Postage Stamps In Winter Garb Oct. 1.

1916

HEAVY COATS FOR WASHINGTON AND FRANKLIN.

George and Ben to Doff Summer Attire and Appear Well Clad for Cold Season.

Some people prefer to change to their winter things later, but on October 1 George Washington and Ben Franklin will put on their heavy gum coats. It's their wish and the Government respects it.

Whether the first frosts of winter come in September or November, these two old sticklers for convention put on their heavy gums Oct. 1, and keep them on until the 1st of next May. If they didn't they would never be able to stand the climate, the Government stamp doctors say.

The next time the man who somehow "never seems able to keep any stamps of his own" asks for the loan of a 2-cent pale-pink lithograph of George Washington you will be absolutely within your rights as an American citizen If you reply:

"Sure thing. How will you have George — summer or winter style?"

The same also applies to that other popular favorite, Ben Franklin, whose profile now appears almost as many times as George's on the all-steel art work turned out by the Government presses.

If your query does not stump the perennial stamp-borrower he will be one of the very few American citizens who know that George and Ben are being turned out in two styles — to catch the winter and summer trade — but with no tempting reductions in prices. A 2-cent stamp still costs 2 cents.

Educated people are supposed to know that in spring a young man's fancy lightly turns somewhere or other; that the hardest-shelled crabs turn soft-shelled, and that one's heavy winter flannels are put away in camphor and one's light summer affairs are made ready for one to put on. But ever so many well educated and patriotic persons are totally ignorant of the fact that George and Ben are built on the crab pattern and need a change of wearing apparel in the hot sultry days.

Notables In Summer Attire.

Just at present George and Ben are wearing their summer weight clothing. They made the change along about May 1, when the warm days set in and the crabs began to shed their armor plate and shop windows were decked out in the latest things in hot weather toggery. George and Ben suffer terribly from the heat. Keep them in their winter things beyond the May 1 limit and Whole sheets of Georges and Bens will curl up and crack and stick to the furniture and otherwise make eloquent protest against the cruel disregard of their feelings and the dictates of fashion.

Kind-hearted souls in the Postoffice Department down in Washington were the first to discover this little human failing on the part of George and Ben. Gum experts were called into consultation and the problem was soon solved. What George and Ben needed was a change of glue. And so, you buy — or borrow — your Georges and Bens done summer style these days, and you will continue to do so until Oct. 1.

No Change in Flavor.

The difference between the summer and winter coats worn by George and Ben is one entirely of weight. Suggestions that the flavor of the gum be varied also, so as to appeal more to the taste of those who go in for crushed fruit and chocolate concoctions in the warm days, have never been seriously considered by the attending physicians of the Postoffice Department. Their concern is solely with the general well-being of George and Ben.

As one of the visiting nurses in the cashier's department of the old postoffice explains it, George and Ben have become inordinately fussy in their old age and won't stick to their jobs — or to letters — unless their whims are attended to.

"You see," he said, "the winter gum is so heavy it soaks up all the moisture in summer and stamps curl up and crack and spoil on our hands. The summer gum, being lighter, keeps better during the hot season and sticks just as well. The stamps don't curl up and there is less waste. But this light gum won't do in cold weather. It dries up and the stamps won't stick, no matter how hard you lick them. So we go back to the winterweight gums."

Winter Weights Being Made.

All of which works out very well here in Chicago, where Ben and George are in such great demand that the postoffice officials have to send to Washington every week or ten days for a fresh supply. The Government bureau of engraving and printing is already beginning to manufacture winterweight Bens and Georges, and along toward the end of September, when the local office calls for more, it will get its Bens and Georges with their new heavyweight gum coats.

But out in the rural districts the law of demand and supply works less smoothly and there is intense suffering for Ben and George when the cold snap comes. In these places supplies of Bens and Georges are ordered at longer intervals — enough to last three or four months sometimes — and it frequently happens that Oct. 1 finds the supply still going strong. Thus Ben and George are obliged to enter upon their winter labors wearing their last summer's garments, which is tough on Ben and George, to say nothing of the home folks who have to do the licking.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 9.

Note: It seems odd, but 'post office' was spelled as one word back in those days.