Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-06-19
Famous War Treasurer of the
United States.
REVERED BY WOMEN
THE MAN WHO FIRST APPOINTED
FEMALE CLERKS.
Old Government Employees Who Work
ed With the Great Treasurer
Still in Harness.

When Francis Elias Spinner, the great
war treasurer retired from the government
service, which was not very long after
Bristow of Kentucky was appointed to
the office of Secretary of the Treasury,
there were on the pay roll Of the treas
urer's office a grand total of 527 employees,
of which 1876 were on the regular list. The
office force is numerically holding its own,
but of those who were associated officially
with the great old bureau chief there is
little more than a corporars guard left.
This honorable few, whose presence and
promotions through all the changes and
vicissitudes of years betoken their capac-
ity and sterling abilities. numbers some
where only between forty and fifty, even
If they can answer the roll call up to the
last named figures. Many of the men who
were rated fourth-class clerks when
Spinner was at the helm have been adj
vanced to more responsible Office. Among
these are w. H. Gibson, who is now as
sistant cashier; d. w. Harrington, chief
of the accounts division; A. B. McKelden
is principal bookkeeper; James T. Meline
is second in command of the office and
holds down the desk of assistant treas
urer; Robert H. Forsyth, who was a third
class clerk under the Spinner regime, is
now assistant teller. This list of old clerks
to be called veteran clerks-could be ex-
tended somewhat, but not to any great
length.
One of the best-known clerks of the office
is James ID. Row, an expert in handling
silver. Perhaps his greatest feat in this
direction was in New York, where he
counted the vast sum of sixty-seven mil
lions of dollars. The coin was stacked in
packages of $1,000 each. 1t was a stu
pendous and marvellous undertaking, but
Row tackled it heartily and proved the
sum correct. The day after the COM
pletion of his arduous task he was at
tackled by serious illness and forced to
take to his bed. If he had been required
to count another ten million about that
time he would probably have enlisted for
some happy hunting grounds. But he still
lives, moves and has his being undismayed
by the thought of having to count yet
many millions more of stacks of silver.
The Old Employees.
A. U. Wyman. who was respectively.
clerk, assistant treasurer, treasurer. then
assistant treasurer again. and who re-
signed to go into the banking business in
Denver some time ago, returned to his
early love. the Treasury Department. He
is now a clerk in the second auditors Of
flee. His health was ruined by elevator
accident in the west He Is another of the
old guard.
There is a fair contingent of the women
clerks VINO worked unQer General spinner
left who, in their youthful days-and this
is not intended to intimate they are far
beyond a youthful period of years now
were counting greenbacks, writing letters
typewriters had not been invented then
and performing various sorts of clerical
service, who are still doing work at the
old stand. Among them are Mrs. Villa A.
Leonard, the mother of Capt. Harry Leon
tingushed himself in China. In addition
to these Mesdames Annie NJ. Cox, Effie
Heron, j. A. Thompson, Mary Warren.
Florence S. Lithgow, Alice Kerr, Belle
are Misses Kate Pearl, Lille A. Burns,
Jennie Dulaney, Addie Devine. Kate NJ.
Hayden and A. E. Matthews These and a
few others fill up list that would not be
complete without the addition of Mrs Jane
Bradley, charw"nan in those old days of
trial and tribuls- on, and charwoman now
pursuing the even tenor of her way, hon
ored and respected from one end of the
big building to the other.
Was the Women's Friend
The women of the treasurer's office, in
fact the women throughout the depart
ment, but more particularly those in his
own official domain adored General Spin
ner. He was their mentor, guide, phlos-
opher and friend. They set him upon a
pinnacle in their inmost hearts, and wor-
SHIPPED him. But for his stalwart appeals
there may have been no women in the de-
partments. And he had much to contend
with. Salmon Chase, who was Secretary of
the Treasury at the time. was lukewarm
over the proposition. Chiefs of several of
the bureaus actually sneered at what some
of them called visionary and wild concep-
ton, and predicted all sorts of evil results
from it. The old treasurer was not dis
mayed, however He was fighting a good
fight and he won. Even then the system
was held to be of a tentative and doubtful
sort and it had its enemies, who after
ward requited for their opposition by