friendships are made and maintained, and scout and scoutmasters recruited.  It is the forum where municipal and county leaders are formed, the forum where their criteria for office discussed and debated, and the forum where the decisions that will be carried out at the ballot box are made.  It is the one place where local leaders can go and take the pulse of their community, and see each other every day.  It is there that politicians find out just what are the burning issues of the day.  Local post offices also provide space for community bulletin boards and post federal notices.  They are a shelter where children can wait for the school bus.  None of these functions are functions that can be filled by having rural letter carriers sell stamps from their cars.

    Rural postmasters play a very important social role that has nothing to do with the postal system or postal revenues.  These are roles whose value cannot really be measured in dollars, and it is in part for these roles that the Universal Service mandate exists and the private express statues remain.  For instance, many rural Postmasters help customers with low literacy levels in a variety of ways, providing assistance in writing checks and money orders to pay bills.  Many rural Postmasters address envelopes for their patrons, as well as read and explain mail to them.  As such, they perform a valuable social function and have done so not merely for decades, but now for centuries.  Indeed, the rural postmasters is the eyes and ears of his or her community.  He or she is the first to notice and respond to something “just not right.”  Whether that be flood or fire, or illness or death, the postmaster is always on the watch.  If Mrs. Jones, contrary to her usual habits, doesn’t stop by to pick up her mail, the postmaster wonders if something is wrong with her, and after a day or so will stop by here house to check.  

Without rural postmasters, this social need would not be met.  The Rural Post Office is an icon of rural America, and neither Congress nor the Postal Service should tamper with it.  This is because, as the Committee knows well, once a rural town’s post office disappears, the town often dies.  

The film that the League has filed as part of this testimony illustrates these points

in a real life setting.  It shows how Steve LeNoir, former President of the League of Postmasters actually serves his community, and interviews local residents, letting them explain in their own words how the post office keeps them together, and makes them neighbors in the true communal sense of the word.