Evening Star Newspaper, April 19, 1931, Page 88

r 12 THE SUNDAY STAR, TRUE STORIES OF THE U. S. 7 NO 3% DEGREE The Government agents do not use the “third degree,” do not tap telephone wires, open letters or wear trick disguises in their work. BY ALMA COTLAND YARD, magic couplet, conjures memories of exciting mys- tery tales in which the astute detec- . tive, with magnifying lens and clever disguises, trails the murderer inev- itably to his doom. Dapper, handsome, the Northwest Mounted has pursued the villain across many a movie screen, got his man in the end and rescued the lovely lady. Newspaper references attest the activity of the French “Surete Generale” and Russia’s “G. P. U—but few stories have been written around the exploits of America’s own national police. Yet during recent years, in Washington, there has been built up under the directorship of John Edgar Hoover, Chief of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice, an effective nation-wide organization of police forces that compares favorably with the best that Eurcpean countries can boast. Its finger- print collection, hub of modern police activities, is said to be the largest of current value in the world. Every day, and every hour of the day, it measures the pulse-beat of crime throughout the United States. The National Division of Identification, housing this collection, is located in the South- ern Railway Building. Here, available at a few minutes notice, classified according to their varied and intricate patterns of whorls and loops, are the fingerprints of all the swaggering characters of the underworld. Over 2,300,000 criminals are here registered and behind each small card, bearing the im- pression of 10 fingertips, lies a story. The set- ting of the story may be any of the five conti- nents, or several of them, for these prints come in from all parts of the globe. Fingerprints never lie. From infancy to old sge the design remains the same, and no two prints have been found that were exactly alike. Bertillon measurements vary; faces and figures become altered; it is possible to play clever masquerades with the police and change a name like a glove, but the little ridges on the fingertips, sandpapered away, will grow back quickly in the identical pattern, infallible clues to identity. R. HOOVER will tell you that his corps of “special agents” is small but that it is efficient and organized to the nth degree. The agents work out of 28 districts, covering the United States and its territories, and their operations are facilitated greatly by the infor- mation at the Identificaticn Division in Wash- ington. Chiefs of police in the United States and in Europe, penitentiary wardens, narcotic and pro- hibition officers also have access to it, help to bmild it and are served by it, CHESTNUT. Althcugh the forwarding of fingerprints to the bureau is entirely voluntarily, some 1,800 new records are received every day; and 50 per cent are of boys under 21. During the last fiscal year 114,874 identification were made and 1,253 fugitives located through the bureau. Time was when a criminal could skip his territory when things got “hot” and take up his activities under an alias in a different State or county, avoiding detection. Habitual of- fenders were likely to draw a sentence no more severe than the chap who was sent up for the first time. But all that has been changed. A story told by Director Hoover at a recent meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police illustrates the point. In a city of the Middle West a Negro de- fendant had been brought into court, accused of a comparatively minor crime. He had, he at. first asserted, no previous criminal record, but when the United States attorney confronted bim unexpectedly with a lengthy and painfully detailed report from the Division of Identifica- tion he shifted guiltily in his number ’levens. “Boss,” said he, “what do you say we just let that go and give me what you were going to give me.” The judge, however, imposed a severe sen- tence, based primarily upon the record of the man’s past criminal activities. Fingerprints not only identify the guilty, Mr. Hoover points out, but protect the innocent. In the United States fingerprints were first used for practical criminal identification at Sing Sing in 1903. Two years before Sir E. R. Henry, then commissioner of Scotland Yard, London, had perfected a system of classifica- tion known as the “Henry System,” and put it into use in England and Wales. Earlier than that the Bertillon system had been used. It was based upon certain body measurements, such as height, length of the outer arms, trunk, ear, left foot, and so forth. The measurements were subdivided and listed in a certain designated sequence to form the groundwork of the classification of photo- graphs to which they referred. This system, valuable at the time, had its faults. It was not effective in identifying per- sons under 21 or over 60 years of age, since during these periods measurements change. ‘Then, too, the likelihood of error was wide. One operator would take the measurements “locse” .and another “tight,” resulting in slight variations, ’I‘H‘E story of “Will” and William West shows how wide of the mark an identification could go under the old classification, although the instance is excepticnal and would not often be duplicated. Some yecars ago Will West, a young Negro, was committed to the United States peniten~ Quietly, but With Scientific Effict Work of Catching Crooks Every Age