Uncle Sam, Detective

by William Atherton DuPuy

"Just one tip I will give you," said the weigher after hearing the special agent's argument in favor of lending his aid to showing up the frauds. "If you will examine the records of Mediterranean cargoes you will find that, during the past ten years, such cargoes have regularly been about twice as heavy when handled by certain weighers as when handled by others. The men whose records show these cargoes always light are the crooks. Those who show them heavy are honest. The solution is merely a matter of mathematics."

With this semiconfidence the agent contented himself. He continued to go to the baseball games, but met O'Toole only casually. In the meantime the records of weighers were being examined. In a week the figures were complete. They showed these men divided into two groups that were far apart with relation to the weights of cargoes. The group that weighed light was the larger.

A few days later Gard saw O'Toole after a ball game. He told the weigher that District Attorney Stimson wanted to see him that night at the Federal building, that the district attorney was under great obligations to him for the tip to examine weigher's records and wanted to thank him.

"O'Toole," said the district attorney that night, "this is a time when the Government needs the aid of honest men. We know that men who would clean up customs graft have, in the past, come to grief. But this is not now true. I have taken up your case with the Secretary of the Treasury himself. That official asks me to inform you that, in case you aid us in cleaning up this situation, your place will not only be made secure but that you should figure that the service will be remembered in the light of your future interests. We know that your record is clean. We want your help. Are you with us?"

Agent Gard had selected the right man. O'Toole, at first timid in his fear of the ring, became an enthusiast over the task of weeding out the graft. The dominance of local politicians had no terrors for him with Washington at his back. The value of all he had learned in eleven years at the scales was made to supplement the lack of customs experience on the part of the special agent. His acquaintance with the customs force in the port made his information invaluable. So enthusiastic did he become that he missed three ball games in succession and went past four Saturday nights without his customary tussle with the spirits that bring forgetfulness.

O'Toole confirmed much of the list of short-weight employees that had been made up. Of the derelictions of many of these he had personal knowledge. With their methods he was entirely familiar and was able to point the way toward the establishing of guilt so it would be admissible as evidence and would secure convictions.

That an individual weigher may report short weights it is necessary that his associate at the scales, a checker, should share in his deceptions, for the checker is a witness of the record of the scales. In the celebrated short weight cases of the sugar scandals, the checker had a steel spring like a corset stay that he thrust into the mechanism of the scale and retarded it, thus resulting in a showing of short weight. But in the case of the Mediterranean cargoes the fraud was less disguised. The scales were allowed to record the proper weight, but the weigher and the checker, in collusion, divided the figure by two in setting it down. The system was both simple and effective. It worked for twenty-five years.

Gard consulted with O'Toole upon the advisability of using workmen about the docks as informers. The weigher thought this could be done and knew a number of men who might be so used. A laborer, for instance, working about the scales, was able to see the amount that the beam registered at given times. He could easily remember the big numbers, those that represented the thousands of pounds, until he had a chance to set them down. He could thus get a rough record of the weighing of a given half day. This could afterward be compared with the figures of the weigher. A pretty close check could thus be put on the given suspects.

By such methods fairly clear cases were obtained against given weighers and checkers. After much information was gathered certain guilty men would be selected who would be given chances to tell all about their knowledge of the frauds. These men would be given immunity. Thus would a few of the guilty escape punishment; but thus, also, would the Government learn all the details of the frauds that it might be able to provide effectually against them.

Special agents were set to watch every suspect, to learn his manner of life, how he spent his money, whether he could be trapped on the outside. When the Government needed the confession of a given man he would be called upon and talked to in some such manner as this: