The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1902-01-18
HOW UNCLE SAM GUARDS HIS MILLIONS.


HOW UNCLE SAM GUARDS HIS MILLIONS.
Uncle Sam has no spying system
over the makers and keepers of his
vast millions of dollars. Yet, of the
S45, 900, 600, 900 handled in the Treas
ury Department in the last forty years,
less than a quarter of million has
been lost.
Uncle Sans paper money has its
birth in the Bureau of Engraving and
Printing in Washington. Here a
corps Of engravers cut its lines into
plates of steel. Five hundred men
and women are in one room. 1t is
the largest printing Office in the
world Here are struck from these
plates the notes which we give the
butcher and the baker. Each steel
plate, when not in actual use, is stor-
ed away in great burglar proof vault
to which only the highest officials
know the combination. At the side
of each printing press is a little indi-
Gator like bicycle cyclometer, which
keeps tally of every piece of paper
money printed. Thus is Uncle Sam
kept informed as to the exact number
of paper notes of all denominations
which leave his presses every day.
HOW THE PAPER is MADE is A GREAT
SECRET.
If there is any secret which Uncle
Sam jealously guards it is the process
of manufacturing the fibre paper upon
which his money notes are printed.
He pays a Massachusetts firm forty
three cents a pound for it, and this
firm does its work under the surveil-
lance of a Government agent. The
paper is manufactured of the finest
rags, cleaned, boiled and mashed into
pulp. AS it is rolled into thin sheets
silk threads are introduced into it by
a secret process. These are the dis
tinguishing marks making imitation
of the paper well-nigh impossible.
The sheets of paper, already count
ed twice and placed in uniform pack
ages at the paper mill, are stored in
a Treasury vault and issued to the
Bureau of Engraving and Printing as
wanted. Before leaving the Treasury
they are counted three times more,
and the receiving official at the bu-
reau must receipt for them. Then
the bundles are unwrapped and the
sheets are counted twenty eight times
by corps of women. This is to in
sure that each printer gets the record
ed number-no more, no less. Be-
fore any employee of the division in
which this paper is kept can leave for
home each night he must exhibit to
a watchman at the door a pass certi-
flying that every fragment of every
sheet passing through his fingers has
been accounted for.
If one sheet of this precious paper
be lost the entire force of men and
women having access to the room
where the displacement has occurred
are kept in, like so many school chill
dren, to find it. Each sheet is issued
from the vault for the printing of a
definite amount of money upon it. If
the lost sheet were intended to ulti-
mately represent four thousand dol
lars worth of notes the group of en-
ployees to whom the responsibility of
its displacement has been traced must
make good that amount if they can
not locate it within a reasonable time
The most expensive loss which has
thus occurred was of blank sheet is
sued for the printing of eighty dollars
upon its face. The employees of the
last room to which it was traced di-
vided the loss among themselves.
Such losses have several times oc-
Cured.
Twenty-four times more are the
sheets containing the printed money
counted after leaving the presses.
Then they are sealed in packages of
one thousand, placed on racks in a
drying room of one hundred and thir-
ty degrees temperature, unpacked,
thoroughly examined, smoothed in
powerful hydraulic presses and pack
ed in wooden cases. These cases are
hauled to the Treasury in an ironclad
wagon. Six guards, heavily armed,
accompany this wagon whenever it
makes a trip.
EACH BILL IS COUNTED SIXTY THREE
TIMES.
No attempt to steal Uncle Sam s
money while undergoing any of these
stages of manufacture has yet been
detected. As a matter of fact the
money would be practically useless,
for its printing is not completed until
after it makes this guarded journey
to the Treasury. There the finish
ing touch is added in the printing of
the colored seal upon the face of each
note. With the six sealing presses
the same precautions are taken as
with the two hundred and fifty big
money presses in the other building.
Each sheet coming from the former
has row of notes printed upon it
The sheets are put through small
machines, operated by girls who cut
out the Individual notes. Even the
small strips, falling like shavings
from their machines, must be careful
ly collected, sent to the Bureau O
Engraving and Printing and there
boiled into pulp. An employee fount
with even one of these ribbons o.
waste paper is liable to Imprisonment
for fifteen years and fine of five
thousand dollars.
Between these different processe:
the paper money has been counted
and recounted six additional times
Finally the notes are placed in stacks
of one hundred with all of the blu,