Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1916 — HOW UNCLE SAM MAKES HIS MONEY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HOW UNCLE SAM MAKES HIS MONEY

ABOUT NINE MILLION DOLLARS IN CURRENCY IS PRODUCED EVERY DAY AT THE GREAT NEWPLANTOFTHE BUREAU OF ENGRAVING AND . PRINTING AT v WASHINGTON J

By EDWARD B. CLARK.

C"J N ONE building during the year “| ending June 30, 1915, Uncle Sam U fe; made thirty and a half billion dollars. 0 This money factory is called the buS reau .of engraving and printing. U Uncle Sam is the head of the corpo[f' ration which is actively engaged in the production of wealth, and he has with him as other members of the

firm about one hundred million nephews and nieces. This governmental factory produces paper money, bonds, revenue, postage and custom stamps, checks* drafts ~and -ail the important docunfents printed from engraved plates. The director of the bureau of engraving and printing. Mi Joseph E. Ralph. He might be called the foreman Of the greatest money-making shop in the United States of America and perhaps in the^world. ’ JRrom Director Ralph’s own Words we learn something specific about the activities of this big Bhop of the capital city: "The daily output of United States notes, gold and silver certificates and national bank notes, is two and one-quarter million notes, having a face value of nine million dollars and weighing over three and a half tons. If laid out flat they would, cover nine acres, and if placed end to end the daily output would make a chain two hundred and fifty miles long. ■ „ ' ..; —‘‘Each day forty million postage stamps are manufactured, which would cover approximately seven acres, or make a chain of stamps six hundred aHd twenty miles long. The value > of each day's stamp output is nearly seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Six-hundred: employees are engaged in stamp manufacture. Fifty-one different kinds of postage stamps, in denominations from one cent to five dollars, are made for the United States and its insular possessions. They are printed in fifteen distinctive colors. “Another important part of the bureau’s work is internal revenue stamps, through which an annual income of over five hundred million dollars is collected for Uncle Sam. These stamps are of larger size than postage stamps, and while the dally output is only twenty million Btamps, they would cover twenty acres if spread out in single sheets, and they weigh six and a half tons. More than three hundred different varieties are issued.” In Uncle Sam’s workshop is made nil the paper money for the United States government. This means that every man who has a dollar bill in jhis hand, or who is lucky enough to have a bill of larger denomination, may know of a certainty that its origin was in a factory situated at the corner of Fourteenth and C streets, S. W„ in the city of Washington, D. C. And speaking of counterfeits, therejs a_thing of marked interest which might be said. The bureau of engraving and printing was organized under an act of July 11, 1862. From that day to this the government has done its own work. It has employed the most skillful engravers that it can find and it is a matter of pride today to this government that never in the history of the bureau has one of its employees been engaged in the work of counterfeiting. It is true that counterfeiting goes oh occasionally in different places throughout the United States, but In the hundreds of arrests which have been made of men and women engaged'in the work, not one ever had been in the employment of the government, and not one was found to be in collusion with any of Uncle Sam’s workmen. --- —-7 Concerning the matter of engraving, Director Ralph of the bureau has had this to say: .. “The engraving division is the corner stone of the bureau and the bulwark of our securities. In this division, every form of security has its origin, and the most artistic and skilled engravers that l the, world produces are employed here. “Steel engraving is the perfection of art as ap- | plied to securities; it differs from painting and sculpturing, inasmuch as the engraver who carves his work on steel plates must deliberately study the effect of each infinitesimal line. Free hand, -with a diamond-pointed tool, known as a graver, aided by a powerful magnifying glass, he carves •way, conscious that ope false cut or slip of his ’ tool, or miscalculation of depth or width of line will destroy the artistic merit of his creation, and weeks or months of labor will have been fn .Tain. .. - '

