WOW some pretty stiff orders.
On This Day - October 20, 1926 - After a brutal murder of a postal truck driver in Elizabeth, NJ, President Calvin Coolidge orders US Marines receive orders to guard the US Mail. During the 1920s, two of our Presidents ordered the Marine Corps to help guard the US Mail. That's because mail robbery in those days was extremely lucrative as in those days as there was no electronic transfer of funds between banks and other financial institutions, so large amounts of money and negotiable bonds was routinely shipped by registered mail. Banks had armed guards, but the mailman didn't and they were not armed and so were easy prey.
From 1919 to 1921, about $6 million was lost to mail robbers, and that's equal to roughly $120 million today. The worst loss was at a robbery on Leonard Street in New York when 5 sacks of registered mail carrying an estimated $2.4 million in cash ($43 million today )and negotiable securities was snatched in one heist.
Under the command of General Smedley Butler, Marines were spread throughout the country guarding the mail. They usually worked in small detachments of two or three Marines.
Navy Secretary Denby, a former Marine, sent a message to the Corps: "You must, when on guard duty, keep your weapons in hand and, if attacked, shoot and shoot to kill. There is no compromise in this battle with bandits. If two Marines guarding a mail car, for example, are suddenly covered by a robber, neither must hold up his hands, but both must begin shooting at once. One may be killed, but the other will get the robbers and save the mail. When our Marine Corps men go as guards over the mail, that mail must be delivered or there must be a dead Marine at the post of duty."
The Marines didn't have to put their special orders and training to the test as on both occasions, the mail robberies came to a screeching halt. From the day the Marines assumed guard duty only one attempt was made, on an unguarded train which was unsuccessful, but not a robbery took place.
