The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet, and receives $8,000 a year for his services. He has two Assistant Secretaries, who each receive $4,500, and a Chief Clerk, who has a salary of $2,700. The Chiefs of Divisions receive about $2,500 each.
There are subtreasuries in most of the large cities of the Union; also assay offices in Boise City, Idaho, Charlotte, N. C., and St. Louis, Mo., to see that the money is kept pure and up to the standard.
The scales upon which the United States coin is weighed are said to be so accurate that if two pieces of paper, in all respects the same except that one has writing upon it, be laid one on either scale, the difference in weight of the one bearing writing upon it will show in the scale.
The cost of maintaining these subdivisions of the Treasury is nearly one and a half million dollars annually.
The First Comptroller seems to be the important man of the Treasury. Every claim is submitted to him. Not even the President’s salary can be paid unless he signs the warrant and vouchers for its correctness. His salary is $5,000 per annum, but it takes $83,000 to maintain all the appointments of his office.
The Treasurer of the United States receives $6,000 per year. He gives a bond for $150,000. He receives and disburses all the money of the country and has charge of the money vaults. He has an army of assistants.
The Treasurer’s report for 1901 says that the condition of the Treasury as to the volume and character of assets was never better, and, in spite of the unusual expense of the army in the Philippines and the raid on the Pension Bureau, nearly $78,000,000 surplus remained in the Treasury. On June 30, 1902, at the end of the fiscal year, the surplus was over $92,000,000. What a magnificent showing as to the prosperity of our country, and what an occasion for national thanksgiving!
No robbery of the Treasury vaults has ever been attempted. When one sees the solid walls of masonry and the patrol of soldiers, on duty night or day, with every spot bright with electric light, no such attempt seems likely to occur. The entire vaults inside are a network of electric wires. If, for instance, a tunnel were made under the building, and a robber should reach the vaults, the wires would ring up the Chief of Police, who has telephone connexion with Fort Meyer and the navy-yard, so that within twenty minutes a detachment of troops could be on the ground.
A few years ago a negro charwoman, in doing her cleaning, found a package of bonds of more than a million dollars in value. That faithful woman sat by the package all night guarding it, knowing that it must be of great value. Her faithfulness was rewarded with a life position. Bowed and broken, she was an historic figure in the building until last year, when she died.
In this building all money from the Printing Bureau and the mints is counted and verified. Here worn money, that which has been buried, rotted by water or charred by fire, is identified by the skilled eyes and hands of women. Of the charred money received from the great fire in Chicago, eighty per cent. was identified, and new money issued in its place. Sometimes money taken from bodies long drowned or buried has to be handled. In such cases these women have the entire room to themselves, as their usual neighbors find that business in other quarters needs immediate attention.