The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-07
WILLIAM ]. BURNS
 4 CLEVER SL.EUTH Took a Smart Detective to Capture McNamaras STORY OF HIS LIFE Expert Trailer of Criminals Has Career Rivaling That of the
 Pinkertons or Their Dime
 Novel Compeers
By RoDERICK CLIFFORD

Namara his brother James, and Ortie | McManigal, on charges growing out of | the dynamiting outrages in Los Angeles. | Cal, is, perhaps one of the best known sleuths at the present time In this coun- | try. The story of his life as a great de- | tective rivals some of the fiction stories | told of the Pinkertons, or of Old King
 Brady, the idol of the dime novel read | CTS.
 l His real first detective work started
 with the Secret Service branch of. the United States government in 1890, when
 he received an appointment for work in
 the west Indian Territory, Texas, Arkan-
 sas and the south. Within a short time
 he was. placed in charge of this district
 and on account of excellent work he was | transferred four years after his appoint
 ment to Washington, where he was given
 rowing commission He was put on
 the famous Broadway Bradford Courtney
 case in New York, counterfeiting case. | Broadway was a celebrated counter
 feiters His speciality was counterfeiting
 notes of large denominations, one favor- l ite being a 5000 note. He obtained an 1 impression of this plate through the cul- | pabity of a woman employe of the Blu reau of Engraving and Printing, who ran a sheet of tinfoil through the press when
 taking an impression of the plate. He had an electrotype made from the tin foil impression, printed the notes and cir culated them with such success that the arppnta6 SS0 00D worth of them before 1t suspected that anything was wrong. Later on they had to send for Charles JIlrich, an old time counterfeiter, to pick the good notes from the spurious ones.
 Burns got Ulrich to work on the case with him. He sent him to join the gang of counterfeiters and, through his assist | ance the officers arrested all of them Tn
 building in West Hoboken, N. J. The
 secret service men found more than
 $2, 100 GOO in gold certificates, and a lot or
 Canadian s1O0 notes. This was the first
 time that the authorities has been able
 to convict Broadway. He went to prison with Courtney and Dr. Bradford (who died in prison) for a ten-year term. Burns comes naturally by his talent of
 running down criminals, for his father was chief of police of Columbus, O. One of his early cases was in the elections in 1885, in Columbus and Cincinnati, O.,
 when the election tally sheets were all tered one candidate receiving 9S5 votes instead of 2S5 Burns ran the ballot box shippers down and got a confession. Soon after this he was called into a 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 would fit up dwelling houses with expensive fur niture, insure them to their full value, re- move the furniture. substituting junk, and then set fire to the house. Other detective agencies had been working on these cases for years Burns secured enough evil dence to send French and his confeder- ates to prison for five years, two months after he began work on the case.
 In 1896 he was assigned to a counter feiting case in New York. which was un- dertaken to promote revolution in Costa Rica, the participants making 100 peso notes with the double purpose of buying arms and discreditng the monetary sys- tenn of the country. General Frederico de Mora, grandson of the first president of Costa Rica, and one of his accomplices served two years in Sing Sing as a result of Burns investigations.
 The case of Taylor and Bredell in 1899 was one of the most extraordinary in the annals of counterfeiting. The two men here found by process of deduction and elimination, for there were no clues that could be used The fact that their coun- terfeit note was perfect indicated that camera and been used. It was found that their process was to transfer a pho tograph to a steel plate, etch the latter enough to bite the lines, and then en- grave by hand-a feat that had thereto fore been considered impossible.
 The two men were arrested, but while they were in prison, Taylor's mother smuggled in the necessary tools and ma terials and the two men engraved the plates in their cell under a blanket, with the aid of an alcohol lamp It took them two months to complete the work, but they actually. printed the money, sent it out and had 1t passed. When some of the money was shown to Burns, he at once said that only Taylor and Bredell could have made 1t. He went to the prison, charged them with 1t. and they confessed.
 One of the Burns last big pieces of work for the Treasury Department was the arrest of Dimmick, who robbed the San Francisco mint of $301 ,0OO Dimmick was assistant superintendent of the mint and succeeded in familiarizing himself with the locks of the vaults, so that he could stand at the lock with the works exposed and determine what combination another person was setting. Here Burns again did some eliminating and deducing, but 1t took time to get the evidence.
 Burns left San Francisco and came east, and was preparing to take a European trip for the government. when he got a wire from Chief Wilkie to report in Washington. Wilkie had been sent for by Secretary of the Interior Hitchcock, who informed him that extensive land frauds involving millions of dollars had been discovered.
 They started Burns out on May l, 1905, and it was not until September, 1908, that his task was finished. resulting in the con- viction of United States Senator, Mitchell of Oregon and a number of very promi- nent millionaires. business and profess sional men of the Pacific coast. 58
 Burns played large part in the labor troubles in the Couer d Alene district
 Idaho, and was instrumental in obtain ing a confession from Henry Orchard. a confession of murder and outrage sim liar to the confessions alleged to have been obtained from Ortie McManigal in the present Los Angeles dynamting case.
 The warfare waged in San Francisco against the graft of Boss" Abe Ruef, Mayor Schmitz, and others was conduct ed through Burns efforts, backed by the etrong arm of the law as administered by Francis J. Heney. Burns was allowed to go to San Francisco by order of Presi- dent Roosevelt, and for three years nc dug around that city, where he obtained enough evidence to send goodly number of grafters to jail for long sentences.