Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 August 1909 — PRESIDENT TAFT TO URGE POSTAL SAYINGS. [ARTICLE]

PRESIDENT TAFT TO URGE POSTAL SAYINGS.

December Message to Congress Will Include Recommendation for , Adoption of Promised Measnre. *- ■ a President Taft is not forgetting the pledge of the republican platform for the adoption of postal savings banks and in conversation with callers at his summer home at Beverly, Mass., he has indicated that his message to congress when it convenes in December will contain an argument for the early establishment of that bank system. President Taft believes that several hundreds of millions would be placed at the disposal of the government through postal savings banks. It is suggested that this money might well be employed in taking up the $600,000,000 or $700,000,000 of -government two per cent bonds which are outstanding and which have given much concern to the "treasury department officials. Already the two per cent bonds are selling below par and there is fear of further depreciation jn view of the three per cent issues which have been authorized and which soon may be placed on the market. The money which national postal banks would draw, the president believes, is that which is sent abroad each year by foreigners who insist that the government’s guarantee shall be back of any bank in which they place their hard earned savings and that which is secreted in stockings and mattresses and not sent to any bank at all. The president believes that the postal banks would appeal only to those timid persons who are afraid to trust the ordinary banks and who would rather get the two per cent, or less interest, which the government would give, than to place the money in the regular savings banks where it would draw from three to four per cent interest each year. By placing the Interest allowed by the postal banks at less than two per cent, Mr. Taft is convinced no harm would be done to the ordinary banks of commerce, for discriminating persons who now place their money in these banks and are appreciative of what they are doing for the community would not withdraw money drawing a high rate and place it under government care at half the interest offered by the ordinary savings banks. President Taft expressed himself again as he did so often during the campaign of a year ago, as unalterately opposed to a guarantee of bank deposits. Mr. Taft said he did not believe in making one set of bankers stand responsible for another set, and he does not think the national government or the states should undertake to extend a guarantee to institutions which are not under direct or government control and direction.