4

POSTAL  SAVINGS

1907  was  over,  and  while  currency  was  still  at  a
premium  in  New  York,  the  newly  created  State
of  Oklahoma  passed  a  law,  December  17,  1907,
providing  for  the  guaranty  of  bank  deposits;  and
in  the  course  of  the  next  two  years  four  other
States,  Kansas,  Nebraska,  South  Dakota  and
Texas,  passed  deposit  guaranty  acts. 7  President ­
  Roosevelt  in  his  Messages  of  December,
1907,  and  March,  1908,  favored  a  postal  savings
bank  system. 8  In  June,  1908,  the  Republican
national  convention  included  in  its  platform  a
plank  favoring  “the  establishment  of  a  postal
savings  hank  system  for  the  convenience  of  the
people  and  the  encouragement  of  thrift.”  The
Democratic  platform,  adopted  a  few  weeks  later
at  Denver,  after  expressing  a  desire  for  government ­
  guaranty  of  bank  deposits,  said:  “We
favor  a  postal  savings  bank  if  the  guaranteed
bank  cannot  be  secured,  and  that  it  be  constituted ­
  so  as  to  keep  the  deposited  money  in  the
communities  where  it  is  established.  But  we  condemn ­
  the  policy  of  the  Republican  Party  in  proposing ­
  postal  savings  banks  under  a  plan  of  conduct ­
  by  which  they  will  aggregate  the  deposits
7  Cf.  Thornton  Cooke,  Insurance  of  Bank  Deposits  in  the
West,  in  Quarterly  Journal  of  Economics,  XXIV,  pp.  85-108,
  and  XXV,  pp.  327-390.
8  Cong.  Rec.,  Dec.  3,  1907,  p.  77,  and  Mar.  25,  1908,  p.
3854.