The general plan and principles of local building and loan associations might well be extended to groups of rural cooeperators, enabling them to make loans to their members; and to groups of small investors, permitting them to hold real estate mortgages and bonds and stocks of corporations, free from taxation other than that paid on the wealth itself.  Members of such organizations could get a higher income on their investments than a savings bank could pay, and with greater security than if each attempted to save and invest by himself.[15]

Savings institutions are necessarily also lending institutions.  In this chapter they have been looked at mainly from the saver’s (the lender’s) standpoint, though their service to the borrower is of cooerdinate importance.  In the case of building and loan associations this feature is most apparent.  Later, the problem of the agricultural borrower will receive further consideration.

[Footnote 1:  See Vol.  I, chs. 9 and 10.]

[Footnote 2:  See Vol.  I, pp. 285-290 for the analysis of saving from the individual standpoint; and pp. 482-499 for its relation to general economic conditions.]

[Footnote 3:  See Vol.  I, p. 484.]

[Footnote 4:  See above, ch. 9, sec. 7.]

[Footnote 5:  E.g., Babson Statistical Organization, Brookmire Economic Service, Moody Manual Co., Moody Corporation Service.]

[Footnote 6:  See Vol.  I, p. 318.]

[Footnote 7:  Report of the Comptroller of the Currency.  Not all of these are mutual.  Statistics, moreover, include in some cases (e.g., California) the savings deposits of commercial banks but not the number of such banks, and in other cases (Michigan) some banks that do chiefly a commercial business.  The line of demarcation between savings banks and savings departments of commercial banks cannot be sharply drawn.  The Comptroller of the Currency reported in 1914 in a different form the amount of savings deposits and of time certificates of deposits in all kinds of banks as the enormous sum of $8,675,000,000.]

[Footnote 8:  In the last twenty-three years, on the average, seven savings banks a year have failed, the annual excess of liabilities over assets being about $200,000, or about $30,000 for each failing bank.  The total loss has been about 1/5 of 1 per cent of total deposits.]

[Footnote 9:  The Federal Reserve Act, by making it possible for loans to be had at any time (through member banks) on good security, should reduce the danger of runs on savings banks.]

[Footnote 10:  The author saw in operation a new machine of this kind which had been installed in a German public school as early as 1910.]

[Footnote 11:  See Vol.  I, pp. 290, 297-298, 484, and 486.]

[Footnote 12:  The figures here given and the description of methods apply to the “local” building and loan associations.  The success of this kind led to the organization of other associations which took the name “National” building and loan associations, to carry on a business in a larger field.  The number of these has always been comparatively small, and their operation is less simple, democratic, and economical than the local associations.  They have borne more of the nature of ordinary profit-making enterprises.  They should not be confused with the local associations.]