the veteran enforcement officer Chester A. Emerick, former Collector
of Internal Revenue in Tacoma, Washington, who joined the Customs
Service in 1920. Emerick has the title of Deputy Commissioner, and he
is responsible to the Commissioner of Customs in the operation of his
division.
The responsibilities of the Customs agents were not clearly defined in
the early days of their operation. But a clear directive was issued in
1933 to dispel any lingering doubts. This directive read: “(a) Customs
agents shall be employed generally in the prevention and detection
of frauds on the Customs revenue and all matters involving such
frauds requiring investigation shall be referred to them. They shall
investigate and report upon all matters brought to their attention by
the Commissioner of Customs, Collectors, Appraisers, Comptrollers, and
others relating to drawback, undervaluation, smuggling, personnel,
Customs procedure, and any other Customs matters.
“(b) undivided responsibility for the investigation and reporting to
the proper authority of all irregularities concerning any phase of
Customs administration or misconduct on the part of Customs employees,
by whatever means brought to its attention, rests with the Customs
Agency Service. This injunction, however, is not to be construed as
abridging or modifying the responsibility of the principal field
officers to maintain discipline and efficiency in the Customs
personnel. There shall be no differentiation in the treatment of chief
administrative officers of Customs and their subordinates in the matter
of investigating accusations of alleged official misconduct. Collectors
and other chief officers of the Customs shall cooperate in making this
policy effective.”
* * * * *
Jerome Dolan is a handsome, black-haired young Irishman. It was,
literally, a swift and embarrassing kick in the pants which started him
on the road to becoming a Treasury agent.
It began for Dolan when he was a twelve-year-old living on Selby Avenue
in the Lexington Parkway area of St. Paul, Minnesota. The street was a
quiet, comfortable, tree-shaded thoroughfare lined with the homes of
middle-income families. The Dolan home was near a shopping center and
only a brisk walk from the neighborhood school.
There were playgrounds not far distant and vacant lots where youngsters
could play baseball after school and during vacations. But in the
perverse way of small boys, Dolan and his pals found it more fun to
play ball on the streets, much to the annoyance of the residents and
Officer “Red” Schwartz, who frequently cruised through the area in
Patrol Car 309.
Schwartz was a large, muscular man standing 6 feet 2. He was forever
breaking up the ball games with gruff commands for the boys to get off
the streets. If there was any backtalk, Schwartz was likely to box the
ears of the impertinent rebel, or to boot him in the behind. Then he
would growl that he wasn’t going to have anyone killed by an automobile
on his beat if he could help it.
Dolan and his friends usually kept a sharp lookout for Schwartz, the
enemy. But one day they were careless and Car 309 came rolling down the
street into the midst of a noisy game. Officer Schwartz came boiling
from behind the wheel of the car. He laid two heavy hands on Dolan and
another youth who hadn’t been nimble enough to escape. He shook them
until their teeth rattled and then he booted them in the backsides with
the broadside of a large shoe--just hard enough to give emphasis to his
words.
“Maybe that will teach you a lesson,” Officer Schwartz called to the
retreating youths. “And don’t let me catch you again.”
It never occurred to Schwartz to complain to the youths’ parents. This
was his beat. It was his responsibility to maintain law and order, and
to protect the lives of those in his charge. He also felt it was his
duty to discipline the youths who showed a lack of proper respect for
authority.
“I’ll get even with that red-headed cop,” Dolan vowed. “Just you wait
and see.”
“How are you goin’ to get even?” his friend asked.
Dolan considered the problem. At last he said, “Well, I’m going to be a
policeman and when I’m his boss, I’ll fix him.”
As a sophomore in high school, Dolan had forgotten his vow to “fix”
Schwartz, even though he often looked from the window of his classroom
to see Car 309 cruising by the schoolyard. But he had not lost his
determination to become a law enforcement officer. In writing down his
ambition for the class yearbook, he wrote: “I want to be a Federal law
enforcement officer.”
One reason Dolan had fixed his sights on a career in Federal law
enforcement was the fact that the father of his friend, Sam Hardy,
Jr., was an FBI agent. Sam Hardy occasionally came to the school and
talked to the students about the work of the FBI. These talks only
strengthened his desire to become a Federal agent.
After graduating from high school in the spring of 1950, Dolan entered
the Army. He was assigned to the Army’s security section and he
travelled throughout the Far East as a courier. When he was mustered
out of the service, he enrolled in St. Thomas College in St. Paul and
worked part time as an investigator for business firms.
