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-ByFrank G. Carpenter 400 Clerks, Many Machines, Keep Books (Copyright, 1918, by Frank G. Carpenter). On the Billions of U. S. Indebtedness Millions of Accounts Are Carried and Record of Each Account Must Be Perfect; Making Out Interest Checks Is Colossal Task. large sums of money into them. Some where he is and just how his account ASHINGTON, D. C., Oct. 12.-I years ago one of the Vanderbilts stands. This is now done by an inW have spent this week at the treasowned $45,000,000 of such bonds. They dex card system, which gives the full ury department looking into the brought four percent interest, and evdetails of every transaction. Every ery three months he had a check of bookkeeping of the Liberty loans. It registered bondholder has his index $450,000 mailed to him by the treascard which shows when he bought is the biggest job of the kind since urer of the United States. His money his bonds and if from some other Joseph, the Hebrew W. G. McAdoo of was absolutely safe, and the receipts party than the government, the name Egypt, kept the accounts of the corn on the day fixed were as sure as the of the seller. The history of every rising of the sun. It made one almot crop and fixed the individual income bond from the time it is issued until a Socialist when he heard of the init is paid can be found on these cards. tax at 20 percent of the gross income vestment, but today the pill of such The system is fool-proof, and it has for old Aphobis the shepherd king. covetousness is coated with the thick replaced the old method. Down in At the close of this drive the bonds sugar of the new income tax, which the vaults of the treasury department takes about-seven-tenths of such sold for the war will have brought are the books containing the records money back to the government. in more than $16,000,000,000 of money, of such accounts of the past. They It is impossible for a thief to get and the annual interest charges upon consist of 85 great ledgers each as away with a registered bond. If it is them will be in the neighborhood of big as the top of a tea table and as stolen or lost, all one has to do is to $700,000,000. The bonds are of more thick as an old family Bible. They than a half dozen denominations, notify the treasury department and a contain the story of the bonds in pen check will be made on the index card ranging in value from $50 up to $100,and ink. The bonds have been paid, 000, and their holders are millions. showing that nothing is to be paid on but it would take a lifetime or 80 to For the first three loans the indithat bond until the matter has been get out the facts concerning each invidual purchases were more than 31,adjusted. The thief cannot sell the dividual bond. The story of each of 000,000 and it is expected that 25,000,bond, for the interest will go to the the registered bonds of the liberty 000 more subscriptions will be made owner until the transfer has been loans is kept upon a card not half as during this drive. made as above stated. big as a sheet of note paper. The total number of transactions If a registered bond is burned and Coupon Bonds Like Cash. inside the treasury and out of it thus the owner can prove this fact to the But before I go further let me exnumber 56,000,000 and the bonds they treasurer of the United States, a new plain the difference between coupon represent are of two kinds-regisbond will be issued, and if he can bonds and registered bonds, the two tered and coupon. They belong to prove that his bonds have been stolen, classes into which our government four different series and some are it is possible that the same might ocloans are divided. The bookkeeping exchangeable one for the other. Keepcur, although in certain cases it redivision has to keep track of each ing track of these enormous sums quires an act of congress to bring kind, but it is only as to the regisscattered among millions of individabout this result. tered bonds that it deals direct with uals is a part of the bookkeeping of Biggest Theft of Bonds. the individual holder. No record is the Liberty loans. The biggest theft of registered kept here of the owners of the couThe thought nakes one's brain bonds occurred abqut 40 years ago pon bonds. boil. In the past year the United when the Manhattan Savings InstituThey are payable to bearer, and to States has become a nation of booktion of New York was burglarized. A each is fastened detachable coupons of keepers. Uncle Sam now requires part of the loot carried away by the about the size of a special delivery every one of us to put down our rerobbers consisted of eight bonds of stamp, representing the semi-annual ceipts and expenditures, and if our $50,000 each, and 120 bonds of $10,000 income amounts to more than $2000 interest. Every six months you clip each, representing altogether a value off one of these coupons, and cash it he wants a big share of every cent of $1,600,000. All of these bonds were of the surplus to help pay for the at the treasury of the United States registered, but before the act of conwar. Each of us knows the work and or at the banks. Any bank in the gress could be passed authorizing the the strain he undergoes in striking country knows.what it is worth, and issuance of duplicates, there was a his balance sheet. Multiply that a the value of the bonds and coupons is run on the bank and it went into the million times, and you have some SO well known that they easily pass as hands of a receiver. The chief of the idea of what is going on in one little money. Any one can cash or sell branch of the treasury department. burglars, Jimmy Hope, was finally them, and if they should be lost, the 400 Clerks Do It. captured and sent to the penitentiary. finder could turn the bonds into money I saw one little branch of the You may read the story of his advenat any bank or collect the coupons treasury. The whole department emtures in inspector Byrnes's book, "The when they become due. The burglar ployed more than 5000 clerks at Great Bank Robbery." who gets hold of a lot of coupon Washington before the war began. bonds can use them as easily as SO Lock Up Coupon Bonds. It has many times that number today, many greenbacks or. gold eagles. Most of the subscribers to the presbut the great increase has not been in ent loan buy coupon bonds, and to The Registered Bonds. the division which keeps account such I would say you had best put As to the registered bonds, they of the bank notes and has charge of them carefully away and if you have payable only to the persons whose paying the principal and interest on not a safe deposit box give them over names are written upon them. They these government loans. The total are in the hands of the owners and to your bank for safe keeping. Counumber of clerks in this bookkeeping pon bonds can be negotiated anywhere the government has a record of every division is only 400. They do all the and the stories of the unredeemed holder. They are without coupons, work and keep the records and acbonds of the past would make a book but the treasury mails the interest counts right to a fraction of a cent. of exciting interest. to the owner as soon as it becomes This has been possible only by the Hundreds of such bonds are lost, introduction of cost efficiency due. When a transfer occurs, the and there is scarcely a government bond has to be sent in to the treasmethods and by new systems of bookloan which has not records of many ury department with an indorsement keeping, indexing and mailing. such bonds still unpaid. To show Fool-Proof Records. upon it before witnesses fixed by the where the lost bonds go, take, for inTake the registered bonds. They government. A record of this transfer stance, the case of an old Irish washis then put down on the index card. already number hundreds of thouwoman who bought a battered bookWhen the bonds become due the prinsands, and the government has to case at auction. She intended to use have a record of each holder. It must cipal is returned to the owners. it as a china closet, and when she Registered Bonds Safest. know his address in order to send came to clean it she found in one of Registered bonds are the safest of him his interest every six months, of a five drawers and the rich men all greenish a investments, put papers able tell be at and to to glance
