Show UNCLE SAMS MONEY MILL washington D C september 26 2893 the present financial troubles have made the bureau of engraving and printing the liveliest department of of the united states government this is uncle sams great money mill it is here that all the new national bank notes are being turned out and green hacks backs are now made by the million at no time in our history have the employed emp loyes been worked so hard their hours have been increased and one 12 hundred undred extra hands have been added in order to hurry on the work on one day during the month of september 1 two million dollars worth of notes were turned out in the treasury department and on the lath of august last nearly three hundred thousand plate impressions were made on bank notes with aland presses on august irth three hundred and twenty thousand thoi asand plate impressions were made which is the highest number ever made in the bureau here or in any other bureau on the face of the earth in twenty one days twenty seven million dollars worth of notes were made and the average is is now more than a million dollars a day mr johnson the chief of the bureau emphatically states that he can print all the money the country can vise use if he has only the authority of congress and the treasury to back him and he has the great factory so organ aimed that its capacity is practically unlimited the money is turned out in sheets with four notes on each sheet and its amount is determined by the of the e bills it takes no more time to print four one thousand dollar notes than four one dollar notes and the capacity of the bureau burea ls is measured by sheets in ordinary times it has turned out only six esix to eight thousand sheets daily it it now running out from fifty to sixty thousand sheets every day and bank motes a are being made more quickly now than ever before the usual time required reau ired to make a bank note is twenty one days this under the present cc has been reduced to fourteen days laya and the nerves of the engravers the muscles of the printers orin are and ana trained strained to the utmost the increase of the work in the bureau began about thi the first ot of july and went on steadily during that mouth month august augu st and september ber and today the hum of the machinery nia tep chinery in i in the bureau is like that of factory and its machines are a rattling great great I 1 in g away with such a noise that IWO almost shake the washington monument which stands near them MILLIONS IN NATIONAL BANK NOTES the vast increase of work has come from fim the demand for money from the national banks of the country they hive been depositing more bonds in order to increase their circulation and it has been found that a large number of them have been holding bonds upon which they have not demanded the currency new orders for paper have had bad to be sent to dalton mass in order to supply the demands and the great steel van which carries the bank notes over to the treasury has been making several trips daily not long 0 ago this van delivered t to secretary carlisle in one day it required two trips and it took at L ach lach trip I 1 saw this big money at the door of the department as I 1 came up to it today it is hauled by two horses and it is driven from the treasury to the bureau with four guards two of which hang on the behind and the other two sit with the driver it is securely sealed and locked before it leaves the bureau but it drives its way unostentatiously with its millions over the cobble stones and slips along across the asphalt to the treasury it looks as though it would be easy to ro roll it and its guards carry only revolvers nothing of the kind has however been attempted and that old steel wagon will go on carrying millions for generations to come HOW UNCLE SAM GUARDS HIS PAPER MILLIONS I 1 walked through the bureau of engraving and printing this afternoon and watched the fifteen hundred clerks working away making these untold sums of oney money I 1 asked their wages and I 1 was told that they range from a little over a dollar a day up to several thousand dollars a year it seemed strange to me that they could resist the temptation and I 1 inquired into the safeguards which uncle sam has placed about the money it seemed so easy to slip away with a 1000 note or to take home one of these steel plates and print enough to last you a life time my investigation however showed me that no misers hoard has ever been guarded as is the money of uncle sams this bureau must cover several acres it contains three stories aal a basement and it is packed full of machinery and engraving material every bit of this material has to be accounted for every night before any one can leave the building in the corridor as I 1 went in I 1 saw a metal plate set in a frame in the wall it looked much like the electric button plate at a hotel office it contained twelve round holes hole sand and each hole was labeled with the name of the departments of the bureau there was no pins or buttons in the holes but I 1 found that they all had to be filled before any one could leave the department As soon as the inventory has been taken of the work i i or of a department at the close 01 me day aay and all accounts are found to be correct the khe superintendent of that department marches down and puts