Major R. W. McClaughry, warden of the federal prison at Leavenworth, sees in the finger print system a possibility which might be taken cognizance of by the government at Ellis Island. With the millions of immigrants who have come and who still are to come to these shores, the finger print requirement would simplify many of the tangles of many kinds which result from this inrush of foreign population.
Aside from the fact that many of this country's criminals are foreign born, it remains that civil identifications of such people are matters of great moment. Titles and estates have hung in the balance of incomplete identifications of persons who are claimants in the United States. Fifty years after a finger print is registered that same finger, or group of fingers, will prove the personality of the one registering. In case of accidents of many kinds one hand or the other is most likely to escape mutilation, and a post-mortem imprint of the fingers still is proof of identity.
The finger print system is being taken up more rapidly than was the Bertillon, largely owing to the fact that police departments, recognizing that a scientific system gives far greater results and can in no way be compared with the old method of describing criminals, by color, age, height, weight, eyes, hair, etc., are more willing than formerly to intelligently investigate and test new methods.
Under the Bertillon system it is contended that the bones of the human anatomy stop growing after the age of twenty-one years. In consequence measurements taken of juvenile offenders under that age are practically of little use, as they show too wide a variance with measurements taken in after years, and are not a certain source of identification.
The identification from imprint taken from the finger tips of both hands can be recorded as soon as the child is born, and no matter at what time of life a record is again taken of the subject, absolute identification can be had, as the papillary ridges of the palmer surface of the finger tips present the same formation until death, and even though some of the fingers become mutilated, amputated or lost, sufficient prints would remain on the other fingers to produce identification.
While it is claimed that the finger print system is sufficient unto itself for all identification, after working each system side by side for a number of years, I believe that both systems should be installed in all cities, penitentiaries, etc., especially as they both will be given an impartial and thorough test here, with the result that it will be the survival of both, or of the fittest.
Keep Bad Men Out of Service.
In these government departments it is expected that the finger print records will serve to keep undesirable people out of the service, as well as to afford a complete method of identifying every member, or past member, in years to come.
Both branches of the War Department, the army and navy, had first installed the Bertillon system, and within the last year the finger print system, thereby recognizing both, but apparently giving the finger print system the preference; owing to the many ways it can be applied in the service, and especially as to recording all enlisted men and to the identification of those who might be maimed or killed in battle, whose identity might be sought afterward, or to identify deserters; or if a soldier or sailor has lost his honorable discharge paper, he can go to any enlisting office, have his finger prints taken, his identity established, and new papers issued, thereby avoiding red tape or having about one dozen affidavits from different people to substantiate his claim.
Not only as a means of detecting and identifying criminals may the finger print be used, but its usefulness in various ways is easily demonstrated.