Evening Star Newspaper, August 14, 1921, Page 53

Part 4—8 Pages Big Tas o BY JAMES A. BUCHANAN. UST what does the printed piece of paper we call money mean to you when you take it out of your bill fold> What does the stamp that you place on your letter bring to your mind? What does the bond that you place away for safe- keeping in your strong box mean? The latter, perhaps, brings to mind only one thought—that it represents a certain purchasing power. The stamp, subconsciously, tells of the pen- alty yow pay for the transportation of your letter or package. The bill you regard as’something with which to purchase a necessity or a luxury. All of these pieces of paper are worth- less unless the - or and seller have faith in the siwu.iity of the govern- ment which issues them. Unless you are a cashier or teller of a bank and have been warned to beware of coun- terfelts, you pay. but scant heed to these examples of the engraver's art, and you give but little if any thought to th agnificent effort that has been put into these little promises put out by the government. _ The bureau of engraving and print- ing designs. prints and distributes all the securities that are used in thms country. While Europeans have often that this man can say “No!" with a finality that leaves no room for argu- ment. You briefly outline the pur- pose of your visit. When you have finished your discourse iie pushes two or three buttons; an instant or two later in comes the head of this or that division, who is informed that the visitor will be brought to their part of the bureau by one of the guides a little later on. * ok % % AS money. stamps, bonds, etc, are all printed from plates that re- veal the beauty of the engravers' art, your first visit is to the engraving di- vision, the chief of which is George U. Rose, jr., one of the most efficient men in the government service today. Mr. Rose, who has been with the de- | partment for thirty-eight years, e tered the service as an apprentice | boy and worked his way up to the head of the division. It is from this division that the design for all forms ! of money in use botn in the United States and in its insular possessions |are designed and the plates made | | trom which the securities are printed. | Here, also, are designed and made the | plates for all stamps, bonds and notes. | The use of the word note should be | explained at this juncture—promises extending to a period of five years or more are called bonds, for a lesser accused us of being braggarts, we can say without egotism and without fear of contradiction that the bureau of engraving and_printing is the most completely equipped institution of its term the word note is employed. The | money such as you carry in your pocketbook comes under the classi- fication of bills. The highest denomi- nations run to ten thousand dollars, ' WASHINGTON, D. (., SUNDAY MORNIN y AUGUST 14, 1921. TRIP Throi;gh the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, “;here Bills, Bonds al;d Revenue and Postage Stamps Are Made. Thirteen Billion Postage Stamps Came From the Presses Last Year—Work of the Skilled Engravers—How Money Is Safeguarded'—Bureau Is the Largest and Most Complete Institution of Its Kind in the World. cut by hand on a plate of steel, which is then hardened and sent to the transfer room, where replicas are made under pressure. When ques- tioned as to where he secured the | subjects of many of the beautiful de- Smillie ! signs he has executed, Mr. sal “I get subjects from everywhere, from (e newspapers, from the works of V. Aderente, Walter Shirlaw, whose examples of art you have no doubt viewed at the Congressional Library; Fred Young, F. O. C. Dar- ley and from pictures of movie star: also from drawings of people I kno It is a pleasure to do this work, to note the harmony of lines. It is in- teresting to study the face. You feel it gives an index to character.” * % x x THE machines employed in the mak- ing of the plates after the master plate has been made respond to the lightest touch. It rppears that they realize the responsibility resting upon them, and as ‘one walks through the rdom where the engravers are busy at work he 1s impressed with the ear- nestness of the men. It is a tedious, eye-wrecking, nerve-racking vocation, but all these employes were at their Jjobs as if it was a pleasure. All Qesigns used for the backs of all securities are worked out by C, A. Huston and Mr. Rose. At night every plece of metal, each of which bears a number, is checked and put away for safe keeping. It is rechecked in the morning, so that a record can be had at an instant's notice as to where this or that piece of work is located. Mr. Rose has recommended that the cur- rency used in the Philippine Islande be made the same size as that we*use in the United States. The money in our insular possessions is of a smaller | size. Stamp collectors are most eager are fastened is carried along on endless chains, and as the plate leaves the prin- ter's hands it moves swiftly to the |right, where a young woman assistant places on its surface