Happy birthday to the nation’s first “cops”

Say “federal law enforcement” and what springs to mind is the FBI. The U.S. Marshalls or the Secret Service. In the inland northwest, maybe the BLM or Forest Service cops in national parks.

While trees do come into play (pulp, anyway) none of these was first at bat. The earliest federal law enforcement officer was a kind of mailman. His name was Benjamin Franklin.

Yes, that Ben Franklin.

Hold on, the more avid researchers may be saying. The first postal inspector (then called surveyor) was William Goddard; Franklin was the first Postmaster General.

True. Yet ol’ Ben gets credit because he started the ball rolling. When the Second Continental Congress created the position of Postmaster General in 1775 and named Benjamin Franklin as the first, Franklin had already been on the job in the colonies for nearly 40 years. While running several post offices in Philadelphia, his duties included enforcing the rules and bringing people who broke them to account. By 1775, when he appointed Goddard as the nation’s first postal “surveyor,” effectively creating the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Franklin and his team had already been investigating thefts of mail and money according to the USPIS.gov.

This month the Postal Inspection Service celebrates its 247th birthday.

Mail crime may not sound like a big deal, but Congress and early Americans disagreed. A reliable and integral mail system was so absolutely essential to daily life that in the 1800s Congress imposed the death penalty for mail crimes. Communications, livelihoods and business depended upon it then and now.

Postal inspectors receive more than 300,000 complaints of theft and fraud annually. While theft is less common today, it does still occur and has become more elaborate. Modern mail carriers have been victims of armed robbery. Postal inspectors also investigate fraud and scams, some leading to financial loss in the tens or hundreds of thousands. They provide security at postal facilities and for high-value or sensitive deliveries.

During the Civil War and the War of 1812, these officers reported valuable information on enemy troop movements. During reconstruction, they supervised the reestablishment of mail in southern states. They also monitored conditions of mail-carrying boats, trains and other vehicles.

Imagine how important they were to ensuring the Emancipation Proclamation, constitutional amendments and other key communications arrived safely in each state for necessary signatures. Postal inspectors interviewed Billy the Kid and The Black Hand (an extortion group). They were the first to report a gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and investigated fraud in Cuba. During a rash of mail train robberies in the '20s, postal inspectors were the first officers to carry Tommy Guns (Thompson submachine guns).

Fourteen have been killed in the line of duty. Today, America’s postal inspectors investigate and enforce more than 200 federal laws.

Another fun fact and law enforcement first is in the name “special agent.” The Post Office’s law enforcement agents were called surveyors until 1801, when the name changed to special agent, the first fed to carry that title. It changed to postal inspector in 1880.

And that first sentence mentioning the Secret Service was no accident. Alan Pinkerton (yes, that Pinkerton) was a former USPIS special agent and detective who became President Lincoln’s head of security. Pinkerton helped foil a plot to assassinate Lincoln and referred to himself unofficially as the “Head of the U.S. Secret Service” before it was founded in 1865.

Last but not least is newspapers. According to the U.S. Postal Inspector General’s Office, behind the push to create a national postal system was the founding fathers’ belief in an informed citizenry as essential to democracy, one which relies on the free flow of information between citizens and their government. To that aim, they authorized subsidized rates for a budding newspaper industry, which led to more newspapers reaching even the remotest of frontier dwellers under the protection of postal inspectors. According to Wayne Fuller’s comprehensive history, “The American Mail,” the special postage policy for newspapers “was perhaps the most important single element in the development of the nation’s press.”

For more information and historical videos see USPIS.gov.

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Sholeh Patrick is a columnist for the Hagadone News Network who still prefers snail mail to computers. Email Sholeh@cdapress.com.