The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1910-10-28
POLICE AGENCIES UNITED
Police Departments in All Cities to
Cooperate With Secret Service
Plan Has Approval of Congress and
Work Is Well Started.

the confirmed criminal in America. A
project undertaken several years ago
by the police officers Of leading c.tias
of the country has suddenly dev loped
into one of the most important move
ments toward the checking of criminal
activities that the United States has
ever known.
A plan Is now well under way to
bring together in one central Office a !
the methods and records of identifi-
cation that the police departments OF
American cities and the crime chas-
ing branches of the government can
furnish. This central bureau, while it
will in no way combine or centralize
the activities of these various agen-
cies, will rival the famous police in
stitut'ons of the Old Word in Is
scope and efficiency.
The Bertillon measurements, finger
print records and photographs in the
lOSu'S SollclICo VI Iht pO'iNc uNPo4 I
ments; the important records of the
secret service postoffice inspection
service and fedora bureaus, and the
records of foreign governments which
may be OF service here, are to be as
sembled in the files of a central o.
flee in Washington for the co-opera-
tive use of every police department
and every branch of the federal gov
Crnment
The work is even now well started.
For several years city police depart
ments, operating through the In:erna-
tional Assoc alton of Chiefs Of Police,
have maintained in Washington a
small bureau in which Bertillon meas
urements of the more important Am
ercan criminals are kept. 1t Is this
bureau that is to form the nucleus OF
the national bureau Of criminal identi-
tication, an agency destined to take
an important Place in the future study
and control of criminal activities here.
The sudden promise of a great eX-
pansion of the institution and the col
lection of complete criminal records
results from the recognition which
congress gave to the bureau In the
last session.
The identification bureau now main
tained at Washington contains only
partial Hertillon records furnished by
various police departments. !, IS pro-
posed as soon as the equipment and
the financial support from city and
federal governments will permit, to
gather complete Bertillon records CT
American criminals; finger print rec
ords from all cities which have used
that modern means of idCntiicatiOn;
rogues' gallery, comprising thousands
Of pictures and a mass OF detailed in
and history about the in
dividual offenders in America such as
never before has been assembled IN
this country.
The leading police departments of
the country have long maintained
system Of exchange, and co-operat on,
and with the aid of their central bu-
reau they have been able to get Ber-
illon records by telegraph, when the
'entral bureau was fortunate enough
@ have the record Of the man arrest
ID. 1t IS a well known fact, however
hat federal and municipal man hunt ,
'rs have not always worked IN con-
llete harmony; and the steps now b.
ng taken to unite all police agencies ,
n the country is likely to produce the
'osest inspection and surveillance
hat this country has ever known. r
Mai. Richard Sylvester, president CT
he Association of Police Chiefs and
irec,or of the national bureau OF
riminal Identification. says that the r
york of the bureau is only started. 4
! will reach its maximum efficiency p
e says, when it has provided the r
leans for the immediate Identification +
nd exhaustive study of every import =
n. individual offender In the coun-
ry
At present we have method"
avs Major Sylvester. I'VE must now
uild up a system, and that system Is
he end toward which the bureau OF
is working"
during the last few weeks al po
ce agencies of the federal govern
lent have been invited to cooperate
lilly with he police bureau and to
lake free use of its resources. Many
,reign countries have also entered in
Ito relations with the bureau, and
le police chiefs OF the United States
'e now receiving more confidential