Money by Mail

Common complaint of Civil War soldiers was the difficulty of getting funds to & from home. Bank checks were practically unknown; letters containing currency had a way of arriving with envelope slit and money gone. In 1864 the Government went to its soldiers' rescue with a newfangled idea known as the money order. At first sold almost exclusively in Army camps, money orders soon spread across the land, became big business.

This week the Post Office Department announced that the business was bigger than ever. Sales for fiscal 1940 were reported at an all-time high: $2,094,543,479 (up $36,379,479 from fiscal '39). Sales in '41 were running even higher, jumping with every new draft increment. The Post Office figures that three of every four conscripts will use money orders: poor boys to send money home, rich boys to get it from home.

On its record 1940 money-order sales, the Post Office collected $25,061,405 in fees, etc., chalked up a nominal profit of $23,994,704 after deducting $1,066,701 for expenses. This was 29% more than the whole Post Office's claimed net surplus ($18,609,036). Since the Post Office cannot possibly determine how much overhead and clerical cost should be charged to its money-order business, this profit is partly illusory. But if nothing else, the department makes a tidy real profit out of money orders forgotten and never cashed. It now has $17,500,000 on its books in unpaid orders--some of them dating back to the Civil War.

The old Groton (Conn.) Iron Works shipyards, closed since World War I, were bought last week by a syndicate headed by Alfred Holter, refugee Norwegian industrialist. The syndicate's reported plans: to build $20,000,000 worth of fast freighters for Britain.

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