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About The Loup City northwestern. (Loup City, Neb.) 189?-1917 | View Entire Issue (July 15, 1909)
NATION'S TREASURE Mammoth Steel Vault That Holds HOUSE AT WASHINGTON the Surplus Wealth of Unde Sam WHEN congress passed the the emergency currency act last May authorizing the controller of currency to have printed emergency currency to the value of one-half of the amount of government bonds owned by the na tlonal banks throughout the country, a condition was created—and a very serious condition—which nobody real ized so fully as Watson W. Eldridge, chief o! the division of issues under the Currency bureau. For this vast sum. about $490,000,000. was to be placed in his hands for safe keeping, us is all the national hank currency. At the time of the passage of this act there was on hand In the vaults on the second iioor of the Treasury building In Washington about $200, 000.000 of national banknotes, as a “working stock.” This quantity of pa per money was about all that these two vaults would hold. So when the bureau of printing and engraving, after sending out a C. Q. D. summons for all the expert engravers in the country to come to Washington and aid in altering the Bteei plates, to comply with the new law, began to send the emergency currency In dray loads to Mr. Eldridge, that trusted guardian of the nation's wealth be gan to spend the most uneasy nights in all his 40 years’ service in the treasury department and 20 years in his present position. The money continued to pour in. not in thousands and hundreds of thousands, but in millions. It was the most unwelcome money ever unload ed upon a man working for a salary. New Vault Made Necessary. When things reached a crisis an order was given for a vault to hold this emergency currency, a vault which would make all previously manufactured safes look like pocket savings banks, for the new structure of steel was to be thin shells be tween inconceivable wealth and thieves who were ready to break in and steal, and the corruption of tire, earthquakes, and devastation of any other character. It must be a vault. bo the treasury officials specified, I ■mi. Liiui.uf'.v ,'Gr.' ? lUilP J AM,, t TU * ill j'Ttt, The new vault, which was built at a cost of $45,000. is a two-story struc I tore, furnished with steel racks, which | closely resemble safety deposit box j racks. The Interior walls are of Har j veylzed steel, half an inch thick, and ' the whole vault is incased in masonry j and cement more than two feet thick But beneath the masonry and the shell of steel lies the chief protec- ' tlon of the vault against burglars a ( mat of closely woven steel wires, j Now. each of these wires is charged 1 with electricity, so that when one of i them is touched with an awl or a bit ■ or a dynamite pump an alarm is in j stantly set off in an adjoining build j Ing, where watchmen are constantly 1 on guurd. And to make sure that this | electrical uppurtus is working proper ly there is a "buzzer" which goes off every 15 minutes Inside the vault If the warning apparatus is not working properly this buzzer will be thrown out of commission and the watchmen will be immediately notified. Cannot Tamper with Cables. "But what if the cables connecting the vault with the watchmen’s room shonld be cut?" Mr. Eldridge was | asked. The reply was that any tarn i pering with the cable would have the j same effect upon the alarm system as if the vault itself had been attacked. This enormous vault, whose roof Is on a level with the pavement, has a | perfect system of ventilation by great driving and suction fans, which are turned on when the vault is opened, so that the air is fresh and cool at all times. It is lighted by electricity, the lighting plug being put in place only after the vault door is opened. One of the marvels of the vault is the vault door, a complicated mass of gray steel weighing seven tons, but so wonderfully balanced on ball-bearing hinges that it can be opened without effort. It has four combinations, and no one man In the employ of the gov ernment knows them. Two men know two of them, and two others the re maining two, so that In order to un lock the money chamber at least two persons must be present. The door ! is. of course, equipped with the time j lock device, which is now In use on j ■ ' ■'■■■■ W ■ 1 rmirrrmrTY77m/i miimimntr.. rv'.viuuu.m I The Door to the Vault—Its Weight Is Seven Tons. capable of holding the vastest sum of money ever stored in one place, five hundred millions. The order was given and the safe makers set to work. To-day the vault stands completed, as witnessed by the accompanying illustration, the first which the government has al lowed to be taken of this vault. There are stored in the steel pigeonholes a little more than 300.000,000 of bank notes and the remaining millions are being stored away as fast as they can be counted in the big offices above the level of the street. all first-class safes. But even entrance I through the vault door sets off the alarm in the watchmen’s room. It is necessary, therefore, to supply the watchmen's department with a sched ule showing at. what hour the vault will be opened and at what hour it I will be closed. The vault, according j to the schedule, must not be opened before 8:4.1 in the morning, and it \ must be closed before five every night. 