CHAPTER VI 
Conclusion 
The postal savings system, despite the handi 
caps of a defective structure and of many ham 
pering restrictions, has made substantial progress 
during the early years of its history, and has ren 
dered the country a real service. 
When the Postal Savings act was passed the 
only plan that had the slightest chance of getting 
through Congress was a highly decentralized one 
which would use existing banks as depositories, ' 
and try to keep the money deposited in postal 
banks “at home.” This philosophy of keeping 
money at home meant little more than that the 
profits that were to be realized on the investment 
of postal savings funds should be given to local 
banks. Money is too fluid a form of capital to 
be “kept at home” if it is in materially greater 
demand in some other place. In 1910 it was less 
fluid in the United States than in most advanced 
countries. That was the time of a vigorous agi 
tation for the reform of our currency and bank 
ing system, whose chief defects were generally 
recognized to be immobility and inelasticity of