The Connecticut labor news., 1921-09-02
BURNS, "A GREAT DETECTIVE" HEADS
 SECRET SERVICE
Man Denounced By Former Attorney General Wickersham Is
 Favored Now.

Washington, Aug. 2o.-The ap- 1 pointment of William J. Burns as l head of the re-organized United States secret service is announced by Attorney General Daugherty. It is stated that all secret service branches ot the government will be placed under the control of Burns The attorney general is quoted in the public press:
 "I have known MT. Burns per sonally for 30 years and have watch ed him develop his speciality He is familiar with all of the departments of government, is an intelligent and courageous man and a this time es- peCially is considered to be as high class a man as could be secured to assume the important duties assigned him.
 The power now possessed by Burns recalls the pardon, by Presi- dent Taft, in 1912, of Willard N Jones, convicted in Oregon on the charge of violating federal land laws. In favoring the pardon, Attor- ney General Wickersham presented affldavits to President Taft which proved that Burns, who was employ ed by the prosecution, investigated every prospective juror in several
 
 a juror except those whom Burns re- ported would convict. The background of this case was political feud between two factions ot the then dominant party. Burns a1ded the faction in control by secur- ing jury that would railroad" Jones to the penitentiary.
 Burns carried his jury fixing SO far that he se>t the following telegram in cipher code to the office of Secre- tary of the Interior Hitchcock:
 Jury commissioners cleaned out old box from which trial jurors were selected and put in GOO names, every one of which was investigated before they were placed in the box This confidential"
 There are also on file aAidavits of persons who claim that they were induced, through intimidation and threats, to testify falsely in the Jones case," continued Attorney General Wickersham.
 "ln line with these practices it Is further shown that one of the de fendants, with Jones, is a man named Sorensen, while he was presumptively being tried by the government, was in the active employment of Burns and received compensation from the government under the name of George Edwards.
 "In this way Burns kept tab on Jones, and the latter, relying upon Sorensen, because he was a fellow de tendant, accepted as jurors persons to whom he would otherwise have ob- jected.
 'I need not go further in a recital of the high conduct on the part of officers of the prosecution in these cases.
 "In this connection I would say that MT. Burns has been given the fullest opportunity to make a state ment, The pardon attorney went to New York and interviewed him by appointment, but could not obtain statement from him, though he in formed MT. Burns that he had with him all of the documents that had been filed and would be glad to show him every one and receive what com ment he had to make"
 On this evidence, submitted by his chief legal adviser, President Taft pardoned the victim of the present head of the United States secret serv- ice system, who now has unlimited power and opportunity to duplicate his Oregon "frame-up"
 About the time Attorney General Wickersham made public his expose, the great detective" said
 "Private detectives, 90 Der cent. of them, as as class, are the worst lot of crooks and blackmailing scoun- drels that live outside of prisons"