Chain Fever

About a month ago Denver postmen began to grumble at the loads they were lugging. Postal receipts at the Denver Post Office for April climbed dizzily and more than 100 extra hands were called in for full-time service to help handle the swelling volume of first-class mail. An amazing number of dimes began to pop out of the stamp-canceling machines. Finally it was discovered that a "Send-a-Dime" chain letter was sweeping the city. Completely swamped, Postmaster James Orren Stevic called in postal inspectors to investigate the possibilities of stopping the scheme as fraudulent. "The thing is staggering in its proportions," sighed weary Postmaster Stevic. When the Post Office Department in Washington pronounced the letters illegal, Denverites protested so loudly that Postmaster Stevic had to have his home telephone disconnected.

Headed "Prosperity Club--In God We Trust," the chain letter contains six names. A recipient is supposed to mail a dime to the first name on the list, and that name is then scratched off. At the bottom of the list is added the name of the recipient, who then mails out five copies to gain new "Prosperity Club" members. He does not receive any dimes until after his letters have multiplied six times and his name has moved to the top of the list. Then if the chain is unbroken, he will receive no less than 15,625 dimes ($1,562.50). Chain letters fall afoul of the Postal regulations because if the chain is broken the participants are guilty of making promises they cannot keep. And there is nothing to prevent a sharper from making a handsome profit by mailing out 10,000 letters with his name at the top of each list.

Last week, despite a score of arrests, the "Send-a-Dime" flood had spread to Chicago, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Spokane, Seattle, Nashville, New York and a dozen other cities. New ideas for cashing in on the scheme popped almost daily. One chain raised the ante to $1, another to $10. In Oklahoma recipients of chain letters were instructed to give a kiss to the person whose name was at the top "and surely he may find a true love among the 15,000-odd trading kisses." In Philadelphia, racketeers began hiring staffs to send out chain letters to "sucker" lists. Just starting is a "Send-Pint-of-Whiskey" series.

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