There is a possibility that the plan for the establishment of postal
savings banks, so ably advocated by the postmaster-general, may result
in a radical change in our entire banking system. The demand for
postal savings-banks is so popular that it is not likely that there
will be much further delay on the part of Congress in realizing the
project. Now it happens that among the new political issues that have
arisen, the question of the currency has assumed a most prominent
place. There can be no doubt of the intensity of the feeling that has
developed against the national banks, which have supplied a large
proportion of the circulating medium since the war, and the demand for
a currency issued directly by the government, without the intervention
of the banks, is growing both in volume and in force.

The sense of the inadequacy of the national banks to the financial
necessities of the country is by no means confined to those who, by
theory or experience, have been made hostile to them, and regard them
as detrimental to our institutions, and as dangerous instruments for
the oppression of the common people. It extends to those who recognize
that the national banks have been of invaluable service to the
country, and are a vast improvement over the banking system that
preceded them. Nevertheless they feel that grave defects are showing
themselves, and that for the security of the community something
better is needed. There is not the confidence on the part of the
business community that there should be, and events like the recent
occurrences in connection with the Keystone National Bank, in
Philadelphia, are not likely to enhance that confidence. One of the
most frequent of surmises is as to how many similar cases there may
be, and a very commonly heard query is that as to the state of affairs
that a general financial panic might reveal, with the banks loaded
with collateral upon which it would be hardly possible to realize at
such a time.

Then there is the moral aspect of the case, so well expressed in an
essay[22] by one of the soundest philosophical and political thinkers
whom America has known, the late David Atwood Wasson. Said he: "At
present the government permits itself to become indirectly,--or,
if we speak of the State governments, worse, sometimes, than
indirectly,--confederate with those who amass fortunes by making
credit precarious, and forcing the hazards of the gaming-table into
all the legitimate operat