Keliher, T. T.

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Part IV:  Freight-Car Robberies

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Journal of Criminal Law and CriminologyVolume 23Issue 6 March--April Article 15Spring 1933Part IV: Freight-Car RobberiesT. T. KeliherFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/jclcPart of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminology Commons, and the Criminology and CriminalJustice CommonsThis Criminology is brought to you for free and open access by Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted forinclusion in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology by an authorized editor of Northwestern University School of Law Scholarly Commons.Recommended CitationT. T. Keliher, Part IV: Freight-Car Robberies, 23 Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 1080 (1932-1933)T. T. KELIHERyears have resulted in such sweeping losses throughout the entirecountry. It is necessary to mention in this connection only such prose-cutions as that which recently resulted in a fourteen-year penitentiarysentence for G. Bryan Pitts, millionaire chairman of the board ofdirectors of the F. H. Smith Company of Washington, D. C., theJoint Stock Land Bank cases in Kansas City, and the Bankers TrustCompany, in which one Manley of Atlanta, Georgia, was convicted.The Insull Utilities failures at Chicago are now under investigationby the Special Agents of the United States Bureau of Investigation.In many instances evidence of this kind is the cause of beneficialchanges in blue sky laws and similar legislation current in individualstates, designed to prevent crimes of this sort.Regardless of existing or prospective legislation in the field ofbankruptcy, organizations investigating frauds of this type mustnecessarily depend upon a full measure of cooperation from the publicand from individuals and organizations whose business is adverselyaffected in individual cases. This cooperation is best manifestedthrough prompt complaints or advices as to suspicious circumstanceswhich might indicate fraud, and through all compliance with requestsfor information on the part of investigative agencies which desire,from time to time, data as to amounts of indebtedness, characterof merchandise sold, financial statements received, and similar in-formation.IV. FREIGHT-CAR RoBBERIEST. T. KELIHERTo give the reader a mental picture of the magnitude of the rail-roads in the United States, the following brief outline will suffice:Total main line railroad mileage in the United States, 260,000 miles,with a total rail mileage of 420,000 miles. The United States hasrailroad mileage equal to the combined railroad mileage of all ofEurope and Canada. The railroads own and operate 60,000 locomo-tives and 2,500,000 cars of all kinds. In normal times, load and trans-port 1,000,000 car loads of merchandise per week, or 52,000,000 carloads per year, requiring the movement of 3,333 fifty-car freight trainsper day, valued at from 75 to 80 billion dollars. Employ 2,000,000men and women; payroll approximately three billion dollars per year.Pay taxes to the amount of $400,000,000 per year. Approximatevalue, 26 billion dollars."Chief Special, Agent, Illinois Central System.FREIGHT-CAR ROBBERIESNow, robberies from merchandise and commodities in transit in1914 cost the railroads in the United States $1,940,000. In 1920, thelast year of government control, war period, robberies of merchandisein transit cost the railroads, or the United States, approximately$13,000,000, But in 1929, the robberies of merchandise in transitcost the railroads of the United States only $757,000, a decrease ofover $12,000,000 under 1920, the last year of government control.How was this remarkable reduction in robbery accomplished dur-ing a period that the entire country was suffering from an unpre-cedented crime wave, involving the loss of property account theftand fraud, estimated by competent and conversant authorities to beas high as 16 billion dollars per year in the United States and Canada?In the first place, the railroad special agents and railroad policedepartments are organized upon an entirely different basis than arethe police organizations of towns, municipal, county and state policelaw enforcement officers, who are generally political pawns withoutcontinuity of service. The railroad special agents and police areon an absolute and unqualified civil service basis, and owing to thefiduciary position they hold, are selected for their moral character,education, integrity, experience, ability, tact, poise and standingin their respective communities. Selections are not confined to anyparticular local territory or political division, but are made from thecountry at large, an advantage for efficiency over selections confinedto political precincts and districts.Those selected perform their several duties with impartial effi-ciency, demonstrated courage, stick-to-it-iveness, diplomacy and tactin their contact with the public, and are assured of their positionand promotion. They are free from political pull and intimidationwhich is an incentive to competent and capable men to give theirbest effort at all times and under all circumstances.The railroad special agent fears no political boss. No one knowsbetter than I do the handicap police and law enforcement officerslabor under account the blighting influence of politics. Many goodintentioned, honest and highly efficient chief of police or law enforce-ment officer, after strict and