Last year Leadville, Colorado, struck a thrift note that was new in this country, so far as I know, and reference to it is particularly timely as Christmas is approaching. A mining company in that city struck the note and I hope it will be heard from one end of this country to the other. It was this: Last December an officer of the company went to the post office and opened a postal savings account for every employee—ninety in all—as a Christmas present. He placed to the credit of each 2 per cent. of what he had earned during the year. These Christmas remembrances amounted to over fifteen hundred dollars. Out of the ninety employees only five had previously opened postal savings accounts. Now, I count that substantial charity; I call that well-directed charity. We have kept track of these particular deposits and the workmen who get their start through that Christmas bounty are adding to their savings weekly by their own personal efforts. (Applause.)
Gentlemen, as a rule, we in official life swing back and forth in a measured arc, and the little one can do is so small when compared with the mass of Government activity that we feel insignificant and lost. But I feel, my friends, that in the Postal Savings System my associates and I are doing a positive good for humanity. I believe that we are making people better and happier because postal savings points the way from the sweat shop to the school—it stands for clean homes and empty alleys. Each of you is a stockholder in the Postal Savings System and its success is your success. Your dividends are in the better and happier American citizenship which it encourages and promotes. (Applause.)
FOOTNOTES:
[93] Adapted from W. H. Kniffin, The Savings Bank and Its Practical Work, pp. 54-75. The Bankers Publishing Company. New York, 1912.
[94] E. W. Kemmerer, The United States Postal Savings Bank, Political Science Quarterly, Vol. XXVI, No. 3, September, 1911, pp. 465-77.
[95] W. H. Kniffin, The Savings Bank and Its Practical Work, pp. 75, 76. The Bankers Publishing Company, New York. 1912.