40

POSTAL  SAVINGS

With  reference  to  the  claim  that  the  right  of
Congress  to  create  a  postal  savings  bank  was  implied ­
  in  the  power  conferred  by  the  Constitution
to  establish  post  offices  and  post  roads,  Senator
Bailey  said:  "There  is  absolutely  no  pretence
that  the  deposit  of  private  money  with  a  postmaster, ­
  and  the  redeposit  of  it  by  him  in  a  bank,
has,  or  is  intended  to  have,  any  connection  with
the  use  of  the  mails.  It  is  a  fiscal  operation  pure
and  simple,  without  the  remotest  relation  to  a
post  office  or  a  post  road  as  they  were  understood
by  the  fathers  when  they  framed  our  Constitution ­
  or  as  they  are  understood  by  us  today.  The
Congress  of  the  United  States  has  just  as  much
right  and  power  to  require  our  postmasters  to
act  as  commission  merchants  as  it  has  to  require
them  to  act  as  bankers.” 26
The  constitutional  status  of  the  hill  seemed
weak  even  to  many  of  its  proponents,  and  a  number ­
  of  amendments  were  proposed  calculated  to
give  it  a  firmer  position.  These  amendments  for
the  most  part  undertook  to  make  the  bank  more
of  an  instrument  for  the  borrowing  of  money  by
the  Federal  Government,  and  thereby  to  bring  it
more  fully  under  the  constitutional  power  "to
borrow  money  on  the  credit  of  the  United
States.”  Some  of  these  amendments  went  much
26  Cong.  Rec.,  March  3,  1910,  p.  2688.