DEPOSITORS  AND  DEPOSITS

91

would  be  greatly  increased,  to  the  great  relief  of
the  deficit.
Arguments  Against  Removal  or  Lightening  of
Restrictions  on  Deposits
1.  During  the  debates  in  Congress  concerning
alterations  in  the  restrictions  on  postal  savings
deposits,  the  argument  in  the  opposition  that
played  the  chief  rôle,  an  argument  which  underlay ­
  many  of  the  others,  was  that  the  changes  proposed ­
  would  make  the  postal  savings  system  a
stronger  competitor  of  existing  banks.  There
was  a  great  deal  of  opposition  on  the  part  of
bankers  for  this  reason,  and  the  banking  community ­
  made  its  opposition  felt  in  Washington.
It  was  claimed  that,  even  if  the  postal  savings
system  had  not  been  a  competitor  of  the  banks
under  the  existing  limitations  on  deposits,  it  did
not  follow  at  all  that  it  would  not  become  a  competitor ­
  when  the  limitations  were  lightened  or
removed.  Senator  Weeks,  of  Massachusetts,
feared  that  the  raising  of  the  limits  would  put  the
postal  savings  system  into  competition  with  the
mutual  savings  banks  of  the  East, 32  and  Senator
Lodge,  of  Massachusetts,  thought  that  the  proposals ­
  were  a  move  in  the  direction  of  putting  the
Government  into  competition  with  the  banks  in

32  Cong.  Rec.,  April  14,  1914,  p.  6672.