honest enforcement of the laws, withoutfear or favor, has had the disheartening experience of being calledinto the mayor's office, or the office of the controlling political boss,to have said to him: "Chief, it's all right to do your duty and en-force the law, but for the love of Mike, learn to use discretion.""Use discretion" translated into local colloquialism means "lay offthe friends of the administration," and the chief has no choice but to1082 T. T. KELIHER"use discretion" or resign his position, no matter how exceptionallywell qualified he may be.The railroad special agents have no such handicap. They enforcethe law against all law breakers who violate the property rights ofthe railroads or their patrons. This includes trespassers, the boxcar thief who steals from the public commerce in transit, the hold-upand murderers, those who molest or steal from passengers, patronsor others having legitimate business on the company's right-of-wayor property of the railroads. And in addition thereto, they assist andprotect all other employes in every way possible. They also rescuerunaway boys and girls whenever found, and return them to theirparents. The public has no idea of the number of runaway boys andgirls special agents rescue and return free of charge to their parentseach year. In addition, they cooperate with local police and lawenforcement officers everywhere in locating and apprehending escap-ing criminals.There are, or were in normal times, about 15,000 railroad specialagents and assistants employed by the railroads to protect theirproperty, the public's commerce and patrons. This, in fact, representsthe railroads contribution to governmental welfare of the severalcommunities.These special agents and assistants are organized and known asthe Protective Section of the American Railway Association. Eachyear a convention of the chief special agents or chiefs of railroadpolice-of each railroad in the United States and Canada is held atsome one of the large railroad centers, such as New York, Montreal,Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Denver or San Francisco, forthe purpose of discussing problems relative to methods and correctprocedure, cooperation, the consideration of ways and means to com-bat crime in all its aspects; the conservation of the railroad revenuesby reduction of freight claims for lost, damaged or stolen freight, theinterchange of information and the forming of personal. acquaintancesand contact with each other. The latter is invaluable in effecting,whole-hearted and efficient cooperation between the departments onthe various railroads. The best legal talent available is always se-cured to address these conventions.Then there are the regional organizations for the special agentsand police captains who are in charge of the activities on each oper-ating division of each railroad. The United States and Canada aredivided into twelve territorial or regional districts. Each regionaldistrict is so organized that all the special agents and their subor-FREIGHT-CAR ROBBERIES 1083dinates operating therein can reach the most accessible and desig-nated point in the district by not more than one night ride. Theymeet twice a year, for instance in New York, Richmond, Atlanta,Kansas City, Dallas, Tex., Minneapolis, St. Paul, Winnipeg, Denver,San Francisco and Portland.These regional district meetings are under the supervision ofthe American Railway Association and the chief special agents ofthe railroads operating in each regional district, and are establishedand conducted for the education of special agents and their subor-dinates, and to enable them to discuss their local problems with oneanother.Good lawyers, such as state and national district attorneys,county and state attorneys and often professors and deans of lawschools are invited to attend, to address and instruct those present oncourt procedure in criminal cases, the rule and law of evidence, etc.,and to see what he looks at when checking up evidence. A specialagent, to be effective, must know the law of evidence and be able todetermine what is and what is not good legal and admissible evidence.It is the most difficult thing to get men to be good observers andto see what they look at. Many men look at an object or locationand fail to see half the details. The man who sees What he looksat and makes note of it, is valuable. Such a man was Officer Brus-sard with Napoleon's Army when located near the village of Rosetta,Egypt, 1799. His ability to see details of the things he looked atenabled him to give, or cause to be given to the world the solutionof the mystery of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Many menwould have kicked the rosetta stone to one side and passed on, un-aware of its importance, but Brussard, with an eye for details, sawat once that there were three different inscriptions on the stone-ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, demotic or common hieroglyphics andGreek, and realized at once that therein lay the key to the mysteriesof the Egyptian hieroglyphics. It pays to see what one looks at.The results of these regional meetings are that the special agentsand their subordinates of the several railroads operating in theregion, while becoming educated in their duties, also become person-ally acquainted with each other throughout the United States andCanada. Two delegates from each territorial district are allowed toattend the annual convention of the chiefs, for the purpose of observa-tion and learning how the