Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 250, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 October 1916 — UNCLE SAM TO OUTWIT COUNTERFEITERS’ SKILL [ARTICLE]

UNCLE SAM TO OUTWIT COUNTERFEITERS’ SKILL

Criminals Such Expert Photo-Engrav-era That Changes May Be Made *■ in Faper Money. Denver, Colo.—That important and radical changes are to be made in the paper used and the > printing of currency by the government is predicted 1 by W. H. Moran, assistant chief of the United States secret service. The unusual activity of counterfeiters has moved the treasury department to new efforts, and a sys.em is being devised that it is believed will reduce counterfeiting to a minimum. “The silk threads in our certificates,*’ says Mr. Moran, are entirely misleading to the general public. The average person holds the idea that the government has a secret process of manufacturing the paper on which bank notes are printed, whereas it is merely a distinctive precess. A note may not appear just right, and when it shows the silk threads the public takes it for granted that it Is good." The existence of more than two hundred different varieties of bairn notes is pointed out by Mr. Moran as a condition that makes the raising of these certificates an oasv matter by counterfeiters. The public cannot be expected to;carry dll these forms of notes ip mind, he says, and as a result I one, two, five and ten dollar cert if i--1 cates are being raised to higher deI nomination quite generally. Mr. Moran expects to see a new paper adopted by the government soon that will make counterfeiting more difficult, and at the same time enable the public more ~readily to “protect It self. He also expects that the two hundred or more different types of banknotes will be reduced to possibly one of each denomination, eliminating a big part of the chance of their being “raised.” The increased activity of counterfeiters is attributed to improvements constantly being made in photo engraving processes. The art has advanced, says Ml. Moran, to the point where duplication is a science that many crooks bavip mastered A case cited—ls,that of James S. Vertress, arrested for the wholesale distribution of $lO and S2O gold .ertitlcates in Denver and vicinity. Vqrtress was captured in Pennslyvania thru the efforts of Ais stant Chief Moran. Vertress attended a photographers school and took a cou:z<* in engraving before establishing a counterfeiting plant in an isolated .nountain district in Kentucky.