a pin with a button on an the end into the hole marked with his division As he does so an electric gong rings and the watchman permits the men of bf the division to po go out all of the holes have to be filled before the building is emptied and it a sheet of paper a bank note or a scrap of anything important is lost the em aloyes are all kept until it is found the hands in this factory are prisoners during the day the most of them work inside of steel cages and the notes are printed on the machine surrounded by a great network of steel fence BLANK PAPER WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN DIAMONDS the paper used in this big money factory is worth its weight in diamonds at least if it is lost it may cost the bureau or the clerks more than its weight in diamonds to supply its loss every sheet of it which is made is registered at the mill at dalton massachusetts chu and the paper mill cant make a sheet which must not be accounted for to the government the paper is sent from the mills to the treasury and it is issued by the treasury department from day to day to the bureau ot of engal engraving and printing it is carried over in in a in the big steel wagon which hauls back the money and as soon as it is sent from the treasury it represents so much money if for instance a thousand sheets are sent over in hundred dollar bills these thousand sheets represent as these are four bills to each sheet if in in the printing of these sheets one sheet should happen to be lost the clerk who lost it would have to pay for it if the denomination oi of the sheet was iceo instead of loo he would be liable to the extent of and he or the bureau would have to make up the loss I 1 took a look at a lot ot of this paper yesterday it was piled away in in great stacks much of it being dampened for the presses it is white and it comes to the department in sheets just large enough for the printing of tour four bank notes two sheets pasted sted together wo would u ld be the size of a ladys hanker chief and two lines of silk thread run down one side ot of the sheet so as to make them go on the face of every note I 1 handled some of this paper it is crisp and strong and I 1 would have liked to have carried away a sample but when I 1 suggested it the superintendent looked at me with horror and I 1 found that all defective sheets have to be accounted for as well as the good ones and that such sheets are canceled by holes punched through them and they are sent back to the treasury with the good money each one of these sheets is counted about forty times before it is turned from white paper into greenback dollars every man who puts his finger on a sheet has in some way to leave a register of it and if a printer spoils a sheet in printing he is obliged to send it in the initials of the printers finters are on the plates they use anait and it would be a great deal easier to carry off a half dozen bags of silver from the steel vaults of the treasury than to crib one of these sheets of blank paper STEEL WORTH MORE THAN GOLD it is the same with the steel plates from which the money is is engraved they are worth more than their weight in gold and are more carefully guarded guarara than the crown jewels in the tower of london in one department of the bureau there are four great vaults before which guards always sit the chief of these gaulds gets 2500 2500 a year and he e is is responsible for the dies and plates in in his charge he has them locked away in these vaults in such order that he can put his hands on them at any aay MO moment ment the vaults are entered b by ia steel doors and the combinations W which they are closed are three for each door and only one of these is a time lock the combination locks are each known to one man who keeps the secret to himself but writes out a duplicate and sends it in a sealed envelope to secretary carlisle if he should die suddenly the envelope would have to be opened before the combination could 0 be known each bank note plate has a separate pigeon hole in these vaults it is only issued on order and the plate printers when thy th y arrive in the morning have to give a check like a trunk check for the plate the ink and even the rags which they use for ws wiping ifor ing the plate they have to receipt tor every bit of paper they get and it is impossible for them to get away with any of the dies plates or paper of the bareau there ard about diorent pieces of steel in the vault these weigh about fifty tons and constitute the most valuable steel in existence HOW BANK NOTES ARK ARE MADE these fifty thousand different pieces of steel represent the work of many lives they are covered of the finest of engravings and a peck of human yes eyes have been ruined in their production there is no finer engraving in the fored world than on our bank notes and there is is none so ruinous to the eyesight eye sight the engravers work in little cubby holes under the windows and there is a long room herb here filled with engravers the entire face and back of a note is never engraved by the same man one engraver makes the fancy letters on a bill bilt another makes a specialty of portraits and another has some other particular part of the work which he can do better that any one else he does his work on a of soft steel when it is done it is hardened and is