ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SYSTEM 17 
Losses to Depositors from Bank Failures 
The immediate occasion of the last active 
movement for a postal savings bank system in 
the United States, as we have seen, was the losses 
and inconveniences arising from bank failures 
and from the suspension of cash payments in the 
panic of 1907. Naturally, therefore, the demand 
for greater safety of savings deposits played an 
important part in the discussion. 
The advocates of postal savings banks cited 
figures showing the number of national bank 
failures and the losses involved, and similar fig 
ures for savings bank failures in certain States. 
They made much of the large amounts involved 
and of the hardships in individual cases. On the 
other hand, the opponents of postal savings banks 
usually dealt with percentage figures rather than 
with absolute amounts, and showed that for re 
cent years the average losses, in terms of per 
centage of the amounts on deposit, were almost 
infinitesimal. 
The figures cited for bank failures, so far as 
they related to savings deposits, were so incom 
plete as to be of doubtful value in measuring the 
extent of the losses. 30 Those given by the Comp- 
30 Commenting upon this subject, Miss Florence Kelly 
recently said: “It is one of the gross sins of omission of 
our Government (State and Federal) that we have no trust-