The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-05-26
NEVER FORGET A CRIME
HOW SECRET SERVICE MEN
 TRACK CRIMINALS.
Some Noted Capturss~ Made-Long Chase Through Mexico After
 Notorious Counterfeiter.
 Vigilance of Agents.

Vigilance of Agents.
 F'f.- --<- i<i~
 New York Times.
 ! Every little while the newspapers are suddenly filed for @ day or two with accounts of the arrest by secret ser vice agents of some noted criminal whose crimes are unknown to the public or had been committed so long ago that they had passed out of the public memory. Tn such cases news paper readers have perhaps been mov- sd to admiration of the silent, unsieep- Ing detective branch of the govern ment, which never appears in the public eye except in the act of pounc- ing on a victim and which never for gets a crime or a criminal.
 The secret service division never rests; it is always at work, and 1t must be a skillful and ingenious criminal who can avoid running down sooner or later. When a crime has been com- mitted that falls within the jurisdic- tion of the secret service division, nOth- ing but death will ever get the govern ment agents off the track of 1t. The criminal may escape by leaving the country of effacing himself in some other manner, but he will never be able to reappear with security. The mo- ment he does so, some secret service agent who has been waiting for him for years will be at his elbow. The secret service division comes about as near being a personification of Nemesis as any mortal institution. Years make no difference with it; each new mem- Der of the division falls heir to cases made years ago, and takes up the Sork as if the crime had been committed yesterday.
 Secret Service Methods.
 It is not the usual practice of the secret service to set and agent on the trail of one crime and keep him at it until the criminal is found or the case given up, as is often done by the city detective forces. On the contrary, each secret service agent in the country, wherever he may be, is practically charged with the capture of every criminal in the lapd. He has the des- cription of every counterfeiter, knows by heart the mans personal peculiari- ties. and is acquainted to hairs breadth with the style of his profess sional work, even though there appears to be not the slightest chance that they will ever meet. Years after the crime has passed out of the memory of all
  agent will sae countereit bill which to the eye of the novice will look like all other counterfeit bills. The secret srevice man will recognize in it some peculiarity of the work done by this forgotten counterfeiteT from the other side of the continent. and will know that the man is near him and must be run down.
 Av ay back in 1884 some counterfeit ing was done in Indiana by a band known as the Driggs gang" The head of it was named Jim Guyon. Iae other members of the gapg were cap tured. but Jim Guyon shot and killed a secret service agent and escaped. He has never been heard of since. He has never done any more counerfeiting in the United States. and is probably ill some foreign country. But, although that happened seventeen years ago, every secret service agent in the Uni- ted States is watching for Jim Guyon, and always has ben watching, ever since his escape. New men have en- tered the secret service since then, but Jim Guyon is as well known to them as to the old timers, and the case is as fresh in their mipds as if 1t had hap pened last year.
 Long Hunt for a Photographer.
 There was a lopg hunt once for man named McKi5ben. alias Pollock. The story illustrates the patient. dog ged unrelenting methods of the secret service. McKibben was a well to do photographer, and auites an intelligent old man. He get acquainted "t..tths sessae counterfeiters, and was initiated into the mysteries of the business, and he made some photographic counterfeltS' He was arrested and sent to LeaVeh- worth penitentiary, where he was put to work in the photographic gallery. McKibben began making phoessrapnic commercials in prison. He was caught at it. and when his tern expired ne was indicted for this second offense. He furnished bail. jumped it, ana d's- appeared This was in lsS0
 For A wear and a half nothing was heard of McKibben. Then in the fali of 1897 the secret service agents Tn the South found some photographlc coCn terfeits. which they instantly loen.i- fled. from certain peculiafitiss. as the work of the Kansas photographer These commercials had been passed m Texas. and a secret serVlce man "en' down there and began hunting TOT NC Kibben. But the issue or tne counter feits had been small ohe' anu nat ceased the secret service man epent ehout six weeks in making absolutely sure that it was McKfbbsn. He mace sure of this. but the photograpner couId not be found. The secret ser vice stored the new facts away Tn us memory and waited for the hansah'
 Chased Through Mexico.
 IT was 1898 bzefore the old man feei- ing sure from his immunity that ne had been forgotten. began issuing ms commercials. The 1897 output was 2n- Iv an experiment. Then some or ms rounterfeits ..broke," in secret service slang, in southwestern Texas. in Au- gust a secret service man started 10 track Mckibben down. He found that an old man was travelling in MeAlco' along the border and that every nttio while he would appear at some Mexi- can village and give photograpnlc exhibition and then disappear. The agent was sure it was McKibbep, ana he followed him. He kept hearing ol hin, now and then. but always when the counterfeiter was from two days to a week ahead of him.
 This chase lasted for three mohtns' During that time the agent was 1o!-