Newspaper Page Text
HOW I CAUGHT
LAND
BY W.IBURHT J J Wfc-
THE MOST FAMOW \W M
AMERICAN \ ,W
DETECTIVE A' \
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Representative Gordon States His Land Swindle Case to De
tective Burns.—Burns on Left.
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Ueiective Burns Prepares a Dictagraph for Senator Archer’s
and His Confedeates’ Undoing.
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The Dictagaph Reveals the Conspirators’ Plans to Burns’
Men in Gordon’s Presence.
FOR the first time
in the history
of moving
pictures, a world fa-
The Grafting Senator Leaves mous detective has
His Telltale Thumb-Print written and acted for
on Congressman Gor- ’he films the story
don’s Glove. °f one °f *^ e B reat ’
est achievements in
bringing criminals to justice. The author- —and chief actcr is
William Jt Burns, who broke up the Government land fraud
ring, convicted the Los Angeles dynamiters and has added
to the mechanics of the modern science of criminal investigations
that wonderful device called the dictagraph —which matches
the " long arm" with the ‘ long ear. '
In the action of Detective Burns's story telling, "How I Caught
the Land Swindlers," which occupies more than an hour and has
By William J. Burns.
r-pHE whole country was flooded with the enticing
literature of the Nelson Land Company. Up in
■*• Vermont the frugal, saving, hard-working Ed
wards family—father, mother and grown daughter,
Kitty—were unable to resist appeals like this:
“Come to the South and live like a king! We have
the richest soil on earth. Ten acres will make you in
dependent. Some make JSOO a year on each acre."
So this simple, trusting Vermont family signed the
Nelson Land Company’s ironclad contract, paid the
first instalment on the purchasing price, sold out the
comfortable home where the Edwardses had lived for
generations, and journeyed hopefully to their new home
—the new home they had bought, but had never seen.
In Washington, D. C„ at about this time Represent
ative Gordon, a young Congressman of serious and ex
alted ideals, escorted his sweetheart, the pretty daugh
ter of United States Senator Archer, to a lecture de
livered by Detective William J. Burns. The lecture ap
pealed powerfully to Gordon, who toon notes, of the
following statement especially:
“Every criminal leaves a track through which he
may be traced. There are no mysteries, and a failure
to obtain results Indicates that the matter has not been
properly nor thoroughly investigated."
On his vacation, automobiling through the South,
Gordon nearly ran down Kitty Edwards. The machine
did, in fact, dash out of her hand the pail of water she
was carrying from a spring beside the road. In con
sternation over the girl’s narrow escape the young Con
gressman refilled her pail and accompanied her to the
miserable shack on a ten-acre tract of sandy, worn-out
soil where Mr. and Mrs. Edwards are bemoaning the
ruin that has overwhelmed them. They show him their
one-sided contract with the land company. Gordon's
imlicnation was great.
"I am a member of Congress.” he told them. “I will
have this matter thoroughly investigated and the swin
dlers punished.”
Back in Washington, Gordon got the matter before a
ioint committee of the Senate and House, of which
Senator Archer was chairman. The committee report
ed that there was no evidence of fraud. Gordon’s in
dignation over this result was increased by a letter
from Kitty Edwards telling how her father, calling on
Nelson of the Land Company to protest against further
payments on his contract, had been assaulted and near
ly burned to death when Nelson fired the building and
dIS Tlwrimpon Gordon lost no time In laying the case
before Detective Burns, submitting to him the Edwards
agreement with the Nelson Land Company. Bums ex
amined the paper and said:
“Our work is in Washington. I will go with you at
° nC Nelson had fled to Washington to claim the protec
tion of his chief confederate in Congress—Senator
Archer One day when Gorden called at the Senator’s
house to see his sweetheart. Mary Archer, Nelson had
lust been shown the door, after having, in his agita
tion upset an inkstand, spilling its contents over the
Senator’s hand. Thus, when Mary Archer summoned
her father to sav good-by to her departing lover, the
Senator’s handclasp left’a perfect thumb print on Gor
den's light suede glove.
Gordon, going directly to Detective Burns’s office,
found him examining, with a strong glass.athumb print
nn the Edwards agreement with the Nelson Land Com-
PRn "What’s that on your glove?" asked the detective,
as they shook hands.
“Why. it’s an ink spot, said Gordon. I wonder
where I got it?”
"Have you shaken hands with any one recently?
asked the detective, adding: “With your glove on.”
“Yes,” answered Gordon. “With Senator Archer, as
1 was leaving his house not half an hour ago.”
The detective examined the ink spot through his
glass showing it also to Gordon.
