Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-05-22
DESTROYS SECRETS.
Queer Business Of Man Who Reduces
Account Books to Pulp.
From the New York Sun.

From the New York SUM-
81 have Just paid few cents pound for
old books and papers for which some ore
in this town would give thousands OF dol
lars" said a downtown paper manufacturer
a few days ago. and he told the truth.
A large part of his business consists OF
destroying confidential papers for business
houses, banks, brokers or any one else who
can furnish enough to bother with.
The paper man pays for this valuapie olu
paper, but only few cents pound That
Is all 1t Is worth to him for reduction INTO
pulp His rates are bit lower, perhaps
than those of the junkman, but with MS
purchase he gives a guarantee that nothing
he buys shall ever be read or examined
A list OF his customers. which he gives
for reference, Is pretty good PROOF that ne
keeps his word and that the secrets Oh tne
waste paper bags never leak out. the ret-
erence list shows that the manufacturer
has destroyed books. papers. ETC., for about
twenty banks, half as many insurance COM
panies. dozen bankers and brokers, sew
eral of the big wholesale dry goods firms
and a large number of retailers.
How do you destroy this valuable paper
and make sure that nobody gets hold OF
it?' the manufacturer was asked.
TT isn't allowed to pass through very
many hands," was the answer, and the
men who do take care of 1t are ignorant.
Some of them cannot read, but they would
not have a chance to CLEAN much out OF
our waste If they could.
when We get an order from firm to
destroy It's books and papers we send a
man up with n lot of big bags. The bind
ings are ripped off the books. their pages
are torn apart and they are stuffed Into
bags along with letters and any other waste
the firm may have to offer
THE bags are sealed and put aboard
freight car. Next day they arrive at our
factory in Connecticut, and the seals are
not broken until the bags are dropped be-
side big vat filed with strong chemicals.
THE papers are dumped into this, which
reduces them to a pulp. Another process
cleans the ink from the pulp. and then 1t
goes into new paper. You see. there isn't
very much chance for any one to get hold
of any information set down on our waste
paper and I'm dead sure that our guaran-
tee has never been broken.
DO we do a big business in destroying
documents? Well, L should say yes.
Before we took hold of that new branch
Of the paper business ii was good deal of
a problem for some firms to know how to
get rid OF their old books and papers. 1t Is
harder to burn a book than 1t Is to burn a
log. Papers are also easily carried up
chimney by strong draught, and burning
didn't solve the problem.
Junk dealers would buy the stuff. but
they didn't give any guarantee as to prf-
vacy, and weSe always on the hunt for
anything they could turn into money.
II know of case where a junkman
bought a lot Of letters from a dry goods
firm, sorted them all out by states and
found that they gave the key to the identi-
ty of the firms customers. A rival firm
bought the letters and paid pretty well for
them.
"Then there are lots of things on the
books of almost any firm that a competitor
would like to see-price lists. discounts,
trade relations and all that sort of thing
1t wasn't safe to hand books containing
that information to junkmen and that's
why we started In the destruction busi-
ness.