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Show Hinckley Journal of Politics Autumn 1998 ed by a large reward. Since these notes were accepted in any part of the country, once a counterfeiter was able to copy the difficult but distinct Treasury printing processes, he could circulate the fake bill nationally (Glaser 1968, 103). Formation of the Secret Service Soon the Treasury realized it could not rely solely on advanced printing techniques to solve the problem in the United States. The federal government had to expand to meet the expanding counterfeiting problem. Thus, in 1865, a law enforcement agency dedicated to the elimination of banknote forgery was established, known as the Secret Service (Treasury 1991a, 2). The immediate focus of the Service was the details of how to protect the public's money. First, Treasury officials considered the title for new protection persons (Johnson 1995, 75). The public scorned previous "detectives" sent out by the federal government to police counterfeiting. Likewise, the "special agents" hired by individual states to combat forgeries in the antebellum era were of no esteem. Rejecting both terms, the Secret Service decided that its men would be called "operatives." This term would likely meet public approval as "operative" usually referred to a factory worker- someone who was on the side of the people rather than on the side of the still-debated federal government. The nomenclature set the Secret Service apart from other national policing agencies and connected it with the public (Johnson 1995). With the dawn of a new century, the Treasury Department sought an even closer association with the public. The BEP focused on printing a bill that was easy for the average citizen to recognize. Treasury officials reasoned that if a real note could be readily recognized in the marketplace, so could a counterfeit note. As a result, counterfeiting would become a risky and unprofitable venture of lesser threat to the Treasury. Consequently, the BEP undertook another significant redesign of the dollar. The Comptroller of the Currency, in his report for the year 1912, revealed that the Secretary of the Treasury had approved a plan for systematizing the design on the paper currency and reducing the size of all notes. The Secretary stated, '"It is the purpose to make the notes more artistic and at the same time to give them added security in the circumvention of counterfeiting. The number of designs will be reduced from 19 to nine'" (quoted in Dillistin 1949, 39). In 1929, following many years of deliberation, the Treasury Department standardized each denomination with easily recognizable single portraits and back illustrations. New bills displayed the following images: $ 1 George Washington; Great Seal of the United States $2 Thomas Jefferson; Declaration of Independence $5 Abraham Lincoln; Lincoln Memorial $10 Alexander Hamilton; U. S. Treasury Building $20 Andrew Jackson; White House $50 Ulysses S. Grant; U. S. Capitol $100 Benjamin Franklin; Independence Hall This strategy fulfilled both factors necessary for the currency's success. The faces and buildings on the bills were national symbols which were easy for the general public to recognize. Additionally, the drawings had detailed features that were difficult for the average citizen to duplicate (Treasury 1991a, 7). The "Know Your Money" Campaign In 1937, the Secret Service contributed to the Treasury's alliance with the public. Secret Service Chief Frank J. Wilson started a new information campaign to educate the public about its currency. Citizens needed to know about the counterfeiting problem so they could help resolve it. The "Know Your Money" program was intended to tell the public not only what genuine currency looked like, but also how to tell if a note was counterfeit (Secret Service 1978, 24). Methods of the BEP and the Secret Service would no longer be kept secret in the hopes that an informed public would become a concerned public. Through national radio hook-ups, hundreds of thousands of people heard about the nation's currency. American citizens learned to look at several factors on a bill to detect a counterfeit, including: the portrait, Federal Reserve and Treasury Seals, Serial Numbers, fine-lined border, embedded red and blue fibers, and smearable ink (Secret Service 1978). Within the first year after the campaign's implementation, the amount of counterfeit currency seized by the Secret Service dropped to nearly half the previous year's total. Counterfeiters turned to other endeavors and the prewar average of $1 million in counterfeit bills progressively shriveled to approximately $50,000 per year. The Treasury directly attributed such quick results to its new educational strategy and alliance with the public. During the two years after the start of "Know Your Money," the Secretary of the Treasury provided $300,000 annually from the Emergency Relief Fund for the continuance of the educational campaign (25). While the Department had previously feared the increasing knowledge of the general public, it now rallied around an educated citizenry. Subsequently, the dollar bill did not undergo any significant changes for many years. The Treasury trusted in the Secret Service and a knowledgeable public to protect the bill while the BEP continued to produce the standardized dollar. Recent Developments Various Steps However, the Treasury could not remain content with its anti-counterfeiting strategy as the public grew complacent. Sixty years after the 1929 redesign of U. S. currency, the Treasury felt its superior status slipping. The decline of effective resistance to forgery called for additional changes in the dollar bill. Due to the slow but significant increases in color copier availability and technology, the Treasury Department added two new security features to U. S. currency in 1991 (Treasury 1995, 3). First, the Bureau of Engraving and 15 |