i

76

POSTAL  SAVINGS

ings  system  in  the  United  States,  the  debate  over
the  advisability  of  such  a  system,  as  we  have  seen,
has  centred  largely  in  the  question  of  the  sources
from  which  postal  savings  deposits  would  be
derived.
Bankers  almost  unanimously  opposed  postal
savings  banks,  chiefly  because  they  feared  that
the  funds  for  postal  savings  deposits  would  be
withdrawn  or  diverted  from  the  banks.  The  proponents ­
  of  postal  savings,  on  the  other  hand,
claimed  that  the  funds  would  come  chiefly  from
hoards,  from  increased  savings  and  from  the  deposit ­
  of  funds  which  otherwise  would  be  sent  by
the  foreign  born  to  the  banks  of  Europe.  Obviously ­
  it  is  impossible  to  describe  in  any  quantitative ­
  way  the  sources  from  which  the  deposits
have  come.  That  is  a  topic  of  information  which
postal  savings  bank  depositors—a  proverbially
distrustful  class—naturally  guard  jealously.
Such  information  as  we  have  on  the  subject  comes
chiefly  from  the  direct  observations  of  postmasters ­
  and  others  actively  engaged  in  the  administration ­
  of  the  postal  savings  system,  and
from  the  testimony  of  bankers  themselves  as  to
the  competition  which  they  have  experienced
from  postal  savings  banks.
In  the  first  place  it  may  be  said  that  there  is
no  evidence  whatever  that  the  postal  savings  sys-