Evening star., 1932-11-21
F|NGERPR|NT FEAR
SCARES CRIMINALS
FROM j. s. SERVICE
Few With Police Records
Are Now Applying for
Positions.
LARGE SUMS ARE SAVED
IN COMPENSATION CASES
Many Veterans Reported Dead by
Relatives Are Found to Be
Very Much Alive.
BY REX COLLIER.

Fear of fngerprinting with its tell
tale revelations virtually has eliminated
the criminal from the list of applicants
for Federal employment.
Instituted four years ago by the Civil
Service Commission in cooperation
with the U. S. Bureau Of Investigation,
fingerprinting Of civil service applicants
has reduced the proportion of appl-
cantS with police records from / in 13
to in 10, it was announced yesterday
by ]. Edgar Hoover, director of the
bureau.
The Identification division of the Bu-
reau of Investigation took over all fin
gerprint activities of the Civil Service
Commission on July / last. due to the
greatly increased scope of the work
While the bureaus Identification ex-
pertS are concerned chiefly with crime
detection in general, they frequently
render special service in other fields,
including Identification OF unknown
dead or of amnesia victims and locat-
ing witnesses or defendants in civil
suits.
Service Attracted Criminals.
When the Civil Service Commission
launched its fingerprint system, under
which every applicant for a Federal
examination, it was found that crimi-
mails of many types were seeking to
enter the Government service. The
1-in-13 percentage of criminals was re-
corded during the fiscal year ended
June 80, 1929. The crimes which the
applicants had committed covered the
entire range of misdemeanor and fell
ony, including counterfeiting, arson,
burglary and murder.
During the second fiscal year after
establishment Of the fingerprint re-
Quirements 1t was, found that one per-
son in every IA had criminal record.
The third year the ratio was one in
every % applicants, and last year the
sharp decline Of one in 20 was re-
ported.
THE decrease in the percentage of
these identihcations, the bureau an
nounced, may be attributed to the
fact that the Civil Service Commission
increased its flngerprinting activities in
1881, and further to the belief that
many persons who had previous crimi-
nal records, knowing of the commits
Sion's policy in searching prints to de-
termine police records, refrained from
applying for civil service positions"
Value of Fingerprinting.
4IlCIc dLC U1dI1y CdSCo vi ICGOIO JAldI
illustrate the value of the flngerprinting
service. A colored applicant for post
as prohibition agent was found to be
an escaped prisoner from the Hunts
vile (Tex) prison, where he was under
sentence of five years for robbery and
burglary. He Is now serving the re-
mainder of his term there.
Several months ago an applicant who
had denied in his written application
that he had ever been arrested was re-
vealed by his fngerprints as con-
victed murderer, who escaped in 1918
after serving eight years of life SEN
tence. Guarding this discovery care
fully officials notified the applicant to
appear for a personal interview. In
some way his suspicious must have be-
come aroused, however, for he never
was heard from, and presumably still
is at large.
The Government has been saved
thousands of dollars in war compensa-
ton cases through the bureaus expo
sure of frauds or mistakes" in insur-
ance claims. Veterans reported by rel
ativeS as dead have been found to be
very much alive by reference to the col
lection of 3,30O,0 900 hngerprints on file
in the identification division. Some
times the relatives were as much sur
prised to find the veterans alive as
were Veterans Administration officials.
There was the case of disabled vet
eral whose claims were in course Of
adjudication, and who disappeared
mysteriously before the case was COM
pleted. His fngerprints were sent to
the Justice Bureau, where 1t was
learned the veteran, using another
name. had been arrested in MisSis-
sippi in 1880 and committed to an in
sane asylum.
A $4,000 insurance claim by bene-
ficiarieS of policy executed by vet
eran who had been missing for more
than seven years, was thrown out when
Identification experts found the man
had been fngerprinted by police under
an assumed name within recent years.
Bodies Identified.
Bodies of many murdered persons
have been identified by the bureau.
Such identificationS usually are ef-
fected because the unknown victim has
had "a past" although sometimes the
civil service and military service prints,
are an aid.
The most recent case Of Identification
in the amnesia class was that Of war
veteran injured in North Carolina while
en- route to washington with the bonus
marchers. The veteran aroused wide
interest by his expressed belief that
he was prominent member of the La
fayette Escadrille who had been report
ed killed in France, but a hngerpr1nt
search proved him to be deserter from
the United States Navy, not possessed
of World War record.