St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-03-10
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4
WILL CRIMINALS FLY?
Maj. w. w. Cooley, Manager OF
ThieIss Detective Agency


The human animal is naturally an
agnostic. The ability to grasp the
DRY or subject lying just outside the
range of his daily experience or OBJ
Servation, and having no correlative
within his narrow horizon, is most
rare. The phrase 81 don't believe it,
can usually be interpreted as 81
can't understand it" or ct is beyond
my comprehension"
Charitably inclined people claim
for the agnostic that he is con
scientious," but ignorant people are
usually Conscientious; and therefore
the fact that they are honest" in
their unbelief adds nothing to it's
force, though it may, on the other
hand, increase our pity. The prog
resS of science, invention, discovery,
religion, social or political economy
has always been INSTRUCTED by con-
scientious men and women who
don't believe it." This is a fast
age! The most visionary schemes
Of today are the established facts of
next week. The honest doubter of a
western world was silenced by Co
lumbus; the conscientious man who
ridiculed the telegraph was answered
by Morse; those who laughed. at the
predictions of Edison have lived to
see their homes warmed and lighted,
their food cooked and their cars pro-
PEELED by electricity. And so on to
the end of the grandest chapter in
Of
planet.
Are these fools all dead? Not by
any means. The last census con-
tains sufficient data to justify the
assertion that they constitute 95
per cent of our present population.
You find them all over the country
trying to settle labor disputes by
brute force; you see them in our
Northwest country sowing nothing
but wheat, and in the South plant
ing nothing but cotton. They stand
all along the line of the Kansas City
road, jeering at President Stickney's
Gospel of Potatoes" They live in
Minnesota and oppose needed i'm
provementS, such as the building of
service to Minneapolis. They pose as
successful obStructionists-as treas
ury watch dogs"-and after keeping
the country back thirty or forty
years go down to their unhallowed
graves chuckling over chow much
money they have saved the town.
|. These people laugh at the idea of
aerial in no
that they once ridiculed the tele-
graph, the steamship, the Atlantic
cable, the telephone, the electric
light and the submarine boat; but
it will yet materialiZe, and we will
witness the fulfillment of Tenny-
sons prophecy:
For L dipt into the future far as hu-
wonder that would be;
Saw the vision of the world and all the
wonder that would be;
Saw the heavens fill with commerce,
argosies of magic sails,
Pilots in the purple twilight dropping
down with costly bales;
Heard the heavens fill with shouting,
and there rain'd a CHASTITY dew
From the nations airy navies Crap
ping in the central blue
When aerial navigation becomes
an accomplished fact and so SIM
plified that aerial motors form a
part of our daily life, as railways and
steamships do today, would crime be
much encourag ed by this additional
facility for safe escape from the
scene of the criminal deed? 1 think
not. Invention is the "side partner"
of necessity. An example: No soon
er do we construct an armor for
our war ships that can resist the
heaviest ordnance known than a
gun is invented which renders the
armor worthless; we then increase
the resisting power of the armor,
only to stimulate the inventive
genius of the gunmaker. Conse- |
quently if criminals possessed air
ships, detectives and officers would
have better and faster craft
When steamships were invented
fears were entertained lest Grim
inals might become possessed of |
them and thus evade pursuit and |
capture, but it was soon noted that /
men rich enough to own steamships |
ceased to be criminals according to |
the statutory definition of the word. |
Criminals being thus forced to use |
the public conveniences, possessed no |
advantage over the pursuing officer |
except in point of >time, and this has |
largely been overcome by the tele- |
graph. Many a fugitive from justice |
has walked ashore in a foreign port |
and met with cordial reception at |
the hands of a local police who had |
been duly notified.
Thus it would prove with air ships; |
men rich enough to own their own |