St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1880-04-03
In the United States Treasury.

money, Fine granite structure acces
slble by muscular penance OF many
steps. Why SO many tights Of stairs to
public buildings in an age when elevat-
ors elevate the race? Why now rem
der it imperative to climb up into q
building in order to get down. stairs:
Money all about here cheap as dirt
but only to the eye. Otherwise, touch
not, taste not, handle not Under
guidance and close surveillance am
taken to the Monetary Sanctum Finan-
ciorium where are kept many millions
for Immediate use. | bow in the pres
ence Of Mammon. Mammon in gold,
Mammcn in silver, Mammon in paper,
Mammon in stout canvas bags of dol
lars, Manmon in 81, 50, So, $40, 500
and $1,000 packages of bills, which re-
semble packages Of tea. ! am given
to lift-only to lift--a thousand bags OF
dollars. mean a bag of a thousand
silver dollars. A tax on the muscular
system. | am then given to lift a
S2,000,00O package of greenbacks in
81 900 bills. No tax at all on the mus
cular or any other system. Balance of
weight and clumsiness in favor of the
silver; balance of Gghtness and con-
venience in favor of the paper. Hence,
Iprefer paper in mine; if there's much
of it. laid the S2,OOO,O00 of green
backs down and went away sorrowing.
Those bits of paper, which for few
seconds | had held in my hand, would
secure me honor, consideration and
position among men, despite crows
feet and radically ugly face.
Shot up stairs to Treasury top floor
per elevator to bureau of money en-
craving and printing. Very interesting
smells. Money smells a good deal
while it IS being made. Lots of women
printing. sheets of money, cut
ting Them and counting them.
Money being baked in ovens to
make it dry and crisp. Rich financial
upper pie-crust. Bewildering series of
complicated machines for making
money. Here is the financial stomach
of the Nation, where its life blood of
trade, commerce, dignity and position
is being prepared for circulation and that
of which the inordinate love is the root
of all evil turned out by the ton. Also,
women handling great sheets of uncut
bills with rustling like that of the
withered leaves of autumn, which, as
Patrick Henry remarked, "every gale
from Wall Street north brings to our
ears" Here are the engravers making
the heads of old Presidents and politi-
clans more beautiful than ever
were they in life, to adorn
money. Here are dyers up to their
elbows in green dyeing money. Here
they are at the employees lunch coun-
ter eating pound cake with moist,
green-dyed fingers and drinking coffee
from white cups, and leaving upon
them the impress of green-dyed thumbs.
Here be she safes where are kept the
bank note plates, third of each sepa-
rate plate in separate safe, locked by
a separate and individual lock and key,
and each lock different from the others
and the key kept by different man,
and no man allowed access to the other
safes Or granted to know even the
others combination of lock, whereby
no one man can steal whole bank
note plate. Eternal vigilance and pre-
caution is here. The price of safety
and enforced honesty is the United
States Treasury policy. Here the mar
row passages are now beset by swarms
of visitors, each swarm in charge of
Treasury guide, each swarm counted by
watchful officials as they enter this de-
partment on going in and counted again
on coming out, lest some deceitful and
wicked human heart might
be left to rummage about half-made
money and bank note plates. Here the
swarms Of visitors encounter and iostle
each other, and employees moist with
green and black dye squeeze through
them, and the guides are troubled to
keep their respective swarms from
apart or lettering by the way,
and their respective mechanical and
manufacturing explanations
get sometimes much mixed up, and
at all times dulled to the ear by the |
hum and clank of money-making ma
chinery and the chatter of the |
money makers voices, who gaze crit
ically if not quizzicalIy on the visitors
in retaliation for being themselves ex-
hibited.
Carried, then, down stairs to the
" Bond Room.' Kept here millions on |
millions of securities from our 2,1OO |
National Banks. All inclosed in card
board boxes, and each box holding a
few sheets of paper. All these hum
dreds of millions of paper. Our man.
mon seems paper god, after all. You
may mold in gold and silver, but if you
want to carry your financial penates
around you, you fall back on paper.
Lady visitor in the bond room expaGiated
volubly on the benefits of wealth and
the convenience of having plenty of
money. Popular subject. Appropriate
place the Treasury bond vault for snch
lecture. Lady wanted much money be-
cause she 6 could do so much good with
IT, It what all of US want it for ere
we get it. "To do good with it, At
er we get it we find it is nee
essary to do much more good to
than we previously imagined.
Give man $4,000 who before
never had at once over 800 and in
,hree months time he'll feel as poor as
ever, and.b longing for a million, just
. for the good he could do with it,
More money, more wants. Don't fool
Yourself thinking you want so much
money, just to do good to others. Try