i 
76 
POSTAL SAVINGS 
ings system in the United States, the debate over 
the advisability of such a system, as we have seen, 
has centred largely in the question of the sources 
from which postal savings deposits would be 
derived. 
Bankers almost unanimously opposed postal 
savings banks, chiefly because they feared that 
the funds for postal savings deposits would be 
withdrawn or diverted from the banks. The pro 
ponents of postal savings, on the other hand, 
claimed that the funds would come chiefly from 
hoards, from increased savings and from the de 
posit of funds which otherwise would be sent by 
the foreign born to the banks of Europe. Obvi 
ously it is impossible to describe in any quanti 
tative way the sources from which the deposits 
have come. That is a topic of information which 
postal savings bank depositors—a proverbially 
distrustful class—naturally guard jealously. 
Such information as we have on the subject comes 
chiefly from the direct observations of post 
masters and others actively engaged in the ad 
ministration of the postal savings system, and 
from the testimony of bankers themselves as to 
the competition which they have experienced 
from postal savings banks. 
In the first place it may be said that there is 
no evidence whatever that the postal savings sys-