The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-07-21
PAPER MONEY BILLS ARE ID BE SMALLER Are Too Large Now for Con-
 venience Sake WILL BE BIG SAVING New Money Can Be Carried in Pocket Book Without Folding-Only
 Objection Is Two Sizes
 of Money
By JONATHAN WINFIELD


 ing within recent years makes dollar look smaller to most of us than 1t did a decade ago. the treasury department has decided to make the bills smaller than they are at present--not the purchasing
 power of the currency, but the size of the bills themselves
 1t has been decided that the paper money of today Is too large for convenient handling. A dollar bill is now over three inches wide and a little oyer eight and one quarter there's long. Tt Is to be cut down to six by two and one-half inches. The treasury thinks that this reduced size of the currency will be vastly easier to handle and 1t is certain that it will mean large annual saving on Uncle Sam 5
 expense bills for paper.
 Tho economy on paper alone for 24o,-
 000,0O0 bills issued per annum) will amount
 to $S7,OOO. Then there will be an in- creased output of at least 25 per cent for a given amount of labor at the bureau of engraving and printing where all the paper money is manufactured. This gain carried through all tho processes of printing, examining, counting, drying, numbering, etc. will in itself represent
 more than $20O000 a year.
 The notes being smaller less engraV- ing will be required for the plates from
 
 used-an item more important than one
 might imagine. Taking other items into
 account it is recokoned that the total
 saving to the government by reducing the
 size of paper money will be in the neigh borhood of $615,000 per annum.
 Iniaddition. it is expected that the "ilfe of dollar bill of the new size will be
 much longer than that of enc of the present series. Requiring the less foldd to be slowed away conveniently in a pocketbook or bill-fold of the ordinary size it will last at least one-third longer in circulation, according to sthe estimate of treasury officials. Consequently there
 will be fewer notes to be redeemed as unfit for future use and the force of the redumption lewiston in this city can be out down sufficiently to save some S5o- 600 year in salaries.
 When it is considered that 1t costs the government one cent to print a paper dollar and put 1t into circulation, the inn portance of prolonging it's life becomes manifest Fortunately. the treasury has had an opportunity to make some advance tests, as they might be termed Of the smaller money. All the paper money of the Philippines (which has replaced the
 old Spanish notes) has been printed at the
 bureau of engraving and printing in this city It is of exactly the size now pro- posed for our own greenbacks and cer- tihcates-six by two and half inches.
 Up to date it has proved satisfactory in all respects
 | The new paper money will be small enough to be carried flat-i. e., without | folding--n a pocketbook of moderate | size. It will also be very much easier | to handle Experiments made with bank | clerks and tellers in this city recently l have shown that the small notes do not cramp the fingers as do the old ones.
 They have also the additional advantage l that banks can store in their vaults 9 per cent more of them within a given space
 The only objection to the new departure
 seems to be that for some time there will be two sizes of paper money in cir
 culation. Put fhis difficulty is to be ob- viated as far as possible by preparing in
 advance great quantities of the small
 notes which, on given date, will be
 changed for the big ones at subtreasuries and other large financial institutions throughout the country By this means | it is hoped that all the large" bills will be collected within two months after the small ones are put into circulation and that this plan will obviate the con- l fusion which would probably result from
 the two sizes of bills being in circula-
 tion at one and the same time.
 | In addition to changing the size of the | bills it is also planned to reduce the nineteen designs now on the currency to nine. using the same portrait on one de- nomination throughout. Thus, the $1 bill, whether treasury note, bank note or cer- tificate, will bear the head of Washing ton in the center of its face. Its holder will thus know the denomination with out looking at the figures and cashiers of banks and others who handle great quantities of money will be enabled there by to detect commercials more readily. Nothing is so hard to reproduce as the portrait on a bill. Even the original en- graver Is unable to duplicate his work
 with entire exactness and, as the slightest change in the printing will change the entire expression of the face. it will be comparatively easy for bank cashiers and tellers to carry the printed visages i'll their memory and spot commercials at the first glance.
 More artistic designs are wanted for the backs of the bills and certificates than those now in use on the paper money
 and the best artists in the country will be
 invited to submit their ideas of suitable engravngs. At present the designs are not only inferior in an artistic sense, but confused. For example, on, the S5 na- | tonal bank note a portrait of Benjamin | Harrison is used; on the reverse is a picture of the landing of Pilgrims. What 1 connection of association of ideas there I
 Harrison is not apparent. On the other pieces of money are Indian chiefs, a | frontiersman protecting his family with
 an axe and other such pictorial freaks of
 no imaginable significance.
 | Up to the present time the most satis- | factory protection against counterfeiters
 has been found in the distinctive paper
 used by the government, with bands of 1 red and blue silk fibre running through | 1t. This cannot be initiated successfully except by the use of large and expensive
 machinery which Is with difficulty con | cealed.- It Is true that chemical means are known whereby the ink can be entire- | ly removed from s1 bills as preliminary
 to printing commercials of large denomi- nations upon them-an expedient whereby | the governments own paper is secured
 for criminal employment, But it is pro-
 posed to overcome the difficulty by print 1 ing each denomination of the new notes
 on different kind of paper, or a num-
 Der peculiar to the denonnation) may | run through the paper as water mark. | This it would be impossible to change
 when a larger figure is printed on the | same paper.
 Summing up the whole plan, the intel- | ton to have a paper currency that will | be more convenient, more artistic. sate against counterfeiting and cleaner For l this last purpose there is to be an ex-
 tension of the money-laundering business, | which up to the present time has been | carried on exclusively at the bureau of | engraving in this city. Light and trans ing notes. will be placed in the various
 subtreasuries and possibly in large finan- | cial institutions so that dirty bills will | he a thing of the past