The Washington times., 1934-11-12
JUSTICE FILE
WATERLOO Of
CRIMINALS
By GRACE HENDRICK EUsTIs

Wheels within wheels. classified
tions, identifications, experts,
dragons blood powder, aluminium
powder, bronze powder, micro
scopes, cameras, chemists, bal
listic experts. all these and many
more make up the Division of
Investigation of the United States
Department Of Justice.
The other day we went through
the fingerprint section Of this
division and saw the extraordinary,
accurate and complex system by
which fingerprints of criminals,
both dangerous and mild. are
tabulated and how information
concerning these criminals is dis
Seminated within SO hours.
At the time of the visit there
were 327 experts classifying and
investigating the daily average Of
$500 fingerprintS that come from
1000 contributors. These con-
tributors are scattered over the
United States and the SO foreign
countries that exchange finger
prints with this country.
Elaborate Records
When q fingerprint comes in
with the morning mail from a
police court or any penal inStitu-
ton it goes through four sec
tions, the recording, the tech
nical, the card index and the
assembling. Then, a report on
all the knowledge concerning the
print, such as aliases, records in
other courts, nicknames, is sent
to every court and criminal in
stitution interested in the case
by 4 o'clock the next after
noon. Thus the cases are kept
up to date and at the same time
the information is filed away in
the Division of Investigation.
Suppose a man is arrested in
Baltimore, and his fingerprintS
are sent in to washington. 1t
may be that he is wanted for
some crime in Ell Paso. He may
have travelled East, leaving a
trail of crime behind him. If
this is the case, every court
where he has been, under no
matter what alias, is notified and
the man is transferred from Balti-
more to e. PaSo. In the last
month no less than 400 fugitives
from justice were identified. The
average Of identification in the
division is At out of every 100
prints sent in.
Evnorfx Voun~ Men
There are 1859, 1868 sets of
records on file, compared with
100000 sets in Scotland Yard.
These sets of files are put
away in cabinets. Each expert
is responsible for searching and
classification in his group of
cabinets. Many of these are
young men working their way
through college night classes or
who have just graduated. The
beginners start work under ex-
perts, and receive lectures be-
sides. They must have strong
eyes and strong backs. There
is a machine which sorts and
Identifies punched cards in four
minutes which would take
trained expert 40 minutes.
There are divisions within this
division. There is one finger
print file for unknown criminals
who have left their prints at the
scene of crime and others for
a restricted group of the most
dangerous type of criminal, such
as bank robbers, kidnapers and
eXtortioniStS.
NicknameS Filed
There is the division for latent
figerprintS. Here are powders
that are used to develop prints
on various surfaces. There are
aniline powders, black powders,
white powders and colored pow
ders. for different surfaces. There
are delicate camePS hair brushes
to apply these and electric sprays
when it is necessary to scatter
power over an entire room.
In another cabinet are grueSome
examples Of what is called mou-
lage work, colored wax reproduc.
lions of murdered child's head
and mutilated fingers. In this
room also are reproductions of the
work Of document experts. There
is the analysis of Bruno Haupt-
mann's handwriting and photo
graphs and sections of bullets,
made by the ballistics specialists.
In another room are cabinets
filled with civil identifications.
These include a modus operandi
file for bank robbers and files with
nlcknames Of criminals. Some
men and women go under the
salty titles Of Frenchie, Gazaybo,
Kokomo, Smoke the Pipe, Snake
Charmer, Sloppy Slim and Two
Boy.
All this information is used not
only by police, but by parole
boards and by judges in sentenc-