Evening star., 1940-03-10
Museum Here
Has Evidence
OF Crimes
Secret Room Open
Only to Small
Group of Men
By Garnen d. H0rner.

In a secret room at the Post Office
Department here a well-dressed,
middle-aged man who looked like a
conservative banker stood gazing at
an ordinary fruit jar.
A far-aWay look came into his
eyes And I scooped up a double
handful of unset diamonds into
that jar :"
1t was the reformed leader of the
gang that staged the biggest mail
train robbery in history telling how
the $2,050,611 loot was divided and
buried in earthenware crooks and
glass fruit jars.
His words surrounded with life
and drama the jars and crooks, the
spade used to dig them up, the bull
let-nlcked rife and other memen-
toes of that fateful hold-up of
mail train at Rondout, ILL.,, on June
u, 1924.
This physical evidence of the
Rondout robbery, now neatly ar
ranged in a glass case, is part of an
amazing variety of relics of crimes
and rackets solved and smashed by
the United States Post Office inspec-
tors which they have locked up in
their historical ROOM
The relics range from machine
guns and bombs to fake "cure-all"
pills and voodoo charms guaranteed
to bring luck to crapsshooters, from
snakes and lottery tickets to 'phony"
wills and gold bricks that are not
gold-all evidence of how some one
was caught robbing, cheating or kill
ing people through the mails.
They combine to form an impress
sive object lesson that it doesn't pay
to tamper with Uncle Sans mails.
But the post office inspectors-the
original Government servants with
a passion fer anonymity" not
arranged their museum of thrills as
a public show and they don't talk
much about it.
Room Always Locked.
The unmarked door to their "his-
torical ROOM on the sixth floor of
the Post Office Department Build
ing here is always locked. There
are only three keys to it, all held by
top officials of the Inspection
Service. The door is opened very
rarely to any one outside the postal
service. Even the charwomen can
not get in on their nightly cleaning
rounds.
The museum is being set up-it is
only about 80 per cent complete now
TO preserve in graphic form for the
inspectors own future benefit the
lessons learned in solving some of
their toughest problems in the past,
and to simplify the education of
newcomers to the service about the
almost limitless variety of their
' duties.
1t revived sad memories the other
day for Brent Glasscock, whose un-
doing as "big-shot" criminal is
represented in its exhibits. The post
office inspectors convicted him
nearly 16 years ago as the brains"
OF the Rondout robbery.
Since serving his time In prison
Glasscock has gone straight" and
become respectable broker in Kan
sas City. Proud of his comeback, he
visited the Office of Chief Post Office
Inspector Kildroy P. Aldrich to talk
over old times. AS an inspector at
Chicago, Mr.. Aldrich had been
chiefly responsible for sending him
to prison.
To show there were no hard feel
ings, Mr. Aldrich had an assistant
escort the one-time mail robber
through the historical room" as one
of the few outsiders ever admitted
there.
It was then he told his guide how
he once had secreted double hand
full of diamonds in the fruit jar and
how he had shot Wylie Newton,
whose rife, which was nicked by a
bullet from Glasscock's As, now
shares the museum case with the