The Washington herald., 1920-09-12

mand? There are hardly any Of them in
circulation. because the government has
gObbled them up. For years past, whenever
a gold note has been deposited in a bank,
it has vanished from view, not again to
reappear. The bank has not paid il out
again
A propIc"" '''''' ~ - "' w. " '
Up to the time Of the war there WAS
very little paper money in circulation on
the Pacific coast. People out there pre-
ferred to use gold; they were used to it.
and liked it~better. But if you 60 out there
now. you will find that paper money has
taken the place of gold almost entirely The
yellow coins have been sobbled up by the
banks and replaced with printed promises
to pay"
well. how much of this paper money
do you make in a year." l had thought
| had a poser. but duick as flash this
alert foreman of Uncle Sans printshop
replied
During the last fiscal year we printed.
here in this building. just few short of
700 .OOO.OOO Federal Reserve notes, an in
crease of nearly one third over 1918 OF
pieces of paper money of all kinds we
turned out 80 ,S5T. $40. The face value Of
our output of all securities during the
twelvemonth was nearly so 900 OOO. .OOO-
more than the total of any fifteen years
production prior IA the great war.
1t IS impossible to grasp the Significance
of such huge figures, of course. but can
give you one little illustration that will
help a bit. Consider those 73O. .S57. $40
pieces of papeI money. Imagine them laid
edge to edge and end to end on fiat
surface, like patchwork carpet. How mucb
space would they cover? If you will take
the trouble to figure it out. you will find
that they would carpet an area of four
and a quarter square miles,
Hasn't the idea been seriously enter
tanned of reducing the size of our naDer
money!
he scheme would have undenabe ad-
Vantages; and perhaps it may yet be carried
out. dollar bill now is a trfle over three
inches wide and slightly less than seven
and one-haIf inches long BY making it
SIX inches long and two and one half inches
wide 1t would be cut down about one third
mat is the size of the notes and cprtif-
Gates circulated in the Philippines, all of
which are printed here. and it is really
much better. If our paper money were of
thlS size, it would be much more cOnven-
lent to handle. 1t would fit the pocketbook
better. and might be carried fiat; or, with
one less fold. it would wear longer Re
qulring less material, it would be cheaDer
to make, and banks could store more of it
in a given space in their vaults" -
Then why don't you make it smaller?"
lGTNHE main reason why we did not carry
I out this clever idea was that the banks
strongly objected. They said that the small
er bills would not fit their cashiers pigeon
holes and drawer compartments. That was
a trifing matter, however, relatively speak
ing. The main disadvantage was that of
being obliged to deal with two sizes of
notes. Attention was called to the fact
that something like 10000 new plates would
have to be engraved for. the faces and backs
of the new notes. at the cost of about S14O
apiece; and that five years would be re-
quired perhaps for the making of these
plates. during all of which time there would
be the trouble and annoyance of handling
two sizes of every denomination of paper
currency.
Wouldn't such scheme save paper, or
doesn't the paper shortage affect you?"
''Yes, indeed; smaller notes would save n
great deal of paper; and the paper used
for our money is expensive. being made of
the best quality of linen rags All of it
is manufactured by a private concern at