Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, December 30, 1924, Page 10

Li By rder and An Th n ste ths nief hief in addli unde sat lig him. ras § ) thr s we r we ) scr Short Life But Mery One Says long Green Toles Stor ' Here's Autobio& aw ad pul. hardening engraved SES) in cyanide furnace BY DOLLAR BILL T'S @ short l!fo but a guy one! T started in as part cf a load of paper—and now I'm the left ear of a souvenir rabbit! Here's hoy I was mi at the Crane Mills, in Dalton, the Kovernment’s currency paper whore a de. I was just fn the raw then. No polisn or refine- ment. Just the same, I had the musings of an tn: fluential citizen. I wasn't any commen piece of paper—not by a Jong shot! I was made of specia! silk flbre—trick stuff, made by a closely guarded B@ecret process, The sheet of paper I in was big enouzh to mako four bills, and this sheet was put up ina package with $99 other sheets. Bvery other package of currency paper con- tains 1000 sheets. This 1000 count starts at the paper mill and is continued through the Bureau of. Printing and Engraving and into the treasur: If anybody counts wrong, everybody in the depart- ment where the error is made is held until the count is corrected. I didn't think I was so important until I reached the Printing and Engraving Bureau. They drove me, through tho street of Washimgton in a truc no fuss at all, As soon as I reached the bureau they put me in a steel safe behind a 20-ton steel door, I was guarded as carefully as finished cur- renc, While I was in my safe, some men made a plate to print me with. They never use the original plate for this. They use it to make replica plates, and print with them. I found this is the bureau's plan to keep itself from being a counterfeltcr. If anything should happen to the orig plate, they'd have to make another one. No matter how much this second plate was like the original, it wouldn’t be the origi- nal—and bills printed by it would be counterfeit! But if anything should happen to the replica they could eas e a new one. t PLAT GUARDED ‘And you think they aren't careful of these They guard them 24 hours a-day and lock them in a yault at night. If a counterfeiter got one, he could be a million+ @ire in a week! From the safe where they put me at first they @ent me to the printing room, where 625 employes made money faster than Rockefeller ever dreamed of. They make $18,000,000 a day! That's one even Henry Ford can’t laugh off, The smallest bills are $1; and tho Jargest are $10,000 In the printing room they printed me first on my ‘Then they sent me over to the tnspection re to be examined. Finding I was all O. K., they sent me back to the printing room and slapped another plate on my front. Lots of people think a bill is made of two pleces of paper stuck together, but they're wrong. When I was printed—it took about a month—I Was sent to the examining division, where I got another careful once over. All this time I was still in a sheet with three cther bills. If any one of these bills had been faulty the whole shect would have been thrown away. But we were all right, so they put us between tio pieces of carboard, ironed us with a mechant- cal roller, trimmed the rough edges and sent us to the numbering room to be stamped with our treasury numbers. After nfore checking and counting we were sent to the Division of Issue, in tho same bullding— and checked and counted again. ‘Then they wrapped us in a brown paper package and put us dn a van to be hauled to the Treasury Buildir On the way to. the treasury I felt proud. cere they took of us was flattering, Jesse Js The mes U | __ Trans CINL and all his boy ¢hums couldn't have broken into that van. Its sides were an inch thick and they had enough guards around to lick the army. I don't blame them for being careful, That van carries from $4000 to $4,000,000 each trip. WORTHLESS By the time I landed at the treasury, I thought I was important. Then I found I wasn’t worth @ jit! I had to be signed by both the treasury register and the treasurer of the United States before I counted for anything, I was signed with three other bills. They signed us in a bunch, using four pens hooked together on @ bar. Finally.we were packed again and put into a big vault where we marked time for two months waiting to get into circulation. There was $535,000,000 in that vault, I wouldn't advise anybody to try to get away with any of it. The treasury is guarded by 638 watchmen who patrol the building day and night, with a special detail always on hand for emer- signals are turned in every