Word: airmailing
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...fifth-floor office in Washington's old Post Office Department Building all one day last week trooped hopeful airline operators with sealed bids for the nation's airmail. After a two-month cycle of fury and futility they thought they were about to get back what a nervous Government had snatched from them. When the deadline for receiving bids came and went, an underling scooped up 45 thick envelopes, tied them into a bundle, stuffed them into a vault...
Next day, just before noon, the precious package was carried downstairs to the large, unlovely office of the Superintendent of Airmail. There, tense and expectant, some 200 airline executives, newshawks and Government officials jammed around a long table. At the head sat baldish Postmaster General Farley slightly ill-at-ease, surrounded by a pack of assistants. Spectators mounted chairs and desks to see and hear better...
...surprise when bids of 17½? and 19? per airplane mile were read off for routes on which "General" Farley had specified a maximum of 45?. The companies, it seemed, were ready to cut their throats and bleed to financial death rather than die of slow starvation without any airmail contracts...
Loudest whistles of all came from the crowd when the bids of American Air Lines' inscrutable Errett Lobban Cord were read off. On the set-up presented by Mr. Farley, Errett Cord had been expected to underbid the field, capture a virtual monopoly of U. S. airmail. Instead, he bid so close to the maximum on eight routes, that he was heavily underbid on all but the Newark-Boston run. He stood to lose even his old southern transcontinental route, having overbid his nearest competitor for half the run by 10?. Obviously fear of Cord competition had caused other...
...only by those who would naturally be opposed to the administration, but by persons close to the administration and others who have the interests of the Democratic Party close at heart. His backing of the McKee faction in New York and its subsequent failure, his cancellation of the airmail contracts and the doubtful wisdom of such a move, and his restriction of mail delivery with the concomitant censure it elicited, have made people doubt his ability as an administrator and politician. His sudden reversals of policy, moreover, have given his activities a tinge of opportunism that is distasteful...