The Washington herald., 1917-12-16
UNIVERSAL FINGER PRINTS.
Suburban Fathers" Letter Inspires
c. ]. Evans to Reply.

~ - 6tauo W INCRlls
Editor the Washington Herald:
Again an article comes to my no.
tice through your .open Forum" con
cerning the disappearance Of young
girls in this city and depIoring the
way in which such cases are han
died by the Washington police, writ
ten by "a Suburban Father"
The suburban father does not take
into consideration that a policeman's
duties are not merely TO hunt I'D
everybody's lost child or husband, etc. ,
but to keep persons within the Law.
prevent accidents and a multitude
of other thinss, and. believe me, 4
is no snap. And anyway. what can
policeman do with a lot of de
scriptions and remarks" for the per-
son described may change clothing
dictort their faces, color their hair,
| become clean-Ehayen and offset the
description in a great many ways,
which tend to lessen the chances Of
the policeman to find the missing
person.
Our friend also sets forth the fact
that they have disappeared "as COM
p!etely as II the earth had swal-
lowed them" which is due 10 n great
extent to the shrewdness Of the per-
son missed using a sort Of "camou-
| mage" to dec eiTe the detective or
policeman detailed to look after that
case. And he does not mention the
fact that a little cooperation by
the public with the police department
would greatly facilitate the finding.
and possibly the prevention. OF such
persons becoming lost-usually by
| their own free wall. And finger-print
records Of relatives and friends who
might STRAY" is positive means
Of identification and a solution TO
the problem. as the patterns" Of
the fingers never change. from the
time OF birth until decomposition o..
tie body. after death. I would ven
ture to say that one finger-print rec
ord is equal TO the services OF a
dozen OF detectives or policemen, be-
! cause after 'he finger-print record
has been mace and properly classi-
fed, and the clas. .ihcation number is
in the hands Of lie police. the mere
classification number may be sent
TO other police departments. and by
| picking up" a person answering
! somewhat to the$.csCriDtion. making
= record Of the fingers. classifying
the record ana comparing it with
the Classitica ION number already ia
hand. thus enabling the police to find
tho lost. straycd or stolen
II is a very hard matter, as you
al: eady know. TO educate the public
to cooperate with the police in such
cases by being pI pared 10 furnish
t'-e police with all possible idontifi-
cation Of missing person. because
the average ci' zen has an idea that
! policeman is "a human blood
/ hound" II the missing person is
not found. Mr.. Citizen usually
Jumps" the police department for
being inefficient. when. as a matter
of fact. it is the citizens fault be-
| cause said citizen would not take the
I time 10 prepare positive identifica-
| ton OF the members Of his family to
| be used in case any Of them meet
| with an aCCiGent-drown. be caught
in a fire or falling building. street
/ car or railroad train. taken violently
sick on the street and sent TO a hos
( pital. or even killed on the field or
! battle" 1t IS a fact, that many per-
sons have buried a relative ana
mourned him as dead. when IL tho
| truth were known, the IonE-lost
relative" still lived, and all this sor-
row for the reason that proper
identification could not be established
Of the corpse of the relative" Then,
: TOO. the lost relative" would never