U.S.A. KIDNAPPINGS

Hokitika Guardian, 4 March 1932, Page 5

U.S.A. KIDNAPPINGS

ANOTHER CASE REPORTED LINDBERGHS’ BABY UNTRACED. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) ’ NEW YORK, March 2. After a day of confusing rumours and vast but ineffectual effort, the Lindberghs’ baby is still not found. Not since the war has any event aroused such nation-wide > feeling. “Please God guard his safety and bring him home,” begins a leader in a newspaper.

“Gentlemen,” declared a member of the House of Representatives, addressing the Congress, “what we need is to put red Wood in our veins and determine before God Almighty that we will make this country safe. We have been permitting to grow up a superGovernment that levies tribute on people and threatens to burn out the eyes of their children, if they do not pay.”

Nearly all business was suspended by Congress to-day. Many addresses were made hy members who .are burning with indignation at the outrage.

Prayers for the child’s safe return have been broadcast over thp nation's radio. Simultaneously it is revealed that n twelve--year-old Youngstown (Ohio) hoy, James Do Jute, was also kidnapped to-day, A message from Hopewell (New Jersey) states that Colonel Lindbergh, •said to-night that lie was very cnofident that his kidnapped baby son would be returned to-morrow. Afteran all day nation-wide search, there is no trace of the whereabouts of the infant.

The police in Jersey City are searching every rooming house for a man or woman with a child.

INVESTIGATION DISCLOSURES. BECOMING REGULAR INDUSTRY. NEW YORK, March 2. The Chicago Chamber of Commerce disclosed that an investigation it had made over a number of years shows that kidnapping had become a regular industry, and that since 1929 approximately 2000 persons had been taken, and 1,C00,000 dollars extorted as ransom.

Organised gangs prey, not only oh children of world heroes, but largely on bootleggers, gamblers and other individuals whose personal affairs prevent them calling on the law for aid. The Lindbergh estate is situated in New Jersey on a mountain top. It is difficult of access because of desired privacy after too much popular attention following Colonel Lindborgli's leap to fame,

To-night the estate was like an army intelligence lumdqimrters, Commitn* icn.ti.ou com putties wore compelled, to instal a string of hundreds of new telephones and telegraph wires to cater for the police and newspapermen. Mrs Lindbergh asked for a broadcast of the menu of her child, which had a cold, in the hope that, it would ; receive proper care from those retaining him. A hundred thousand officers of the law in the eastern section of the United States and Southern Canada are engaged in the search, but clues were few.' The ladder up which the kidnappers climbed to reach trie nursery window on the second story was found, and a cnisel which is believed to have been used prying open the window. Footprints, believed to be those of two men and women wearing mocassins or stockinged feet,-were traced from below the window for two miles into the woods and there lost. Colonel Lindbergh was reported to lie confident that the child would he returned, and he is willing to pay a ransom, but the kidnappers have not yet opened negotiations, upon the word from the Colonel late in the day. Bills were being debated in various States and in the National Legislature, making kidnapping punishable by -death but were temporarily shelved in order riot -o frighten the kidnappers into disposing of the child.

NEW CLUES FOR POLICE. COMMUNICATION THROUGH MAIL (Received this day at 10.15 a.m.) NEW YORK, February 3. A message from Hopewell, New Jersey, states Governor Moore, of New Jersey, called on Colonel Lindbergh. He afterwards stated that positively njo contact with the kidnapper had been made by the Lindberghs, or by the police. Meantime, in Boston, n woman, about sixty yeans of age, who sent an air mail letter to-dav to the Colonel, is-being sought by the police. A notation outside the letter said: “Please spare no effort to have this message, concerning Colonel Lindbergh’s son, rushed with till possible speed. There is no hope, but i| is a vitally important communication.”

Tli*» woman dashed away in a ear after mailing the letter. An Ashbury Park, New Jersey, iiies..age states that ii is reported that a rum rum or's story of passing a . thirty foot t miser, on which was a | man seen, ir d a baby's cry was heard, lia.s sen I coastguard craft racing along the Jersey seaboard. BOSTON. MFreh 3. The kidnapped liabv, according to the letter n-dlod bv a woman here today, addressed to Lindbergh, is being held in a small Massaehiisets town.