M

POSTAL  SAVINGS

that  this  was  a  dangerous  power  to  confer  upon
an  administrative  board  of  political  appointees;
that  political  motives  would  dictate  the  selection
of  places  for  postal  savings  depositories  ;  and  that
the  banking  community,  with  its  powerful  and
organized  opposition  to  postal  savings  banks,
would  be  able  to  bring  sufficient  pressure  on  the
Board  of  Trustees  to  prevent  it  from  establishing ­
  depositories  in  important  places.  '
Deposits  and  Withdrawals
The  limitations  fixed  by  the  law  with  reference
to  the  character  of  deposits  and  the  persons  from
whom  deposits  were  to  be  receivable  conformed
fairly  closely  to  the  practices  prevailing  in  other
countries.  Accounts  could  be  opened  by  any
person  ten  years  of  age  or  over,  but  no  person
could  have  more  than  one  postal  savings  account
at  one  time.  Deposits  could  be  made  only  in
sums  of  a  dollar  or  a  multiple  thereof;  no  one
was  to  be  permitted  to  deposit  more  than  $100  in
any  one  calendar  month  ;  and  the  balance  to  the
credit  of  any  one  person  could  not  exceed  $500,
5  Opponents  of  the  bill  called  attention  to  the  fact  that
the  chairman  of  the  Board  of  Trustees,  the  Postmaster-General,
  was  the  head  of  a  Department  which  had  a  large
amount  of  political  patronage,  and  that  the  Postmaster-General
  of  that  time  had  but  recently  been  chairman  of  the
Republican  National  Committee.

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