The kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby drove home to me the need for a law to curb such happenings. I will have the measure ready for introduction tomorrow morning. Another Bill Introduced An anti-kidnapping measure somewhat less drastic actually came before the Legislature today, sponsored by Assemblyman Daniel J. O'Meara, a Monroe County Republican. The O'Meara bill would substitute life imprisonment for the present penalty of from ten to fifty years. The mental anguish of a mother over the loss of an infant of such tender years as the Lindbergh baby must be horrible beyond anything that can be imagined.
Drastic action is necessary in view of the fact that kidnapping is becoming so very prevalent.
Dr. William Lathrop Love, who represents a Brooklyn district in the upper house, made public a telegram that he had dispatched to United States Senators Wagner and Copeland urging them to introduce a bill providing for fingerprinting and footprinting of babies to make identification easy. I hope a nation-wide movement will be started immediately to have the fingerprints and footprints of every baby taken as a matter of positive identification and permanent record. Just imagine the mental agony Colonel and Mrs. Lindbergh would be saved were such a bill in force. It was explained at District Attorney Crain's office yesterday that the kidnapping of any person in this State, except in the case of a child in differences between parents, is punishable by a sentence of from ten to fifty years. Any person proved to be a fourth offender under a Baumes law, it was added, could receive a life term on conviction.