Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-10-23
Forty-Eight Postal Savings
Banks on First Trial.
OPENING DATE NOT YET SET
District of Columbia Not to Have
. Depository at Present.
ONE HERE, PERHAPS, LATER ON
Small Places, Industrial Centers,
Chosen for Inauguration of Sys-
tenn in United States.

| Postal savings banks will be given
their first trial under the recent law
at forty-eight second class post Offices
of the country, one in each state, &C
cording to decision of the board of
trustees at their session late yesterday
afternoon.
! Washington is not to have a postal
savings bank. 1t is said it will be ad-
ded later on to the list, that the de-
partment may have under it's own eye
model office where the details of the
system in operation may be observed.
The actual date of opening the new
banks was not determined at the meet
ing. That. too. will be fixed later on.
The board of trustees, consisting of
Postmaster General Hitchcock, Secre-
tary MacVeagh Of the Treasury Depart
ment and Attorney General Wicker
sham, met in the Office of the Post
master General.
Test to Be Made Thorough.
The forty-eight post Offices at which
the banks are to be established have
been selected, after careful investiga-
ton by the officers of the Post Office
Department, with a view to making the
first test of the service as thorough as
possible under the limited approprfa-
ton provided by Congress.
The amount appropriated for the first
year of the system was only $1OO,OOO.
From this sum must come all the ex-
penses Of equipment, including the en-
craving and printing of forms; certl-
ficates, bonds, ETC., as well as the cost
of clerical assistance for the conduct
of the postal savings business.
Owing to the smallness of this appro-
priation, it has been impossible to es-
tablish postal savings banks during the
first year in the large city post offices
of the country. The offices designated
are all of the second class
Small Industrial Centers Selected.
In their selection it has been the pur-
pose to choose communities in which the
conditions are exceptionally favorable for
the development of postal savings bust
ness. Most of the places on the list are
industrial centers. where wage earners
will be especially benefited by the kind
Of banking facilities afforded.
A large patronage of the service is ex-
pected from foreign-born Americans in
those cities who are now RENTING con-
siderable sums to their native countries.
usually in the form Of money orders.
Many OF the places selecteu. particularly
those in the west, are not adequately pro-
vided with other savings institutions.
The work of furnishing the necessary
equipment to the post offices selected and
having the pOstmasters and their assist
ants thoroughly instructed in me ope-
ration of the system will probably con-
sumo several weeks, but every effort will
be made to have the designated Offices
ready to receive deposits at the earliest
feasible date. 1t is probable that the
plans devised for the new postal savings
system will be given at least a month s
trial in the original forty-eight offices be-
fore others are added to the list, although
it is expected that the number of Offices
will be largely increased before the end
of the current fiscal year.
The designated offices are as follows: