Now Lincoln! Now Bolfvar!

In Sioux Falls, S. Dak., a woman mailed 400 Christmas cards on the day before the fateful Aug. 1 with stickers that read: DO NOT OPEN BEFORE DECEMBER 25. In Chicago somebody mailed a letter with a 3-c- Statue of Liberty stamp plus a penny, stuck to the envelope with Scotch tape. In Brooklyn, N.Y., Lever Bros, finished mailing 3,000,000 soap samples at a rate of 1,000,000 per day, saved $90,000. In Dallas a group of youngsters at the First Methodist Church mailed out their Saturday night program on a thousand 2-c- postcards, saved the church $10. In San Francisco the inscrutable Chinese lined up at post office windows on Clay Street--"China Station"--there started an inscrutable run on 3-c- stamps that would, on fateful Aug. 1, become as rare as the 5-c- phone call, the 10-c- hamburger, the 50-c- haircut and, for that matter, the fine 5-c- cigar.*

Thus last week the U.S., in a mixed-up, 20%-above-normal, Christmas-like post office rush, anticipated the increase of postal rates from 3-c- to 4-c- (lavender-colored Lincolns or gold-colored Bolivars) for first-class letters, from 2-c- to 3-c- for postcards, from 6-c-: to 7-c- for domestic airmail. Richer by $450 million revenue, Postmaster General Summerfield rosily called it "the beginning of the greatest period of postal progress in American history." Epilogue to an era, in the letters-to-the-editor column of the Chicago Daily News: "I have nothing to say, but I thought I'd just write one more letter to the editor before the Republican-economy 4-c- postage goes into effect."

* Most notable of such ancient bargains: the 5-mile ferry ride between Manhattan and Staten Island, still 5-c-.

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