WAR ON CRIME

Evening Star, Issue 22450, 22 September 1936, Page 12

WAR ON CRIME

FAMOUS “ 0 " MEN UPKEEP £1,000,000 A YEAR Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the famous “ G Alen,” costs America nearly £1,000,000 a year, it is the means of saving Americans about £7,000,000 in the same period. Such is the estimate of Air Edgar Hoover, chief of the bureau, for the year ended June 30 last. Expenses for the year were approximately 5,000,000 dollars, but “ recoveries effected and savings to the Government in _ cases which the bureau investigated amounted to 34,708,815d01.” “ For every dollar spent on the operating costs of the bureau during the year,” declared Air Hoover, “ approximately seven dollars were secured for the Government or individual citizens in property recovered or saving effected. _ . “ Persons convicted in cases investigated by my men amounted to 3,905,” Mr Hoover added, “ and convictions were obtained in 94.35 per cent, of all cases which went to trial. The bureau has solved every kidnapping case in which it performed investigating work, and obtained 31 life sentences, four death sentences, ancf other sentences totalling 2,113 years. “ Three culprits committed suicide, five were killed (‘ G Alen ’), six died by murder at the hands of their own gangster colleagues, and two were lynched.” Thanks to their investigations of bank robberies, Air Hoover continued, insurance companies recently reduced bank insurance rates 20 per cent, in 35 States.

More than one million new fingerprints were hied with the bureau during the year, bringing the total on file to 6,094,916. In spite of the success and publicity which the bureau has enjoyed in the last year, however, unlooked-for difficulties have come to light recently. An investigation is now being held in Washington into allegations that secret service men had been spying upon “ G Men ” in certain parts of the country with a view to exposing allegedly improper practices by the latter. Mr Hoover himself has been censured in one or two newspapers for alleged “ autocratic methods ” and undue publicity seeking, while newspaper humorists have joined the fray with contentions that the “ G Men ” are “ probably unconstitutional anyway ” and will one day bo declared so by the Supreme Court, as has occurred with so many other Federal organisations and measures of late. The bureau’s success has, inevitably, aroused envy in those police quarters which were unsuccessful in checking the crime wave in America before the bureau came into being. In spite of current criticism and difficulties, however. the bureau still seems to retain the support and admiration of the public at large.