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Show U. 5. Mints Making 100,000,000 Pennies a Month IF RAY P.AKER, director of the United Stales mint, ever lays hands on the person who created the slogan. "Take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves," somebody will have to call out the reserves. For do you know, working the mints at their topmost speed and turning out 100,000,000 pennies monthly, Ray just naturally cannot keep up with the demand de-mand for coppers in this country. lie has been one of the government's govern-ment's strongest advocates of it ever siiuce the war started, but he feels that people have taken the admonition to save pennies too literally. As nearly its he can figure out, folks have been gorging their hearthstones, lisle banks, aid copper teakettles and other favor- ile hiding places for coins with pennies, and that is why he cannot find enough to go round. Of course the demand for pennies has grown greatly with the slapping of penny taxes on lollypops and such, but even this additional drain upon the penny supply should not, under ordinary circumstances, swallow up all of the pennies the government has made. Since it first began to coin money, about the time of the Revolutionary war, one-tenth of nil the coins made have been cents. The total to date Is more than $3,000,000,000. And yet, at last reports, the government had in all of Its depositories only about $177,000 in coppers. Came then the new and insistent demand for more coppers, with the result that Ray took his complete force off all other work and started in grinding out 100,000,000 pennies a month. He has even set the San Francisco mint at work making pennies. Philadelphia Phila-delphia has hitherto coined all the copper money. |