From: garym@mcgath.com   
      
   On 2/8/26 7:38 AM, Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:   
   > And for those of us buying and selling books online, we find out   
   > that "Media Mail" (or its predecessor, called "Book Mail") began   
   > in 1938. Books used to be much more expensive to ship than   
   > magazines (their main competitor for the reading public). Morris   
   > Ernst shipped two packages of the same weight to the White House,   
   > but one held books (including the Bible and Shakespeare), and the   
   > other held pornographic magazines. The books cost sixty cents to   
   > ship, the magazines fifteen. (And don't we wish for even those   
   > prices today!) Roosevelt issued a proclamation lowering the rates   
   > to ship books, and Congress finally passed a law for it in 1942.   
   > (This was back when the Post Office was under the total control of   
   > the Federal government. I guess a proclamation was what we would   
   > call an executive order now.) [-ecl]   
      
   There were executive orders than, notably including Executive Order   
   9066, which sent Japanese-Americans to concentration camps. The   
   difference is usually that a proclamation is more ceremonial rather than   
   directing actions with legal force, but lowering rates sounds more like   
   what I'd think of as an executive order.   
      
   Maybe it was a proclamation because the change actually required an act   
   of Congress, and people still paid a little attention to such things   
   back then.   
      
   Here's a page I found:   
      
   https://legalunitedstates.com/proclamation-vs-executive-order/   
      
   --   
   Gary McGath    http://www.mcgath.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)