the money paper. The young women doing this work are models of accuracy and deftness, for if the paper is not placed in exactly the right position it will result in a spoiled sheet, and inasmuch as the printers are allowed only one sheet in a hundred for spoilage the young woman must ever be careful. If a number above one in a hundred is improperly printed, the printer is charged for that paper. After the worker has placed the paper on the plate it moves forward and the impression is automatically registered by the power press. As it emerges on H Famaus Artist First Saw Italian Master at Work When He Was Seven Years Old and at Last His 3 L%fe-rimed A{;bition to plete an store the Old Paintings anfiea is Being Realized. By WILL P. KENNEDY ULFILLING a boyhood ambition formed half a' century ago, THE LARGEST A ND FINKEST INSTITUTION OF \Decorations at the Capitol "fllfl: at the Smithsonian . Instifution. - He 1di &t work on his fa. s the other side the other young woman takes it from the plate, scans it quickly, places it in a rack and places over it a sheet of_drying paper. * k ok * THESE printers work eight hours a day and the amount of work turned out, that is the maximum, amounts to 4,500 printed sheets per day. The fact that the young woman is charged up with so many sheets of paper every morning must not be overlooked. There is a checking and counterchecking in each department. The bill after printed on one side is then taken to 'Moberly Restoring Brumidi! | for Cessation of Hostilities Under a Flag of Truce.” in the hall of the House of Representatives and a num- ber of committee rooms. When a boy of seven Moberly came from Frederick to Washington with his grandmother for a visit at the home of Toblas Woltz, modelmaker KIND IN constant { being | THE WORL a section of the building where it is dried for a period of twelve hours. It is then turned over to a number who separate the drying sheets from the paper on which one impression has been made. The bundles of money paper are then passed to another group of women who again count it. ‘When this operation has been re- peated twenty-five times the package of partly prepared bills, numbering 100, has'a little slip of brown paper placed on it. The main examining jon is un- der the supervision of Misses Beall and Sheehann. Here the money is examined for imperfections and the wrinkles are taken out of the paper by pressure of 5,000 pounds to the square inch. Here we find young women operating machines that cut off all superfluous paper. This pa- per, after being examined. is sent to the macerating machines after having of women with extremely deft fingers | been thoroughly checked and inspect- | ly used entirely for this purpose, This condition necessitated the de- velopment of some new method of making the plates. When electro- lytic methods of reproducing them were first investigated it was found that, although &ceurate reproductions could thus be secured, plates which were similar to the ordinary eleotro- types, or even plates consisting en- tirely of electro-deposited copper did not possess sufficient strength to withstand the pressures used in plate printing. While conducting experimentg in this_connection George U. Rose, jr.. chief of the engraving division of the bureau, discovered that by the depo- sition of alternate layers of nickel and copper it was possible to produce plates having the strength necessary | for the above purpose. This process of depositing alternate layers of cop- per and nickel, which has been pat- ented Ly Mr. Rose, is the method now | used. | The more rigid requirements of piates to be used in “plate” or “in- taglio” printing arise from the fact that in- this prociss the designs | | (which are all below the plane sur- | face of the plate) are filled with ink, | and in order to cause the b | pick up this imk considerable is_required. On the other hand. in | using ordinary printing plates (upon which the characters are in relief) the lightest posible pressure is used be- | tween the paper and the type. Because of the greater pressure required in | using engraved plates, there is a tendency for these plates to curve in use unless they are sufficlently rigid to retain their form. Amother spe- clal requimement for plate printing i mous decorative paintings in the Capi- tol, “and I felt surging through me resolve to come here and work, t0o, he says. Quaint old Georgetown, too, |strongly appealed to the youth away back tn 1872. “After seeing the great master Brumidi at work, I visited Georgetown,” he continued, “and shall | mever forgét the wonderful bridge spanning the river there. I remember that I saw cana] boats crossing the river through the bridge to Virginia {ed and is reduced to pulp. It sells jfor $40 a ton. This pulp is used for }, king souvenirs and novelties by private companies. You then go tg the department pre- | sided over by E."A. Eaulsir, and it Is there that the money is made ready for distribution by the Treasury De- partment. You inspect the machines that will complete the wari:for there yet remains 1o be fi’""‘ on the bill: surface the seal which bears the fol. tlowing (nscriptfon: “Thesauri Ameri- cae Septentrionalis Sigillum, the franclation of which is.