During the 1920s, two of our Presidents ordered the Marine Corps to help guard the U.S. Mail because mail robbery in those days was really lucrative because in those days before the electronic transfer of funds between banks and other financial institutions, large amounts of money and negotiable bonds was routinely shipped by registered mail.
From 1919 to 1921, about $6 million was lost to mail robbers, and back then $6 million was real money. The worst loss was at a robbery on Leonard Street in New York. Five sacks of registered mail carrying an estimated $2.4 million in cash and negotiable securities was snatched in one heist.
By the end of 1921, things had gotten so bad that Postmaster General Will H. Hays requested President Harding to direct the U.S. Marine Corps to help guard the mail.
2,200 Marines and 53 officers, taken mainly from the expeditionary forces kept alert at Quantico, Virginia, and San Diego, California, were spread throughout the country guarding the mail. They usually worked in small detachments of two or three Marines.
Navy Secretary Denby, a former Marine, sent a message to the Corps: ....You must, when on guard duty, keep your weapons in hand and, if attacked, shoot and shoot to kill. There is no compromise in this battle with bandits. If two Marines guarding a mail car, for example, are suddenly covered by a robber, neither must hold up his hands, but both must begin shooting at once. One may be killed, but the other will get the robbers and save the mail. When our Marine Corps men go as guards over the mail, that mail must be delivered or there must be a dead Marine at the post of duty.
The Marines didn't have to put their special orders and training to the test-the mail robberies came to a screeching halt. From the day the Marines assumed guard duty until March 15, 1922, when they were withdrawn, not a single attempted mail robbery took place.
The lull in mail robberies continued until April 1923 when a mail messenger in St. Louis was relieved of $2.4 million worth of registered mail. By 1926, things were again at a crisis point. The final straw came in October in Elizabeth, New Jersey, where a group of gunmen shot down a mail truck driver and made off with $5,150,000.00.
Postmaster General Harry New asked Congress for money to create a special force of armed guards and to build armored mail cars. While this was being done, he requested President Coolidge to reassign the Marines to guard the mail. By 1926, the robbers had increased their firepower by use of automatic rifles and machine guns. The Marines responded in kind. In addition to pistols and shotguns, the Marines were armed with Thompson submachine guns.
By February 1927, the Marines were needed for an expeditionary force headed for Nicaragua, and were relieved by newly trained security forces of the Postal Service. Twice during a period of 5 years, the Marines had brought to a standstill a series of dangerous mail robberies.
Story by Colonel Nate Smith, USMC (Ret), and George Corney, Associate Editor of U.S. Stamps and Postal History - (Originally Published in October 1993).
Found on https://www.facebook.com/whoknowseast1/posts/618349134968380:0
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