The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-30
From the Washington Post.

XU7ILLIAM J. BURNS, the detective
 \x/ who is responsible for the ar
 W rests in the labor union dyna- hitting outrages, figured in famous counterfeiting case in Washington in 1894, when he was attached to the United States secret service here.
 Burns was appointed to the secret ser vice in 1890, and was located in the west, working in Indian Territory, Texas, Arkansas and the south. He was soon placed in charge of that district, and in 1894 was transferred to Washington, he being promoted for good work. He had rowing commission, and one of his big gest feats in those days was running down the principals in the Broadway, Bradford Courtney case in New York and near by.
 Broadway was a celebrated counterfeit CT, and in his early days he had forged Erie railroad bonds. His speciality was a counterfeit note of a large denomination, one favorite being a 5000 compound in- terest note. He got hold of girl in the bureau of engraving and printing here. and had her run sheet of tinfoil through
 
 genuine plates. Then he had an electro type made from the tinfoil impression, printed the notes and circulated tLem with such success that the government actually accepted $So.0O0 worth of them be- fore it suspected that anything was wrong. Later on they had to send for Charles Ulrich, an old-time counterfeiter, to pick the good from the bad.
 JJlrich agreed to work with Burns, and the latter sent him to join the gang, and through his assistance they arrested them all in a building at 542 Ann street, West Hoboken. There the secret service men found more than $2,0000O0 in gold cerifl- cates and a lot of Canadian S100 notes. This was the first time that the author ities had been able to convict Brock way He went to Trenton jail for a TO- year sentence, with Dr. Bradford, who died in prison, and Courtney. The last was a celebrated forger, who had been in counterfeiting schemes for 30 years | Burns nickname among the police of every big city in the United States Is | Never Fail Burns"
 | It was more than 25 years ago that Burns began his detective career, and he attracted attention by his methods and | his sfsoDess from his first case. For that | matter, though, he came naturally by his l talent, fop his father was policeman be- fore him, chief of police of Columbus. | O., and Burns Jr.. was brought up in touch with police work, one might say. The gift of detecting crime seemed to | be born in him.
 | His first real detective work was done l in iSS5. In what was known as the tally sheet forgery" when in the Ohio state | elections in Columbus and Cincinnati tho tally sheets were altered, in one case candidate getting 9S5 instead of 2S5. Burns ran the guilty person down and got a confession. His speciality has always been the obtaining of full admissions of guilt, that go far to do away with the delay of protracted trials. His plan of cam
 paign is never to strike before he Is sure
 of his ground.
 l One of Burns last big pieces of work | for the treasury department was the ap-
 prehension of Dmmck, who robbed the
 San Francisco mint of $3o,OOO. Dimmick
 was assistant superintendent of the mint, and he had succeeded in familiarizing
 himself with the locks of the vault so that he could stand at the lock with the
 works exposed and determine what com
 bination another person was setting. Here Burns again did some eliminating and de- dacing, but 1t took time to get evidence. {.