The New York herald. [volume] (New York, N.Y.) 1920-1924, 1920-10-10

quits" he uttered a truth that has been
written over and over again in official rec
ords. For more vigilant than Argus. far
reaching as the Jovian thunderbolts and
relentless as Nemesis have been those
branches of our Federal Service which in
the past have acted as the Governments
first line of defence in times of peace and
war; the guardians of our rights and lib
critics and enforcers Of our Federal statutes,
They have many difficulties to contend
with; these untiring agents Of the Depart
ment of Justice. the secret service and other
governmental detective forces. and they
claim no superhuman powers such many
of the sleuths Of fiction would seem to pos
sess. but the record that they have made in
the past bodies anything but good for the
persons responsible for the recent Wall
street horror and other acts of violence that
have shocked the patriotic citizenry.
Let the perpetrators of these crimes HE
themselves to the far corners of the earth
and there seek. under assumed names, to
live out the rest of their lives free from all
suspicion. But let them also bear in mind
that others have tried this before and have
thought themselves secure only to have
their fate overtaSe them, and to have these
agencies, sometimes after years of vigilant
pursuit, seize upon them and drag them
back to the altar of justice. there to re-
ceive fitting punishment.
Only Two Unsolved Mysteries.
Many a time it has looked as if our most
efficient Federal sleuths We're completely
baffied. and as months and years passed
without single arrest for some particular
crime Of an exceptionally sensational nature
there has been criticism and complaint over
their apparent failure. Nevertheless when
the writer of this article asked Chief Flynn
few days ago how many unsoved mys-
teries he could recall as having come to his
official attention during his twenty years OF
service with the United States Secret Ser
vice the Chief replied:
II recall but two. | do not believe
that there were any more in all of that time.
Many cases took long time to solve but
they were solved eventually aud the guilty
parties punished, but I am quite sure that
there were only two in which the guilty par
ties were never captured. The reason why
we were never able to get them do not
know, but it Is quite possible that they
The bomb outrages and other plots of vio-
lence against the Government of the United
States with which these investigators have
to concern themselves are of comparatively
recent date. 1t Is impossible to draw from
them any illustrations of the logged per-
sistency with which the Federal agents fol-
low their quarry.
The most important cases which the Gov
eminent officials have been obliged to cope
with In years gone by have probably been
related to counterfeitng plots. and I'm many
of these the work of bagging the offenders
has been a matter of years. but has ter
minated with complete success for the Fed
era agents. so there Is very good reason to
believe that the years that lie before will
see the complete solution OF those mysteries
which at the present time appear to battle
the trained minds that are working to solve
them. 1t is quite certain that these cases
will never be marked closed and filed away
as long as the heads of the Government
agencies have reason to believe that one or
more Of the guilty parties Is at large.
The Barrel Murder Case.
The roundup of the barrel murder gang"
of counterfeiters by Chief Flynn after seven
years of perilous investigation was but an
instance, for there have been innumerable
cases in which the Government investigators
have done equally efficient work, and in
which their determination has triumphed
ever every obstacle that chance or human
cunning could place in their way. In some
Of these cases the offence committed was
of a nature that might have been considered
comparatively trivial and there Is case on
record where one of the Federal agencies
arrested a man for defrauding the Govern
ment out of 800 ten years after the offence
was committed for no crime against the
Government OF the United States Is too large
or too small for these operatives to give Il
their attention and their most earnest effort
Had ii not been for the secret service the
police would not have known the identity
of the slain Italian whom they found
crammed into a barrel at Avenue ID and
Eleventh street on that April morning In
1908. But 1t happened that before the mans
death Chief F7ynn's operatives had him
labelled a counterfeiter and one of them
had worked into his confidence and into the
confidence OF his cutthroat comrades with
a view to obtaining the concrete evidence
that would be necessary to secure the con
viction of the band in the Federal courts
With the information that this secret SER
vice operative was able TO give them IL
seemed certain that the entire gang of muir
derere would go to the death house, but there
occurred one OF those strange miscarriages
Of justice which occasionally set a man
at liberty even though his guilt be estab-
lished beyond the shadow of an intelligent
doubt.
The secret service agents did not drop
their case against these men when the state
fell down on the Job. but they set out TO
trail and keep track of the various members
of tho rang and watch for 10 r,or,aeuf xvhau