The whole basement floor of the north wing of the Treasury is occupied by the busy counters of mutilated money. Here sit one hundred and eighty women counters, restorers and detectors. Side by side, we see the faded and the blooming face. Here is the woman, worn and weary—born, more than likely, to ease and luxury—thankfully working to support herself and her children; and at the very next table, a maiden, whose fresh youth, care has not yet worn out—each working with equal thankfulness, to support herself, and besides, perhaps, father and mother, brother, sister or child.
COUNTING WORN AND DEFACED GREENBACKS, AND DETECTING COUNTERFEITS.
This room is in the Redemption Bureau, Treasury Building. Over One Hundred Thousand Dollars worth of Fractional Currency alone is here daily received for redemption; out of which about $350 dollars’ worth of counterfeit money is detected, stamped and returned.
The time of toil, for one who must earn her living, is not long; indeed, the hours are fewer than the average hours of ordinary labor. She does not complain of them; she is grateful for her chance. Yet her working-day is as long as her brother’s. Her chance, alone, is less. For the same hours and the same toil, her stipend is one-fourth smaller than his smallest.
At three o’clock P. M., hats and shawls come down from their pegs, lunch-baskets come forth from their hiding-places, the great corridors, and porticoes, and broad streets are thronged with homeward-wending workers. For the space of half an hour, the Treasury-offices and halls seem deserted, and then—Lo! the Broom Brigade! Cobwebs, dust and dirt, no longer dim the granite steps, the tessellated floors, the marble surfaces of the Treasury-building, as they used to do, years ago. Congress has provided a Broom Brigade, with fifteen dollars a month, to pay each member—and here they come, the sweepers, the dusters and the scrubbers—ninety women!
Three years ago, was established the present efficient system of daily cleaning of the Treasury, exclusively under feminine control, with what perfect result, all who remember the Treasury as it was, and see it as it is, can bear witness.
These ninety women-workers are under the exclusive control of a lady custodian. The organization, supervision, general control, payment, etc., of this small army of sweepers, brushers and scrubbers, all devolve on her. She is a fair and stately woman, wearing a crown of snow-white hair, her soul looking out of eyes clear and bright, yet of tender blue. Her face tells its own story of sorrow outlived, and of deep human sympathy. Did it tell any other, she would not be the right woman in the right place. No woman who has not suffered, who is not in profound sympathy with every form of human poverty and want, could of right reign over an army of women toilers, sweeping, scrubbing for bread. At 4 P. M., each day, ninety women enter a little room on the basement floor of the Treasury, there to exchange their decent street dress for the dusty garments of toil. As they ascend the broad stairs and disperse—broom, duster, or scrubbing-brush in hand—to make the beautiful offices and broad halls fresh and bright for the next coming day, the lady who guards and guides them all—who knows the history of each one—what stories she might tell!
Here is a little woman whose husband was killed in the Union army, leaving her nothing but his memory, his small pension, and a pair of brave hands to support herself and three little ones. Here are two bright little colored girls. They are students in Howard’s University, and come every day after school, the long way to the Treasury, to earn a part of the money which is to insure their education. Here is a young woman whose keenly lined, sorrowful face is a history. “Months ago she came to the silver-haired lady in the custodian’s room, and asked for work of any kind. The possibility to grant her request did not then exist, and again and again, with little hope, she came. At last she applied when some necessitous vacancy in the ranks of workers rendered it possible for the lady to assign her at once to a place of employment; and gladly she gave it, for the petitioner was wan and despairing. After work and the departure of the throng, she again sought the lady, to thank her on her knees ‘for saving her life.’ She said, ‘I had made up my mind to take my life if you refused me; I had reached the end of every thing.’ Then followed the oft-repeated story—deception, desertion, desperation, and the one last struggle to live”—to live honestly by honest, albeit the lowliest toil.
“Many a soldier’s widow, struggling with smallest fortune, has occasion to be thankful for the fifteen dollars earned here every month, although the walk and work seem insufferable at times. Many a soldier’s orphan is sustained by the stroke of brush and broom, making hall and stair and wall brightly clean to the step and sight of coming visitors from far and near, and the same shining polish which some strangers may admire, on the perspected marble floors and wrought pilasters, is a source and means of maintenance to humble homes when a death, desertion, and (O! sadly often) drunkenness has removed the head and protector, and in which life means only toil and sorrow. Every one of these ninety women has her own story of trouble, and want, and endurance, which made up her past, and won for her, her niche in this scheme of labor.”
Near a thousand women, from the toilers of the tubs under its roof, to the Brush-and-Broom Brigade in its basement, are employed in the Treasury. Their labor ranges from the lowliest manual toil, to the highest intellectual employment. In the social scale they measure the entire gamut of society. In isolated instances, women of exceptional character may still hold positions in the Treasury, and in so large a number, and under an unjust system of appointment, it would be strange if no such case could be found. But so powerful is the public sentiment roused against such appointments, it is impossible that they should be longer permitted, if known. The deepest wrong which their presence ever inflicted, was the unjust suspicion which they brought upon a large body of intelligent, pure women. The truth is, there is not another company of women-workers in the land which numbers so many ladies of high character, intelligence, culture, and social position.