The National tribune., 1908-04-30
HAVE WE A
BLACK CARINET?''
(Continued from page one.)

plates resurrected, operations were
about to be commenced, when the Sc
cret Service struck. Swift, thoro and
terrible was their work. Every man in
that vast conspiracy, including former
United States District Attorney of Phil
S1elphia, was landed behind the prison
Sars. The plates were seized, tons OF
paper and rags for the manufacture OF
paper gathered in, and the Treasury, OF
the United States saved from facing a
crisis likely to be caused by the pre-
cipitation of s10,000,000 of spurious
notes on the market, according to Mr..
Secretary Gage.
Beginnings of the Service.
At the close of the war Gen. L. c.
Baker came into sharp collision with
President Johnson, and the Secret Ser
vice force which he had built up was
disbanded. The Treasury Department
then began the organization of Secret
Service force of its own, for which there
was abundant need, since the depreda-
tions upon the internal revenue and
customs revenue, the counterfeiting of
United States notes and securities and
other matters particularly connected
with the Treasury were enormous, and
boldly conducted all over the country
by criminals Of the greatest ability and
shrewdness. AS it had to cope with the
Treasury necessarily had 70 call to its
aid the very highest detective ability,
and thus its Secret Service force has al
ways been more numerous, energetic
and successful than the sleuths en-
ployed by the other Departments.
In spite of all the infiammatory talk
in Congress, there has been astonishing
ly little complaint from the people at
large in regard to this Secret Service.
Prom foreign countries we have con-
.inual clamor as to outrages by detec-
tives, or so-called detectives, who an
noy, distress and seriously injure the
people with their inquisitiveness and
arbitrary methods and unwarranted ar
rests and prosecutions and their hound
ing of innocent men and women. French
and German stories have made us ia
miliar with the heinouS class of agents
provocAteurs;' that is, a numerous class
of polica agents who are striving to
make business and money for the police
by inspiring and fomenting crimes in
order to make arrests and squeeze
people. There has never been hint of
anything of this kind in this country. 1t
is the rarest thing for even an assertion
than an honest, blameless man has been
subjected to any disagreeable expert
ence at the hands of the secret police
OF course every criminal that is arrest
ed protests his innocence, but the juries
show remarkable unanimity in affirming
the Secret Service Agents belief in the
guilt of the men who are brought before
The courts.
Jealousy Of the Spy System.
All the same, there is an intense jeal-
ousy of the Secret Service system, and
an entirely baseless fear that somebody
is trying to build up in this country
espionage over every mans acts and life
such as exists in foreign countries. Men
who are always eager to do the senSa
tonal act scan the Secret Service ap-
preparations for the Departments with
a jaundiced eye, eApecting to find some
thing upon which they can raise a
clamor. The temper of Congress is nev-
er very favora BILE to the Secret Service.
absolutely. essential as it is, and any
charges against Secret Service methods
are likely TO snd listening ears. The
dread, of an inquisitorial body which
may be used by influential people to
injure or destroy their enemies is con-
slant and universal. and it is never diff
cult to raise an alarm on this score.
Each of the great Departments has a
considerable force of Secret Service
men. but necessarily it has been much
smaller than that Of the Treasury De-
partment, and has not in its service de-
tectives of as distinguished ability. The
State Department does not acknowledge
ceives annually a large sum of money
for incidental expenses for which no
account is expected TO be rendered. The
Post Office has its Secret Service in con-
nection with depredations on the mails;
the Department of Justice has a still
larger one, and so has the Interior De-
partment. In extraordinary cases, such
as have, happened recently, they have
had to call upon the Treasury Depart
ment for the loan of some of the best
men for special service. II appears that
in 1907 the Treasury Secret Service Di-
vision supplied rs detectives to The 9TH
er Departments. OF these 81 went to
the Department of Justice, seven to the
State Department, three to the War De-
partment, four to the Navy Department
and three to the Department of Com
merce and Labor. One detective was
sent to Porto Rica. 1t is this loanineI
which was the subject of the impas-
stoned debate in Congress What was
probably at the bottom of the whole
matter was the loaning of detectives to-
the Department of Justice and the In
terror Department to uneaTth the tim
ber, coal and mineral lands frauds
which has brought trouble TO so many
men in the new States of the far West
1t must have been expected that when
such gigantic frauds were revealed as
implicated directly or indirectly hun
OIeuS OF prominent men that there
would be a storm raised, and this broke
out in Congress when the sundry civil
bill was before the Appropriations Com
mittee Chairman Tawney subjected
the Treasury officials to the severast
cross-examination as to the employment
OF these detectives at other duties than
those strictly connected with their pre-
scribed functions. and there We're many
sensational stories printed as to how
they had been used in divorce court
proceedings and other ways foreign to
the operations of the Treasury Depart
ment. This charge was not at all sup
ported by the evidence adduced 1t de-
Seloped that il was the practice of the
Treasury TO furlough the men when
they We're loaned TO another Depart
ment, so that their pay did not come
out of the Treasury funds. but from the
funds of the Department that had their
services. 1t was held that this was a
violation of the law which required that
the men employed by the Treasury De-
partment should be employed solely at
duties connected with the official opera
TO this Representative Sherley, of Ken
tucky, a member of the Committee on
Appropriations said:
Perhaps what is in the minds of
some of us is this; There is a certain
character of offenses about which there
has been much talk. Now, IL does not
strike some of us as being in accord
with American ideas of Government to
undertake, by a system of spying on
men and pryins into what ordinarily