THE TREASURY BUILDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2951, 24 November 1900, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE TREASURY BUILDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES.

Strong Boxes.

{Washington Post.)

Uncle Sam’s treasure boxes are undergoing some important alterations. They are not at all up-to-date in the mode of their construction, nor by any means, and it might be a good thing if thev were torn out altogether, and replaced with vaults of the proper kind, such as safe deposit companies have nowadays. But that would cost a great deal of money—perhaps as much as 1,000,000d0l —and the Government would prefer to avoid such an expenditure.

Away back in 1892 this question was agitated, "and the Congress went so far as to appoint a Special Committee, with an appropriation of SOOOdol to make an examination of the vaults in the Treasury, and report on their condition. The report was decidedly unfavourable, condemning the arrangements as nracticaJlv obsolete, but nothing was attempted in the way of substantial improvements. It was in the same year that an expert came on. from New York, and, at the request of the Treasurer, with only a few ordinary tools of the kind used in safe repairing, opened one of the big strong-rooms in a few minutes. Seventy-five thousand dollars have been appropriated for the present alterations, which consist in part of a new vestibule and strong doors for the great silver storage vault. This vault cost 30,000d0l originally, and extends under the terrace at the south end of the treasury building. l£ contains a mighty box of steel latticework, 89 feet long, 51 feet wide, and 12 feet high, filled chock full of silver dollars. Visitors are permitted to walk around the mass of treasure, following a narrow passage which runs between the sides of the bcir and the steel avails-of the vault.

This lattice-work receptacle holds 101.000. in silver, which is packed in wooden boxes, two bags of standard dollars to a box, and each box weighing 120 pounds. Formerly the coin was simply stacked up in bags, but, notwithstanding the walls of steel, dampness rotted the baers, and the money ran out of them. This made extra trouble, requiring fresh counts, and it is no small job to reckon over such a gigantic sum in metal. Hence it was decided to pack the stuff in boxes. Each sack contains lOOOdol, and so long) as the Treasurer’s seal on it is intact, its contents do not have to be verified on occasions when recounts are made. THE BOND VAULT, is to be enlarged greatly, doubling its capacity—a change made necessary by the increasing number of national banks which deposit bonds in the Treasury. Many private and State banks, taking advantage of the recent Act of Congress, are coming in as national banks. A new and thoroughly modern strong-room is to be built for the register’s office, to hold cancelled paper-money that is awaiting destruction in the macerator. Meanwhile, the Sub-Treasury in New York is putting in two additional vaults, one for gold and the other for silver, the latter measuring 47ft in length by 28ft in width, and 12ft in height. Gold and silver are pouring in there by tons daily, and there is no place to put all of it. At the present time that Sub-Treasury has on hand 170.000. in gold coin, and 68,000,000 dol in silver.

There are now 152,000,000 silver dollars in the Treasury at Washington, but only 6,080,000 in gold coin. The Treasury never keeps much gold on hand here, the great stock of the yellow metal being held in New York and at the mint hi Philadelphia. If one wants to see crude gold in masses, he should visit the mint in Quaker City, where he will find it stacked up in heaps of bricks —tons on tons of it —all ready for conversion into coin. At the present moment there is 53,000,000d0l woth of gold bullion at this mint, with 37,000,000d0l of gold coin, not to mention 150,000,000d0l in silver bullion and coin.

Notwithstanding the fact that the Treasury vaults compare so poorly with the impregnable steel-clad structures now used by great private concerns that have valuables to protect, fhe Government feels fairly secure as to the safety of its stored wealth. The best safeguard for coin is its weight. Just to illustrate this point, it may he mentioned that the 152,000,000d0l in silver now held in the strong rooms of the Treasury, weighs nearly 5000 tons. A million dollars in gold coin weighs about two tons, and it would take a very strong man to cany off 50,000d0l worth of the yellow stuff. Though a gold brick the shape and size of an ordinary building brick, represents B,ooodol, its “ heft ” is something astonishing. Suggestions have been made that it might be practicable to burrow beneath the Treasury by tunnel, and thus pillage Uncle Sam’s coffers by a sort of rat-hole method, but even if this were accomplished, it is difficult to imagine how it

WOULD UE FBACTICABLE TO REMOVE MUCH OF THE COIN.