1 Old-Fashioned Elevator. The only way to reach the vault is i by way of a tiny hydraulic elevator, which is protected by an iron door, opening almost «? the elbow of 'Up ! , hlnf of t! * * division of issue*. who j keep* the In v iti hi* desk This elt* | valor car whs barely large enough to carry Mr Kldrldge. the newspaper man. and a photographer down to the vault it j* operated by the old-fash ioned rope-pulling de\ Ice and j* the most prosaic rood to millions imagin able On June IS. the morning on which the photograph from which we got the illustration was taken. the vault contained $309,199,910. iu the follow ing denominations: $77,516,660 in tives. $210,Ot 1.300 in tens and twen ties. $6,256,200 in tens, and $15,415,760 in fifties and one hundreds. The money is printed in sheets, four bills to the sheet and 1.000 sheets to the package. There were nearly 9.000.000 sheets, or 8,797 packages to store away The actual value represented In this amount of printed paper is only $439,850, In estimating this value >f the printed paper the government figures that each package weighs 14 pounds, and the paper is purchased at 43 cents per pound The balance is for the printing and the handling of the bills, which are counted 53 times before belrig stored away. treasury department suggested tfiat all paper on which banknotes were printed should be resized after print mg Mr Kldridge was the aggressive factor in this particular reform, and it Is to him that the present ideasing appearance of our paper money is due. Prior to the comnletion of the new vault the emergency currency was stored In the basement of the Union Trust Company, at the corner of Fif teenth and ii streets. X. \V. The first few millions that were received were placed in a large iron vault, but when carloads of money began to arrive this vault with a capacity of a mere forty millions soon overflowed, and then this enormous wealth was stacked on the, floor in ordinary wooden boxes, which any hatchet could have knocked to smithereens This seemed- an awful risk for the government to take but there was nothing else to be done A tiny dynamite .cartridge dischargee in a little areaway in the roar of the bank building would have blown & hole in the cellar walls that would have bared to view wealth of which Solomon “in all his glory” could not have dreamed, ami which would hav« --—| Watson W. Eldridge. Custodian of Seven Hundred Millions of Dollars. Twenty years ago this vast amount of printed bills would have been ut terly worthless until each bill had been signed by the president and the cashier of the bank in whose name it was issued, but in the nineties con gress passed a law making the notes legal as soon as plated In circulation, thus adding materially to Mr. Al dridge’s cares, whose duty it then be came to handle money, not in the making, but the perfected cash. Now. as soon ts the bills are entered upon the ledgers of the treasury as being shipped to a bank, they are considered money. The express companies hand ling these shipments are bonded for $500,000, and in case of loss or rob bery the company is held responsible for the loss. It was only a short time ago that a shipment of $40,000 to the Pacific coast was stolen in transit, and the express company was forced to give a check for the full amount. The treasury is to-day redeeming some of these stolen banknotes with out question, although some of them bear no signature at all. while others bear the forged signatures of“ the president of that bank and of the cashier. The express company was never able to recover more than $15, 000 of the stolen bills. It had to lose the rest. Deserves Thanks of Nation. The crispness and durability of our present day banknotes are due large-' ly to the efforts of Mr. Aldridge, the guardian of the Jumbo among vaults Many years ago congress passed a law authorizing the issue of treasury notes, and the bill required that these notes be put in circulation within JO days. It was a rush Job. The paper on which money is printed has to be dampened before it takes the impres sion of the hand press, so that when ; it comes out it is nc% sized (covered j with glossy surface as the result of a bath in a glutinous substance). These treasury notes were issued just as they came from the press. As a result the fibers soon began to break through the surface of the paper, and as each bit of fiber dropped from the bill the ink began to fade, so that within two weeks after the first bill was issued the treasury had to begin to redeem the tattered notes and issue new ones It was then that a committee appoint ed to examine into methods of the .'t.i . •vSVSvSv*'. • made haughty Croesus green with envy. In order to meet this danger the government employed ten extra watchman, who patrolled the streets and alleys in the neighborhood of the t'nion Trust building for nine months, day and n.ghf The?? watchmen were only dropped from the pay roll of the treasury on May 10. when the new vault was turned over to the govern ment by the contractors. Forced Change in Steel Plates. But the division of issue was not the only branch of the government which found itself extremely busy after the passage of the emergency