“In no other form of printing can the beautiful soft and yet strong effects in black and white be obtained as in steel engraving. The introduction of cheap mechanical process work has superseded the beautiful creations of our master engraver commercially, and now we find the art limited to the engraving of securities as applied in the government’s bureau of engraving * and printing.” In the engraving division of the big shop the work is so divided and classified that the engravers individually become skilled in some particular branch of the art. Therefore, it is that they are classified as portrait, script, square letter and ornamental engravers. When the classification and division have been made each workman is made to confine himself to his own specialty, and so it is that he becomes extraordinarily expert. The result of this system is that not only better execution is secured, but a much greater amount is turned out in a given time, and what, of course, is of much greater importance, increased safety for Unde Sam’s belongings is obtained. Everything which is issued from the engraving department of Uncle Sam’s bureau combines evidences of the individual skill and characteristics of a number of men. Inasmuch as the handiwork of several men appears upon each plate, it readily can be understood how difficult a thing It is for any one engraver to make a perfect reproduction of one of these plates. The combination of different styles of workmanship, all excellent, on a single plate makes counterfeiting one of the most difficult things possible. m the halls of the bureau specimens of the work are to be seen and examples of the money are shown in different stages of the progress of the work, No one is allowed to see the engravers at their work. It is absolutely necessary that the plates should be guarded against theft, and so it is that they are under watch all through daylight hours, and at night they are safely placed within great vaults. One curious thing is to be noted, the government never prints from the original plate. A duplicate of it is made and this is used for the printing. If this were not done and something should happen to the plate first made, its place would have to bo taken by a new one, and even if the skill of the engraver should produce one almost exactly like the original, it would at best he only a copy of It, and anything that was printed from the new plate would in a way be a counterfeit, provided, of course, the original plate had been used for printing purposes. Visitors to the bureau are shown the printing of the notes. There are six or seven hundred employees engaged in this work. The paper is a silkflbered material and the process of its manufacture is safeguarded, because it must be kept as a trade secret. Anyone who Is found with paper of this kind in his possession, or an imitation of it, is a vtolater of the law. , • All of the printing is done on hand presses. A man with a woman assistant are at each press. There are four notes to each sheet, and each pressman turns out about five hundred sheets a day printed on one aide only. A most careful count is kept of the sheets. The counting is doneby several persons, and after it is; done the notes are sent to numbering machines, where bltfe ink is used to mark the series letter an£ each note’s number. Every day -in the year except Sunday a steel conveyance goes from the bureau of engraving and printing to th treasury department, carrying as its

precious freight about one million dollars in paper money. It is in the treasury department that the sheets of four notes each are recounted by five different persons. After this is done the red seal of the register of the treasury is stamped upon them. Then a cutting machine separates each sheet into four notes. Then one thousand sheets become four thousand bills and then the money once more is counted by several experts. Money which is worn by use is sent back to the treasury department for redemption. Now, of course, for every bill which is received a new bill of like denomination must be issued. So it is that several more counts must be made in order to guard against the peradventure of ah error. The counters Invariably are women, as they are believed to be much more accurate at the work than men. About a million dollars a day is received by the treasury for redemption purposes. In one of the rooms of the treasury there is what is called

a macerater in which canceled bills are destroyed. The macerater is a great big potlike receptacle made of steel. In Ws interior are knives set closely together. They revolve through water, which wets the bills, and grind them into fine pulp. About a million dollars a day is thus destroyed, but, of course, it must be understood that another million takes its place.

The bureau of engraving and printing, to which we will return from the treasury department, is a new structure. It has been occupied only since the spring of 1914. The officials made effort to erect a building on lines which would improve the welfare of the employees and increase their efficiency standards. The hygienic conditions are of the best. Uncle Sam has found that where £h e conditions are right employees give in return their best physical efforts, and, therefore, the money which is spent to make proper their surroundings is money well spent. Director Ralph says plainly that the employees in the old building were compelled to work under hygienic conditions “that were criminal and such as should not have been permitted by the government.” Further he says: “Had a private corporation operated and maintained its plant under like conditions the attention of the authorities no doubt would have been called to it with a view to having these conditions changed, perhaps to the extent of closing up the factory."

In the building the government has provided for co-operative lunchrooms,-- It-has —furnished the necessary fixtures, kitchen utensils, heat, light and fuel, while the employees have organized themselves into a co-operative society, assessing each member a nominal sum as a membership fee to create a fund necessary to commence business. The society has its officers and appoints a board to superintend the conduct of the business, purchase the necessary food and cook it, and serve it to the employees at cost. There is * special emergency hospital in the bureau of, engraving and printing, with separate wards for men and women. It is finely equipped and an experienced physician is on duty at all times, so that injured or sick employees may receive immediate attention. Of course, this treatment is in the nature of first aid, the afflicted ones being sent as quickly as possible either to their homes or to the city hospitals. Uncle Sam makes a lot of money. Ho doesn’t pay high salaries to either the men or the women who help him make it. The salary figures are what might be cailed comfortable, perhaps, and nothing more. So it is that some hundreds of people dally to Washington handle more money than a millionaire sees in a year, and yet they are not allowed to use any of It for themselves. Familiarity, however, breeds contempt, and it is said that the government's employees who finder fortunes every day never have any itching desire to close their hands upon wealth and attempt to make way with It.