In 1909, Urban Walter, a 28-year-old mail clerk, founded a small magazine with large ambitions.
asserted
Walter → found → ambitions
According to its masthead, the Harpoon was "a magazine that hurts."
uncertain
that → accord → masthead
It was founded in pursuit of one goal: to oppose the Post Office Department's imposition of a "gag order" on any discussion of the train wrecks that killed scores of railway mail clerks annually and maimed many hundreds more.
asserted
that → found → hundreds
These gag orders, first promulgated by the Postmaster General in the late 19th century and later expanded by executive orders issued by Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft, prohibited civil servants from petitioning or giving information to Congress, or advocating for improved pay or working conditions except through their departmental head.
asserted
orders → promulgate → head
The Harpoon defied the order, promising to give the "fullest publicity" the dangerous conditions—both physical and organizational—of the work.
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Harpoon → defy → work
Walter was frequently ill with respiratory issues, exacerbated by moldy mailbags and the dusty, lamplit conditions on the mail car.
asserted
Walter → exacerbate → car
To explain why he spent his precious "lay-off" time in a small print shop in Phoenix, Arizona, Walter invoked the highest of constitutional ideals.
asserted
Walter → explain → ideals
"No public official is great enough to take away the guaranteed rights of American citizenship," Walter explained.
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Walter → take → citizenship
"The very constitutional rights" of "lesser public servants" were abrogated by an order that, under penalty of swift removal, prohibited a clerk from discussing his working conditions publicly and from complaining to Congress.
asserted
that → abrogate → Congress
Under what Walter saw as the pretext of maintaining "efficiency of service," postal officials had robbed 15,000 railway postal workers of their right to speech and right to petition the government.
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officials → see → government
In so doing, officials had also undermined the public good by keeping Americans ignorant of the conditions under which their mail was delivered.
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mail → do → which
Urban Walter and the railway postal clerks who read and wrote for the Harpoon understood their fight for speech rights not in individualistic and expressive terms, but as a precondition for public accountability.
asserted
who → read → accountability
Because of the transient, hidden nature of railway postal work, disclosure of the clerks' working conditions was the public's window into a job that also bore upon public safety.
asserted
that → work → safety
In 1909 alone, 27 railway mail workers were killed, 98 "seriously injured," and 617 "slightly injured"—the highest number of deaths on record.
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98 → kill → record
Under Walter's framing, the disclosure of dangerous working conditions implicated the "public good," and not just the narrow interests of an individual worker.
asserted
disclosure → implicate → worker
At the same time, Walter and other railway postal workers saw these gag orders not as a blunt instrument of "efficiency," but as an explicitly anti-union tactic designed to forestall the organization of an effective railway postal workers organization.
asserted
Walter → see → organization
Walter and other postal clerks fought to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor (AFL) through a breakaway faction of the Department-dominated Railway Mail Association (RMA).
asserted
Walter → fight → Association
Many of those clerks were fired—dismissed for the "good of the service," or because of their "pernicious activity."
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Many → fire → activity
He sent Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock "an advance copy" of Harpoon's first issue, instructing the economy-minded Taft appointee to "carefully peruse" the enclosure.
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He → send → enclosure
In response, the Department's informed him that his (untendered) resignation had been accepted.
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resignation → inform → him
A clerk sent Walter a dead rat that he had found inside the drinking water of his car.
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he → send → car
A photo of the rat appeared in the Harpoon.
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photo → appear → Harpoon
The clerk was also fired.
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clerk → fire → ?
Other supporters of the magazine were threatened with dismissal—which intensified the newspaper's support, producing a culture of insubordination in defiance of executive orders and in support of public employee speech.
asserted
which → threaten → speech
A fired worker is dangerous, a fired worker with access to a printing press doubly so.
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worker → fire → press
No longer facing a gag, Walter devoted himself full-time to the job of gadfly publisher and labor advocate.
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Walter → face → publisher
Less than three years after the Harpoon's founding, Walter himself appeared before Congress, urging the passage of a single bill that would repeal the gag orders and protect the organizing rights of postal workers—speech goals that were to be linked legislatively as they had been in Walter's protest.
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they → appear → protest
In his testimony, Walter accused the Postmaster General of "misinforming the committee" outright on the age and safety of mail cars.
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Walter → accuse → cars
Because clerks were prohibited from disclosing information to Congress, legislators remained ignorant.
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legislators → prohibit → Congress
The committee was thus forced to confront its own powerlessness in the face of executive branch orders.
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committee → force → orders
As Samuel Gompers, the president of the AFL, was quick to observe, a decade of executive orders prohibiting federal employees from disclosing information to Congress "may just as well have been an inhibition to the Members of Congress … to ask for this information."
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decade → observe → information
With the institutional prerogatives of Congress and the material interests of organized labor aligned, the Lloyd-La Follette Act became law in 1912.
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Act → organize → 1912
The Act had four discrete provisions: "no person in the classified service of the United States shall be removed therefrom except for such cause as will promote the efficiency of said service"; a requirement that a fired civil servant be furnished with written charges and an opportunity for responding to them; protection against removal or retaliation for postal employees who belonged to societies, associations, or unions—so long as the organization imposed no "duty to strike"; finally, the Act affirmed civil servants' right to petition Congress "either individually or collective" and to "furnish information to either House of Congress, or to a committee or Member thereof."
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Act → have → committee
This latter provision constituted the first statutory protection for whistleblowers, later expanded by the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 and the Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989.
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provision → constitute → 1989
But taken together, the Act's provisions reflected organized labor's view of the value of speech, Congressional oversight, and government service.
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provisions → take → speech
While not requiring the examination of witnesses or a trial-type hearing, the Act still afforded new tenure protections for hundreds of thousands of government employees, moving government employment firmly away from an at-will model.
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Act → require → model
Though paltry in comparison to later procedural safeguards, the requirement that government employees be provided with reasons for their dismissal and an opportunity to contest those reasons nonetheless reflected both a skeptical view toward the state and an adversarial view toward management.
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employees → provide → management
This due-process culture that defined private sector organizational governance in the second half of the 20th century was first imagined, in thin form, by civil servants and their labor advocates.
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that → define → servants
And, of course, the affirmation of the right of postal employees to unionize—also subtly suggested by the right to petition Congress collectively—is testament to labor's vision of public employee speech.
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affirmation → unionize → speech
In the early 20th century, a person may have possessed no constitutional right to be a postal worker, to paraphrase Oliver Wendell Holmes.
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person → possess → Holmes
…and 38 more, not listed.
The Aporia