currency act. The steel plates for every national bunk in the country had to be altered. To the legend on the face of the banknotes and at the top, “Secured by bonds .of the I'uited States,” there had to he added a third line. “Or other securities.” In order./to add these three words every plate had to be softened, the extra words engraved, and then the whole plate retempered Each of these banknote plates, which costs $7.">. will print 30,000 bills, then the impressions begin to get dull, and the plate has to be softened, the dies recut, and the plate tempered again, after which about 10,000 more Impressions can be taken. The plates are then destroyed and new ones made To-day Mr Eld ridge sleeps easy. “Let your notes come in as fast as you can make them," is his message to the head of the bureau of engraving and printing. "Rush the notes over until we have a stock of 700,000,000, 200.000.000 to remain in the upper vaults for current needs of the banks and ">00.000.000 to rest secure in the vault beneath the treasury, guarded by its walls of steel and stone and by its network of wires which never sleep." Bread from Fish Roe. Peasants in the eastern regions of Russia make bread from fish roe. At the present time, owing to the hard season, there is what they term in that country a “little famine;” conse quently the peasants are making bread from the roe of fresh water fish, with which the rivers abound The process of making "fish flour" differs little from the ordinary one. The roe is dried and ground, and cooked in the usual fashion. . . . .. ..*.. MUCH PRECIOUS TIME WASTED : Writer in Lippincott’s Points Out Loss j Caused by Stereotyped Forms of Politeness. Not very long ago the manager of a telephone company in one / of our larger cities issued instructions to the exchange girls that they must no longer use the word “please in con versation with patrons. It consumed too much time. "What number, please?" was shorn of its embroidery and reduced to “What number?" To be sure, it was less courteous, but on the other hand It was infinitely more profitable. By actual count It was found that the girls had been saying “please" 900,000' times a day. Allow ing half a second to its utterance, here was an awful daily waste of 125 hours. Five days going to waste every round of the clock, a sheer loss of 60 mouths out of every year. Is it any wonder the manager was concerned and put a stop to the drain? Why the time it took to say "please" in one day was snore than enough, to allow him and his family to go to Europe. True, this is but a local circum stance. but to those of us who are not asleep it portends the beginning of a world-wide reform. If the elimination of a single word of politeness in a telephone exchange can iusure such a remarkable saving of precious time, our duty lies clear before us "Hello." "Dear sir," "Yours truly." "Beg par don." “Thank you." and a score of other pleasantries left over from un progressive days must inevitably fol low the fate of the telephone "please" and the kitchen coffee-grinder. It would not be surprising to learn that the people of the United States say "Good morning" 100,000.000 times a day. The loss of time that this repre sents. allowing a second to each greet ing, is enough to befuddle the most teckless spendthrift. It means that as a nation we stand still more than three years every day. There are not figures enough to calculate where the world would have been in its history by this time if we had been free of Just this one encumbering formality of speech.—Upplncott's AUg&xme. J ' TOOK LESSON FROM AMERICAN Englishman In High Place Glad to Ac quire Information from Prof. Newcomb. Lewis Nixon told this interesting story at a recent dinner: "In sheer intellectual strength there1 is no man in America superior to Prof. Simon Newcomb. "And while known to but a limited circle of the American public, no man of science is better known or more respected in Europe. "In 1882, when he was at the head of the transit of Venus expedition. I crossed with him. 1 yvas with him in London, where every one seemed to want to do honor to this distinguished American. One day we went down to lunch with the astronomer royal at the Greenwich observatory. "After lunch, sitting in the great octagonal instrument room, the as irongmer royal and Prof. Newcomb be ! gan to. talk shop Among other things i Prof. J^owcouib was explaining b.ow < ^ v • lie combined in one calculation the effects of more than one observatioh on the fixed stars, greatly facilitating calculations and insuring accuracy. “The professor talked along in a matter of fact way as if it were the j simplest formula imaginable. The as tronomer royal seemed to be trying ( to follcjv him. and them he said. “ ‘Prof. Newcomb, that's rather in-j tricate. Would you mind my taking notes?” He promptly got paper and pencil, and as soon as he put a few figures down he, of course, quickly grasped the idea and highly commend | ed it. “But one can easily imagine what pride I felt as an American to see the astronomer royal of Great Britain, a Smith’s prize man and the greatest mathematician in the empire, taking notes and learning from Simon New comb some of the tricks of his trade ” Capsules Filled by Machine. A new machine automatically weighs or measures a medicine and fills eight capsules while one i'i Pdiad by hand V s t LEADER CF THE PITTSBURG PIRATES Here is Fred Clarke, the pilot of the pirate crew from Pittsburg. Fred has been in the game a long while, but from the way he keeps up his speed it will be many moons before a young ster is selected to supplant him. Clarke has carried home several pen nants for the Smoky City aggregation. It was under the late Billie Barnie, in the old Louisville days that Clarke made his entry into major league com pany. He soon succeeded Barnie as leader of the Colonels, and later, when 1 the Pittsburg club bought out the Louisville franchise nnd merged both clubs, Clarke came to Pittsburg and has remained ever since, playing left field and managing the team. Just now the Pittsburg dan is sail ing along at the head of the National league race and the hustling manager has his men in good shape. Of course he has the able assistance of that mighty Dutchman, Mans Wagner, and my! what a bundle of assistance that big pretzel hunter is to Clarke. The latter says its the pennant for his this time, and he further avers that a world’s championship goes with it For he feels that his team will be able to trounce th* Detroits, whom he picks to win the American league flag ONE OF THE GIANT TWIRLERS Leon Ames has done acceptable work for the New York Giants in the box this season. While Ames has never been ranked as a star, he has developed into a first-rate twirler dur ing the years he has been with the Giants. Pulliam Back in Harness. Harry Pulliam is again the directing head of the National league. After a leave of absence of six months the National league president has re sumed his duties When Pulliam ap peared at his office in the St. Louis building in New York he was as brown us a berry and looked the picture of health Though they had not given .he information out- in advance, the office assistants were expecting him. John Heydler. who had been acting as president turned over everything to Pulliam and resumed his duties as secretary. MOST BASEBALL PLAYERS ARE LIVING MODEL LIVES High-Salaried Diamond Artists Real ize That They Must Keep in Best of Condition. The life of the average baseball player js as close to the model a good citizen should follow as can be. He is generally married, and, except when he is traveling, spends his spare time at home. On the road he is at his hotel most o the time when he is not at the baseball park. Once or twice a week, perhaps, he goes to th* theater, but generally he spends th- evening in the lobby of his hotel talking over baseball qnjj other mat ters with members of his own team and friends who drop in to see him. Nine times out of ten he is in bed and asleep by 10:30 o’clock. In the old days of baseball it used to be quite the thing for the star player to spend his nights in drinking ' with friends, basking in the geniality of popularity, and mixing in rowdy carousals. Such actions? are a thing of the past. Nowadays the baseball player is first of all a gentleman. No team will put ui) with a man that drinks ex cessively, save in /are cases. Now and then there is a man who can spend his evenings in hitting the high spots and then play good baseball the following day. Such men are few and far between, however. Most of those who try it discover that their careers as ball players in big-league company ate short-lived. It is a matter of common sense The ball player knows he cannot do his best when he is not taking care of himself. If he does not know it the fans and his manager will point it out to him with unquestionable force He knows that to hold a job on a big league baseball team he must be in possession of tin* ability to use the best his brain and muscles contain He can have this ability only by oh serving the best rules of life. Furthermore, the baseball player in the* last few years has come to realize better than ever before that when lit is through with baseball he can ex pect nothing from the public that onco applauded him, nor from the manager that once begged for his sig nature to a contract. Me must takt care of himself, and If he has not pro v ided for the future during his day* of success and money-making he is in a bad way. There are probably no men receiv ing: such high salaries who take such good care of their money and save so* much of it as baseball players. A1 most any well-known diamond stai that has played in one of the big leagues for a number of years ha.-, usually laid by a big proportion of his salary, and when the inevitable tinn for his retirement comes he is In a position to take up some other busi ness, or if he does not wish to dc that at once he finds himself in cir ciimstancbfr easy enough to be free from care concerning the future for a number of years at least. Umpire Cusack Loses Job. John Heydler. acting president of the National league, has dismissed I in pil e Cusack, whose work has been unsatisfactory. For the present the National lyague will go along with sevv-u umpires, Johnstone working alone. ----I The Main Thing. Rudolph Spreckels, of San Fran cisco. has sold his racehorses because of his aversion o race-track gambling. “If gambling were but a mere inci dental to racing I should not mind,” said Mr. Spreckels at a San Francisco dinner, "but gambling is essential to racing. It dominates it. It dwarfs it —like ihe case of the fountain pen. , “A girl, you know, gave her Intend ed a cheap fountain pen for Christ mas. Some weeks later the young man said tc her; “ My dear, do you remember that fountain pen you gave mo?' “ Yes.' »aid she. “ ‘Well,’ said the young man, 'do you mind making me a suit of over alls to go with it?’ “In my parable.” concluded Mr Sprockets, "the pen is racing and the overalls are gambling.” * By Himself. No man ever said anything that was bright enough to be repeated day after day. - i - -- House Where K:ats and Shelley Lived in Rome. Flowers and Vines Make Enchanting Bower pf Little Gallery Where One Can Fancy Two Famous Pcets Chatted Together. Rome.—Early In April, In tho pres ence of King Victor Emmanuel 111. of Italy, tho Keats Shelley memorial bmise in Home was opened and ecu secrated us a museum in memory of the two English poets who were friends. Henceforth this house, sltU-A ated on'th^ right hand side of tho old Spanish, stairs, in tho IMazza di Spag na, will bo a new resort for English speaking tourists and loves of these poets when in tho Eternal city. The house has been bought by English and American lovers of poesy. It cost $60,00\). • It is a modest house, which in Keats' and Shelley's day was a pension, or boarding house There Is a quiet seriousness about the premises, as if the shadow still lingered where young Keats breathed his last sigh. 1 it the little entrance hang some okl engravings, which givo one an Idea of the IMazza dl Spagna before tho Spanish stairs were built and after their construction. The house has been renovated. The cen tral room has been transformed into a reading room. Around the walls -tin the book shelves made of dark walnut, tho floor is covered by thick Turkish rugs Sir Moses Ezekiel's bust of Shelley holds a prominent, place in this room, as well as that made of Shelley by Severn. It Is rather hard to put oneself In touch with tho two poetic spirits who lived in this house, amid the babble of the Keats-Shelley Memorial House in Rome. tourists, and the questions with which they ply the civil Italian gentleman who acts as curator. I am quite sure he must be almost distracted after his morning's work, for the house la only open every day to the public from ten o'clock until one p. m. One of the little rooms leads out on the dearest little terrazionoo, which in these lovely spring days is a display .of beautiful flowers and creep ing vines. Here one can easily fancy Keats and Shelley resting and chat ting together. In another room the hook shelves hold 200 editions of Keats' and Shelley's works., Most of these being.“r«cent editi^na, have little value except as evidence or fhe con tinuing fame of the poets—but is not that worth wivrto to show in this way? Ily far the most interesting room is the little bedchamber in which Keats died, with its two windows, one of whim'll looks out over the Piazza di Spagna and the other on the pictur esque stairs leading up to the Church della Trinita de Monte. Prom that window one can gaze down on the loveliest flower market in the world all the year round, and watch the ever passing throng going up and down the Spanish steps. Many of the artists’ models group themselves about, or drop off for their open air siestas In the most natural of poses. In this small bedroom Keats died in the arms of his faithful friend. Sev ern. The ceiling and the little fire place have been left just as when Keats lived in the room. In this little sanctuary is the death mask of Keats, and a small lock of his chestnut-brown hair. In a sealed vase Is a little bone which Trelawney kept from the heart —“cer cordium”—when the flames re duced all that was once Percy Bysshe Shelley’s frame to a handful of clean ashes. This little bouse where the two poets stayed In Rome puts us in touch with thi’ni on different Unas from their graves. In the beautiful little English cemetery, under the shadow of the pyramid of Caius Cestius. and the walls of old Rome. There are sev eral autograph letters of Keats and Shelley carefully treasured in the Ut ile museum, as well as their songs set to music. It Is pleasant to feel that these poetic friends—such lovers of Italy!—lived and enjoyed all Italy had to offer them in the fulness or her wondrous beauty, art and history, and when life's fitful fever ended for them, they rest In her loving bosom The Difficulty. Mrs. Stuyvesant Kish is an antl-suf Iragette. She has joined the anti suffragette organization, the National League for the Civic Education of Women At a luncheon the other day she said: ( It isn t possible for women to do the same work as men. day In and ‘ley out in good weather and in foul l or Instance, .what woman could be a postman, out in all kinds of-weath ,v h< all hours, walking miles daily?" She smiled. woman postman would compare "'Hi a male one as the beggar com pares with the millionaire 'You've got no ground to envy me, said the millionaire to the beg gar I've got just as many troubles as you have.’ No doubt yer riglit. boss.' Baid the beggar, humbly, 'but the diftieul'y " '''i me is. I ain't got nothin' else ' Not Suitable. She—Try this delightful cough candy '■ He (coughing)—It wouldn't do me “ay good t haven't a delightful i
