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New Radio Net for Rogues
233
England and hung — that we accept such events as a matter of course.
Again, it was only the other day that a banker in Dallas, Texas, who wasn't up on radio, walked out of the back door of his bank, a defaulter. He was reported by radio by the Dallas police to Post Field of the Army Air Service. At Lawton, Oklahoma, an amateur caught the word. This amateur spotted his man, reported him. Before the end of the day the defaulter was lodged in the Lawton jail.
Mr. Burns, himself, told me of a case even more sensational.
Into the Westinghouse plant at Pittsburg came a young, well-dressed individual. He represented himself as a committee of one sent by a community organization to borrow a receiving set. He was loaned one of the very best and did not return it. The situation was reported to the local Burns detective agency After an investigation this young man was broadcasted: Twenty-four years of age or so, about five feet eight inches tall, blue eyes, a scar on his left cheek, etc. That evening, it so happened, this fugitive was entertaining his mother and some of his friends with his new receiving set. They were sitting by when out of the ether came a flash of the whole situation. The next morning his mother saved her son from arrest by appearing at the Westinghouse offices with saved-up earnings with which to buy the receiving set.
"Radio," Mr. Burns went on, "will be in finitely useful in crime work. Using it, we can add greatly to the strength of a central agency like ours. Criminals can be reported in the various ways heretofore used and also by radio. We can broadcast them. We can use radio to detect mere thieves " — the cry " Stop Thief! " must now have a far wider meaning — "for
notifying people to look out for forgers, so that merchants c^ be on their guard, and against other kinds of public enemies.' We are going to be able to broadcast descriptions of fingerprints with sufficient accuracy to warrant the detention of any suspect until his identity is finally established."
It will be remembered that, abroad, the Be1 i n ograph — a Frenchman's invention by means of which photographs, signatures, and the like have been transmitted across the Atlantic— has been developed to transmit finger prints exactly. Mr. Burns' plan does not look to using the Belinograph. Instead he is devising a new code that can be used more handily and will yet serve the main purpose. With the cooperation of such organizations as the International Society for Personal Identification, he is devising a code that classifies the varying whorls, arches, ridges, and loops in such ways that anyone familiar with the peculiar markings of each individual can tell at a glance whether a suspect belongs within a certain category.
© Harris ic Ewing
William J. Burns, Director of the Bureau of Investigation, Department of Justice