For ninety-five years contributions from penitent people throughout America have been flowing into the government's Conscience Fund at Washington. The first contribution of this nature was received in 1811, during the administration of Madison. At the first of this year the sums received from thousands of men and women who confessed that they had defrauded the government amounted to four hundred thousand dollars.
There is a great deal of variety in the character of transgressions, and also in the sums of money turned in to the Conscience Fund. One woman, a few years ago, sent a single one-cent stamp to the Secretary of the Treasury, explaining that she had defrauded the government of that amount of postage. In marked contrast to this contribution was a draft for fourteen thousand dollars, sent to the Conscience Fund by an American living in England.
One peculiarity that is revealed by the letters of repentant citizens is the effort to disguise the identity of the writers. They frequently write in a cramped, unnatural style, or they "print" the letters as children do, or purposely mis-spell words, as is evident when wretched orthography is done in handwriting that is itself indicative of culture.
All these efforts are unnecessary, for the United States government does not divulge the names even when, occasionally, they are frankly signed by the conscience-stricken. To enable the sender to know that his contribution has reached the Conscience Fund, announcement of the amount sent and the nature of the confession is made in the newspapers of the city or town whence the letter was mailed. But no effort is made to discover the identity of the contributor.
Many of the writers are women, but they do not send so much money to the Conscience Fund as the men. Their transgressions, as a rule, involve small transactions. The largest contributions come from smugglers. The remainder is received from persons who have used canceled stamps, or who have sent first-class mail under third-class rates, or persons who have actually stolen articles from Government buildings, forts, or reservations.
Faith in Fellowmen Awakened.
A curious fact in regard to the action of many of these penitents is that, having become awakened to a sense of high ethics, their distrust of others vanishes. This is not a universal trait among the contributors to the Conscience Fund, but there have been many conspicuous examples of it.
The Treasury Department receives daily about ten thousand letters. One morning, in 1905, there was received in the mail at this department a package in manila paper, folded to resemble an ordinary official-size envelope. It bore several two-cent stamps, but no more than was necessary to carry it, and nothing whatever to indicate its contents. It was the sort of package which might be expected to contain the vouchers of some claimant or subordinate official.
When the contents were shaken out, twelve thousand dollars in paper money lay on the desk of the astonished clerk. The letter accompanying this contribution to the Conscience Fund read as follows:
Hon. L.M. Shaw, Secretary of the
Treasury,
Dear Sir: