Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1895-12-24
He Suggests the Establishment Of
Postal Savings Banks.
RELIEF FOR TIE FINANCIAL STRAIN
Enough People Would Make
Small Deposits in This Way.
SUCCESS IN OTHER COUNTRIES

Said Professor Thomas Wilson of the
Smithsonian Institution today:
THE President and the Secretary Of the
Treasury have both been exercising their
ingenuity, skill and craftsmanship during
the entire administration in the endeavor
to relieve the financial strain upon the
country, to restore confidence, to obtain
sufficient revenue to pay the expenses of
the government, to retain in the treasury
the gold coin which is the foundation of
our monetary system. The result has been
so far not only without any improy enent,
but growing gradually worse.
Try Postal Savings Banks.
'These high officers having tried and
failed 1t is recommended that the financial
affairs be turned over to the Postmaster
General, who, as a member of Congress
and chairman of the ways and means
committee, iraugurated the tariff reform
which lies so nigh to the root of the pres
ent condition as to be fairly CharSeaDle
with the responsibility of our present de-
ranged financial affairs. If the admin
money to pay the expenses of the admin
istration, to retain gold In the treasury, let
it adopt Wnder the management of the
Postmaster General a scheme which has
been tried for many years in Belgium
France, Japan and possibly other coun-
tries, and always with succeSS-that is by
the establishment of postal savings banks.
The different conditions between our cOun-
try and the countries mentioned might
require different arrangement of postal
savings banks, but these would be matters
only of detail. Those countries are so
small that the headquarters of the postal
savings banks at the capital of the
kingdom. and with governmental postal
telegraph the money received can easily be
transmitted to the capital the hooks of
account can all he kept there, and yet the
money can be transferred from one post
office to another, and can he paid out at
any post office in the kingdom wherever
the claimant may present his Ilder. And
TINS IS done with facility and rapidity
impossible in our country. 1t would there
fore be necessary to make changes in this
respect, as for example, headquarters
for the postal savings banks might he re-
quired in the capital in each state instead
of being, as In European countries, at the
capital of the kingdom. A well digcs ed
and carefully prepared law could easily
be prepared which would avoid all these
difficulties, and would harmonic in all diff
ferences and adverse influences.
Many VIII Deposit Small Amounts.
Among the sixty-seven millions of people
which we have in the United States" con-
:inued Prof Wilson, there are enough who
will have a few dollars. say from one dol
lar to a thousand, which they would gladly
deposit. If it could be done with absolute
security, with a low rate of interest, say =
per cent, with the privilege of withdrawal
after few days notice. There are enough
of these people in the United States to make
deposits of sum of money equal, If 1t does
rot exceed. our entire national debt. Let it
be understood that when any one of them
should desire bonds of the United States in
small sums like fifty dollars. that they could
receive them payment for that amount
due to them from the postal savings bank
Let the government declare accounts of the
postal savings bank a debt of honor equally
sacred as the United States bonds, and it is
my opinion that our government loans In
foreign countries could be retired, and, if
needed, reissued in small bonds, to be taken
up by the people of our own country. Thus
would be spared the humiliation, as
well the inconvenience and danger of
such reports as have been sent from London
to New York within the last two days, and
which have produced the Presidents mes
sage.
Successful in Other Countries.
France has been operating this scheme
for several years. and had in 1894 the peo-
pies money in its vaults to the sum of
030000000 francs. In Belgium the scheme
has been in operation longer, and the sum
of money is 203,0G0,o00 francs. Equal sue
cess awaits an essay of the same kind in
this country Give pOStp1a Star General Will