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  figures ­
  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  recent ­
  years  the  average  losses,  in  terms  of  percentage ­
  of  the  amounts  on  deposit,  were  almost
infinitesimal.
The  figures  cited  for  bank  failures,  so  far  as
they  related  to  savings  deposits,  were  so  incomplete ­
  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-