*The. Seal of the Treasury of North America.” The |inurn’ntion is not technically correct. {1t should be the Treasury of the Unit- jed States. There must also be placed | the serial number and other cabalis- |tic signs which are ured to denote { certain shings the nature of which is janother government secret. { The sheets have come to the ma- jrhine witt the impressions of four {days to run from end to end k-of Printing Cash in Uncle Sam’s Busy Money Factory called the first division of the na- tional currency bureau. This was shortly changed to the bureau of en- graving and printing. The first chief of the bureau started work with one male and four female assistants. The bureau in_ March, 1921, had on its pay roll 7.369 employes; six or seven hundred of these have been dropped since that date. The actual work of engraving begen November 20, 1862, with two engravers and one trans- ferer. They worked upon the plates of the third and fourth series of the five-twenty coupon bonds and frac- tional currency. The last work taken over from private contractors was the printing of postage stamps in 1894, For the fiscal year ending June 30. 21, the bureau delivered a total of 11,759 sheets, having a face |value 'of about twenty-seven und three-quarter billions of dollars. At the time written the daily output is 0 notes, having a face value of $1%000.000. 1f these notes were laid out flat they would cover an area of 131 acres. and if placed end to end would extend for 388 milex. Computed on the yearly basis, the result is about on notes, with a muney value proximately five and one-half billions of dollars. The billion notes placed end to end would make a strip 118.370 miles long, reaching four and three- quarter times around the earth at the equator, or about one-half the distance to the moon: it would take an express train, averaging foriy miles an hour, day and might J23 v strip; it would make a belt ten feet to learn of any new issue of stamps | £ iond their requests for information are, ! Charles E. Mober.y has been 'lolj;llllll quite mlld\‘,}' Very dumetons commissioned by Congress to|ing beneath.” aving witnessed the processes | Y _ s . ; resan ok uned InE preparing the plates from | decorate.the walls of the House end| Asa boy of twelve he began potking from Georgetown, the vehicles and!pills and as th S 4 i are fed into this ag- pedestrians above and the river flow- | gragation of heels. cams. plungers, {ratchets and other devices they are; picked un as If by human hands. car- ELIOT WADSWORTH, ASSISTANT kind in the world and that the money printed there is the best produced by any nation on earth. M ok x WHILE the French money is artis- tic, more ‘especially the 100- franc note, it is more easily counter- feited than United States bills. The English money is not capable of withstanding hard usage and is also much easier in the matter of fraudu- lent reproductions. It is quite safe to assume that inside of the next few years Europe will adopt the methods of making money now em- ployed by our government. Down in the lower part of the Mall, just be- yond the shadow of the Washington Monument, is a building which was designed with the idea of placing no obstacles in the way of those who work for this branch of the Treas- ury Department. Projecting from the rear of an oblong structure are numerous wings, all so arranged that the workers within are provided with adequate light and air. The sides of the wings are largely composed of glass panels, so that every ray of light may be utilized, because it is desired to take advantage of every minute of sunlight; and while the artificial lighting system, consisting of numerous batteries of lights over which a peculiar kind of glass.has been placed, is good, there is a really nothing that can compare with the rays of old Sol. The main entrance to the building is from the rear or 14th street side and is hundreds of yards or more from the street. A little sentry box stands at the left, a watchman in- quires as to your business. At the main entrance you are again stopped and quizzed. Then you are passed on to the big reception hallway, where another watchman quizzes you. You are then permitted to state your busi- ness to the captain of the watch. A dozen or more formidable rifies are in a rack on the wall. If your busi- ness is with James L. Wilmeth, di- rector of the bureau, you are directed to go to room 116, where a young woman secretary puts you through the final third degree. Having demon- strated to this firm but courteous young person that your intentions are reasonably honest, you are es- corted in to meet the man who di- rects the everyday destiny of the bureau. Director Wilmeth’s office is like everything else in the bureau. It is a shining example of cleanliness and system. The .director sits at a big flat-top desk on which are #wo ex- tension telephores and a score or more of push buttons, and while