Scott Edelman writes, “An ad in the December 1916 issue of The Scoop, a magazine ‘written by newspaper men for newspaper men,’ decries the fact Congress appropriated funds for continued mail delivery by pneumatic tubes in New York City, but failed to do the same for Chicago, and insists the loss of that technology ‘would be calamitous.’ At the time, 10 miles of two-way, eight-inch tubes running under Chicago delivered 8,000,000 pieces of mail daily. To the suggestion that mail should instead be delivered by trucks rather than pneumatic tubes, the question is asked, ‘If we are going backward, why not get a wheelbarrow?’”
