Weekly independent. [volume] (Elko, Nev.) 1887-1914, 1910-06-24

SRS%NOAo kAAo
model detective force of the world,
has a new chief. WITT the absence
OF ciamor, which characterizes all
LIS movements, this branch of Uncle
SANS secret service has shifted a
new man into the office that directs
the activities of the most scientific
and most unremitting force of man
bloodhounds that was ever built up.
Robert B. Sharp is the new chief.
appointed recently by Postmaster
General Hitchcock.
Sharp comes to his present post
from Tennessee, where he has been
chief Of the internal revenue force
OF the state. His tussle with the
statewide makers of illicit whiky
and his ultimate triumph over them
has been characterized as one of the
most thorough and
campaigns of its kind ever carried
on. Through it Sharp labored
under constant threats of death to
himself and family. None of these
changed the course of action he had
mapped out and which resulted in
driving the illicit whisky men from
the state.
Sharp had been postmaster of
Chattanooga under Roosevelt. He
had been an inspector in his earlier
life, had been chief clerk of the
southern division of inspectors and
for the Washington division. His
father Alonzo A. Sharp. twenty
years ago held the post to which his
son is now appointed. Robert
Sharp has been in the service and
absorbed that spirit that has set a
pace of its own for persistence.
For 100 a this corps of men has
maintained the idea that the mis-
creant cannot remain uncaught.
When a criminal is to be run down,
the right man for just this task is
put on it. There is no time limit;
no expense limit. The man is to be
secured. The fact that he is in
Australia or Siberia does not enter.
The public. particularly that part
of it which is prone to offend against
the law, realize this. There 10 today
little offending against the postal
laws "a detection has come to
be regarded as sure. There are $50
of these inspectors. They are as
different from the police detective
as is a silken fabric from raw hemp.
They are quiet, thoughtful,
gentlemanly chaps-men who know
every duty and temptation of every
phase of business and its vulnerable
points. They are blood hounds on
the trail of a culprit, but they are
masters also of science of detecting
crime from the standpoint of the
student.
These men, for example, may sit
in an Office in Kansas City and de-
termine what clerk in San Francisco
is abstracting money from letters.
1t is detecting crime by mathematics
and such is their work. In such a
case money may have been disap-
pno,;nr frnn, lntinnc - tLo Co.
Francisco Office. The postmaster
has noted the hour of its passing.
He also has a record of the hours
hat every man in his office has
worked through periods amounting
to years. The man who was always
On tho lob when the money was
taken is the guilty man. There is
but M such and he may be found
from the records. The inspectors
work him out on the figures. Then
he is tested, sent decoy letters,
, watched and finally caught with The
q goods.
In every phase of their work the
7 p~ostofice inspectors fight crime on
, this plane of skill and intelligence.
They get the enthusiasm of the
4 work and never leave it. They
; have massed the skill and informa-
ton of a force working on the same
tasks for a hundred years. All the
crimes to which the postofice busi-
ness is subject have become an open
o book to them. The new chief is
{, one of them.
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