Omaha daily bee., 1903-02-22

The next step is to arrange the orders
numerically in each town, so that they
may follow in the rotation Of their orig
inal issue. II Is little short Of marvellous
to watch the deft fingers OF the girls who
count them. Each young woman manages
to hold in her hand a hundred of these
orders at a time. which she sorts and
counts at a lightning rate Of speed.
No one can know II all In such a place,
but each person must be accomplished in
his or her particular %line-they must all
be parts Of the one machine, whose work
ings are as perfect as the Bingham mill,
where "a broken thread or shred spoilS
the web through a hundred yards and is
traced back to the girl who wove It,"
In the recording division the accounts
are registered and settled with the post
masters. The final process, which is the
object Of all these distributions and ac-
countings, is the checking Of each voucher
by the statement of the postmaster who
issued Il. This laborious task requires
careful attention and unceasing watchful-
mes, for thousands OF errors or attempted
frauds creep into these postmasters' state
ments. orders issued for SIS or 800 are
reported at 81. 50 and s.. which error,
whether deliberate or unintentional, IL not
discovered. would be so much profit to the
issuing postmaster and a corresponding
loss to the United States treasury. The
work Of checking so. 900, 900 Of these vouch-
ers yearly occupies thirty-hve quick witted
clerks, whose daily labor is incessant.
After the nnal auditing the statements
are bound in volumes a~ggregating many
thousands, and are kept for seven years
in the files which honeycomb the balls
Of the bureau. The millions OF money
order vouchers are also collected and labeled
with the names Of the postofices where
they were issued. At this point It is that
! the orders have reached the original shape
in which they were first sent out.
Plan to Reduce the work.
The necessity for thus preserving the
statements and vouchers Is said to arise
from the fact that the accounts are often
reopened and overhauled after several
years to verify settlements or to correct
| alleged errors. The money orders are also
valuable in private lawsuits and are called
for many times In the year for such pur-
poses. Litigation may arise in Tennessee
or Arizona, for instance, involving the dis
puted payment of a debt. One party al
leges that he paid the debt by remittlng
a money order. which the other party de-
MES. The local postmaster requests q
search of the files in the auditors ofice
and II the money order is found 1t Is sent
to the postmaster, who presents 1t in court
and afterward returns it to Washington.
to be again placed on file.
At the end of every seven years the
bulk of one years statements and none
orders is sold under the law as waste
paper. which is ground to pulp at a paper
mill in Hagerstown, Nd, under the eye OIL
a representative of the Treasury depart
ment.
The necessity for all this routine audit.
ing work, with it's infinite detail. is due tc
the fact that every money order comes into
the office as a separate voucher. Al
present a bill is pending in congress
called the post check BILL which is de-
signed to treat the checks as mutilsted
currency instead OF vouchers, thus saving
the almost unlimited task of the present
process. Insteadsof sending the vouchers
to the auditor. the postmaster would TAKE
one of these checks In it's place, deposit
1t in. and get credit for 1t from the ma.
tional banks. The banks would forward
the checks to the treasury, where they
would be destroyed as money unfit for use
Instead OF the separate slips, which, t.
quote the auditor, occasion "a hundred mil,
lion checkings and 200 additional manip.
~ulations of the sixty-odd million money or.
ders in this office before they can find theil
final resting place in the 'morgue' Of tn,
files room" instead Of his-the postmastei
would send the bank receipt, which would
include numberless vouchers and thus re,
duce to a very small fraction the present
work in the auditor'S office.