58 
POSTAL SAVINGS 
number of depositors, were born outside of the 
United States, and that this 60 per cent owned 
three quarters of all the deposits. 2 Moreover, the 
proportion of foreign born among the depositors 
is increasing. About three years before, only 36 
per cent of the depositors were foreign born and 
this 36 per cent owned 51 per cent of the amount 
on deposit. 3 
Analyzing the situation portrayed by these 
summary figures, one notices that some nationali 
ties patronize the postal savings system much 
more extensively than others. The figures for 
the close of the fiscal year 1915 concerning the 
nativity of postal savings depositors 4 are shown 
in column 1 of the following table, of which 
columns 2 and 3 based upon the census figures 
for 1910—the latest available—have been added 
by the writer. 
The last two per capita figures in column 3 
show that in proportion to population the de 
posits of the foreign born are about 15 times as 
large as those of the native born. This compari 
son, however, involves the fallacy of an "age se- 
2 Com. & Fin. Chron., Am. Bankers Assoc. Conv. Suppl., 
Oct. 14, 1916, p. 192. 
3 Ibid., 1913, p. 195. 
4 The figures are given, along with a large amount of 
other postal savings information, in a pamphlet issued by 
the Post Office Department in 1916, entitled The United 
States Postal Savings System, p. 6.