The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-05-29

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sibilities of charging them with
battling crimes or of raiIroading
them to prison or out of the
country for alleged participation
in labor "offenses" would be
enormously increased.
Burns Pride Exposed.
When the king of stoolpigeons, VIII
liam J. Burns, quit his job (by re-
quest) in Washington, he boosted that
he left after having perfected the bu-
reau of identification of the depart
ment of justice. He Dragged that his
bureau of Identification had become
recognized thruout the world by its
work of Identifying suspected crimi-
nails.
William ]. Burns has an interna-
tional reputation as a champion
frame-up man. His record was made
chiefly on the frame-up of men in
volved in labor cases. These are
things well known.
A great aid to the framing-up of
/ aAAJ AnQlNluudl WOulu NC luO lOIkluk
of his finger-prints. William ]. Burns
supposedly never knew that finger
prints can be forged. The head of his
bureau Of Identification, A. v. Renee,
however, was aware that finger-prints
can be forged. When Burns, asking
"candid opinion" wrote to Renee
who then conducted his bureau at the
federal prison at Leavenworth, Kan
sas, Renoe had his secretary reply
that finger-prints could not be forged
At the time Burns wrote for infor-
nation, Albert Wehde, an American
citizen who had acted as a German
agent and who had unfairly been rail-
roaded to the Leavenworth prison un-
Judge Kenesaw Mountain Lands dur
ing the. war hysteria, had proved con-
clusively by his experiments that fin
ger-prints could be forged and he sue
ceeded in battling so-called finger
print experts with his purposely
forged prints.
Simple Process.
| Wehde, from his experience in en-
craving and photography, experiment.
ed in a laboratory of the bureau of
investigation and worked out the
method by which finger-prints can be
forged. The process is generally
speaking, Wehde says, identical with
the making of line etchings. A SEN
sitized metal plate is exposed to the
light under a negative taken from the
finger-prints to be forged. After de-
velopment the plate is slightly etched.
A paper transfer like jewellers use for
transferring designs is made and a
perfect replica of the original finger
print is put upon any object capable
of holding a genuine impression.
Wehde, by the way, is the author of
most engaging autobiography en-
titled "Since Leaving Home" in which
he sketches his prison experiences
and the work he did on finger-print
forgery experiments. He and John
Beffel, a nationally known publicity
man, have a book to be called Finger
prints Can Be Forged" about to go on
the presses. Wehde deals with finger
UTluL bAC noJo Va
forging prints while Beffel gives the
history and significance Of the use of
finger-prints.
Wehde says in "Since Leaving
Home: 1.-The process is so simple
that there is no good reason to sup
pose that conterfeiters or other shady
characters, or private detectives with
little knowledge of laboratory work,
lcannot and do not readily apply it."
Men Hung on FInger-Prints.
i On the second anniversary Of his re-
lease from Leavenworth the other
day, Wehde asserted that men have
been hung on finger-print evidence
alone, which makes more necessary
the correct public appraisal Of his dis
covery of the possibility of forgery.
Thomas Jennings was hung for
murder in Chicago on February Is,
1912, and one of the jurors in his trial
stated that ut was the finger-print
evidence and that alone which con-
WINGED us Jennings was guilty" Will
liam Y. Mills was hung April 16. 1920,
for killing two men and the chief evil