Tombstone epitaph., 1916-02-20

invention secrets, during the last I5 months or so. and that the plans of many Of our important Notifications have been copied or stolen.
 The president knows this; so do the members of his cabinet, the naval and military leaders. the secret serv- ice, and some members of congress. And with this knowledge has come a realization that if the United States is to have well rounded defensive force on land and sea it must also have good secret service that can keep tab on the foreign spies in this country and can get information for us in foreign countries.
 Never has there been such an en- phatic need for large, highly trained and efficient secret service such as other countries have to cope with ex- actly such conditions.
 That the administration has at last awakened to the need is shown by the announcement that a plan is now on foot to combine all the investigat- ing bureaus of the country under one general head with sufficient subheads of subexecutives to insure efficiency and economy and at the same time en- able the country 10 combat such con- ditions as now eIist.
 The nucleus around which the new organization will be built, it is naturally assumed, is the secret serv- ice which for just 50 years has done the greater part of the work of con- ducting confidential investigations for the federal government. has unearthed counterfeiters, has guarded the presi- dent and all foreign visitors of note, and has carried on the most difficult delicate and important inquiries for the state department
 Into this new bureau-or perhaps 1t will be made distinct department of the government with a cabinet off, cer at it's head-will be gathered, it is proposed, the coast guard service, the fleet of revenue cutters. the cus- toms inspectors. the inspectors of land frauds, the immigration inspectors, the post office inspectors, the special in- vestigators of the department of jus tice and the bank examiners.
 But of all these special investigators the members of the secret service un- der Chief William J. Flynn are by far the most highly trained and the best equipped by tradition and long years of experience in handling the most dangerous, the most intellectual and therefore best fitted to undertake the broader tasks now set before the na- ton. In other words. the secret serv- ice already has been handling in a small way under restrictions imposed by law and by limited funds the tasks that will be undertaken in the future in a more comprehensive and effective manner.
 Comparatively little of the real work of the secret service is known to the public. The effectiveness of the or ganization has lain partly in that fact
 Still fewer perhaps know the chan nels for getting information which the service and Flynn have developed by long years of careful study and fore sight and hard work. It may be safe ly guessed that the facts that they have dug up in the last year are known to very few men in the United States. Not even the secret service men themselves have at times real ized the magnitude of the investiga- tions in which they were engaged. They simply followed one person, one clue or one angle and then made a written report which went to the chief, who painstakingly fitted the reports