chiefs' conventions are conducted and themanner in which their business is transacted in order to qualify themfor future promotion to the position of chiefship.1084 T. T. KELIHERThe entire organization is built upon cooperation and mutualassistance. They work in friendly, human cooperation, satisfactionand camaraderieship and thereby get results. Honesty, truth andservice is their motto. A special agent may fail in judgment or makean honest mistake occasionally, but no special agent will be toleratedtwenty-four hours who makes a false report, is dishonest in anysense of the word, guilty of lying or guilty of cowardice. This ruleholds good in all special agent departments in the Protective Sectionof the American Railway Association. The special agents are taughtto be gentlemen at all times, respect the rights of others and never,under any circumstances, do anything that a gentleman would not do.Special agents are expected to be, and are, generally speaking, theoutstanding good citizens in the communities in which they live.By adhering to the above, the members of the railroad specialagent departments have won the respect and the confidence of thecourts, prosecuting attorneys and good citizens generally. Because ofthis, they have been able to achieve results that are remarkable.Over 200,000 arrests are made, or caused to be made, for allkinds of crimes from trespass and petit larceny to burglary, grandlarceniy and murder, by the railroad special agents yearly throughoutthe United States and Canada. The records show a remarkable ac-complishment of obtaining from 97% to 98% convictions of all ofthose arrested. This has been accomplished by never making, orcausing an arrest to be made, until the legal evidence to sustain thearrest and secure conviction is obtained. This, followed by personalattention to every detail in connection with the prosecution beforethe trial, implies a lot of hard work-such as obtaining statementsfrom witnesses seeing to it that all witnesses are properly subpoenaedand that they appear in court on the day case is set for trial, thesecuring of photographs of the scene of the crime when possible,measurements and description of the locality etc., consultation withthe prosecuting attorney frequently and furnishing him with writtenstatements, setting forth just what the facts and the circumstancesare of the crime committed, history, as far as obtainable of de-fendant or defendants, list of witnesses and brief summary of whateach witness will testify to. But it has secured 97% to 98% con-victions of all those arrested, and the reduction of robbery lossesfrom $13,000,000 per year in 1920 to $757,000 in 1929, or, in otherwords, a loss of only $1.00 account robbery for every $92,475 worthof merchandise, or lc for every $924 worth of merchandise trans-ported by the railroads of the United States and Canada in 1929.FREIGHT-CAR ROBBERIESTo put it another way-about 1 2 cents per car load for each of the52,000,000 cars of merchandise and goods loaded and transportedfrom one point to another in the United States and Canada in theyear 1929.Another important feature in the procedure is that the specialagents never compromise with criminals and there is no fixing bypoliticians. The cases are fought out, open and above board, incourt, let the chips fall where they may.There is no let up in the pursuit of a criminal who has robbeda merchandise car, or stolen the money and goods of a railroad orone of its passengers or patrons. The case may, last one, two, three,five or ten years, but in the end the special agents invariably get theirman and bring him to justice. It took an eastern railroad enteringChicago about three years to secure the conviction of a millionairefence owner, who had been receiving stolen goods from car thievesfor a long time. He was finally convicted in the U. S. Court andwas sentenced to two years in the Federal penitentiary, notwith-standing his great wealth and tremendous pressure brought to bearin his behalf.Another railroad kept after a widely known influential and dar-ing, all-around hold up and crook for five years before they suc-ceeded in placing him behind the penitentiary doors, for the crimeof holding up one of their cashiers.A western railroad followed one of three bandits who had heldup and robbed one of their passenger and mail trains, and murderedthe engineer and fireman for nearly four years and finally locatedand captured the fugitive bandit in the Philippine Islands, broughthim back to the United States and later ran down his two com-panions in crime and caused all three of them to be sent to the peni-tentiary for life, the state law where they were tried not permittingdeath sentence. The pursuit and capture of these three bandits costthat railroad an expense of over $100,000. Five million reward anddescription circulars, printed in a dozen different languages, wereissued and distributed, but it was worth it, not only to them butto all other railroads operating in the western territory.Recently, a yegg arrested for robbing a small bank in a town inIowa, was asked if he had ever robbed any merchandise cars onrailroads. His reply was amusing and interesting, and is on record.He said "no." When asked why, his reply was "The railroad specialagents wear better crowns than the average city dicks. They neverlet up on following you, and you can't settle out of court with anyof them."

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Part IV: Freight-Car Robberies

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