WORKINGS OF THE GOVERNMENT SECRET SERVICE
Counterfeiting money is an old offense. It was done before the United
States became a government, but does not seem to have become so
widespread until the United States began making its own paper money
during the Civil War. Prior to that time the offenses had been dealt
with by states and municipalities, with such help as the general
government cared to give. The increase in the crime, however, caused
recog
suppression to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of the
Treasury. This sum was paid out in rewards to private detectives,
municipal officers and others instrumental in bringing to trial and
punishment those engaged in making bogus money.
With the turning out of greenbacks by the government an increase in
the appropriation and a more organized fight against counterfeiting
were necessary. In 1864 Congress appropriated $100,000 and placed upon
the solicitor of the treasury the responsibility and supervision of
keeping down counterfeiting. This really inaugurated a methodical
system of hunting and punishing counterfeiters. The solicitor of the
treasury gathered about him a corps of men experienced in criminal
investigations and set them to work. The plan worked so well that when
John Sherman was secretary of the treasury he gave his approval to the
organization of a separate bureau for suppressing the output of
spurious currency. Under foreign governments the handling of
counterfeiters is in control of a centralized police organization,
which looks after all kinds of criminal offenses against the general
governments. The one bureau has surveillance over criminals of every
class. The tendency is in that direction in this government. The
secret service bureau is now being used by a number of departments of
the government.
The operations of the secret service are confined by law to the
suppression of counterfeiting and the investigation of back pay and
bounty cases. This is all the law permits the officials of the service
to work on, but every day they are at work on other matters. That the
law may not be openly violated the secret service operators assigned
to do other work are practically taken off the secret service rolls
and the department employing them is required to pay their salaries
and expenses. Nearly all the departments now recognize the efficiency
of the service and call upon the bureau at any time for a man. The
Department of Justice has used a number of the operators in the last
few years. In the course of time this will become so general that this
government will probably build up a great criminal bureau, one that
will supply officers for investigation of any crime. The Postoffice
Department now has its own system of inspectors, who investigate
violations of postal laws, and the plan of pitting specialist against
specialist is regarded as perfect. This could be continued, though, if
all the criminal organizations of the government were centralized.
The United States is divided into thirty secret service districts,
each in charge of an operative who has under his direction as many
assistants as the criminal activity of the section demands. The force
is concentrated in one district if there are counterfeiting operations
in progress, and then sent to another district as required. A written
daily report, covering operations for twenty-four hours, is exacted
from each district operative and from each man under him. These daily
reports frequently contain many fascinating stories, many details of
criminal life and espionage that would make columns. The reports
received by the bureau in Washington are carefully filed away in the
offices of the Treasury Department. Accompanying the reports are the
photographs and measurements of every man arrested for counterfeiting.
The Bertillon system of measurements is used by the service, as well
as a plain indexed card system. The two are so complete that even
without the name of a man his name and record can be obtained if his
measurements are forwarded.
Hanging on the walls and in racks in the two rooms that are occupied
by the chief and his two assistants are the photographs of every known
counterfeiter in the country. Among these are the faces of William E.
Brockway, the veteran dean of counterfeiters; Emanuel Ninger, the most
expert penman the service ever knew, and Taylor and Bredell, who hold
the record as the cleverest counterfeiters in history next to
Brockway. There are hundreds of others who have at some time or other
gotten into the clutches of the service, many of them the most
desperate characters. Some of these have taken human life with the
same ease they would make a paper dollar or a silver coin.
The development of modern processes of photolithography, photogravure,
and etching has revolutionized the note counterfeiting industry. So
famous a counterfeiter as Brockway realized this. In the old days all
counterfeiting plates were hand engraved and it took from eight to
fifteen months to complete a set. Now this part of the work may be
done in a few hours.
Information as to the personnel and operations of the secret service
is carefully withheld from the public. The names of the heads of the
various districts and the operators are unknown and are seldom
published unless in case of the arrest of a counterfeiter and the the
facts get into the newspapers. The bureau is managed by John E.
Wilkie, chief. He has held the position since 1898, when he succeeded
Chief Hazen. Mr. Wilkie is a newspaper man having held responsible
positions on many large papers. He began his career as a reporter and
worked his way up to city editor of one of the big Chicago papers. He
has a great "nose" for criminal investigation, and his work is
regarded as brilliant.
