Worcester Democrat and the ledger-enterprise. (Pocomoke City, Md.) 1921-1953, 1925-05-09
FINGER PRINT DATA
ON 7,000,G 600 MEN
Army Can Locate Any Reg
ular in 20 Minutes.

Misunderstanding print identif-
cation has been developed by the
army to the point of efficiency where
its application at times vies with the
thrills of detective fiction.
ANY unidentified man who has
served in the regular army can be To-
Gated in from ten to twenty minutes,
and his full record laid bare. In that
short time searcher finds him
among the more than 7,OOOOOO men
who have been in the army since 1906.
when the finger-print system WAS in
troduced. He may have been one Of
the 5O328 Smiths, the 4O.1O1 John
sons. 2S,9O2 Browns, or one Of the 81
OBS NAMED Williams. All the army
needs is his finger print to find his
record.
Index System Thorough.
Walter s. Kaye, in charge of the
bureau. says the indexing has been
worked out so efficiently that even
new clerk, one never before having
had knowledge of the system, can be-
gin work as searcher with little pre-
liminary instruction.
The science of tinger-print reading
is based on the study of the curious,
circling network OF all but invisible
lines on the ball of the thumb and
each finger. Examination Of millions
of specimens shows that the norma!
formation is the whOrl. or the scroll
which winds these lines from the outer
edge in a gradually reducing circle to
their inner termination at the core
OF the network. A majority of human
beings are marked with this scroll. but
there are others whose finger-print
lines run in flattened figures or in
complications Of figures far removed
from the simple, eaSily-read whOrlS.
The first step in identification has to
do With determining the broad general
division in which the prints under ex-
animation are to be sought.
There are but four main groups or
cIassitications of prints, arches, loops.
whoris and composites. Each type
has its gradational cases. The whorls
have 1924 values or combinations and
the loops, arches and composites have
each their respective values to sim
plify segregation for filing and to make
chem easily located when identifica-
tons are sought. The evaluation of
prints thus made has overcome all diff
ficulty of dealing with large collec-
tons of finger markings, such as are
in the army files
06nntinn
in 1906, have exposed frauds, protect
ed innocent men from injustice, kept
undesirables of the criminal type out
of the service, protected the govern
ment from INSCRIPTIONS claimants and
uncovered the guilty. Many interest
ing accounts of such instances are con-
tanned in official papers of the War
department during the last Is years.
Never a Mistake.
Those who have worked in the iden.
tiication bureau since it's establish
ment are authority for the statament,
that never has a mistake been made
They have made more then 100000
identifications.
The finger-print SYSTEM" Mr.. Kaye
says, lis superior to any other system
so far devised, in that it permits of
no error. This may seem a strong
statement, but the finger print, when
clearly made, allows of no misrepre-
sentation; it Is an actual presentation
and does not permit the personal equa-
ton Of error to enter. Other systems
allowed errors of measurement and En-
rors in location of marks"
In the more than 100000 digit
photographs in the Identification bu-
reaus files, Mr.. Kaye says, there are
no two of them alike. '"There is just
as much chance of finding two prints
alike as there would be in going into
the fields and finding two flowers ex-
actly alike