Evening star., 1944-12-10
1tanPs
By James Wafdo Fawcef.

SWUsCS " UeWO AUUCetEs
A Red Cross blood plasma CAM
paign stamp may be authorized any
moment. This time the Post ONCE
Department really seems to mean
business.
Whether or not the new postal
money order stamps, scheduled for
release January l, will be of inter-
est to collectors remains to be de-
termined. Inquiries thus far have
brought little in the way of reliable
information on the subject. One
question Is: Will it be possible to
purchase the stamps without actu-
ally using them and having them
Cancelled?
Readers interested in the matter
are referred to an editorial printed
in The Star today.
Control Of the American Philate-
lie Congress has passed from Phila-
delphia to New York with the elec-
ton of FrankliA R. Bruins, jr., stamp
editor of the New York Sun, as sue
cessor to the late Eugene Klein in
the Office Of president and the elec-
ton of Walter r. Mccoy to the con- i
gress council as vice president and
editor Of the annual congress book.
The annual conventions of the
American Philatelic Society and the
Society of Philatelic Americans next
year will be held in Newark, N. j.,
probably during August.
William G. Bond, Morton o.
Cooper, Col. Charles s. Hamilton,
DR.. Ellis Haworth and Capt. Wilbur
R. Van Auken, past presidents, have
been invited to take part in a pro-
gram marking the beginning of the
40th year Of the existence of the
Washington Philatelic Society at the
Lee Sheraton Hotel, Fifteenth and
L streets NV. Wednesday evening.
In each case the former presiding
officers have been asked to bring
with them photographs of them
selves taken in 1905. An auction Of
stamps issued in that year will be
another feature of the program.
The public Is welcome to attend.
Cuba's postal rate has been re-
duced to &c, according to Stamps
Magazine.
Third Assistant Postmaster Gen.
eral Ramsey S. Black, having been
elected treasurer Of the State of
Pennsylvania, soon will leave the
Post Office Department. Among
those naturally mentioned as pos
sible successor is his principal as
sociate, Deputy Third Assistant Roy
M. North.
The flag stamps of Norway and
France, 1943, have been removed
from the Philateic Agency sales list.
George A. Scott, stamp editor Of
the Associated Press. has come to
live and work in Washington.
Referring again to Robert L. Rip
ley's claim in behalf of Sir Henry
Bessemer as the alleged inventor of
the first practical postage label,
Robert G. Gooch of the Research
Division of the Library of Congress
quotes from "a Hundred Years Of
Postage Stamps" by Patrick HAM
ilton Uondon, Peter Davies, 1880 as
follows: THAT Rowland Hill was the
lnstigator of uniform penny postage
is an incontrovertible fact, but there
is a certain element of doubt as to
whether the credit for the invention
o1 the adhesive postage stamp should
be rightly given to him or others. -.
So many were the claimants. and
SO long ago the birth of the idea.
that it would be profitless to at
tempt to find out who was. beyond
any shadow of doubt, the first to
think Of using adhesive labels as a
means OF preparing postal charges
-. What is certain is that were
1t not for the energy and farsight-
edness displayed by Rowland Hill in
pressing for postal reform, the ques-
ton OF employing postage stamps
at all would never have been raised.
and so it is, that in addition to CIV
ing Hill the credit for introducing
uniform penny postage, the idea of
the adhesive postage stamp is also
commonly associated with his
name"
Charles E. Rogers, writing in
Weekly Philatelic Gossip, mentions
among the stamps associated with
the District of Columbia the follow
ing issues: l922-1926, SOC, 81 and 81
regular postage; 1926, Sc Ericsson:
1910, Sousa and Reed in Famous
American series; 1910, Sc Pan Amer
lean Union, and 1914, SC Telegraph
Centennial.
1t was a citizen of the United
States who organized the Japanese
post office department. Frank G.
Carpenter, writing in The Star for
November "a, 1894, explained: THE
people tof Japan are as great letter.
writer's as any you will find in the
world, and they use. the post Office
and telegraph freely. You must re-
member that they had no postal
system whatever about 20 years ago,
Still they carried last year over 220,-
100000 letters and more than so ,000.-
600 newspapers, while 5000, 900 books
went through the mails. They have
a money order system and they
make postal cards much cheaper
than we do. They make their own
postage stamps and they do the
postal work of the east coast of Asia.
If you wish to send letters from
Shanghai, China, you put Japanese
stamps on them-or you did before
this war began-and they had also
their post offices in Korea. Their
mails are as safe as ours, and it is
an interesting thing to know that
their postal service was modelled
after That of the United States. It
was founded by Samuel Bryan Of
Washington, who left the Post Office
Department here to go to Japan for
that purpose. He did good Job,
and America has reason to, be proud
If fI1 vr,orlr