Three Congressmen present knew what the next day would reveal. On that day the Secretary was called before the committee. They soon saw that he knew nothing about the matter. Madame heard what was going on and suddenly appeared before the committee. She threw herself on her knees before them and entreated shelter from disgrace.
The Secretary resigned at once. He sacrificed his entire property to pay back the fraudulent money. He opened a law office in Washington, but soon after died; of course, people said he died of a broken heart. Madame went abroad at once, and did not return till after her husband's death. She now conducts a house in Washington where men and women lose their souls in gambling or worse.
XV
TREASURY DEPARTMENT
The Treasury building, on Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street, was located by President Jackson just east of the White House so as to obstruct his view of the Capitol, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. It is said that he grew tired of the little differences of opinion between the commissioner and the architect, Robert Mills, and one day in ill humor he struck his staff in the earth and said: "I want the chief corner-stone of the Treasury building placed just here!" You may be sure it was placed just there.
The Secretary of the Treasury superintends the collection and disbursement of all government revenue from every source, except the Post-Office Department. It takes many buildings to provide for the work of the Treasury Department.
The Congressional Directory says:
The Secretary of the Treasury is charged by law with the management of the national finances. He prepares plans for the improvement of the revenue and for the support of the public credit; superintends the collection of the revenue, and prescribes the forms of keeping and rendering public accounts and of making returns; grants warrants for all moneys drawn from the Treasury in pursuance of appropriations made by law, and for the payment of moneys into the Treasury; and annually submits to Congress estimates of the probable revenues and disbursements of the Government. He also controls the construction of public buildings; the coinage and printing of money; the administration of the Revenue-Cutter branch of the public service, and furnishes generally such information as may be required by either branch of Congress on all matters pertaining to the foregoing.
The routine work of the Secretary's office is transacted in the offices of the Supervising Architect, Director of the Mint, Director of Engraving and Printing, and in the following divisions: Bookkeeping and Warrants; Appointments; Customs; Public Moneys; Loans and Currency; Revenue-Cutter; Stationery, Printing, and Blanks; Mails and Files; Special Agents, and Miscellaneous.
A few minutes' thought on the above will show that this is the very heart of the government of our country. Its pulsations send the currency through all the avenues of commerce; if it became bankrupt, disaster would follow in every other department of the government, and the prosperity of other nations would be unfavorably affected.