The Wallace miner. [volume] (Wallace, Idaho) 1907-current, 1915-11-25


istration came into power, the treas
ury statement showed working bal
ance" on hand in the treasury Of $780,
210,619. This was the surplus which
the Taft administration turned over
to the democrats.
How 1t Was Done.
SAT the end of that fiscal year"
July /. 1918, says Mr.. Bourne,) 1.-THE
gifted literary genius who presides
over the destinies of the strong box,
and who has been described as the
most brilliant financler that ever dug
a tunnel under the Hudson river, con-
eluded that the hackneyed and con-
ventional form of daily treasury state
ment was too simple and too easily
understood to be worthy of the great
mind now directing our fiscal affairs,
and, on July /, 1918, the daily state
ment was issued with changed face"
The new form of statement showed
on July 1, 1918, free balance"'in the
treasury Of $114,7S5,746, but Mr.
Bourne exposes that attempted fraud
by showing that the secretary, In or
der to make an apparent gain In rev.
enue, had reckoned funds that did not
properly belong in the working bal
ance. Eventually, by the new system
of bookkeeping, the secretary piled up
an apparent working balance of $685.
250.000. with these figures" said Mr.,
Bourne, "the democratic bookkeepers
struck their zenith of paper manifes-
tations of national thrift. From that
moment rapid and steady decline
was recorded.
1.-TWO months later, on September /
1918, still another form Of statement
was tried, and this showed, on the last
date, net balance OF 1921, S36,SS7. This
form was continued for two years un-
til September 80. 1915, when net bal
anee of $4O,S9S,S94 was recorded, That
looked so much like tremendous
slump that Secretary McAdoo, on oc-
tober of this year, adopted still an
other form of treasury statement,
which. by further juggling of the fig
ures jumped the balance over night
to 1928. 063,545 This big gain to the
treasury was accomplished, as shown
by Mr., Bourne, without the addition
of single dollar to the funds of the
nation, with no new sources of rev.
enue. with no proceeds from q bond Is
sue, and without other means of re-
plenishlng its dwindling funds"
Stroke Of the Pen.
by a stroke of the pen," adds Mr..
Bourne, Secretary Meade. over night
had converted more than sixty-one
million dollars of disbursing officers
balances into an available balance for
general governmental purposes and
had also added to the asset column
funds which are distinctly ear-marked
for specific purposes and which are in
no sense to be used Tor any object ex-
cept the fiduciary ends for which they
were given in the first instance into
the custody of the treasury
To get at the facts. Secretary Nc
Adoo having haughtily declined to
furnish the information, Senator
Bourne went to Harvey S. Chase of
Boston, who for years had prepared
the daily treasury statement before
the advent of Secretary McAdoo. and
asked him to examine the latest treas
ury statement and figure out what the
true balance would be II calculated In
the way treasury balances were caleu.
lated for so years before Secretary
McAdoo resorted to bookkeeping Jug
Cling to fool the public" Mr.. Chase,
with the official figures about him,
showed that what Secretary McAdoo
represented as a net balance of $I2S.-
O63.545. was actually net balance Of
only $3,5l7.027, and that the secretary
Of the treasury, my misrepresent2tio
was showing one hundred AMI twenty
FIVE million dollars Of resources which
the government does not possess In
other words, according TO Mr. Chase,
the federal treasury today is nna nun
Cred and twenty-five million dollars
worse off than Secretary McAdso re-
ports to the country. and Mr.. Bourne