Browning chief. [volume] (Browning, Mont.) 1941-1953, 1945-07-13
Huge Files Now Hold
Records of Majority
OF American Citizens

Picture a vast room, longer
and wider than a football field,
with a vaulted ceiling rs feet
high, filled with long rows of
steel filing cabinets.
In this great hall $500 girls
work at calculating machines,
typewriters and filing cases.
Then visualize 1888, 1865 sepa-
rate fingerprint cards (the total
as this is written) in these files,
and you have some idea of the
size of the fingerprint, or iden-
LITIGATION division of the federal
bureau of investigation in Wash
ington.
But that isn't all. In addition a
half dozen other large rooms are
filled with hundreds of other girls
engaged in classifying incoming fin
gerprint cards before they are for
warded to the main fingerprint files.
1t is complex, tedious job of huge
proportions, but so proficient has the
FBI become in this Identification d.
vision, so expert has become the
classification system, that when
the sheriff of New Madrid county,
Missouri, or the chief of police of
Norman, Okla, or the town marshal
at Bluffton, Ind, telephones for iden-
LITIGATION of given person, or sends
in fingerprints, these officials have
an answer within a few minutes.
For, although there are almost 100
million separate cards, representing
100 million persons, on file, CLASH
fication has been reduced to such
science that it is never necessary to
remove more than 100 cards for COM
parison to make positive identified
ton.
Building up this tremendous reser-
voir of Identification cards has be-
come hobby, almost a fetish, of
the nations boss Oman, J. Edgar
Hoover, director of the FBI. He
foresaw years ago the advantage of
the fingerprint system in both GRIM
inal Identification, and in civilian
non-criminal investigations, both in
peace and wartime. The system has
had a tremendous growth during
these five war years.
Bureau Expanded by War Need.
For instance, on July l, 1941, the
bureau had approximately 2l,700,O00
fingerprint records on file. But since
the war, fingerprint records have
been coming into the bureau at the
rate of about $4,000 daily. Impetus
has been given through the selective
service system, and the civil service
commission, which requires finger
printing of all employees. War
workers are all fingerprinted, too
and copies are sent to the bureau,
so that during these war years about
IT million prints have been added.
The job of classifying, filing and
sorting these millions of separate
cards has been tremendous one.
First it was necessary to recruit
girls from all over the nation. These
girls had to be above the average,
with high school or college educa-
tons. They took the regular FBI
oath. Their habits and lives were
thoroughly investigated and even
their place of residence in Washing
ton picked from list supplied and
approved by the FBI.
But to get this bureau started
=. to overcome the popular preju-
dice against being fingerprinted, to
sell police officials on the advantages
of the fingerprint system in the ear
ly days, took months and months of
educational work by FBI agents
travelling throughout the country.
Enlisted Help of Local Police.
1t took painstaking effort on the
part of the bureau to build up good
will among police officials and pub
lie officials everywhere. In those
early days every agent had orders
when passing through town to pay
his respects to the police officials
and to pass along a message" from
]. Edgar Hoover concerning his will
ingness to help in any local investi-
cation. The crux of the message
was don't forget to take finger
prints and send them in"
The Identification division is now
housed, for the duration, in the
brand-new white stone District of Co.
lumbia national guard armory. 1t
occupies the whole building, and has
constructed new temporary addi-
tons to house the cafeteria, lounges
and locker rooms. Where it will go
after the war is question.
Criminal Identification is indispen-
sable in combating crime and of
course is most potent factor in
apprehension of the fugitive. From
the earliest annals of history, per-
sonal Identification of some charac-
ter has been in vogue. Members of
one savage tribe were distinguished
from others through distinctive at
tire, bodily decorations, or charac-
teristic scars from self-inflicted cuts
or burns. 1t was not until the ad-
Individuality and Uniqueness
First Established
The first known scientific observa-