There is a very interesting human-interest side to postal savings in which every phase of good fortune and disaster is reflected. An aged couple at Norfolk without the knowledge of each other had been carrying $100 on their persons as a guaranty of respectable burial. They are now postal savings depositors. Two sisters died in each other's arms in the _Eastland_ disaster in Chicago a few weeks ago--two working girls--and they had postal savings accounts for like amounts. Their savings went to pay for their burial. One of Uncle Sam's bluejackets who went down on the ill-fated submarine _F-4_ was the owner of a substantial postal savings account. Gentlemen, the Postal Savings System means something more than a cold array of assets and liabilities, a balance sheet. Way off in an isolated spot in Russia a money order went not long ago to the home of a humble peasant. That money order represented the savings of a son who was drowned in the Susquehanna River. A few weeks back, a thrifty Mexican girl withdrew her savings from the post office at San Diego, California, to buy a trousseau. After the honeymoon she returned to the office with her new husband and both opened postal savings accounts. 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: