The Treasury building, on Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street, was located by President Jackson just east of the White House so as to obstruct his view of the Capitol, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue. It is said that he grew tired of the little differences of opinion between the commissioner and the architect, Robert Mills, and one day in ill humor he struck his staff in the earth and said: "I want the chief corner-stone of the Treasury building placed just here!" You may be sure it was placed just there.

The Secretary of the Treasury superintends the collection and disbursement of all government revenue from every source, except the Post-Office Department. It takes many buildings to provide for the work of the Treasury Department.

The Congressional Directory says:

The Secretary of the Treasury is charged by law with the management of the national finances. He prepares plans for the improvement of the revenue and for the support of the public credit; superintends the collection of the revenue, and prescribes the forms of keeping and rendering public accounts and of making returns; grants warrants for all moneys drawn from the Treasury in pursuance of appropriations made by law, and for the payment of moneys into the Treasury; and annually submits to Congress estimates of the probable revenues and disbursements of the Government. He also controls the construction of public buildings; the coinage and printing of money; the administration of the Revenue-Cutter branch of the public service, and furnishes generally such information as may be required by either branch of Congress on all matters pertaining to the foregoing.

The routine work of the Secretary's office is transacted in the offices of the Supervising Architect, Director of the Mint, Director of Engraving and Printing, and in the following divisions: Bookkeeping and Warrants; Appointments; Customs; Public Moneys; Loans and Currency; Revenue-Cutter; Stationery, Printing, and Blanks; Mails and Files; Special Agents, and Miscellaneous.

A few minutes' thought on the above will show that this is the very heart of the government of our country. Its pulsations send the currency through all the avenues of commerce; if it became bankrupt, disaster would follow in every other department of the government, and the prosperity of other nations would be unfavorably affected.

The Treasury building was completed in 1841. It has undergone considerable enlargement and many modifications since that time. It is 460 feet on Fifteenth Street, and has a frontage of 264 feet on Pennsylvania Avenue. It is Grecian in architecture. On each of the four sides are large porticos with most graceful yet massive Ionic columns. The flower gardens about the Treasury are among the most beautiful in the city.

It would greatly surprise Alexander Hamilton, our first Secretary of the Treasury, if he could see every day at 4 P.M. the 3,000 workers pour out of the 300 rooms of the great building at Fifteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and be told that this is only the central office of the Secretary of the Treasury. The salary list of this building alone is about half a million dollars annually.

The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet, and receives $12,000 a year for his services. He has two Assistant Secretaries, who each receive $5,000 and a Chief Clerk, who has a salary of $2,700. The Chiefs of Divisions receive about $2,500 each.

There are subtreasuries in most of the large cities of the Union; also assay offices in Boise City, Idaho, Charlotte, N. C., and St. Louis, Mo., to see that the money is kept pure and up to the standard.

The scales upon which the United States coin is weighed are said to be so accurate that if two pieces of paper, in all respects the same except that one has writing upon it, be laid one on either scale, the difference in weight of the one bearing writing upon it will show in the scale.

The cost of maintaining these subdivisions of the Treasury is nearly one and a half million dollars annually.

The First Comptroller seems to be the important man of the Treasury. Every claim is submitted to him. Not even the President's salary can be paid unless he signs the warrant and vouchers for its correctness. His salary is $5,000 per annum, but it takes $83,000 to maintain all the appointments of his office.

The Treasurer of the United States receives $6,000 per year. He gives a bond for $150,000. He receives and disburses all the money of the country and has charge of the money vaults. He has an army of assistants.

The Treasurer's report for 1901 says that the condition of the Treasury as to the volume and character of assets was never better, and, in spite of the unusual expense of the army in the Philippines and the raid on the Pension Bureau, nearly $78,000,000 surplus remained in the Treasury. On June 30, 1902, at the end of the fiscal year, the surplus was over $92,000,000. What a magnificent showing as to the prosperity of our country, and what an occasion for national thanksgiving!

No robbery of the Treasury vaults has ever been attempted. When one sees the solid walls of masonry and the patrol of soldiers, on duty night or day, with every spot bright with electric light, no such attempt seems likely to occur. The entire vaults inside are a network of electric wires. If, for instance, a tunnel were made under the building, and a robber should reach the vaults, the wires would ring up the Chief of Police, who has telephone connection with Fort Meyer and the navy-yard, so that within twenty minutes a detachment of troops could be on the ground.

A few years ago a negro charwoman, in doing her cleaning, found a package of bonds of more than a million dollars in value. That faithful woman sat by the package all night guarding it, knowing that it must be of great value. Her faithfulness was recognized and she was rewarded with a life position. Bowed and broken, she was an historic figure in the building until she died.

In this building all money from the Printing Bureau and the mints is counted and verified. Here worn money, that which has been buried, rotted by water or charred by fire, is identified by the skilled eyes and hands of women. Of the charred money received from the great fire in Chicago, eighty per cent. was identified, and new money issued in its place. Sometimes money taken from bodies long drowned or buried has to be handled. In such cases these women have the entire room to themselves, as their usual neighbors find that business in other quarters needs immediate attention.

The banks of large cities send in their soiled money weekly or monthly and receive fresh notes in exchange, the government paying transportation both ways. This soiled money is made into pulp, which is sold to paper-makers at about $40 a ton.

It is only the old money that is counterfeited. Counterfeiters rumple and muss their money to give it the appearance of being long in use. Women are especially skilled in detecting counterfeit money. If among the returned coins or notes one single piece proves to be counterfeit, the amount is deducted from the salary of the examiner. Yet this great government pays these women less than two-thirds what it would pay to men for the same service, if men could do it at all.

From the government of the United States it would seem that the world had a right to expect that ideal justice which each soul shall receive when it stands in the presence of Eternal Justice.

The United States Treasury has charge of the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, where all the paper money, postage, revenue stamps, and bonds are made.

Bills, when sent from the Bureau of Printing and Engraving, require the signatures of officials of the bank from which they are to be issued before becoming legal tender.

Secretary Shaw has at the Bureau of Printing and Engraving his personal representative, who locks up the plates, sees to the minutiÆ of things, so that even the smallest scrap of paper bearing government printing must be shown, or the house is closed and search made till it is found.

The custom officers who insult and browbeat you at the port are of this department. Once on arriving at New York, after being very ill all the way from Antwerp, I had declared I had nothing dutiable, yet in spite of that every article in my trunk was laid out on the dirty floor of the custom-house. When I saw the bottom of the trunk, I said: "Well, you have only proved what I told you. I believe you think because I am trembling from weakness that I am frightened?" "Yes, that is about the size of it; there is your trunk, you may put the things back." "No," I said, "my baggage is checked through, and I am not able to pack it." I saw with some satisfaction the custom-house officer do the packing. It had required my best efforts to get the stuff into the trunk, but he did it.

This country has very silly custom-house rules on personal clothing and small articles of art and vertu, and the average artistic standard of dress and home ornamentation of the country is lowered by these ridiculous embargoes.

In 1895 I was abroad with a company of Presbyterians; among them was Professor G., of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary of California. He happened to fall in with a little coterie of friends of whom I was one. The most of us bought photos and souvenirs in almost every city. The professor bought nothing. One day he said: "I would so like to have brought my wife with me, but I was not able to do so. I shall be very saving, so I can take her back a nice present." When we were in Italy some fool woman suggested a cameo pin as a suitable and beautiful present for his wife. Cameo pins have been out of fashion for twenty years. He purchased one of great beauty for $30. As we came into port, a friend said: "Professor, you had better let some woman wear that pin for you or you will have trouble." "Thank you, no; I expect to pay the required duty to my country." "Oh, you do not know your country yet; you'll get a dose!" He paid $27 duty, and had not money enough left to get home. I felt that this duty was an outrage. Things of beauty which are not for sale should surely be admitted free.

The Treasury is the heart of the whole machine that we call the "United States Government."