Severe Tests and Schooled in Crime DD The World’s Largest File of Fin gerpri tiary at Leavenworth, Kans: A few days after his arrival he was brought to the office of the record clerk to be photographed and measured. He said he had never been in the penitentiary before, but the clerk, doubting his statement, ran his measuring instruments over him and from the Bertillon measurements obtained went to the files and brought out the card the measurements called for, properly filled out and accompanied by a photograph closely resem- bling the prisoner and bearing the name Wil- liam West. It seemed to be the same man. Will West, the prisoner, still denied that the card was his, whereupon the record clerk turned it over and read that Willlam West was already a prisoner at the institution, having been committed to a life sentence for murder two years before. In appearance the two men were strikingly similar. Their Bertillon meas- urements, given below, were almost identical: 177.5; 188.0; 91.3; 19.8; 15.9; 14.8; 6.5. 178.5; 187.0; 91.3; 19.7; 15.8; 14.8; 6.6. Their fingerprint classification varied de- cidedly: 30 OM 13 36 00 819 32 1 It is not even known that these men were rclated, in spite of their striking similarities. Fingerprints are clascified according to dif- ferent types of patterns. Thirty per cent are “whorls,” 65 per cent “loops” and 5 per cent “arches.” Each of these types is further sub- divided into other groups, such as “twinned loops,” “central pocket loops,” “tented arches”™ and so forth. y By utilizing these patterns, together with a count of the ridges intervening between two fixed points, called the core and the delta, a classification for the 10 fingers is developed which permits the prints to be filed without reference to name, photograph or a description of the individual's crime specialty. “Latent prints,” however, are not easy to find in a large file. These are the prints of one or two fingers, left by the criminal at the scene of his crime. He's not likely to leave prints of all 10 fingers, the basis of classification, hence the difficulty of getting his case classified prop- erly. Nevertheless a latent fingerprint, found on the glass door of a wrecked automobile, led to the apprehension of a grcup of bank robbers, responsible for the murder of four men and, incidentally, brought about the release of seve eral innocent men who had been “positively identified” by eyewitnesses. This lone finger- print was the only clue to the identity of the robbers. And doesn’t that sound like fiction? But it isn't. It is the story of ‘“Little Jake” Fleagle, which Mr. Hoover lists as a “high-light” in the history of latent fingerprint identification, and it speaks volumes for the value of the finger- print work. . On May 22, 1928, four bandits looted the vaults of the First National Bank of Lamar, Colo., shot and killed the president, A. N. Parish, and his son, Jchn Parrish, the cashier. E. E. Kissinger, teller, was kidnaped, used as a shield in the get-away and later murdered. Speeding into Western Kansas, the bandits sought. the services of Dr. William Wineinger of Dighton to treat the wounds of one of their number who had been shot down during gun play at the bank. After the dogtor had bound up the wounds, they murdered him to prevent him from identifying the gang and threw first W here the trails of the bad men cross. A view of the technical room of the division of idemification,.l)eparlmem of Justice, where the records ef 2,300,000 criminals are ready for instant reference. John Edgar Hoover, chief of the, tice who has built up the “nation. to that of England’s Scotland Ya his body and then his car over a cliff n Liberal, Kans. 3 Later, when this wrecked machine was amined, a fingerprint smudge was located o glass docr, Photographs of it were sent to identification bureaus in the country, includ the national identification division -here Washington. Since it was impossble to h: the files searched for this single print, Mr. H ver had it shown to the various technical with instructions to impress the pattern up their memories. A YEAR- later one of these men, Albert Ground, picked an identical print frg among the thousands handled daily. It identified as the print of the right index fia of cne James Fleagle, alias William Ha ‘Holden, who some months “before had b arrested by the sheriff at Stockton, Cal where he had been living in suspicious circu stances. After his release his prints were se to Washington, but the identification came late to cause his apprehension in California. The information, however, was quickly warded by the division of authorities at Lam: Colo., and Garden City, Kans. At Garden Ci it was recalled that Fleagle had been a form resident and a local investigation resulted the capture of Jake's brother’ Ralph. ‘Ralf confessed complicity in the crime and name in addition to his brother, Howard L. Roystqd and George J. Abshir. i Police got these two next day and returng them, with Ralph, to Colorado for trial, whe they were convicted last July and given. a deat penalty. Four men, in jail for the crime, we released. 3 Meanwhile the search for Jake Fleagle w: continued. Postal inspectors were let in on # hunt with the Department of Justice and Cold rado and Kansas police, because they believe that he had a share in the robbery of 8 Sou ern Pacific mail train at Pittsburg, Calif. was trapped aboard a train by a posse of offi ;.:xsd was fatally shot when he attempted to pu gun. } The identification of Jake Fleagle was