Thus, even if protection from harassment is assumed to be a sufficient justification to support the proper statute, it cannot be used to justify section 1718. See, e.g., Shoemaker v. Burke, 67 App.D.C. 281, 92 F.2d 205, 207 (1937) ("the authority to pass upon such a subject is in the first instance intrusted by statute to the Postmaster General, and . . . his decision thereon is conclusive unless he has exceeded his authority or the court should be of the opinion that his action was clearly wrong"). That language is quoted by Mr. Chief Justice Burger in Rowan at 397 U.S. 735 n. 4, 90 S.Ct. at 1489.
The defendant wrote that the stamp was "in open and willful contempt of the constitutional laws of the United States of America . . . and was an unlawful act of assistance to religion per se." In Shoemaker v. Burke, 67 App.D.C. 281, 92 F.2d 205 (1937), the words "I don't read Hearst" exposed on an envelope were said to condemn "the character and conduct of Hearst." In United States v. Davis, 38 F. 326, 327 (W.D.Tenn.