halt hour to the office of the captain of the watch, The cap- tain's office is in communjcation with the city police chief, with Fort Meyer, and with the Arse- nal, so police, cavalry and artillery could be called without del: In the money storage vault, every time employes ge of bills in, they ° put @ new pa took a pack: out. At last my turn came. I was taken to the cash room of the treasury, and went from there into the wide, wide world. EXCHANGED FOR OLD BILL ‘They sent me out in exchange for a dollar bill that came into the Treasury Redemption Divi- of L INCTICATN aphy .of Started as paper sion, where the old has-beens come when they are in their last stages, I was sorry for those ol dollars. Some had been in circulation for years and some a few weeks. But they were all dirty, frayed, and worn out. They came from banks and sub-treasurles throughout the country, But I didn't stay sorry for them very long. I was soon too sorry for myself. I was passed from hand to hand—and if you don’t think that doesn’t wear you out and make you dirty! Soon I was a has-been, too, and back I went— right to the Redemption Division, where all old dollars go. Some of the bills that came in with me weren't in such bad shape, so they were sent to the money laundry to be renovated. They have machines that cafry bills on endless belts between copper rollers immersed Jn soap-su(is. Then the bills are rinsed in clear water, dried on gas-heated drums, troned, and sent into circulation once more, clean and crisp. Other bills that came in elther burned or in shreds and patches were sent over to a corner of the Redemption Division, where an expert tries to identify and trace them. PIECES FRAGMENTS This expert has found. fragments of a $10 bill that had been chewed by swine; fragments of two $500 notes tHat had been thrown away by a Chica- go man before he committed sulcide; and the ‘ of $20 In bills which a woman had hidden in te and then set fire to by mistake, If three-fifths of any bill is still intact, It is re- deemed at its face value; if between three-fifths and two-fifths is left, it is redeemed at half-value; but any part less (han two-fifths can't be redeemed (Copyright, 1924, by NEA Servi > ‘— Cetin Sanit unless proof is presented that it was destroyed. Being too torn to be renovated and too good to be sent to the bill shred expert, F was turned over in a sealed package with some other has-beens to the receiving clerk, He handed the package to a counter, who gave him a receipt and unwrapped and checked us, The counter was a woman—all of them ere— and I'll say she knew her stuff. The bill right next to me was a counterfelt. I didn't know but she spotted it right away, She stamped it “counter- feit,” and It was sent over to the Secret Service Department for investigation. When I found out that these counters handle one million dollars @ day, I wasn’t so surprised at their skill, ‘That's lots of practice. PUNCHES HOLES When the counter came to me she put me ina packago with 99 other bills, then took us over to @ canceling machine and punctured four holes through tho bunch, Then she’ returned us to the clerk. The next day we were sent up to the cutting rooih. A great big knife sliced us in two! My upper half was sent to the register’s office. My lower half was sent to the office of the secre- tary of tho treasury, ‘These halves were counted separately. After by be the end of me. ike ft! carted to a building that cont ator is a huge sp’ two, ye u’d think that would fy parts were ns a mace: rical rect and fitted on the inside t knives. The knives revolve. acerator is ch with its own individ to one lock is held by the tre ce, Inc, No. 13) te ning water with 156 closely The lid of the, locks, ei by three The key asurer, to another by Souvenirs nade ofold bills A ear of rabbit. the secretary, and to the third by the comptroller of currency, Each day at 1 p, m, these three officials or their deputies, with a fourth ‘man designated by the secretary to represent the banks and the public, gather around the macerator, unlock the ld, and toss in the money that fs to be destroyed. The capacity of the macerator {s one ton, and about $1,000,000 fa destroyed in it every day. One day—June 27, 1894—it destroyed $151,000,000! fs CHOPPED After they dumped my parts into the macerator, they ldcked the ld, set the machinery In motion, and the knives did the rest. I stayed in there for four days, and when I got out I was a bunch of lquid pulp. I flowed out through a valve that the same com- mittee of four unlocked, was screened into