From this superb room of the people we pass to that of the Treasurer,—“the watch-dog of the Treasury,”—the man who holds and guards the untold millions of the nation. It is a plain room, very. No thought of luxury, it is easy to see, has touched an article of its furniture, from his well-worn chair to the broken-nosed pitcher which holds the General’s ink; that ink, thick as mud and black as Egyptian night, out of which he constructs these marvellous hieroglyphics, which, on our legal-tender notes, has become one of the most baffling studies of the nation.
“The General!” That’s his name, from the roof to the cellar of the vast Treasury; crooked, crotchety, great-hearted; nobody swears so loud, or is so generous, or just, as “the General.” Every afflicted soul, from the women, poor and old, who stand by the printing-presses under the scorching roof, to Mary Walker, whose devotion to “her principles,” in the form of a pair of hideous little pantaloons, causes her justly to shed tubs of tears,—all are sure of a hearing, and of redress, if possible, from “the General.” His face is as astonishing as his signature. It is a Lincolnian face in this, that its best expression can never be transferred to a picture. In life it is rugged, ugly at first glance, genial at the second. The eyes twinkle with humor and kindness; the wide mouth shuts tight with wilfulness and determination; the whole expression and presence of the man indicate energy, honesty, and power.
General Spinner is an object of personal curiosity to all sight-seers who visit Washington. Dick and Dolly having puzzled their eyes for an hour, studying some fresh legal tender note, to discover by what process of evolution and convolution the remarkable signature which it bears is fashioned, when they came to the Capital, proceeded to the Treasury to see, not only the man who makes it, but how he makes it. Bluff, and even snappish at first approach, after a little wilful snarling, our General subsides into the most amiable of mastiffs. He is an exception to the official class, in his hate of exclusiveness and his never-failing accessibility. Indeed, he would have far less to irritate him, if he made himself more unapproachable and remote. As it is, all sorts of tormenting people, finding it perfectly easy to “get at him,” do not neglect the privilege, and altogether keep him pretty thoroughly “wrought up” with their never-ending and perpetually conflicting woes. Dicky and Dolly, fresh from their farm, who ask for no “place” in any “division” whatever, who have no alert grievance grumbling for redress, who wish for nothing but, “Please, sir, will you just show us how you make it—that queer name?” are sure to be gratified in the very jolliest fashion. The General stabs the old pen with three points down into the pudding-like ink which sticks to the bottom of the broken-nosed pitcher, and proceeds to pile it up in ridiculous little heaps at cross angles on a bit of paper. The result of his “piling,” which Dick and Dolly watch with breathless interest, is his signature, which our happy friends bear off in triumph to show to the “folks at home.” “Yes, sir, the autograph of the Treasurer of the United States! and we saw him make it, we did! A queer lookin’ man, but good as pie, I can tell you; has a feelin’ for folks, as if he wasn’t no better than them, if he does take care of all the money of the United States Treasury, which, I tell you, is a heap!”
The taking care of this money is a mighty responsibility, which General Spinner realizes to the utmost. From his small room in the Treasury, a door opens into a still smaller one. In this little room, beneath the mighty roof of the Treasury, the keeper of its millions sleeps. Before he essays to do this, twice every night the guardian of the people’s treasure goes himself to the money vault, and, with his own hand upon their handles, assures himself beyond doubt that the nation’s money safes are inviolably locked.
In order that he may do this every night before he attempts to sleep, and that he may never be beyond call in case of accident or wrong doing, the Treasurer of the United States absolutely lives, by day and by night, in the Treasury. It is told of him that, “Once, before he began sleeping in the Treasury, he was awakened in the night by a strong impression that something was wrong at the Department. He lay for a long time, tossing uneasily upon his bed, and trying to close his eyes and convince himself that it was a mere freak of an over-taxed brain; but it would not be driven away. At last, about two o’clock in the morning, in order to assure himself that his impression was at fault, he arose, hastily dressed, and set out for the Treasury. On his way he met a watchman from the Department, hastening to arouse him, with the information that the door of one of the vaults had just been found standing wide open. A careless clerk, whose duty it was to close and lock the door, had failed to perform his duty that night, and the watchman, on going his rounds, had discovered the neglect.”
Since that night the Treasurer has slept in the Treasury, and been night-inspector of its doors and locks himself.
It is not difficult to appreciate his personal anxiety and consciousness of vast responsibility, when we remember that he is the hourly keeper of at least eight hundred million dollars which belong to the nation. There are very few officers of the Government who are called to bring to bear upon their daily duties the ceaseless vigilance, the sacrifice of personal ease and comfort in the service of the State, which characterizes the honest, tireless, invincible “watch-dog of the Treasury.”
The room of the Secretary of the Treasury, in the Treasury building, has its outlook on the eastern side and grounds of the Executive Mansion. A wonderful fountain throws its million jets into the air at the foot of the great portico below, and another tosses its spray amid the green knolls opposite the President’s windows. These grounds, swelling everywhere into gentle hills, covered with mossy turf, filled with winding walks, and brightened with parterres of flowers in summer months, are enchanting in their beauty.
Thus, you see, the Secretary’s windows quite turn their backs on the noisy avenue. Their outlook is most serene. So is the aspect and atmosphere of the room. It is a nun of a room, folded in soft grays, with here and there a touch of blue and gold. The velvet carpet is gray; the furniture, oiled black walnut, upholstered with blue cloth, each chair and sofa bearing “U. S.” in a medallion on its back, while the carved window-cornices each hold in their centres the gilded scales of justice above the key of the Treasury. A full-length mirror is placed between these windows. On one side of the room is a book-case, in which the works of Webster, Calhoun, Washington, and Jefferson, are conspicuous. The walls are frescoed in neutral tints, and the only pictures on them are chromo portraits of Lincoln and Grant.
In the centre of this room, at a cloth-covered table, sits the Secretary of the Treasury and his assistants, besides, usually, a third dejected mortal, on the “anxious seat” of expectancy for an office.