The incoming Congress should promptly fulfill the promise of the
Republican platform and pass a proper postal savings bank bill. It
will not be unwise or excessive paternalism. The promise to repay
by the Government will furnish an inducement to savings deposits
which private enterprise can not supply and at such a low rate of
interest as not to withdraw custom from existing banks. It will
substantially increase the funds available for investment as
capital in useful enterprises. It will furnish absolute security
which makes the proposed scheme of government guaranty of deposits
so alluring, without its pernicious results.
I sincerely hope that the incoming Congress will be alive, as it
should be, to the importance of our foreign trade and of
encouraging it in every way feasible. The possibility of
increasing this trade in the Orient, in the Philippines, and in
South America are known to everyone who has given the matter
attention. The direct effect of free trade between this country
and the Philippines will be marked upon our sales of cottons,
agricultural machinery, and other manufactures. The necessity of
the establishment of direct lines of steamers between North and
South America has been brought to the attention of Congress by my
predecessor and by Mr. Root before and after his noteworthy visit
to that continent, and I sincerely hope that Congress may be
induced to see the wisdom of a tentative effort to establish such
lines by the use of mail subsidies.
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