The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1913-10-07

copyrighted, 1913, by Frank G..
Carpenter.)
Washington, D.. c.
/ have spent today in Uncle Sans
catacombs. They lie under the great
Department Of the Treasury, twenty
or thirty feet below the level of the
White House, and 200 feet below
the floors of the halls of Congress,
where our statesmen sit and juggle
with Uncle Sans finances. l refer
to the vaults in which Uncle Sans
money is kept, n where are stored
away more real hard coin and valu-
able paper than in any other place
upon earth. The vaults contain mill
lions in gold and silver, and their
coin n securities. all told. will run
considerably over a billion. They
have SO many silver dollars that if
you should load them upon four
horse wagons, and put the teams nose
to ~tail-boards, the train required to
haul them would each from New
York to Cincinnati. The currency
alone runs high into the hundreds Of
millions. During my stay there to-
day | held a million dollars, in ten
thousand-dollar notes, in my good
right hand, and | saw ninety millions
more in three packages SO small that
l could crowd them into a half-bushel
basket. You have all heard of the
fve-hundred-m acknowledgements Of
Treasury notes which Secretary Nc
AdoO 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 packed with
them almost to bursting.
l have called these vaults cata.
combs. The title fits the whole Treas.
ury Department. The building is the
personifiCation Of gloom. 1t look.
like a tomb, n it would be a fine
home for "a suicide club. Long an(
squatty. with a massive roof and wall!
of gray granite many feet hic i
makes one think of a sarcophagu
of the gods, and its surroundings ar,
those of a cemetery. The TreaSur,
Department lies in a hollow jus
across the street from the Whit
House, whose gayety is accentuate,
by its gloom. Its front yard is a pit
the walls of which are covered witt
ivy. The lawn itself is as smooth a
velvet, but it takes a score of grave
digging gardeners to keep out tn
weeds.
The Treasury itself is more drear
than any picture ever painted b
Dante. AS you look at the cavelik
doors which lead into the basemer
you are reminded OF the quotation {
that poet engraved above his gate
to hell:
"All hope abandon We who ente
here!'
These doors are covered with iro
bars as thick as your wrist. and tn
windows behind are sad and drear,
making one think of the rheumy ey.
of dying giants looking out throug
the steel net work with which the
are yelled.
In the second and third stories II
are cleaner, but they al
deep set and gloomy. Entering II
building you find the interior aui
as depressing. The narrow Corrido
lighted by electricity throughout IL
are SO dark that they have to
day. The lower p~assageway max
you feel as though you were in
burial vault. and when the doc
silently open you shudder at Il
thought of the cofHns which one fee
must be piled up within. 1t is Il
same throughout the building fro
the basement to the attic, and it
only the south rooms on the secol
floor, where Secretary McAdoo h
his offices. hat are at all CHEEKY.
| shall not discuss the job Of I
Secretary of the Treasury in this /,
ter. | may write of that in the I
ture. So far Mr.. McAdoo is in go
health and spirits. His eye is brig
his step firm and he looks ten We:
younger than the half century viii
his modest autobiography in the &C
gressional Directory puts TO his cree
Still let him beware. He is now
tween the upper and neither m
stones OF this mighty department.
is in the mill which killed Secret:
Folger, which ground the life out