Evening star., 1934-06-19
BY REX COLLIER.


45o special agents of the Justice
Departments Division of Investi-
cation has embarked-and the
spatter of machine gun bullets on
targets at Fort Meade, Md, is a
warning to gangland that the Gov
ernment means business.
It's a war on all predatory criminals
OF the Dillinger stripe, backed by new
resources in the way OF men and
armament and by greatly strength
ened statutes.
Proceeding quietly. in line with
their "act first, talk afterward' policy,
the expanding investigative forces of
the Department Of Justice have been
| brushing up on their sharpshooting
at Army rife ranges.
Arsenal Strictly Modern.
Their arsenal. once sparsely sup
piled with pistols and a few rifles
wrested from the underworld, now in
cludes not only the gangster's favorite
rubbing OUT weapon, the Tommy"
!, submachine gun. but that even more
deadly rapid-fire instrument. the
monitor automatic rife. The latter
fires 20 .30-caliber bullets with ma
chine gun rapidity and can hit a
target miles away.
In addition, there are plentiful re-
serves of automatic shotguns, popular
ly known as riot guns; high-powered
! Army rifles, gas riot guns and the
latest type automatic pistols.
These are dangerous weapons in the
/ hands of any man. The Government
has entrusted them to a group OF
| carefully-picked, intensively-train
detectives charged by law with making
America unsafe for kidnapers, bank
robbers. racketeers and other desper-
! ate outlaws Of the rowing type.
Agents Not Boy Scouts"
An analysis of the personnel of J..
Edgar Hoover's organization Of Fed
eral agents and comparison of their
qualifications with those of other
notable police and detective agencies
! have revealed some interesting things.
Some critics have referred to these
! Investigators variously as Boy Scouts"
! and "city-bred lawyers"-inexperf-
! enced in underworld work, inexpert
In the use of firearms and lacking the
ough-anG-ready qualities of troopers
| or rangers.
It is true that the analysis shows
that more than 80 per cent of the di-
visions investigative personnel have
had legal training or were expert ac-
countants before entering the diV-
sion-the exact ratio being 81 per
cent with previous legal training and
81 per cent with expert accountant
qualifications. Hoover does not con-
slider legal or accountancy training a
disqualification, however.
The analysis discloses, moreover.
that the average special agent of the
division is scarcely young enough to be
termed a boy Scout; that while
some of the agents are "city bred"
many of them came from farming or
rural communities; that they are pro-
ficient in at least Ct different trades
or professions and 18 different sports;
that so can speak one or more foreign
languages, and that So were engaged
in law-enforcement work prior to
joining the Federal agency.
The force includes former Texas
Rangers, State troopers. sheriffs,
chiefs of police, detective bureau
chiefs and plain detectives.
404 Are Pistol Experts.
Most important of all, 404 of the
agents are qualified in the use of the
pistol, 345 have received special in
struction in use of the Army rifle, 355
have been trained to use the auto
matte shotgun, 365 are qualified ma
chine gunners and 81 have received
instruction in use of the tear-gas riot
gun These figures do not include the
So members of a class OF embryo
agents now being trained in the use
of firearms.
One of the agents is a former ma
tional pistol champion and member OF
the United States rife team, one
machine-gun contest winner. two were
military arms instructors, two have
attained note as expert trap shots,
eleven are Army small arms experts,
one an aerial gunnery expert. one a
tear gas expert and one an expert
enced heavy gunner.
All agents are given monthly prac-
tice on the rifle range with pistols.
rifles, shotguns and submachine guns.
Most police departments have a train
ing period only once or twice a year
A study Of age records of the Jus
tice agents shows that the average
division investigator is slightly over
IS years old. The requirement as to
age is that an applicant for this serv-
ice must be between rs and IS years:
Minimum Age Higher.
The minimum age for Hoovers men
Is higher than that for Scotland Yard
and most other foreign police depart
ments. It Is higher, toe. than the