transferred to a soft steel roll about as big around as a schooner beer glass this roll of steel is hardened and its impression is rolled off on the steel plate from which the nf ante te is to be printed every plate has on it the face or back of four notes and it takes just as much trouble to engrave a one dollar bill as it does a thousand dollar bill engravers en ravers get from 25 to roo a week ant and the highest priced men are those who work on portraits portraits or traits they make the engraving for or revenue stamps and postal cards as well as for bank notes and their work has to be perfect in order to pass just now they are engraving a diploma to be given out to the exhibitors of the worlds fair exposition at chicago this will cost thousands of dollars and is a wonderfully fine piece of beautiful workman ship PRINTING FOR THE NATIONAL BANKS the work being done on the national bank notes at the present time is more like ordinary printing than the fine work of the bureau all national bank notes have their characters and sea lipton seals put on by the surface process and there are a dozen or more hoe presses which are working away finishing finis finishing hinr the engraved notes for the national band the national bank note plates are all the same but the bureau has had to make new plates for some of the banks and the engravers and the plate printers have been turning out the original notes for this printing at lightning light nin g speed peed the printing of the notes sitf with the e exception of this surface printing is all hand work inside a great arpa steel fence surrounding a room covering about half an acre there are hundreds aundre 9 of hand presses each of which is worked by a printer and his assistant the printers are of all ages and their assistants are all women I 1 I 1 noticed that some of the women were colored and not a few of them are as black as the ace of spades the printers are paid so much and they have to hire their own assistants they are not allowed to choose their assistants but they have to take the women which the department gives them the press has to be inked and wiped off for every imp impre aBion and the printers work away with their sleeves rolled up to their elbows and their arms covered with green ink the press which prints the greenbacks green backs and other money looks like a four armed windmill and it consists of two tivo metal rollers between which there is a slab of iron running on four guide wheels the printer first puts his plate on a small gas stove rolls ink over its surface with a roller and then rubs the surplus of the ink off on with his hand and and rag he polishes the plate with whiting until it shines like a mirror and takes all the ink off but that in the engraved line he now places the plate on the press the paper is put on it and by a hard pull of the windmill like arms of the press the impression is made this prints only part of a bill and all bills have to go D through the presses several times is As soon as the banknotes bank notes are finished they are taken to the drying dr ing room and left there over night this this room is heated by steam to degoeas above zero and in the morning the sheets are thoroughly dry and as crisp as crackers in the morning they are carefully examined for imperfections and the least fault in a sheet causes it to be thrown aside if a smudge of ink has gotten unon upon it or it if there is the slightest mistake in the printing it cannot be used and the printer who caused the trouble has a certain amount deducted from his wages lor for every sheet so injured the sheets are now polished by being put between mill boards and a pressure of pounds to the square inch is placed upon them they are then numbered by automatic machines and are finally put up in packages of 1000 notes each with ten slips of paper between each notes WOMEN WHO HANDLE FORTUNES the women who handle the money are the most expert counters in the world their fingers go like lightning they do not move their lips nor lift their eyes but they rattle of the bill at the rate of a hundred a minute they have to be women of nerve and if mistakes are made they are charged with them after the notes are counted they are put into the iron van and carried over to the treasury whence they are now being shipped all over the country at the treasury the notes are counted as boonas soon as they are received the sheets are cut up and the money is is sent out in packages of a hundred notes each before starting it is safe to say that a greenback is counted thirty t times es after it it has left the printer an and t there ere is no possible chance for fraud or theft A MILLION POT OF MUSH leaving the girls counting out these national bank notes and handling fortunes in an hour I 1 went down into the basement of this great money factory tory ond saw a pot of the costliest costi cost Hest liest mush sh t the e world has ever known think of a pot of mush worth more than a million dollars this is what I 1 saw in the basement it was steaming and seething in a great cylinder and it was made of cut up greenbacks green backs all the money that comes back to the treasury is brought over to this place and cooked and ground and steamed until it turns from notes into a pulpy pasty mixture for all the world like oat meal gruel the |