“Why, it’s a perfect imprint of a thumb!” exclaimed
The World’s
Greatest Detective
Tells for the First
Time in Moving
Pictures Just How
Criminal Investigations
Are Conducted
thirty scenes, the Kalcm Company has introduced some very
startling and realistic effects. For one of the scenes the hall of
the House of Representatives, with that body in session, was faith
fully reproduced in detail. In another an automobile is wrecked
by an express train. The criminal, escaping with his life, boards
the tram and is seen to stop the pursuing motor car by sending a
bullet through one of its tires.
The installation of a dictagraph instrument and its acua! use
in securing the conversation of suspected swindlers is shown. An
inky thumb print on a glove, made in shaking hands, is demonstrated
to match one left on an incriminating document. For another scene
the actors and camera men were sent far down South, to the lo
cale of the swindle. On the deck of an Atlantic liner in mid
ocean a guilty, fleeing senator receives lhe wireless dispatch which
causes him to commit suicide.
On this page Detective Bums tells the story in condensed form,
and it is illustrated with scenes from the films.
America’s Most Famous Detective.
the young Congressman; “of Senator Archer’s thumb,
as we shook hands.”
The detective smiled, and showed through his glass
the thumb print' on the Edwards agreement. Their
identity was unmistakable. Gordon was aghast. Hero
was absolute proof that the father of the ghl ha loved
was Nelson’s confederate in the land swindles!
Burns immediately placed "shadows” on Senator
Archer and on Nelson. Learning s he meeting place of
Archer and his Congressional confederates, he had his
assistants install the famous dictagraph on a wall of
the roam, stretching the communicating wire across a
corridor to the receiving instrument in another room,
A large calendar on the wall concealed the little trans
mitter from view of the confederates when they met.
Senator Archer sat directly beneath the instrument
thus concealed. Every word he uttered was taken down
in the other room by Burns’s stenographer.
Discussing a date for another meeting, Archer, see
ing the calendar, pulled it down, revealing the dicta
graph. Realizing its meaning, the confederates poured
out into the corridor, traced the wire under the hall
carpet to a room opposite, and burst in the door, where
they were confronted by Gordon, champion of the land
swindle victims, standing at the stenographer-detect
ive’s elbow! w
Senator Archer w’ent directly to his home, packed a
bag with important papers and left the house in such a
state of agitation that his daughter’s suspicions were
aroused. Mary lost no time in reporting the matter to
her lover. Gordon. As he refused to discuss the matter
with her, she went later to the office of Detective
Burns. Finding Gordon there, she denounced her lover
for hounding her father.
"You are obsessed with the illusion that my father
is in some way connected with the land swindles,” she
said. “All is over between us!”
Burns seized the opportunity to break it gently to
Mary that there was proof of her father's complicity,
and she went homo broken-hearted.
Senator Archer reached New York in time to catch
an outgoing Atlantic liner. Two days later, in mid
ocean, while sitting on deck, he received a wireless
message. He opened it with trembling fingers, and
read:
"Gordon addressing House. We are ruined."
Senator Archer went directly to his stateroom, took
a small phial from his pocket, drank the contents, and
lay down in his berth.
In the meantime Nelson, the land swindler, had
caught Burns’s assistant shadowing him. Suddenly he
cranked up the motor of an automobile standing by
the curb, jumped aboard and raced away for the open
country. The detective followed in another car, which
the swindler saw gradually overhauling him. He drove
his machine over a railway crossing too late to escape
the locomotive of an express train. His machine was
wrecked. Escaping personal injury in the wreck, the
fugitive was taken aboard the train. Realizing this, the
detective raced the train until the swindler, from the
rear platform, punctures one of his tires with a re
volver shot. Then, beset by trainmen, he leaped from
the platform, nearly killing himself, and was captured.
While Representative Gordon was addressing the
House on his motion to impeach the Senators and
Congressmen proved guilty in connection with the land
swindles, Mary Archer received a wireless dispatch
announcing her father's suicide. She carried it im
mediately to the Capitol and had It delivered to Gordon,
who was then finishing his address on the floor of the
House.
“Suicide is confession."
Gordon’s motion is carried—he is the hero of the
hour.
Retiring from the floor of the House. Gordon found
Mary, who had witnessed his triumph, and escorted her
from the Capitol. He soothed her anguished mind by
reminding Ler:
“I am left to you, Mary. I love you more than ever.
We will labor together for the cause of the Right!”
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Senator Archer and His Confederates Discover the Dirt,
graph—but Too Late.
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The Fugitive Swindler’s Auto Wrecked by an Express Train,
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Nelson, the Swindler, Escapes from the Wreck Uninjured,
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The Fugitive Leaps from the Moving Train and Is Captured.
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On the Floor of the House Honest Representative Go
impeaches the Grafting Members.