92. Henry Russell Wilken is the only man who has ever successfully counterfeited the fabrics on which we print our paper money. He did that so well that the people who make it for the Government accepted it as genuine. Now that I’m out of the Government service I can grin at what happened at that paper mill. He was a clever boy and a nice one. You’d like him. There have been counterfeiters and counterfeiters. Some were almost brilliant. Others were plain dubs—clumsy lowbrows, who were clowns at work that required delicate artistry. But here you have a boy who had never seen an engraver at work, who knew no more about the engraving and printing industry than he did about paper making and chemistry. I assure you his knowledge of these industries, prior, of course, to launching upon his great enterprise, amounted to nothing at all. In fact, he told me, and I verified it, that he had never been in an engraving or printing plant in his life before he decided to compete with the United States Mint.... One morning in February, 1910, he came across a small item in a Boston newspaper wherein it was stated that a milkman out in Dorchester had found a packet of one dollar bills. The milkman took them to a bank. The bank informed the milkman that the bills were counterfeit, and very obvious counterfeits at that. And there, on that morning in February, 1910, the criminal career of Henry Wilken was launched. As he told us afterward, he gave the matter much thought. Here he was earning $25 or $30 a week. There was a girl he liked and who liked him. There were certain relations who looked upon him as something of a castoff, a misfit, a ne’er-do-well, a drifter. And there were clubs that rich young men belonged to—rich young men who were not particularly top-heavy with brains, but who had money, and lots of it. There was but one thing for him to do—make money.... The boy was ambitious for success, for wealth, for position, for luxury. At that particular moment Boston was being pestered by a youth who lacked everything but several million dollars, and the city knew him as “The Millionaire Kid.” Wilken had scraped acquaintance with the Kid and the sight of the latter’s spending orgies merely added fuel to the fierce desire for wealth. I have told you that Wilken knew nothing about chemistry, paper-making, engraving, printing, dyeing, and photography—all of them necessary arts of the counterfeiter. I assure you he knew absolutely nothing about any one of those things. But he did the thing that must commend itself to all successful men.