The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-02-07
BANKERS HAVE 4
 GREAT DETECTIVE Burns Is a Man Who Makes
 Good HANDL- FAMOUS CASES A Long and Successful Career in Run. ming Down criminaIs-The Most Noted conterfeitins Cases
 of Recent Years.
HANDLED FAMOUS CASES

From the New York Sun.
 William J. Burns. who has just started a national detective association and taken one of their biggest jobs from the Pink ertons, had been doing the protective work of the American Bankers associa- tion for three weeks before anybody knew anything about 1t except himself, his clients and the Pinkertons, whom he superseded. It was not until he had been tried and had given satisfaction that the announcement was made, and then by the bankers association itself. It is one of Burns characteristics to do his work without any noise
 If you find Mir. Burns in the office of the William J. Burns National Detective association in the Park Row building you discover man of about middle height, broad shouldered, with prominent fea- lures and a pair of gray eyes that bore through you and the wall beyond. It is is of a reddish brown, seems untouched by age, while his mustache, which is of a lighter color, is literally streaked with gray. His manner is alert and positive. He speaks slowly and distinctly, but you get the impression that while he Is talk ing he is not only answering your ques- tions, but weighing something else in his mind at the same time. Then, too, you get the impression that if you at tempted to pull a gun on him he would have his pointed at you before yours was out of your pocket.
 MT. Burns said that his age was 49 and that he was born in Baltimore, and he was sorry he had a rule about not being interviewed. Yes, he had read Sherlock Holmes" and liked it, but thought chas- ing crooks was more interesting that reading about them. To be good de- tective nowadays a man must be honest to begin with. He must have a gift of intuition, he must be persistent; and then he must be broad enough to make his theories fit facts instead of trying to mould No. 10 facts into a No. theory. That was all, and good day.
 He has his work cut out for him, has Mk Burns. for he will have hundreds of men under him and he expects to have offices In every city of importance in the
 
 supervision over all of them. At present he has as correspondents all the prin- cipal detective agencies in the United States except the Pinkertons. The Fink ertons issued a statement the other day in which they predicted that crimes on banks by all classes of professional crim- inals would very greatly increase and that insurance on bank safes and vaults would go up, but Burns only replied that l.. 1.~.1 t....,l r,.1f
 Before Burns went after the grafters in the Oregon land frauds which was his big job preceding his trailing of the graft CTS in San Francisco, he had had a re- marlable career in the secret service of the Treasury Department. Chief Wilkie called him his star man. and Burns had run down not only noted counterfeiters, but smugglers and every sort of criminal with which the Treasury Department has to deal.
 Burns's father was commissioner of po- lice in Columbus, O., and there he got in touch first with police work He showed an aptitude for 1t, but his first real de- tective work was done in 1885. in connec- ton with what was known as the tally sheet forgery" when in the state elec- tions the tally sheets in Columbus and Cincinnati were altered, in one case a candidate getting 9s5 instead of 2S5 votes. Burns assisted in running the guilty per sons down and getting confession.
 Shortly afterward he was called into d case in St. Louis, where the notorious Jim French and gang of firebugs had been getting hundreds of thousands Of dollars out of insurance companies. French was a furniture dealer He and his confederates would fit up dwelling houses with expensive furniture, insure them to their full value, remove the iur- niture and substitute junk, and then set the houses on fire. All the big detective agencies had been working on the case, but failed to get convictions Burns worked on the job two months and got enough evidence to convict and French was sentenced to the penitentiary for five years The case was carried to higher court and the verdict and sentence sus- tained, but French, who was out on bah and who had powerful friends, heard Of what was coming to him and skipped Later he entered on life of open crime
 He associated himself with the two Sasse brothers, who were regarded as the most expert safe burglars in the country. and they made a speciality of postofflces. Alter few months they were arrested In Ar kansas and when the local sheriH found that French was the man for whom | d thoritias of the state of Missouri he took him away surreptitiously and put him in the penitentiary.
 Burns was appointed to the secret ser vice in 1890 and was located in the west, working in Indian Territory, Texas. Ar kansas aad the south. He was soon placed in charge of that district, and in 1894 was transferred to Washington. where he was promoted for good work and got a rowing commission, going wherever there was an unusually inn portant case
 One of his biggest feats in those days was running down the principals in tho Broadway Bradford Courtney case here in New York and near by.
 Broadway was a celebrated counter feiter, and in his early days he had forged Erie railroad bonds. His specially was a counterfeit note of large denomination. one favorite being a 5000 compound in- terest note. He got hold of . girl in the Bureau of Engraving and Printing at