a pit below, dried, and packed in @ bale and sent to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving—where I started from. Most of the pulp that came along with me was rolled into sheets of bookbinders’ board and sold for $40 a ton. There was a time when the govern- ment would have lost money letting it go for $400,000,000 a tont This didn't happen to me, They took me and a few more used-to-be bills, all of us being pulp together, and made us into souve- nirs—little pulp animals, hats, busts, and other curlos and nicknacks, So that's the end of my tale, I became the left ear of a pulp x they put on sale at the Printing and ngraying Bureau entrance. It took several thousand dollars to make that bunny—and he was bouglit bye tourist for 25 cents! Beads Was First Money ® pompous, pink-faced my with a gleaming shirt-tron ot diamonds moves majestically across a hotel lobby, some spectz will lean over to his companion tnd) remark: “Bet that guy has oodles of yi pum!” “Wampum"—meaning money, It's @ slang phrase today—tike suma, berries or dough—but in pois; of fact wampum DOES mew money, the first money America ey: knew. It was used by the Indians an! was called by other names, too. wampumpeag and plain peag. Wan pum consisted of beads and belt: One black bead was worth two whis ones. The white beads were made out of the ends of periwinkle shells, asi the black beads were made out of t) black part of a clam shell. They wes rubbed down and polished as articia of ornament and arranged in strip or belts as jewelry. eee rf bre first English colonists in America began to use wampu.i * for exchanges with the Indians and then among themselves. It was made a legal tender in Massachy. setts and by custom soon becane -the prevailing currency. The white man also proved his superiority by making counterfelt Wampum. A fathom or belt of wampum wa ™made up of 360 beads. For the In-4 dians it was perfect money; for the white man it became_e fluctuating, unsatisfactory currency. Soon efter the settlement of Mas- sachusetts Bay the colonists began to use what {is called a barter cur- rency. Musket bullets, for instance, were worth a farthing eplece. eee ‘STORY shows that the English government made no objection to the emigration of the Purtl- tans to New England except for the fact that they carried-money out pf the realm. Illustrative of the value of English currency among the early settlers are the following in- cldents: A married preacher was allowed 30 pounds @ year. A man who stole four baskets of corn from the Indians was fined five pounds for his crime. Carpenters, sawyers, joiners and bricklayers, whose services were in Great demand, were forbidden to take more than two shillings a day for their labor, A cow was worth 25 or 30 pounds. The years rolled by. Paper money sprang into being. Colonists’ cur- Tency passed through hundreds of early crises. And then came the Revolutionary War—the greatest crisis of them all. When the colonies went into the war, all of them made fssues of pa- Per money to meet the expenses of military’ preparations. The Cont! nental Congress, having no power to tax, begen to issue bills on the fait! of the “Continent. The first issue was for 300,000 Spanish dollars, redeemable in gold or silver in three years, Paper for $9,000,000 was issued before the erent * depreciation began. eee ELATIAH WEBSTER insisted on taxation, but a member of Congress indignantly asked why the’ people should be taxed when they could go to the printing office and i get & cart-load of money. In 1780 the bills had so deteriorat- : ed in value that they were worth two - cents on the dollar, The Bank « orth America was chartered with a capital of $400,000 December 31, 1781. The bank origi nated In a union of Philadelphia men formed in the preceding year to supply the army with rations. They were allowed to form the bani and to issue notes to buy the re quired articles. Another early crisis was Shay’s Rebellion in New England in 1785 and 1786. It was an Insurrection of debtors who were suffering from the collapse of the curréncy and the re turn to specie values. They clan ored for paper money. cee MERICAN currency started on a temporary upward trend with the organization of the first United States bank, chartered bs Congress in 1791. The bank's cap! tal was $10,000,000, to be pafd one fourth in cash and the rest in United States bonds. The charter was to run for 20 years and the bank issued ho bills smalier than 310. The first silver was actually colned in 1794 and the first gold in the next year. a ee