Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1954-01-31
By Hermon F. Schoden


For the better part Of 10 years.
James Rufus Lands had spent
all his working days in the cur
rency-making plant that is the
Bureau of Engraving and
Printing -.
Day after day. watching neat
piles of it being packaged. ham
ding it for a fleeting moment, a
fortune passing through his
hands every day =.
In a place where 50 billion was
rolling of the presses every year,
$50 a week of it eventually was
being channeled to Lands for
checking and carting the cur
rency from packaging room to
vault.
Still a young man Of 20. Lands
had built a solid reputation at
the plant, which fronts on
Fourteenth street and is backed
by the Tidal Basin. Except for
21a years out for the war in
Europe, he had worked at the
money-making concern since
1912.
Good NeighbOrs.
He and his wife of II years
were strikingly clean-cut. With
their sons, Wayne. 3. and Kurt
Monroe, 11a. they were welcome
neighbors in their $73-a-month
apartment at 1929 Fifty-second
avenue, Chapel Oaks, Md.
If he had any bad habits. the
worst ascribed to him was little
poker and numbers betting. But
who knows what devilment
seethes in a mans brain? Year
after year. exposed to all that
money. And the knowledge that,
once a year, the bureau, infused
with the spirit of Christmas, let
down its usually fool-proof Sc
curity guard.
For years Lands had OBJ
served the strange transforma-
ton Of the holidays. At other
times. the $500 employees were
required to take packages to
special booths before removing
them from the building. They
were opened and carefully ex-
amined.
During the Christmas holi-
days, with gift packages heavily
increasing the load. the tedious
checking was bypassed. Instead.
superintendents casually in
spected packages and affixed
stickers informing guards on the
gates they were approved for
removal.
Except for that Yuletide
quirk, all operations were pro-
crossing as usual on Wednesday,
December 80. The first-floor
packaging room where Lands
was loading money packages on
q cart was alive with supervi-
sors and with some of the
bureaus 149 guards. Every one
knew that, from the time the
notes left the presses until their
final disposition, they were
counted Is times. Nothing to
encourage q professional thief.
Knew About Dummies
But q man who had worked
there Q long time would know
about the dummy packages
stacks of plain paper done UP
to the exact dimensions Of the
packages Of real money. He
would know where the dummies
were kept. and he would know
they were not designated by
serial numbers. as were the
bona flde bills.
Such q man was Lands, and
the Secret Service says he admits
it. Agents say Lands admits
substituting two dummy pack
ages for two packages of fresh.
crisp $40 BILLS, 900 notes in all.
He did it somewhere between the
packaging room and vault No.
IL on the second floor. where he
wheeled q cart load of bills and
left it.
: All but 1000 of the bills, or
$4,000, were struggled from the
iron-barred, guard-packed main
building, setting of a chain of
events which engulfed five other
people in one Of the Govern
ment's record thefts. Paradox
cally. none of the accused has
anything more than a INSIDE
meanor against his previous
record.
How did Lands pull his sleight-
of-hand? At first he told in
vestigators he gave the money to
q visitor whom he named. The
name might as well have been
John Doe for all its authenticity.
The Secret Service also had in
formation Lands slipped the two
bulky packages into a false
pocket in the tail Of his coat.
Secret Service Secretive.
The coat never turned up, and
that conjecture was ruled out.
Now the Secret Service says it
knows how the $3.50 got out
Of the building, but it isn't talk
ing for fear of hampering forth
coming trials.
There is a hint Lands had
inside help not yet disclosed by
arrest and that one or more
Observation-Disclosures.