COUNTING A THOUSAND MILLIONS.

Northland Age, Volume 2, Issue 44, 12 June 1906, Page 2

COUNTING A THOUSAND MILLIONS.

HOW UNCLE SAM RECKONS UP lIIS CASH ASSETS, * Fifty of Uncle Sam's most trusted employes have just completed the periodical count of money in his strong-boxes, a count that always takes place upon the change of custodians of the United States public funds. Three important chiefs are spending their time in the vaults instead of at their desks, and the clink-clink-clink of the gold and silver breaks the usual monotony of the humdrum sounds within the Treasury building. This alone tells those familiar with the methods of business in the Treasury that the count is go-

The books will call for a specific sum, and it will be found down to the last shining penny in the vaults. And these pennies in their innumerable combinations of nickels, dimes, and dollars aggregate the enormous sum of a few hundreds more than one billion and a quarter of money. The men in charge of this task are accustomed to handling large sums of money. They, are among the most trusted of the Government’s men in positions of responsibility.; WOMEN EXPERTS COUNT THE NOTES. When these officials entered upon the task of accounting for the Treasury money, their first act was to segregate sufficient of the funds for the current business of the cash room, which is the banking portion of the Treasury. This done, the paper money viturned over to women experts lor counting. The work of these women is one of the wonders that appeals to tourists who visit the Treasury and Bureau Engraving and Printing. The quickness of their eyes and fingers in the handling of the sheets of money, and their expertness in detecting inferior workmanship or any other flaw in the currency is wonderful. Twenty-four of these expert counters were detailed for this work, the whole task involving the handling and counting, sheet by sheet, of 7, 000 packages, each package containing 5,000 notes. This means 28,000, 000 notes of different demonstrations

The counting of this paper money was completed in two weeks. Within that time each of these experts counted 291,666 sheets, or 20,833 a day. As 16,000 sheets is considered a fair day’s work, it can be readily scon at what speed these experts worked to accomplish this task within so short a time.

The paper currency in the vaults, which represents the Treasury reserve, on June 20 approximated 383,352,500 dollars (£76,670,500). The most laborious part of the task is the counting of the coin. In the Treasury Department there are 13 vaults of varying size 9. The largest of these, known as vault No. 1, is the largest money vault in the world. It is 89ft. long, 51ft. wide, and 12ft. high. In this and the adjoining vault, known as No. 2, are stored 153,000,000 (£30,600,000) standard silver dollars, thousands of which have never been put in circulation, but which are kept for redeeming the silver certificates now outstanding. This huge valt is divided into nests, each of which holds about 4.500,000 dollars. The weight of all this coin is great, and the huge steel lattice-work that divides these nests bulges outward with the weight of the coin that pushes against it. As each bag of coin is weighed it is passed on to the “piler,” who handles 50 tons of silver a day. There are 5.000 tons in the vaults.

As the bags are taken from one for transferring to the other, they are tossed on to a chute of boards, worn smoother than any plane would make it, down which they, slide with a peculiar metallic ring to the door of the next nest, where each bag passes under the critical oye of a clerk, who inspects the bag to see if the seal is intact. Then it goes to the scales, and again to the “piler,” Inasmuch as 1,000,000 silver dollars weigh 30 tons, each mun handles about 1,500,000 dollars a day. Thero is no chance for stealing in this operation. At convenient points stand trusted clerks, whose sole duty it is to keep their eyes open and watch the movement of each bag of coin from one point to another. Two shifts of men are at work on these silver vaults. There are 10 labourers in each vault and they have laboured the seven and a half hours the Government requires they are very ready to cease, for handling 50 tons of coin a day is no mean day’s Near to the main entrance of the big vault is a small nest, wherein is deposited the gold held by the Treasury This lias all been counted and safely stored. The great mass of the millions of gold belonging to the Government is kept at the Sub-Treas-ury in New York. In the Treasury proper there is but a trifle less than H. 500,000 dollars (£1.700,000.) This is tied up in bags of 5,000 dollars each, each hag weighing 17|Ib-, as compared with the 69tt>. of weight in but 1,000 silver dollars. A HALF BILLION OF BONDS. It is not the largest vault in the Treasury, however, where the contents are of the greatest value. There

is one vault* tnaT’CTHim Bfe put on in one corner of the silver vault and the Bpace hardly missed, where the Government bonds that secure national bank circulation are kept. These bonds represent money that has been paid into the Government, and they stand as a pledge of the Government absolutely guaranteeing every dollar of national bank-notes outstanding. These bonds aggregate the stupendous sum of 536,099,240 dollars (£lO7, 219,848,) with 5,000,000 dollars (£1 000,000) of trust-fund bonds thrown in for good measure. The paltry trifle of over 8,000,000 dollars of gold in the Treasury here j must not be considered as indicating I Uncle Sam’s full supply of this pre- j cious metal. His total holdings long this line aggregate 719,862,385 (£143,972,477,) held chiefly in New York in the Sub-Treasury, where the gold is more accessible to the demands of commerce and trade.

The protective features of the UniI ted States Treasury are such that it | is practically impossible for robbery ( to be commited. It goes without saying that the usual precaution here goes far beyond this. Every vault is protected with electrical appliances. When the vaults are closed for the day and the big steel doors shut, the usual protection of bars, bolts, timelocks goes into operation. Outside these steel doors, however, there are modest wooden doors that shut over the entrances to each vault without any apparent locking device at all. Once these doors are closed an electric connection is made, and the least tampering with them rings an alarm at the office of the captain of the Treasury watch, at police headquarters and at the head office of the bur-glar-alarm system at Washington. Robbery from within is a rare thing, and the system of checking up the contents of the vault is which the current funds are kept are so perfect that not - with out a collusion on the part of a number of trusted men who have been in the service for many years would it be possible to steal from the public funds, and such a colusion is apparently impossible. The Treasurer of the United States himself—the man who is under bond for safeguarding the people’s money—cannot enter the vaults at will. Reckoned in silver dollars, Uncle Sam’s cash assets practically amount to 1,000,000,000, which the Americans erroneously call a billion, and would weigh as much as three first-class battleships. To give some further idea of the immensity of the sum, it may be pointed out that :

One thousand million dollars would pay all the pension claims of the United States for the next eight years.

It would give almost one dollar to every person on the earth, i «■ It would pay the entire national debts of the United States and Norway.

It would pay every life insurance policy falling due in the United States for five years, estimating the amounts on the claims presented and satisfied in 1904.