Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1908-09-23

we'll versed in the laws bearing on his
trade and he had not been slow in
pelceiving the possibilities of large
and quick gains in using the United
States as place for manufacturing
bogus currency and coin to be circu-
lated in other countries.
In some of these cases the United
States secret service, at the instance
III the department of justice, had been
Instrumental in unearthing plots to
Aood foreign nations with counterfeit
at justice, in the absence of specific
legal enactment on the subject, had
acted purely in spirit of comfy in
exerting itself to protect the integrity
Of the currency of other countries.
The counterfeiters could not be pun
ished in this country nor any other
country, for that matter, for the manu-
facture of the spurious money, but
their plots were often thWarted and a
great service done other countries by
the work done out of courtesy by the
United States officials in ferreting out
the foreign counterfeit conspiracies.
One of the most notable of these
cases was that of the manufacture in
this country of a large amount of the
currency Of CHINA job that was
cunningly conceived and cleverly car
ried to the point where the counter
felt currency was manufactured and
ready for shipment to the Orient for
circulation. Another plot of great in
ternatiOnal Importance was that con-
ceived by Mcdonald, Scott and Sheri-
dan, who made and threw into circu-
lation a counterfeit Bank of England
note to the amount of about $4,000
Americans and their daring was shown
by :he character of the task they set
70! themselves.
F,r Ions time the British govern
meat had proudly boosted that the
BaAk of England note could not be
successfully counterfeited. The en-
craving wisdom of centuries had been
brought into the manufacture of this
not> and so perfect was it that Eng.
lands greatest financial institution
drifted complacently into the belief
that it's currency was invulnerable to
the counterfeiter.
1t will be remembered that when
the officials of the Bank of England
awoke from their dream of security
TO find that a group of Yankees had
made and were Showing" throughout
the United Kingdom note which
even the banks experts pronounced
genuine there was great hullabaloo
all over the world. The Mcdonald
crowd was ferreted out, chased to
Cuba and finally arrested. This plot
had it's inception in the United States,
and extended from San Francisco to
New York
So great was the excitement over
this case that it may fairly b ae1ed as
the prime cause of the enactment in
the year 1885 of the present law of
this land against the manufacture of
foreign money in the United States.
While not as comprehensive nor as
severe as the law bearing on the coun-
terfeiting of our own money, it was
sufficiently severe to check the opera
tons of those counterfeiters who
found their most profitable fields in
initiating the currency of foreign
lands.
Had it not been for the enactment
Of this federal statute the story am
about to tell never could have been
written. / am not sure that Lucius
4. White of Texas and Brazil knew
of the passage of the law in question.
1t is scarcely probable that a man of
intelligence, about to embark on q
project of such magnitude as the
couutsrfsiting OF more than q third