All the United States notes are printed in sheets of four notes of one
denomination on each sheet. Each note is lettered in its respective
order, in the upper and lower corners diagonally opposite, A, B, C,
and D, and this is the system for numbering notes: All numbers, on
being divided by 4 and leaving 1 for a remainder, have the check
letter A; 2 remainder, B; 3 remainder, C; even numbers, or with no
remainder, D. Any United States note the number upon which can be
divided by 4 without showing the above result is a counterfeit, and
while this rule is not infallible in all instances it will be found of
service in the detection of counterfeits.
Compared with a dozen or so years ago, there is nothing like the
counterfeiting going on in this country. Shortly after the war the
country was practically flooded with it, but so perfect is the
machinery of the secret service and so successful have its officers
been in recent years in unearthing the big plants and their operators,
and placing the latter behind the bars, that counterfeiting has almost
ceased.
The receipts of subsidiary counterfeit coins at the subtreasury at New
York have been in recent times inconsequential. Some time ago an
Italian silversmith, who was an expert coin counterfeiter, was
captured, and the destruction of his plant and his subsequent
conviction had a wholesome effect upon his fellow countrymen, some of
whom have come over to the United States for the express purpose of
counterfeiting its silver coins. Only five counterfeit issues of notes
made their appearance during the year in question, and of these three
were new and two were reissues of old counterfeits.
This shows how well the counterfeit situation, as it were, is kept in
check and under control by the government. By some it is supposed that
most of our counterfeiters come from abroad, but this is not strictly
accurate, though many of those who attempt to imitate our silver
dollar and the subsidiary coin issues hail from Italy and Russia.
In order to set up a first-class counterfeit shop for the turning out
of good paper counterfeits, there are so many indispensable requisites
on the part of the spurious money-makers that they get discouraged or
caught in most instances almost at the very outset of their would-be
easy money-making careers. All of the good engravers who are capable
of turning out good plates are more or less under the constant
supervision of the secret service officers, while the paper supply, or
its possible supply, is equally well watched.
Because gold and silver coins pass current out on the Pacific coast,
where notes do not yet circulate freely as in the east, California has
more counterfeiting cases than any other state in the Union, with
Pennsylvania, with its large foreign population in the mining regions,
a close second.
A moderately deceptive $5 silver certificate was made in Italy,
imported into this country by various gangs of Italians and passed
quite extensively in the eastern states, but the secret service
officers quickly got on to the source of issue, and made many arrests
and secured convictions. So closely did they hit the trail of a fairly
good counterfeit note issued in the west that they got the maker and
passer arrested and convicted and the plates captured so quickly that
it must have caused him acute pain. It was the same with a $10 note of
deceptive workmanship which appeared in New York. Only three of these
notes were circulated.
Of course there are plenty of counterfeit notes and coins in
circulation--if there were not the secret-service officers would have
an easy time of it--but the output has largely decreased as compared
with former years, and, unless all signs fail, it is likely to go
still lower, as the secret service officers become each year more
expert in detecting this class of crime and putting the criminals away
where they will serve the state the best. Gold certificates issued
below the denomination of $20, are numbered the same as treasury notes
and are check-lettered in their order upon each sheet.
The only denominations of the gold certificates which have been
counterfeited are the issues for $20 and $100, respectively, as the
gold certificates present a pretty tough counterfeiting proposition,
though most of the denominations of the various issues of the silver
certificates have been more or less extensively counterfeited, perhaps
the issues for $5 and $10, respectively, being the most favored at the
counterfeiter's hands, by reason of the ready circulation of these two
issues.
The main deterrents to counterfeiting nowadays are, first, lack of
good engravers who will take the risk; second, the difficulty in the
making and the assembling of first-class plates, and third, the
difficulty in the securing of suitable paper. As to the last, the
fiber paper now in use with the two silk threads running through the
note lengthwise presents a hard proposition for imitation, and lastly,
and an important provision, is the fact the public is now pretty well
educated on the question of counterfeits, and know how a spurious bill
both looks and feels. As for the bank tellers, they scent counterfeits
by instinct. Things have changed for the counterfeiter, too, and they
are not for the best from his point of view.
The secret service of the United States is without a question the best
in the world.
More
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