ABOUT TWS      MEMBER LOGIN

'Our mission is to
capture the service story
of every veteran'
Join Now Watch Video
BACK TO INDEX

Read other Articles on Mar 2025 Dispatches here:

The Marines Who Protected the US Mail

If you think porch pirates stealing your Amazon packages is a pervasive threat to the American way of life, it's nothing compared to the postal heists of the 1920s. The Roaring Twenties was when crime in America became organized, widespread, and increasingly violent. The prohibition of alcohol led to bootlegging and gang violence, along with a surge of bank robberies, kidnappings, and auto thefts. Even the U.S. Mail was not exempt from the rising crime wave. 

Between 1920 and 1921 alone, thieves stole an estimated $86 million (adjusted for inflation) over 36 robberies of the U.S. Postal Service. With 250,000 miles of postal railway, adequately guarding the mail was nearly impossible for just 500 postal inspectors. What could the government do to protect the mail? 

They called in the Marines. 

President Warren G. Harding's Postmaster General was the highly respected Will Hays. When Hays told the president he needed help guarding the mailways, Harding used the United States Marine Corps. 

After World War I ended in 1918, the Corps faced severe manpower drawdowns, but its operations never slowed down. Along with American interventions in Central and South America, the Marines were preparing to become the Fleet Marine Force that would master amphibious landings to win a war in the Pacific. But that would have to wait for 50 officers and 2,000 enlisted men. 

In 1921, those Marines were posted at some of the United States' most pernicious locations, places where mail cars were just waiting to be robbed. Their orders from Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby were clear: if attacked, kill the attackers. 

"To the Men of the Mail Guard, you must, when on guard duty, keep your weapons in hand and, if attacked, shoot and shoot to kill," Denby said. "If two Marines are covered by a robber, neither must put up his hands, but both must immediately go for their guns. One may die, but the other will get the robber, and the mail will get through."

The general orders were just as simple:

1. To prevent the theft or robbery of any United States mail entrusted to my protection.

2. To inform myself as to the persons who are authorized to handle the mail entrusted to my protection and to allow no unauthorized persons to handle such mail or to have access to such mail.

3. To inform myself as to the persons who are authorized to enter the compartment (railway coast, auto truck, wagon, mail room, etc.) where mail entrusted to my protection are placed, and to allow no unauthorized person to enter such compartment.

4. In connection with Special Order No. 3, to prevent unauthorized persons loitering in the vicinity of such compartment or taking any position from which they might enter such compartment by surprise or sudden movement.

5. To keep my rifle, shotgun, or pistol always in my hand (or hands) while on watch.

6. When necessary in order to carry out the foregoing orders, to make the most effective use of my weapons, shooting or otherwise killing or disabling any person engaged in the theft or robbery, or the attempted theft or robbery of the mails entrusted to my protection.

Potential robbers and gangsters apparently sought out easier targets once the Marine Corps deployed to guard the U.S. mail. By the end of 1921, the robberies of post offices, USPS train cars, and even individual mail carriers had ceased. The last Marines on mail guard duty ended their tours in March 1922, and the mail seemed safe. But that wasn't the end of violent crime sprees in America. Before the year was out, mail thieves were back at it. Mail theft spiked once more between 1922 and 1926.

"When our men go as guards over the mail," Denby said, "That mail must be delivered, or there must be a Marine dead at the post of duty. There can be no compromise."

In 1926, there was a new President, but President Calvin Coolidge's solution was the same as his predecessor's. When the mail was threatened, the Marine Corps was the go-to law enforcement agency. That year, he deployed more than 1,850 Marines to at-risk mail centers and railways, with another 650 on standby, ready to go where they were needed. The mail robberies stopped once again.