The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1913-10-12

In little bags
copyrighted. 1913. by Frank c. Car
penter.)
Washington, ID. C.
II HAVE spent today in Uncle Sans
catacombs. They lie under the great
department of the treasury, twenty
or thirty feet below the level of tho
White House. and 200 feet below the
noors of the halls of Congress. where
our statesmen sit and 1uggle with I'm
Gle Sans finances refer to the vaults
In which Uncle Sans money is kept,
and where are stored away more real
hard coin and valuable paper than in
any other place upon earth. The vaults
contain millions In gold and silver, and
their coin and securities. all told, will
run considerably over g. billion. They
have SO many silver dollars that II
you should load them upon four-horse
wagons, and put the teams nose to tail
boards, the train required to haul them
would reach from New York to Cincin-
matt The currency alone runs high
into the hundreds of millions. During
my stay there today / held a million
dollars. in ten thousand doller notes.
All my SOou right naDU, ana L saw
ninety millions more In three packages
so small that could crowd them into
a half-bushel basket. You have all
heard of the five-hundred- million dol
lars-worth of treasury notes which
Secretary McAdoo lifted up and shook
in the face of the panic mongers of
Wall street. They are all stored here,
and there is one great vault, which is
/ have called these vaults cazacombs
The title fits the whole treasury de-
partment. The building is the persona
fication of gloom 1t looks like tomb
and il would be a fine home for a sui
eide club. Long and squatty, with
massive roof and walls of gray granite
many feet thick. it makes one think
of sarcophagus of the gods, and its
surroundings are those of cemetery
The treasury department lies in a hol-
low just across the street from the
White House, whose gayety Is accen-
tuated by it's gloom. Its front yard
Is a pit, the walls of which are covered
with ivy. The lawn itself is as smooth
as velvet. but it takes a score of grave
digging gardeners to keep out the
weeds.
The treasury itself is more dreary
than any picture ever painted by Dante.
As you look at the cavelike doors
which lead into the basement you are
reminded of the quotation of that poet
engraved above his gates to hell.
"All hope abandon We who enter
heret"
These doors are covered with iron
bars as thick as your wrist and the
Windows behind are sad and dreary,
making one think of the rheumy eyes
of dying giants looking out through
fhe steel network with which they are
yelled.
In the second and third stories the
windows are cleaner but they are deep
set and gloomy. Entering the build
Ding you find the interior quite as de-
pressing. The narrow corridors are
80 dark that they have to be lighted
by electricity throughout the day. The
Pow passageways make you feel as
Enough you were in burial vault, and
when the doors silently open you shud-
der at the thought of the coffins which
tone feels must be piled up within 1t
as the same throughout the building
prom the basement to the attic, and 1t
rs only the south rooms on the second
moor, where Secretary MoAdoo has his
poHlces that are at all CHEEKY.
/ shall not discuss the job of the
Secretary of the Treasury in this let
Ger. may write of that in the flu
fure So far Mr.. McAdoo is In good
health and spirits. His eye Is bright
jhis step firm and he looks ten years
younger than the half century which
his modest autobiography in The Con-
tgressional Directory puts to his credit
lat han
4ween the upper and neither mlllstones
OF this mighty department. He is in
the mill which killed Secretary Folger,
(which ground the life out of Daniel
Manning and which when Secretary
Window In the pride of his strength
grappled with it laid him low. 1t did
the same with Charles w. Foster the
dusty treasurer under Benjamin Har-
rison. and it has just succeeded in suck
ing out what little juice Franklin Nc
Veagh had In his bones.
/ SILVER when ] think of the lob
When Mr.. AlcAdoo first came. Treasurer
Burke. Uncle Sans new watchdog who
lies at the doors of the vaults and takes
charge of the moneys, wrote out a re-
ceipt for the sums then on hand. That
receipt gives some idea of the RESPONSE :
bilities of Secretary McAdoo. 1T repre-
sents the largest sum ever taken over
by mortal man at one single time. 1t
represents almost $1,000. 900 ,0Oo, and its
actual figures We're S1,426, 422, a51 .48 2-3.
Yes, two-thirds. The money was agur-
ed out to the thirds of cent and
Secretary McAdoo has to make the ac-
counts come even to the smallest frac-
ton. Do you wonder that such work
preyed upon the minds of his prede-
cessors?
Have you any idea how much $780,
100000 means? 1t represents more than
one-tenth of all the money value of all
gold taken out of all the mines of the
earth since the discovery of America,
and of the vast amount thus receipted
for, the greater part was in gold. Much
Of the gold is not stored away here
at the Treasury department.. i is kept
at New York, Denver and San franc SEQ,
where ii lies in the vaults of the sub
treasures and in those of the mints
in tons of golden bricks ready for
coinage at a moments notice. The gold
IN the treasury proper is not in bull
Lion 1t is only bagatelle of mil