Who selects the slogans?

Does anyone know who has the responsibility for choosing U.S. slogan
cancellations? At my stamp club meeting (BC Philatelic Society) on
Wednesday night, I bought a 50-cent cover postmarked in November, 1965,
in Puerto Rico. The slogan reads "PRAY FOR PEACE." The date of course
makes it a cover from the Vietnam War era; the build-up of American
forces in Vietnam had begun more than a year before, in August, 1964,
following the Tonkin Gulf Incident. I assume that the "PRAY FOR PEACE"
slogan was directly related to the war. Does anyone know anything about
the procedures that are used or were used in selecting slogan
cancellations?

Bob Ingraham

The "Pray for Peace" was a very old slogan cancel by 1965. According to
Moe Luff's catalog of machine slogan cancels, it was first used in 1956
at the suggestion of President Eisenhower as the Cold War was heating
up. Luff says it was pretty much dropped after 1968, although that
could have been due to technical requirements of the cancelling
machines. The Vietnam War, of course, was an integral part of the Cold
War.

Thank you for this, Dave. I'm wondering why "technical requirements of
the cancelling machines" would have resulted stopping the use of the
cancellation. Are you saying that there were few or no slogan
cancellations after 1968? (I have few modern stamps or covers; I was
able to find only one other slogan cancellation, dated 1975, in my
collection.)

It would seem that the "Pray for Peace" cancellation runs counter to
the separation of church and state, but of course there doesn't really
seem to be a lot of such separation in the U.S., especially in recent
years.

Bob

By "technical requirements" I meant the possible introduction of new
cancelling machines, and that the old dies would no longer fit them.
That has happened on a very broad scale in the past few years,
resulting in dramatic changes in the styles of machine cancels
(providing a lot more work for the students in the Machine Cancel
Society -- their most recent publication, which they call a Primer,
runs to 368 pages!) It's equally likely, of course, that they stopped
making these dies after Eisenhower left office iin 1961, and the slogan
fell out of use as the old dies broke or wore out. The Post Office was
more politically oriented in those days, and it's also likely that they
weren't about to make more of them with Lyndon Johnson in the White
House.
Eisenhower was very clever in skirting the issue of "church and state."
Nevertheless he was highly respected. The truth is that generals and
admirals truly hate war, because they see close-up the terrible
devastation it causes. It's the politicians back home that seem to love
them.

In a recent message wrote:

Thank you for this, Dave. I'm wondering why "technical requirements of
the cancelling machines" would have resulted stopping the use of the
cancellation.

Changes in the types of cancelling machines?

Are you saying that there were few or no slogan
cancellations after 1968? (I have few modern stamps or covers; I was
able to find only one other slogan cancellation, dated 1975, in my
collection.)

It would seem that the "Pray for Peace" cancellation runs counter to
the separation of church and state, but of course there doesn't really
seem to be a lot of such separation in the U.S., especially in recent
years.

Bob


--
Tony Clayton
Coins of the UK : http://www.coinsoftheuk.info
Sent using RISCOS on an Acorn Strong Arm RiscPC
.... Never put off to tomorrow what you can wiggle out of today.