There was quite a scare a few years ago, when Gilfillan was Treasurer, because the vault in the cash room where the ready money is kept, refused to open. It is always set for 8.30 a.m., with a time clock, but on this occasion something seemed to be wrong with the mechanism, and the steel doors remained obstinately closed. Nine o’clock arived, and still the money was locked up. For once Uncle Sam’s bank was obliged to suspend payments. Experts were sent for and came with their tools to break open the vault, but before they got there the big safe had opened of its* own accord. It turned out that the lime-lock had been set by an accident for 9.30. In this vault not only gold and silver but many millions in paper money are always kept. If thieves could obtain access to it they might easily walk away with an enormous sum, the note and certificates being done up in packages and neatly labelled with tlie sums they contain in large red figures. Each parcel holds 4000 notes, and is in size just about a, foot cube. If the denomination is 500dol, a single such package represents 2,000,000d01. However, if anybody did succeed in getting away with cash in Hits shape lie could hardly fail to be caught, inasmuch as the numbers of Hie bills would be advertised immediately, and every bank in Hie country Would be on the lookout for them.

Burglars may he practically excluded, but the Treasury does not claim to be I heftproof. On an unlucky day in id 10 a visitor came into the Treasurer’s room with a large Panama hat in bis band. The Treasurer's attention was distracted by some other people who were trying to talk to him, and flic man dropped his hat carelessly over a package which contained 2000 len-dollar notes, lying on (ho desk. 11, was one of several such packages, and the loss of it was not noticed until some hours later. Of course, the. notes were advertised, and isoiim time afterward a part of them were deposited in a New York lunik- The depositor was arrested, hut nobody was rums linn you Tim tin mi:, A singular immunity from punishment seems to have attended thieves who have robbed the Treasury in such ways. In 1875

a clerk named Benjamin Hallock passed a package of 500dol notes, representing 47,000d01, out of a windorv in the cash room to a saloon keeper named Ottman. For some time the robbery remained a mystery, but later on one Theodore Brown Avas caught betting on the races at Saratoga Avith some of the missing 500dol notes. He Avas arrested and implicated Ottman and Hallock, but Broivn was never tried, and the other two were not finally convicted. Of the stolen money 20,000d0l were recovered. It has been said that no trust company Avould accept fhe responsibility of the Treasurer of the United States for 'the 6000dol a year salary Avbich be gets. He is responsible for all moneys that may be stolen,* and on more than one occasion Congress has been obliged to relieve by formal act an official in the position Avho Avould otherwise luive been liable for the repayment of large losses. On one occasion tivo men named Marden and Johnson, the latter an assistant paying teller, took 62,000d0l by collusion. The Government got back 12,700d0l of this money, and the offenders escaped Avith a year in prison for each. There have been a good many thefts in the redemption division, Avhere the temptations are exceptionally great, the most famous of them being that perpetrated by a Avoman Avho inA’ented a method for making nine notes out of eight, incidentally to the process of putting together scraps of torn bills sent in to be redeemed. Nobody ever kneAV hoiv much she stole, though it Avas probably a very large amount, but she gave up a portion of her’ illgotten gains and Avas not prosecuted. In 1865 there Avas much excitement over the loss of 1,000,000d0l in paper money, which had been shipped from Washington to the Assistant-Treasurer in San Francisco. The shipment was made by a sailing vessel called! the Golden Rule, and consisted of 1000 lOOdol notes. Unfortunately the ship Avas Avrecked on Roncados Reef, and the safe that contained the cash Avas lost Avith it. Nevertheless a conspiracy was suggested, and a theory Avas formed to the effect that the vessel had been deliberately cast away for the sake of stealing the money. If this had been true some of the notes Avould certainly have turned up later, but as a matter of fact none of them have ever been seen since, and it may therefore be taken for granted that the missing Avealth still lies at the bottom of the sea. Of course, being only paper money, it Avas NO LOSS TO UNCLE SAM. Immense quantities of gold are shipped nowadays across the ocean, and the danger of loss -is so small that the precious stuff may be insured at so loav a rate as one-tenth of one per cent. It is insured just like so much grain, and the documents, Amt-ten in old style legal phrases, guarantee its safety against all perils of the seas, including “men-of-wax, fires, enemies, pirates, rovers, thieves, jettisons, letters of marque, reprisals, takings at sea, arrests and detainments of all kings, princes,” etc. Every large trans-Atlantic steamship has on board a treasure room, Avhich is a great steel box built much like a vault on land.

Shipments of gold coin from this country to Europe have been extraordinarily large recently. The banker in New York buys it from the Sub-Treasury there, receiving it in sacks of 10,000dol each. It is carefully weighed, because Europe will accept our gold only by weight, though the quality of the coin—its purity and degree of fineness —is guaranteed by Uncle Sam’s stamp. Usually it is packed in casks that are much like herring casks, ten sacks to each cask, which weigh 180 pounds when thus filled. Thefts on the voyage are practically unknown, but in 1894 a cask of gold coin was lost on its way to Park, being finally located on the platform of a railroad station between Havre and Paris. The station agent had thought it contained white lead.