Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1896 — TREASURY AT NIGHT. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

TREASURY AT NIGHT.

GUARDING UNCLE SAM'S MONEY FROM BURGLARS. Although Audacious Cracksmen Have Sized Up the Situation with a View of Making a Big Haul, Not a Dollar Hao Been Stolen. Midnight Among the Money Bags. Washington correspondence:

About the most difficult place to penetrate day or night without being i. seen, watched and I guarded is the United States treasury. In all there are sevl|) enty guardians of ■F the treasury, under a a captain and two lieutenants. Nearly all of the watchmen are men who were in the

fwar as mere boys, and are therefore now In the prime of life. They are thoroughly trained and reliable. Very few treasury watchmen have been discharged for ■negligence since the foundation of the Government. The possibility of a raid upon the treasury is regarded as remote, but the watch force is disciplined to stand by for such a raid at any time. Among the old Treasury Department watchmen there is a tradition that the ■lamented Jesse James made seven dis-

tinct tours, on seven separate occasions, of the Treasury Department, with an eye to business. This legend they relate to visitors, who, after having handled a package of greenbacks, said to contain $5,000,000, are willing to believe anything. If Mr. James really did make such visits, he found his presence instantly known to twenty-five men of exceedingly determined appearance, the majority of whom had done too much picket and patrol duty during the w*r to be caught napping in times of peace, each armed with a persuasive seven-chambered army pistol, and none looking as if he would hesitate the fractional part of a second to use it if occasion required. Once the United States Treasurer himself, while prowling about the vaults on a midnight tour of personal inspection, was challenged and halted, and forced to hold up both hands, under menace of a leveled rifle, until his captor, who did not know

him, had sent for the lieutenant to identify him. To observe the fashion with which the night watchmen “cover” their posts, it might easily be thought that the secret service is in constant receipt of information as to contemplated treasury robberies. Yet never a dollar has ever been taken from the treasury by force. A sneak thief once got in his work to the extent of $60,000 in bills, which he expertly plucked from one of the tables in Ihe redemption division. But there has nevqr been a hold-up. The secret service knows that many celebrated cracksmen, including “Little Jimmy” Hope, who successfully pulled off the great Manhattan Bank robbery, have from time to time contemplated the conversion of a few millions of treasury money to their private use, but they all thought better of it They decided the undertaking to be of too colossal a character.

Down to the incumbency of Secretary Folger there would, it is claimed, have been no great difficulty for accomplished and nervy cracksmen of the firs: rank to have done a bit of nightwork in the big itaarble cash repository of the Government. When Mr. Folger took the reins of the treasury the watch actually depended on common police whistles. Ho completely changed and reorganized the system. An elaborate electrical alarm system was introduced, the force of watchmen was greatly amplified, and the old iron safes were replaced by the modern steel affairs with intricate combinations. The gold and silver vaults were given steel casings around their common shells of masonry, and fitted with time locks. If there were no watch force on constant guard at the Treasury Department, however, burglars could do about as they chose with the safes in the Treasury Building. The safes are as good as any made, but even manufacturers of safes are compelled to reluctantly admit that the safe has not yet been devised that the modern cracksman cannot get into. An expert manipulator of safe ombinatldns was summoned to the treasury from New York not long ago to open a safe that dedined to respond to its figures. The expert opened the safe in half a minute. Then he made a tour of the building, and opened every one of the eases. There was not one of them that he did not get into within fourteen minutes after making the first turn of the combination handle. He modestly stated to the officials accompanying him that he did not amount to much as a safe opener, and that there were cracksmen at large who might have done everything fie did in less lime.

The watch force Is divided into three relief*, like an f rnfy'gharfl. obly the treaa- 1 ury watchman is on post longer than the soldier. Each of the night watchee is made up of twice the cumber of men in the day watch. A ganj of robbers, to effect an entrance at the main door after nightfall, would have to use a battering ram on the iron outer door, and by the time they had stove it in they would be flanked by the entire police force of the District, the soldiery from Fort Myer and the arsenal and the marines from the barracks, with all of which forces the treasury has direct alarm connections. There is something eerie about the big treasury building at night. Ten minutes before midnight the watchmen of the "mid” watch are all on hand at the main entrance, and they all make their appearance at the iron door at once, to the very minute of time, apparently springing from the ground. The silence is only broken by the frequent ringing of the post-register above the head of the lieutenant of the watch. Their lowered voices seem to fit with the surrounding solemnity. From their manner one might easily imagine that there was heavy fighting work cut out for them before dawn—a kind of “just-before-the-battle” manner that is distinctly impressive. Each watchman has a regular permanent post. He is not permitted to smoke, read or write while on duty. His business is solely to watch. If he goes to sleep and is discovered by the watch patrol he is certain to be discharged upon being reported the next day. At the end of each round the watcbmafl touches his electrical button, which informs the lieutenant of the watch at his desk at the main door that everything is well with him.

The two most important posts are those which include within their limits the gold and silver vaults, which are side by side. The watchman who looks after the cash room vault is locked in the cash room when he goes on post, and patrols the gallery at frequent intervals, registering each visit to the door of the vault as he passes the electrical button. Thus, if a robber contrived to get into the cash room and overcame the watchman, the cessation of registering reports would inform the lieutenant of the watch that something had gone wrong on that post. Then, by means of the electrical signals, the lieutenant would quickly assemble a force of watchmen of whatever size he considered necessary. These watchmen would go to the room of the captain of the watch —in which, by the way, is hung, framed, the silk American flag in which Booth’s spur caught when he jumped from the Ford's Theater box after having shot President Lincoln—take each a Springfield rifle from the rifle rack, strap on one of the army campaign belts crowded full of cartridges, and proceed in a body to the cash-room. The watchman who stands guard over the gold and silver vaults is locked in an ante-room, the hall end of which is formed of heavy wire, leading to the vaults. He remains thus locked up during the entire eight hours of his guard tour, and is seated beside the vault doors. He touches off his registering apparatus at regular intervals. At yie present time the watchman guarding these vaults ha* the responsibility of $140,000,000 in silver coin and $3,000,000 in gold coin on his hands. The bulk of the United States gold bullion and coin is kept at the subtreasury in New York. The silver is packed in oblong boxes, ten bags to a box, one thousand dollars to a bag. The silence of she tomb reigns in the anteroom where the vault watchman puts in his eight hours. Bj- pressing his ear tgainst the vault doors, the faint clicking of the time lock*,

penetrating the six tons of steel, may be heard. The patrol passes the cage very frequently, and somehow it is hard to throw off the impression that this patrolling watchman is a prison turnkey, the chief of a death watch, keeping his eye upon the warder, who, in his turn, incessantly embraces within his view a criminal passing his last night upon earth. The sub-basement of the treasury at midnight is calculated to render the most prosaic and phlegmatic man into a morbidly imaginative person. Two or three times a month, on an average, treasury employes in charge of safes in their respective divisions forget to lock them up at the close of the day’s business. It is the duty of the watch patrol not only to see that none of the safes are open, but to try them to see that they are locked. When one of these patrolmen happens upon an unlocked safe, he immediately informs the lieutenant of the watch, who without making any attempt to lock the safe, places his seal over a point covering the door and the frame, and stations a special watchman to see that it is not tampered with. When

the employe who has negligently left the safe open reaches his division the next morning he must stand by for squalls, for an elaborate report is made of every case of the kind.

AT THE MAIN DOOR.

A WATCHMAN ON DUTY.

ALWAYS READY.