38

POSTAL  SAVINGS

master-General,  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury
and  the  Attorney-General.  On  these  trustees
w'as  conferred  "power  to  make  all  necessary  and
proper  regulations  for  the  receipt,  transmittal,
custody,  deposit,  investment  and  repayment  of
the  funds  deposited  at  postal  savings  depository
offices.”  This  board  is  somewhat  similar  to  the
Postal  Savings  Bank  Investment  Board  of  the
Philippines. 1  The  three  officials  are  supposed  to
represent  respectively  three  important  aspects  of
postal  savings  bank  work,  administrative,  financial ­
  and  legal.  The  establishment  of  a  postal
savings  bank  in  the  United  States  was  looked
upon  by  many  of  its  sponsors  as  an  experiment,
and  it  was  the  clear  intention  of  Congress  to  give
wide  discretionary  powers  to  the  Board  of  Trustees, ­
  so  that  they  might  feel  their  way  carefully
in  extending  and  developing  the  system. 2  As  it
passed  the  Senate,  the  Carter  bill  contained  no
provision  for  a  board  with  wide  discretionary
powers  but  placed  the  administration  in  the
hands  of  the  Postmaster-General.  This  likewise
was  the  plan  in  the  substitute  bill  recommended
to  the  House  by  the  minority  of  the  Committee
on  Post  Offices  and  Post  Roads. 3  The  minority
1  Kemmerer,  The  Philippine  Postal  Savings  Bank,  in  Annals ­
  Amer.  Acad.,  XXX,  No.  1,  p.  48.
2  Cf.  House  Report  No.  1445,  61  Cong.,  2  Sess.,  pp.  1-2.