Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1882 — THE SPURIOUS TREASURY ISSUES. [ARTICLE]

THE SPURIOUS TREASURY ISSUES.

The Counterfeiters in Collusion with the Bureau of Engraving and Printing—Other Plates Still in Their Possession. [From the New York Sun.) Whatever may be the outcome of the present investigation at ,the treasury regarding the spurious issues of Government bonds, it is now known that other plates than those from which the bonds found on Doyle were printed are in the hands of a dangerous gang of counterfeiters and forgers wh® for years past have deflect justice. Different plates have from time to time been surrendered to the treasury as a condition of immunity when the holders or their confederates were arrested or indicted. They were considered more valuable than the imprisonment or punishment of the criminals. But it seems the stock has not been exhausted. The condoning of these felonies has operated as a stimulant to new crimes, and has extended the business of the class engaged in them. The officials of the treasury, in dreading to make an exposure of facts that could not always be concealed, have given indirect encouragement to the very crime they sought to prevent. The escape-of plates from which false issues of bonds and of other Government paper were made from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing makes it certain that there must have been collusion between some of the persons employed in the bureau and the professional.counterfeiters. The severest tests of the highest skill outside this bureau have demonstrated conclusively that these issues were printed from plates exactly similar to those used for the treasury, and absolutely indistinguishable from them when compared by the best experts. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing, like the Government printing office, has long been a sort of political hospital, where the friends and the peculiar favorites of members of Congress are nourished at the public expense, with much unsavory scandal. A. loose mode of appointment, and too often the bad antecedents of the appointees, have exposed the treasury to such costly experience as is now made known unwillingly. This danger is constantly imminent while the existing vicious system is permitted to continue, and to taint the integrity of what should be unimpeachable securities. It is now an open secret tha' Govern ment bends and treasury notes have been largely counterfeited and successfully issued. It is also known that such bonds were printed and uttered from plates identical with those of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. And it is believed, though not yet established, that copies of the plates for silver certificates are in possession of the counterfeiters’ combination.

These are serious matters. They have naturally perplexed the present Secretary of the Treasury, though they did not occur under his administration of the department. Some of them have just come to light, and Judge Folger is striving to unravel the mystery by following the threads that have fallen into his hands. The question naturally rises to every lip, How were these counterfeits and fraudulent issues that were redeemed at the treasury provided for without appropriations by Congress ? Who redeemed them, and to what extent ? flow did the books of the treasury balance without any statsment of this redemption ? Why was the truth concealed from Congress? No satisfactory answer may now be given to these pregnant inquiries. But the day is not far distant when a full exposure must come from a change of administration. The long career of fraud, of corruption and of robbery by the Republican party is drawing near to its close. When the collapse comes, there will be nothing left of it but a record of shame and of outrage unparalleled in the history of free government. And the names of some conspicuous leaders who have grown into great wealth from officeholding will go down in the history of these times blackened with disgrace !