Going Postal - The NAPR Part III

Pretty much through the second half of the nineteenth century the course remained the same. The visions of the old west continued with the high visability of the postal riflemen acting as a deterrant. In larger communities the weapons the "postal police" as they were starting to be called we more concealed.

The Post Office Department and those who worked for it changed along with the times. Taking it's cue from Samuel Gompers who organized The American Federation of Labor, those employees of the Post Office Department whose sole job was to safegurad the american mail system organized a union. In the mid 1890's The National Association of Postal Riflemen was born.

Skirmishes between these "postal police" and those who wanted to do harm to the public good were uncommon or perhaps uncommonly unreported. Only those instances that were grand in design made it to the front pages of the local press.

THE TRAIN ROBBERY

July 5th in 1919 was unarguably the finest hour of the Riflemen of the US Postal Police. A train bound for New York City from Boston via Albany was primarily transporting a transfer of some 5.3 million in gold bullion destined for the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. It was unknown then but the country moved its money from bank to bank under the guard of postal police.

5 desparate men planned for months to hijack one of the express trains as the government made its reserve transfers. The plans was originally scheduled for May but was changed to July 5th, the day following Independance Day to take advantage of the banking holiday. The culprits reasons, and rightly so, that there would be an overabundance of both mail and money on the train. As it turned out in the end, none of the five men saw the light of the next dawn much less the glimmering sheen of any of the gold.

These five "hooligans" as the Albany Herald-Disseminator called them in their July 6, 1919 edition intercepted at routine stop at Albany where the train picked up passengers, mail, cargo and more money before it resumed its trip to NY City. The gang was lead by a former employee Franklin J. Beuttenmueler. A nationalized German citizen who lost his job two years prior as a result of Woodrow Wilson's "Americans First Act" which prohibited employment of expatriots of hostile countries during the "Great Patriotic War" from being employed in occupations deemded "sensitive to war industry". It was said that on his last day of work, Beuttenmueler threatened he would get even but considering his good natured jovial personality no one took him seriously. He was heard exclaiming "The devil with you all!!" as he left the building for the last time.

Not much is known of the the plans the group had. All that is left is an account as reported in the Herald-Disseminator of the aftermath from the attempted hijacking and a few testimonies from passengers. The men boarded the train in Albany with 2 of them men dressed as postal police. Several miles outside of Albany the men struck. Apparently as they made their way to the cargo area of the train, their cover being blown shots were exchanged with one motality amongst the Postal Police. These "hooligans" were gunned down like fish in a barrel but only after 3 inocent passengers had been injured. All agreed the carnage could have been much worse. It was further agreed upon close examination that these men were ill equiped to even penetrate the postal car as it was sealed by combination lock, from the inside. A security change that was implimented only in the previous 6 months and definately non a feature Beuttenmueler and his crew would have been aware of. The Post Office Depatement during the middle of the war switched to a postal car that was more like highly secure vault on wheels. Testing in developement revealed it would take a rather large amount of dynamite....from the bottom. Essentially the train car would have to be taken off its track, rolled on its side and then dynamited at the bottom to even breach the interior. Such a daunting task for would be robbers.


more to come....