Daily Arizona silver belt., 1908-09-17


 dollar has ever been taken from the Cnited States treasury by force.
 Perhaps the nearest approach to loot ing the vaults of the treasury was the time Martin Broadfoot had his plans about perfected. This was back in the eighties. and the plan was to get into the building by means of the great sew CT which runs under and near the treas ury and is known as the Fifteenth street sewer and which grows larger as it enters the Potomac about three quarters of a mile from the White House.
 Broadfoot's plan, as developed after his arrest, was to get into the building, crack the safes and place the money in large rubber bags and float them down the sewer to the Potomac, where his pals would bo in waiting. These bags were found in his room when he was arrested, and secret service men had often seen him walking along the shores of the Potomac near where the big sewer empties. This sewer is about nine feet in diameter where it passes the treasury A man could easily make his way up the sewer through stream of water which under normal conditions is only about twelve inches deep. By en- tering the sewer tunnel at the river the journey to the treasury could be made by keeping sharp lookout. When the man or men in the sewer reached the Fifteenth street sewer nothing would separate them from the gold coin and bullion except about eighteen feet of earth and a not too secure stone wall. It was Broadfoot's s scheme to dig his way through this obstruction and to let the earth float or wash down the sewer. It would not have taken one man more than two weeks, working only at night, to have made an open, ing large enough for a man to crawl through Of course. Broadfoot knew the exact location of the vaults and when he once reached them he would have had no trouble in getting the gold coin and bullion. It was evidently his purpose to fill the rubber bags with the precious stuff and float them down the sewer to the river, where they would be looked after by his eonfeder ates. This was the only really we'll laid plot ever made to loot the treasury, and just why Broadfeot was never giv- en a trial has never been known to the public He was an intellectual man and suspicion was first aroused against him by his frequent visus to the money rooms and vaults and By questions he asked watchmen and messengers as to the hours of duty, when the time locks closed and what time they opened and all such questions That he could have successfully carried out his plans so far as getting into the building and the vaults are concerned there is no ques- ton, for men have been in the sewer and eonduits who say it would have been easy work. The most difficult job would have been getting away with the money and bullion, for it would have re- quired hard work to secure it and get away. About the only chance would have been to bury it somewhere in Vir- ginia, for if it had been placed in boats it would have been easy to recover 1t.
 It is the opinion of the secret ser vice men that many celebrated cracks men have from time to time contem- plated the conversion of few million treasury notes to their own use, but after careful study they have decided that the undertaking was too colossal in character. Secretary Folger when he assumed the duties was not slow in deciding that the treasury was not prop erly and safely guarded There was not an electric alarm in the building, the watehmen were isolated and had no facilities for calling help. and the safes were of the old time lock and key sort, scattered almost all over the big building. The secretary went to work to bring about a proper ebnditions of