J. Edward Day

James Edward Day

James Edward Day (born October 11, 1914 in Jacksonville , Morgan County , Illinois , † October 29, 1996 ) was an American lawyer , businessman and politician .

Career

James Edward Day studied first at the University of Chicago , where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi , and then at Harvard Law School. After his admission to the bar, he joined the Sidley & Austin law firm in 1938 .

During the Second World War he served in the US Army between 1942 and 1945 . After the war he worked as a businessman and also pursued a political career. Day was State Insurance Commissioner under Adlai Stevenson , then Governor of Illinois. Then he became US Postmaster General in 1961 under US President John F. Kennedy , but he resigned from this post in August 1963 due to financial difficulties. During his tenure, he was responsible for reducing the deficit at the Ministry of Post by increasing tariffs and introducing the ZIP code . Day published a joking memoir, My Appointed Round , in 1965 about his time as Postmaster General.

After retiring from politics, he was a driving force behind the establishment of Sidley & Austin’s Washington, DC office and partnered with the firm from 1963 until he stepped down in December 1972. His departure was the result of his perceived disdain by his partner after the merger of his firm with that of Liebman, Williams, Bennett, Baird and Minow from Chicago . He also sued his former partners. The case, Day v. Sidley & Austin, 548 F.2d 1018 (DCCir. 1976) , went before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit . There the court found that Day suffered from an injured ego and that the facts were insufficient for legal action.

Web links

• Index of Day's personal papers on the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum page
• Day's obituary on The New York Times page
• J. Edward Day in the Miller Center of Public Affairs of the University of Virginia (English)