San Francisco last week was the starting point of what was described as the greatest gold shipment of all time. Two billions in bullion, one-third of all the gold in the land, began to move 1,440 mi. to the U. S. Mint at Denver. And 1,796 mi. farther east, beneath a huge portrait of Benjamin Franklin in his big new Washington office, sat the bald-headed man who was morally, physically and financially responsible for the fabulous shipment. By law it was up to Postmaster General James Aloysius Farley to get the Government's gold from mint door to mint door intact.
In announcing this transfer last month, the Treasury had talked as if it were afraid of California earthquakes. San Franciscans, touchy as ever about their $500,000,000 "fire" in 1906, preferred to believe that the gold was being taken inland to protect it against possible Japanese invasion or to clear the way for the construction of a new mint.