(See front cover)
On Oct. 23, 1934, the chief of police of Wellsville, Ohio refused to turn over to a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation a gangster named Adam Richetti, wanted for taking part in the Kansas City Station massacre. That refusal marked the peak of jealous friction between local and Federal law enforcement agencies. Last winter Attorney General Homer Still Cummings tactfully called a peace pow-wow in Washington between the conflicting parties (TIME, Dec. 24). On the theory that the camaraderie of the classroom makes for mutual understanding and friendship, it was decided that three schools should be set up within the Department of Justice. One would undertake to familiarize new district attorneys, most of whom have never seen the inside of a grand jury room, with a working knowledge of detection and prosecution. In another the administrators of the nation's 3,300 nonFederal prisons would be shown how the Federal Bureau of Prisons runs its penal institutions. And to the third in the Bureau of Investigation would go local law enforcement officers for instruction in the complex art of crook catching. This week the last project was the first to get underway.
To the Department of Justice's fine new building on Constitution Avenue went 21 handpicked, high-ranking law officers from rural, metropolitan and State police services. With the exception of instruction in matters strictly Federal, these 21 adult students were to receive free of charge the same three-months course given novice Special Agents. In addition, there were to be special lectures on ballistics, first aid, criminal procedure, psychiatry, by such national figures as Major Julian S. Hatcher of the Army's Ordnance Department, Assistant Surgeon General Ralph C. Williams of the Public Health Service, onetime U. S. District Attorney George Z. Medalie and Dr. William A. White of St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. The Bureau hoped that when the graduates of its new Police Training School went back home they would be so firmly stamped with the U. S. seal of approval that local bosses would think twice before detouring these men for mere political reasons, and that the national weapon for fighting crime would thereby receive a healthy boost.
The man in charge of this project was a compact, wirehaired, effective native Washingtonian just 40 whose name, after 16 years in the Government service, has lately emerged as a household word, Director John Edgar Hoover of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. With an appropriation of $50,000 and an enthusiastic waiting list. Director Hoover decided: "First we'll crawl. Maybe after that we'll walk, maybe run, maybe fly." By rigid adherence to this careful program of crawling, walking, running and flying Director Hoover has built in the past decade one of the finest, most efficient law enforcement agencies the world has ever known.