Imperial Valley press., 1941-05-21


and best show for tourists III WASH
ington is that put on by the Oman
department. the Federal Bureau OF
Investigation in the Department Uf
Justice.
Five minutes is enough to see
Congress in action. Fifteen minutes
will show you ;ie wonders OF the
Capitol. Twenty minutes will do
the wonders of the ages in the late
Andy Mellon's collection in the
National Academy of Art, and 20
minutes is about right for the White
House. When the customers get TO
the FBI, however, they take an hour
and a quarter. You can be pul
through the works in an hour II
you're in a hurry, but if you are,
you'll have to miss a few OF the
gimicks.
Doors open at $50 a. m, and
there is usually a crowd waiting.
It's like that until mid-afternoon'
The wonder is that the bureau IS
so organized that all these sight
seers can go through the mill with
out iamming monkey Wrenches in
to all the wheels.
The tour has been running long
enough to be we'll organized, and
exhibits are so arranged that rub
bernecks can see all, or practically
ALL without getting in anybody's
road.
All ages and sexes are in the
crowds and they go for this big.
Old men glow, mouths ajar, women
and girls get their own particular
kinds of thrills and little boys liter
ally lap it up Once in while
some tight-lipped lady will refuse
to look at a somewhat Shuddery
moulage cast of a dead criminals
head or hand, but when the guide
comes to the file of records on
notorious criminals, including Dill
linger, and then asks if any OF
the crowd has any relatives in the
file that they'd like to have looked
up, it's panic.
MILLIONS OF NAMES
The show starts in an exhibit
room where the general workings
of the FBI are explained. There
are big colored maps, lights that
blink, and a speedometer witt
three-inch numbers that clicks ev-
cry time a new fingerprint care
is placed in the file. These card'
are coming in at the rate of abou
10000 a day now and the tota
file number today clocks in the II
millions.
The crowds get 20 walk through
the fingerprint file room, occupyint
an entire floor of the Justice build
ing which covers a whole city blocl
Visitors get to see how the finger
prints are classified and there's
nice fresh case on the mechanica
sorting machines, card which
has been sent in rom. say Gin
cinnati, showing some feller Wht
has been picked up there by th'
local gendarmes, mugged and fling
erprinted, and sent into FBI head
quarters for a checkup on Whethe
he has had previous experience il
being fingerprinted in other bail
iWicks. They can give you the an
swer, usually, in about three min
utes.
There are four main divisions Il
this fingerprint file, civilians whit
haven't done anything but be fling
prDrOted for Identification nIlrDOsps
army and navy folk, criminals, ant
women. The women, you're told
don't commit as many crimes as the
men but they commit worse ones
when they do.
In another wing is the name file
and the nickname file. Millions oi
names, just names. The nicknames
come in handy, it seems, in case
somebody hears one bank robbei
call another Whitley" as they
dash away with the loot. FB1
checks through it's Whitley" file
and gets list Of suspects. The tour
lists get laughs when the guide pulls
open a drawer in the lady nick
name department and reads off, as
typical exhibit, "Belching Bessie
Scientific crime detection is given
Its spectacular DOW When the tour
lists are shown the exhibit room of
the FBI lab, its pride and pet.
There's portable x-ray machine
that shows haeksaw blade con-