Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1891 — The Secret Service. [ARTICLE]

The Secret Service.

The reasons why the business of the department is not revealed to the public are manifest, but I think there are many things which might well be revealed, and which, if known to the general public, would save the Chief of the Secret Service and his aids much bother, for it is a well-known fact that the ignorance of people concerning the workings of the department is simply astounding. It is the common impres sion that the United States Secret Service is in existence for the purpose of ferreting out all crimes against the Government. If a petty mail robbery occurs in Alabama, or opium smuggling is being practiced on the Canadian frontier, people of this country imagine that the secret service officials to the number of several hundted are at work upon the cases. This is, indeed, far from the truth. The Secret Service of the United States is for the sole purpose of ferreting out counterfeits and counterfeiters, and securing, if possible, the conviction of counterfeiters. The work done by this department is simply marvelous, in the face of the fact that the number of men employed on such work by the Government is but twenty-eight. Just think of it! Twenty-eight men cover this entire country hunting out counterfeits and counterfeiters, devising intricate schemes to catch the coniacker redhanded in his infamous work, planning deep-laid schemes for securing the “green goods,” and hunting up evidence against men well known to be engaged in making or selling counterfeit money. —Pittsburgh Dispatch.