there are several easy chairs in the room you somehow feel that you can’t take up any more of his time than is necessary. When you ran the gamut of watchmen and on the way to_the director's office you felt that 2 hundred eyes were upon you. SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY. gold currency, hundred-thousand-dol- lar bonds and certificates of indebted- ness of the same amount. Contrary to the general belief, every new issue of bills or bonds is not a complete new work of the engraver: Portions of the designs end other parts are taken from the engraving stock on hand. The reason for this is that the portrait and other fine work which is shown on the face and back of our securities would require the services of engravers from periods of from three weeks to six months. This extreme care as well as artistic achiemement has largely been the means of making our money the hard- est in the world to counterfeit. Take, for instance. the engravings of Wash- ington, McKinley, Cleveland and other distinguished citizens whose portraits appear; take also the scroll-work and other ' decorations, these - “master- plates” are kept in stock; borders. seals, etc., of other issues, may form part of a new issue. This is truly an economy of effort and time. When a new serfes of money or bonds is required steel rolls are made on which is reproduced the desired portion. These, in. turn, are used upen softer steel plates and by this combination of parts a new series comes into being. The plates are then ready to be placed in their bath of cyanide of potassium and are heat- ed to sixteen hundred and thirty de- grees, the smaller plates enjoying a three-minute bath, the larger ones staying in for four minutes. this they are dipped and carried away to be treated for rcquisite hardness and cleaned from any trace of for- eign matter by a treatment of acids. There is never any printing done from the original plate. The plates from.| which stamps are printed are so care- fully rolled that the two semi-circles of metal are perfectly joined so that | when used a continuous imprint is secured, an ingenious improvement consisting_of the beveling of these rolls 8o that they will not warp. The impressions taken from these run from thirty thousand to three hun- dred thousand per plate. Mr. Rose is the inventor of an elec- trolytic process which has in many ways revolutionized- the industry. On all _government _ securities facsimiles of the proper officials are part of the plate. In some of the smaller banks the signatures needed are written in by hand, but in larger institutions the bills, after being received by these private institutions, are turned over to some banknote company and the signatures printed thereon. Up un- til the latter part of the sixties, when Gen. Spinner was Secretary of the Treasury, signatures were written in by the Secretary of the Treasury, but this plan was abandoned beeause it became a physical impossibility. for the Secretary of the Treasury to write his signature on all the bills that were printed by the government. ‘When_original portraits or désigns are desired word is sent to that-mas- ter artist, G. F. C. Smillie, wid has been with the department for twenty- I 1 l i | After | | wet cloths. which money, bonds stamps, etc. are printed. the next step is to scru- tinize the paper used. In the lower floor of the building is the office of the custodian of paper, and it is in this office that F. G. Collins sits day after day handing out paper to the bureau. This division is a part of the Treasury proper and is directly under the supervision of the Secre- tary of the Treasury. In former days the paper, as needed, was trucked from the Treasury Department, but it is now housed in the same build- ing erected for the bureau in order to save time and confusion. As a matter of convenience, from now on we will simply use the phrase “money paper.’ All_money paper must go through this division, and when you take into consideration that the averagé is over a million four hun- dred thousand sheets of paper a day, you can gather some idea of the im- nense quantities used annually. On oach sheet is printed four to eight bills of different denominations while the paper used for postage and in- ternal revenue stamps contains many more engravings. which money and bonds are printed has been made by the same firm at their factory in the Berkshire hills since 1879. The paper used for print- ing of postage #nd internal revenue stamps is made in the middle west. The money and bond paper is manu- factured under the supervision of government agents and the buildings are under guard day and night. The head of this division knows what be- comes of every sheet of paper and each one must be accounted for. If in the printing, or any other proc- esses employed, a sheet is spolled, it in returned to the division head, a check off is made and it is turned over to the destruction committee. Paper for the one-dollar bills must be used for one-dollar bills only. * k ok ok SO carefully is the paper guarded and so to get even a tiny bit as a souvenir. The different sizes of paper are sent to Washington by express and under heavy guard. Now and then there will be sheets spoiled, and this faulty money has numerous holes punched in it ‘until it resembles porous pias- ters.. It then-goes through a series of countings until there 1y no chance for a single wheet going astray. . Paper that is received from the mills is placed in vaults to age and season. There must always be a stock of paper on haud to meet any demand. T ‘When the paper is removed it is taken to a section of the building where it is “dampened down,” in order that it may take the ink better and for other rea- sons_the nature of which is a govern- ment secret. 