Evening star., 1932-11-13

subtreasury, our trucks were loaded with
gold at the rate of almost 81 ,00o 900
minute. About 68 trucks a day passed
out Of the alley, one every few minutes,
and the contents of each truck were
worth around $4,000 0O0."
Such elaborate precautions were, in
this case, certainly justified by the value
of the cargo; but almost the same i'm
pressive performance is often gone
through when the shiny red sides Of the
armored trucks do not conceal enough
negotiable cash to treat the crew to ice
cream SodaS.
uI REMEMBER one of our cars making
a trip" laughed Mr.. Rose, with
only 10 cents in actual money in it.
Sometimes the deposit that firm is
sending to the bank is all In checks. II
these checks were stolen, not a cent
could be realized on them by the thief
but their theft would cause considerable
delay, trouble and expense. You'll
laugh when tell you that well known
theater pays us to take its deposits to
the bank every morning and then,
little later, when the bank has had time
to verify the deposit slip, the theater
company pays us to 60 back to the
bank and fetch its bankboOk.
The exciting business Of protecting and
handling gold and other treasure is full
of similar surprises for the layman who
delves into it. A few Of these surprises
lurk within the walls of the Federal Re
serve Banks There are few things in
our democracy more awe-inspiring TO
run-of-the-m mine American than such .
serve Bank of Manhattan.
Under you, as you walk about the
bank, IS feet below sea level, lies treas
ure such as even Aladdin hardly
dreamed of. The outer wan Of the
banks gold room is made Of steel and
concrete 311 feet thick. and entered by
q 4-fo0t passageway cutting through
9-foot steel cylinder. In case OF danger,
secret alarms which can be turned ON
from almost any room in the building
would bring hundred armed guards
rushing to the spot, or even. IN case OF
necessity, 10 companies of Infantry from
Governors Island
Reserve bank officers have a private,
separate code for communicating with
each foreign bank with which the Re
serve deals. After a eablegram ordering
a gold shipment has been received and
decoded the vault department Is notified,
and just before the agreed sailing date
the gold bars are packed in small kegs
four or five bars to a keg-sealed, I'M
sured loaded in armored trucks and
stored away in the ships strong room
After he has learned of the elaborate
precautions that are gone through TO
protect gold, it comes as surprise to the
laymen to hear that banks and corpora
tions take the trouble to ship the yellow
metal back and forth, from one coun-
try to another, in order to take advan-
tage of fuctuating rates of exchange,
but earning what seems, in comparison,
very trifling profits. profit as high as
$1,000 on a 100000 shipment is rare,
and one as low as $3.50 not uncommon.
In the latter case, if the ship is delayed
a day or two by storms or any other
trouble, the profit is almost wiped out
by the loss of interest.
One might imagine that once a treas
ure had run the gauntlet of the streets
and reached bank it was reasonably
safe from bandits. Yet such is far from
being the case. AS a matter of fact, the
banks constitute one of the hottest sec
tors in the crime war, since enough gold
and specie is always stored in them to
make risk worth while to the robber.
However, this fact should not be inter
preted to mean that ones money. gold
or other valuables are safer in the home
stocking or the china teapot than in a
bank. Money lost to bandits by banks