I invoke for this reform the cheerful and ungrudging support of the
Congress. I renew my recommendation made last year that the salaries of
the Commissioners be made equal to other officers of the Government
having like duties and responsibilities, and I hope that such reasonable
appropriations may be made as will enable them to increase the
usefulness of the cause they have in charge.
I desire to call the attention of the Congress to a plain duty which the
Government owes to the depositors in the Freedman's Savings and Trust
Company.
This company was chartered by the Congress for the benefit of the most
illiterate and humble of our people, and with the intention of
encouraging in them industry and thrift. Most of its branches were
presided over by officers holding the commissions and clothed in the
uniform of the United States. These and other circumstances reasonably,
I think, led these simple people to suppose that the invitation to
deposit their hard-earned savings in this institution implied an
undertaking on the part of their Government that their money should be
safely kept for them.
When this company failed, it was liable in the sum of $2,939,925.22 to
61,131 depositors. Dividends amounting in the aggregate to 62 per cent
have been declared, and the sum called for and paid of such dividends
seems to be $1,648,181.72. This sum deducted from the entire amount of
deposits leaves $1,291,744.
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