'This department of the bureau is presided over by Messrs. Roche and Larner. The paper is placed in autotitatic feeders which carry it through 3 bath of filtered water which runs in and out continuously, Another process |emp‘lwed is that of ‘terlaying. which consists of sheets being placed between ‘The dampening processes, both frent and back, occupy a period of three or four days. The paper is then removed to humidors and is ready to be nt to the printers. After one side has been printed this wetting down process ie ‘repeated, s0 that the bill may be in perfect shape to take the second im- pression. The men who print the money, or as they are technically known, the plate printers, work with young woman assistants. The man prepares _the The paper from | intense are the employes . iof this section that it is impossible s absolute- | | of the Capitol building, which the death of the great Brumidi left un- finished. Moberly has spent a half century of yearning and of constant faithfulness to his determination, reached at the age of seven when he first saw Brumidi at work, to con- tinue the work of that Italian genius who introduced the first real fresco work in thiscountry. Mr. Moberly has a studio in the attic MASTER USED. of the Capitdl building, hidden away from the tourists and lion-hunters, for he has always shunned notoriety. ‘But he has-worked with the greatest ar- tists of his day on the most beautl- fully decorated building in this most { beautiful city in the world, notabl i the Congressiongl Library. For more )than a quarter of a-century he has been . working and worshinlnf at’ the shrink of Brumidi in the €apitol. Constantino Brumidi was a captain of the Papal guards and-commissioned by Pope Pius IX to restore the Loggia of Raphael in the Vatican. . He came to this country in 1852 when the Cap- itol was being built and conceived the purpose that the national - building should have a superior style of déco- ration in real fresco like the palaces of Augustus and Nero, the baths of Titus and Livia in Rome and the ad- mired relics of the paintings of Her- culaneum and Pompeii. The commit- tee room now occupied by the -House committee on post offices. and post roads, then occupied by the -commit- tee on agriculture, was . painted. by Brumidi for Congress as u-sample of his proposed scheme of* decorations. This was done in 1855 and ‘is the first specimen of real fresco introduced in America.” *x 1 CHARLES E. MOBERLY AT WORK ON THE BRUMIDI DECORATIONS AT THE CAPITOL, USING THE SAME BRUSHES THE OLD 1 and decorator. When sixteen vears o.d he left school and devoted his entire time to learning all phases of the paint- er's trade as well as art. Between twenty-one and twenty-two he left home. His first job was in the State, War man, decorating the office of the Secre- tary of State. This was thirty-five years ago. A short time after completing the State, War and Navy job Moberly met R. D. Bogart, who represented the ITALIAN then Chicago Herald. It‘'so happened that "about that time the artist who trate an article he was Wwriting on “The Assassinatfon of President Lin~ coln.” as well-as some lesser. comi- missions. Not long afterward Ho- gart moved back to. Chicago, but be- fore going -endeavored to persusde Moberly to give up his work herg take up-newspaper illustrating. ‘“That was the’ first and only illustrating I have - done,” “explained Mr. Moberly. “The .offer ‘was éxéeptionally good, t 1'declined because I could not for- my Tesolve to work at the Capitok”. TER = THE: Star photographer, took a pie- ture- recently of Mr. Moberly st work, on the great seal for the state of ‘Oklahoma which is be placed in the ceiling " of “the House chamber. ‘When that picture was published the artist recelved many letters {rom ad- mirers of his work, and among thém was one from Mrs. Mamie Wallers of East Qrange. N. J., who wrote ‘that she still cherishes a_painting of & white dove that he made for her,.and recalled that he used to play some or- iginal ‘compositions on the piano ith-expression.” This young wom- and Navy building with Joseph Rake- | ried on through the body of the ma- chine, numbered. cut. registered and stacked with a rapidity that reminds one of the manipulation of a highly { competent magician. | Again the notes are examined and {checked and again each bill is exam- ined separately. On the face of some