ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SYSTEM 
7 
the part of the public, nor was there any ques 
tion that adequate savings bank facilities should 
be provided for this purpose. The debate hinged 
very largely upon the question whether adequate 
savings facilities were not already provided by 
private initiative. 
Question of the Adequacy of Eæisting Savings 
Facilities Offered by Banks 
The advocates of a postal savings bank claimed 
that adequate savings facilities were not being 
provided by private enterprise, and could not be 
so provided, because of the expense of operating 
savings banks in small communities, and also in 
larger ones where the people were not yet edu 
cated to the saving habit; and they pointed par 
ticularly to the lack of savings facilities in the 
Southern and Western States. 
Postmaster-General George von L. Meyer in 
his report for 1908 10 cited figures from the 
Comptroller of the Currency, showing that the 
deposits in savings banks in the United States at 
that time amounted to $3,660,553,945; that 72 
per cent of this amount belonged to the New 
England States and New York; and that 98.4 
per cent belonged to fourteen States, leaving 
only 1.6 per cent to the remaining States and all 
10 Pp. 12-13.