of the bills you will find certain marks that indicate the federal reserve bank for which the money has been print- ed, 50 that each one of the twelve fed- eral reserve banks can tell in an in- stant if the federal bank note that comes into its possession is one that has been printed for it or not. Oc- casionally you will pick up a piece of paper money and see on its surface a star, but you don't find many of them in circulation. Thdse bearing on their surface a star are used to replace bills that are not. even at this stage, con- sidered to be perfect, 50 a number of substitute bills. each carefully guard- ed and checked, are provided to take the place of the ones in which imper- fections have been found. and if at some time whem you visit the bureau and become possessed with the idea that“yau are going to slip anything over on any of the examiners, who scrutinize the money or you are going to get away with something while visiting Mr. Baulsir's section, you had better change your mind. * k¥ % FTER the final examination the money is then assembled in pack- ages of four thousand bills, irrespec- tive of what denomination they may be, and is taken by the young women to men who operate compressing ma- chines which reduce the volume of money to desired proportions and at the same time place around the pack- age stout cord rétainers. Money thus bound is placed in packages carefully sealed and numbered and sent either to the Treasury or the federal reserve banks. The money destined to be used in the Philippines is packed in wooden boxes lined with tin and her- metically sealed. This precaution is taken to protect against insects or damage from other causes. In a number of the rooms in which the different processes of making the money are being carried on are run- \ways elevated about ten or twelve feet above the workers so that visi- ors may have an opportunity of see- ing how their mioney-is made. - The ‘employes, 'both men and ‘Women, do.not-leave the bullding at their lunch hour. They have a lunch- room run on . the co-operative plan, and a meal, consisting -of soup, & meat, vegetables, tea or coffee and a dessert, is served for 25 cents. There are two roof gardens on the building, ‘where & breath of fresh air from the surrounding parks or river may be btained. The ‘employes” eat in relays from !11 to 1. Rest rooms. are pro- vided and a _doctor, with trained nurses, constantly in attendance. In- juriés of a major character are rare, because all possible care has been taken to safeguard the worker. The electroiytic reproduction of engraved printing plates is another triumph for America. It demonstrates that our citizens can always be relied upon- to meet an emergency, and, while the technical description of the process may be a trifie long, it is most interesting. During the past few years the printing requirements of the bureau of engraving and printing have in- is' that the surface shall have the greatest possible resistance to abra- sion, since after each impression the plate is inked, rubbed with a me- chanical wiper and polished by hand, all of which operations exert more wear upon the plate than does the actual printing process. * Kk x * FOR the accurate reproduction of engraved printing plates it was found to be most satisfactory to first prepare by electrodeposition a metal mold- or negative of the original plate, rather than to attempt to take an impression in lead or wax as in the oréinary electrotyping process, Since upon this metal mold the designs are in relief, . this plate is commonly designated as an “alto” One advan- tage. of producigg-the trodeposition 18 haT nge in dimensions such- as might possibly occur in wax or lead molding is avoid- ed. For the production of such an alto from a steel plate the latter is first thoroughly cleaned and is then treat- ed In order to produce a film that will . permit subsequent separation. Nickel is then deposited directly upon this surface, after which alternate layers of oopper and nickel are de- posited till any desired thickness_is secured, which thickness is merely sufficient to insure reasonable rigidity ‘when handling the alto in subsequent cperations. This also. then serves as a form upon which to deposit the actual printing plate known as the “basso,” which is an exact duplicate of the original plate. After separation from the altos, the plates are machined by means of ap- propriate équipment to a thickness of 0.25” and to the desired size. Plates repared in this way are now being used successfully for the printing of securities and are yielding impres- sions fully equal to those prepared from steel plates. Experience has proved that about 40,000 impressions can be taken from a plate. It is be- leved, -however. that by further im- provéments and by increased experi- ence in-the methods of using such plates this service may in time be ap- preciably increased. ‘The invention of this method and its adoption by the government has made it possible for the bureau to turn out. & sufficient number of print- ing- plates to meet all requirements now and . in the future. At the beginning of. the civil war it was realized that a paper currency. was necessary, and on-July 17, 1861, Congress passed an act authorizing the Secretary of -the Treasury to issue such proportions ‘of ‘thé loan of $250,000,600 therein- provided for in Treasury notes as he might’ déem it advisable. It was this authority that brought into being the legal tender. ‘The notes or bills were called green: backs, and this nickname was.in use for years. These bills were negraves and printed by bank note companies, the signing of them was done by clerks, but the many different styles of penmanship lessened the security inst counterfeiting and the han- by etec- | EDMONSTIN. PIRECTOR JAMES L. WILMETH OF THE BUREAU OF ENGRAVING AND PRINTIN wide, reaching ffom New York to San Erancisco: these notes laid out flat on top of each other would reach 2 height of seventy-nine miles, or 750 times the height of the Wash ington Monument. To count this money would regire the services of | 100 persons one year, or one person 100 years, counting eight hours a day |every day in the vear. except Sun- ‘dl)‘.\L . <5 * % % % | FFROM April, 1917, until the end of | the fiscal year, 1 . one hundred and eighty-six million bonds, having a face value of approximately fifty- four billion dollars, were printed. These bonds 1ald out flat would cover 1,370 acres. The number of perfect postage stamps delivered during the {year 1920 was: 13,354,943.861. Four thousand one hundred and seventy- five spruce thees were ground to a pulp to make this paper. the weight of which was 1,485,000 pounds. Sixty- five acres of woodland were cleared, and had the paper been used for an other purpose it would have made an edition of 4.150.000 twenty-page Iae\'en-column newspapers. The tap- joca starch used for making gum on the back of the stamps would make !a pudding weighing 300,000 pounds. If the stamps were placed in a single strip it would extend for a distance of two hundred thousand miles The operation of the bureau is un- der the general direction of the Sec- retary of Treasury. It is under the more direct charge of Eliot Wads- worth, assistant secretary of Treas- ury. { The burému is under the personal supervision of the director of bureau of engraving and printing, James L. Wilmeth, who was born in Mc) county, Tenn. His father was a2 planter and a gentleman of the old school, beloved by all who knew him. During Mr. Wilmeth’s boyhood he moved with his father to Arkansas. where, he attended the common schools, academy and high school. and later worked his way through college. He has been an employe of the Treasury Department for twenty- five years, starting in as a money order assorter in the office of the auditor of the Post Office Department. Unlike many young men, he paid but little attention to the frivolous side of life, employing the night hours by studying law at the National Law School, graduating with the degree of B. L. Upon his graduation he became law clerk in the office of the con- troller of the Treasury, and during the administration of Secretary Franklin MacVeagh was made chief clerk of the department. Mr. Wil- meth was the Treasury representa- tive and was the custodian of the funds sent to Europe for the relief of American citizens who were abroad at the beginning of the war, and who were unable to return home. In De- |cember, 1917, he” was made director of the bureau of engraving and print- ing and directed the work of pro- ducing all the securities issued by T e oSS e e S Bty e St o i midi; in the tol, are | g northwes wa - oration of ‘the Presideatis- sootpy.4he} oo Moberly went to work on the canopy of the doine (R-the-robundm that -most’ carefully ‘,:g. % OBl | portion of.the historioal-triese. fa; the 1 work of art he- “Cornwallis-Sues - dling of notes in this manner was most expensive. The printing of the signatures in facsimile from en- Sh aq’u.rm.:z'%-m" to'ds tisown 3 own ‘work - August 39, 1362 T haviag “chargs of th creased greatly, owing to the large issues of bonds and other.securities and to'the<increased demand for cur- rency.. In cnsequence it found difficult to- the req: ber .of . plates by. transfer process, which but when you are greeted by Mr. ‘Wilmetb that feeling of being watch- ed leaves you. He receives you with the courtesy in vogue years ago, and "at once places you at ease, but if you want to know any of the things that you shouldn't know, you find seven years. Mr. Smillle is today recognized as the best portrait—en- graver in the world, and um‘ him at work you feel that y in the presence of a genlus _Whose work will stand as .an everlasting monument. * His delicate lines' are the government during the period of the war. The bureau during that period worked three shifts of eight hours each, and Mr. Wilmeth was at his large .desk a working day and plate as it comes from the rollers. This is done by the use of his hands. At one #idé is & large block of & chalky nature ‘which enables him to give the ERmam e e requisite amoun on plate. The bed on which these: plates ) rotunda, & -