He was graduated from St. Thomas in 1958 and became chief security
officer for the Golden Rule Department Store in St. Paul. Then he
joined the city’s police department.
One morning Dolan reported for roll call at the main police
headquarters in the Public Safety Building. After inspection the
lieutenant read off the list of assignments for the day. He said,
“Dolan, you will work Car 309 with Officer Schwartz.”
Dolan climbed into the car beside Schwartz and all the old memories
came flooding back of how he once hated this gruff policeman who had
booted him in the pants. He remembered wryly his vow to one day get
revenge.
Now “Red” Schwartz’s hair was sprinkled with gray. He was heavier and
the lines on his face were deeper. His hands, though, were just as big
and powerful as Dolan had remembered, and he had the same stern air of
authority about him.
Dolan said nothing about the remembered indignities, and the older man
apparently did not recognize the rookie as one of the youngsters who
had given him such a bad time out on Selby Avenue. He could not know,
either, that he had had such a strong influence on the youth who sat
beside him.
They made their rounds without incident that day until late in the
afternoon when the car radio said: “Car 309 ... Hague and Dunlap ... a
child has been struck by a car....”
Schwartz picked up the transmitter and said: “309 to Hague and Dunlap
... 4:05.” He swung the car toward the scene of the accident. A little
girl lay beside the curb, and her weeping mother was wiping blood from
her daughter’s face with a cloth. The child had darted from the curb
into the path of an automobile. There had been a screech of brakes and
the girl had been hurled to the curb, unconscious.
As Dolan recalled the scene later in talking to me: “Schwartz, as big
as he was, was out of the car ahead of me. He went straight to the
little girl and her mother and I never would have believed those big
hands could be so gentle. He soothed the mother with a few words, and
when he saw the girl wasn’t seriously hurt, he picked her up in his
arms and carried her into her home as though she were his own daughter.”
Then Dolan added, “I was very proud of Schwartz that day and of being
his partner in Car 309.”
Twelve years after receiving the kick in the pants from Schwartz, Dolan
was among the students selected to attend the Treasury Department’s Law
Enforcement School at 711 12th Street in downtown Washington, D. C. He
finally had decided to become a Secret Service agent, and now he was
receiving basic training with rookie agents from the Customs Bureau,
the Narcotics Bureau, the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and units of
the Internal Revenue Service.
Watching these young men in training, you wondered what it was that
moved each of them to choose Federal law enforcement as a career. The
work is difficult and demanding, calling for stern self-discipline. The
hours are long, irregular and often filled with danger. No agent ever
knows when he may be called from his home on an emergency assignment
which may last for weeks. The pay, ranging from $5,355 per year for a
rookie to a high of $10,255 for a veteran agent (only the supervising
agents receive higher pay) is not exactly an economic bonanza for a
college graduate. Salary is not the primary inducement; many of the
youths have wanted to be in law enforcement since childhood.
One youth told me, “My father was shot and killed by a bootlegger when
I was just a boy. I grew up in a tough neighborhood. I’ve always wanted
to be in law enforcement to help fight crime.”
“I like the excitement of the work,” another said, “never knowing from
one day to the next what the problem will be or how it will be solved.”
“I didn’t have much chance for advancement as a city policeman, but
it’s different as a Federal agent.”
“There’s no politics in Federal law enforcement--not like you find in
local law enforcement. You don’t have to worry about the politicians.”
A good many of the rookie agents who come to the school studied police
administration in college and then worked on city police forces before
taking the Civil Service examination required of candidates for Federal
law enforcement jobs.
When an applicant passes the examination, his name goes on the Federal
Registry, and it is from this registry that most of the new agents are
chosen. Regional boards composed of representatives from the various
Treasury divisions interview the applicants as openings occur from
time to time in the agents’ ranks. Customs may need a Spanish-speaking
agent for duty on the Mexican border. Narcotics may be looking for a
man of Italian ancestry who speaks Sicilian fluently. Or Revenue may be
searching for an investigator with a knowledge of accounting.
If an applicant wins approval on the regional board, his background is
investigated and he is given a physical examination. If all goes well,
he is sworn into the service of his choice.
The rookie agents spend their first months in service receiving
on-the-job training by working with experienced officers. Then they are
sent to the Treasury’s Law Enforcement School for six weeks of study in
basic courses such as how to make searches and seizures, how to conduct
a surveillance, how to plan a raid, how to photograph the scene of a
crime, how to take latent fingerprints, how to interview witnesses
and interrogate suspects, and how to conduct themselves in a courtroom
under cross-examination.
The Treasury school was established permanently in Washington in 1951
and has now graduated more than 15,000 agents. It is headed by Director
Patrick O’Carroll, a forty-two-year-old former Narcotics agent who
was reared in New York City. O’Carroll was graduated from Fordham
University in 1944, where he majored in psychology. Dark-haired,
handsome Pat O’Carroll guides a staff of fifty instructors, who give
the basic training to rookies and also instruct veteran agents in
specialized courses involving administrative duties. At present the
school is conducting six 6-week courses a year for rookies, with an
average of eighty students in each class. There also are a scattering
of foreign students, sent by their governments to study American police
methods.
O’Carroll and his aides strive to make the instruction as realistic
as possible by providing problems which simulate actual situations
the young agents will face in their everyday work. In the 9 A.M. to 5
P.M. classes, held five days a week, the men spend about half their
time working on practical law enforcement problems. The other half
is spent in listening to lectures by agents, police administrators,
college professors and attorneys. The lectures cover such subjects as
constitutional law, civil rights and rules of criminal law procedure.
Toward the end of the course, the students are divided into squads
of five men and given the problem of arresting a suspected criminal,
searching his apartment for evidence, preparing the case for
presentation to a grand jury, and appearing in court as witnesses.
On the fourth floor of the school building is a furnished room in which
have been hidden narcotics, counterfeit money, betting slips, jewels
and other incriminating evidence. The room is occupied by a veteran
agent posing as “Richard Roe,” the suspected criminal.
Roe gives them a rough time. He complains of a serious heart condition
and asks to be given medicine from a bottle on a table. He accuses the
agents of stealing money and a diamond ring from a desk drawer. He
continually demands to see his lawyer. A postman delivers a registered
letter and Roe challenges the right of the agents to open the letter
after he has signed for it. He tries everything short of violence to
impede the search.
Sometimes the young agents refuse to give Roe his medicine. They ignore
his accusations of theft. Or they accept his argument that they have no
right to seize the registered letter.
If the searching party fails to find at least 80 per cent of the
items concealed in the room, they do not obtain a “conviction.” Then
experienced agents carefully explain where they made mistakes in the
handling of the suspect.
When Roe claimed he was ill, the agents should have called his doctor
to determine the truth. Upon their entering the room, Roe should have
been advised to collect any valuables so that an inventory could have
been made on the spot to be signed by him. When Roe signed for the
registered letter, then it legally could be seized with no invasion of
his privacy. Roe’s rights were not violated when his requests for an
attorney were ignored during the search, prior to his arrest.
In a mock courtroom scene, an agent who formerly was a U.S. attorney
acts as the defense counsel. He grills the rookies on every move made
in Roe’s apartment, seeking to confuse them while driving home the
point that months of careful police work may be wasted by an inept or
careless presentation of facts in court.
The school has proved to be such a success that it is now supported
enthusiastically by all the Treasury agencies, which prorate the cost
and make their best men available as instructors. But for many years a
few men struggled to keep the school going in the face of apathy and
even active opposition.
The man who perhaps contributed most to keeping alive the idea of
a professionally directed school for Treasury agents was Harry M.
Dengler, a retired Internal Revenue agent who now lives in Washington,
D. C. A short, plump man of enormous energy, Dengler joined the
Internal Revenue Service in 1918 after a dozen years of teaching in
high schools in southeast Virginia and Montana. He was thirty-six at
the time he was assigned to the IRS’s Intelligence Division, working on
internal police problems and on tax conspiracy cases.
The Treasury school stemmed from the fact that in 1927 the Bureau of
Prohibition’s enforcement of the Volstead Act was a mess. Part of the
mess was due to the lack of trained enforcement officers. Illegal
searches and seizures by Bureau agents aroused public indignation.
Also, they created a serious problem in obtaining convictions of
rumrunners and bootleggers.
L. C. Andrews, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, became so
concerned over the situation that he persuaded Dengler to join the
Bureau of Prohibition and to start an enforcement school for the
Bureau’s agents. Dengler had argued for years that Federal law
enforcement officers should be schooled in their work to be effective
and to deserve public confidence.
Dengler selected a few aides and they put together a course of
instruction to be given to some 2,500 prohibition agents. Two men were
chosen from each of the Treasury’s eighteen districts throughout the
country to come to Washington for four weeks of intensive schooling in
proper law enforcement procedures.
The theory was that these thirty-six men would qualify themselves as
instructors and then return to their home districts to teach what they
had learned to other prohibition agents. But the system soon broke down
because the district supervisors sabotaged the school.
“I know how to enforce the law without any help from Washington,” one
supervisor announced. He had the support of other supervisors.
The truth was that the supervisors were jealous of the men who had been
brought to Washington for special training. They also were fearful that
they would lose their jobs to the men with superior backgrounds in law
enforcement. The result was that the schools were doomed even before
they started. By the end of the year, the schools had been discontinued.
Dengler clung stubbornly to his belief that every Federal law
enforcement officer should be trained for his job. He persuaded his
superiors to let him organize a correspondence course, with the study
to be voluntary. Hundreds of agents applied, convincing Dengler that
the agents themselves were eager to know more about professional law
enforcement.
The idea of a school was resurrected in 1930 by Amos W. W. Woodcock,
when he became head of the Prohibition agency. Dengler again went to
work to set up a course of study. But when Woodcock left office a few
months later, his successor broke up the schools with the remark:
“If a man is smart enough to get a job with us, he doesn’t need any
training.”
Dengler confided to a friend later, “That was one of the low points
of my life. These schools were badly needed by the government to
improve the quality of Federal law enforcement. Hardly anyone seemed
interested.”
Indeed, for several years it seemed that no one was interested except
Dengler and a few of his friends. But in 1937 Secretary of the Treasury
Henry Morgenthau recognized that a major weakness in his department was
the lack of organized training for new agents. He issued an order for
all agencies within the Treasury to participate in a school program.
The first Dengler heard of the order was when Harold N. Graves,
assistant to the Secretary, called him to his office. Graves said,
“Harry, how long will it take you to get a course of instruction
underway for our agents?”
“I can do it within sixty days,” Dengler said.
Graves was dubious. “I don’t think you can do it within that time,” he
said.
“I can do it,” Dengler replied. “I’ve kept a group of instructors
together. We’ve been giving some training to new men in our spare time.
We’ve got a course of instruction already outlined. It won’t take much
work to bring it up to date.”
Graves said, “Then get going. Bring your men in here this afternoon and
we’ll decide on the next move.”
The decision was to open a pilot school in Boston. The first class
met on March 15, 1937, and the course of instruction ran for four
weeks. When it was ended, Graves was satisfied. He ordered a schedule
of instruction for each of the Treasury districts. Attendance was not
voluntary this time. Each man was required to attend classes, and
to pass a written examination. Instructors were drawn from all the
Treasury agencies.
In those early years, the instructors travelled from district to
district to hold their classes. The classrooms were jury rooms,
schoolrooms, banks, courthouses and Customs buildings.
Dengler argued that the school should be located permanently in
Washington. Instead of having instructors moving from place to place,
he insisted it would be far better to have the students come to
Washington to get their training at a school housed in its own building
and having the proper equipment.
Dengler’s persistence won. In 1950, Treasury officials decided to see
how his plan would work. It worked so well that when Dengler retired in
December, 1952, the Treasury Law Enforcement School was an established
institution receiving all-out support from all the Treasury agencies.
The Treasury school, however, is only a phase of instruction in law
enforcement for the young Customs agents (as it is for all Treasury
agents). The intensive training comes when the men are assigned to work
regularly with older agents.
The turnover among Customs agents is surprisingly small and is among
the lowest within the government. Few of them leave the Service
voluntarily once they have launched into their careers. The reason
for this stability was summed up by one veteran agent in this manner:
“Every man likes to feel he is doing something worthwhile--and you get
that kind of satisfaction from this work. That’s why I’ll never leave
it.”
8
TEST TUBE DETECTIVES
Shortly before World War II, a rusted old freighter slid into its
berth at a Baltimore pier, completing its long voyage from the Orient.
Customs officers boarded the vessel to check the manifest, verify the
cargo, and search for contraband. The search was the routine sort of
thing that occurred every day at every major port in the United States.
An inspector hurried to the quarters of the crew members and began his
rounds. He encountered nothing unusual until he reached one crewman’s
cabin and found the door locked. He knocked on the door and a muffled
voice said, “Who is it?”
“This is the Customs inspector,” the officer said. “Open up.”
The door opened and a seaman said gruffly, “There’s nothing in
here. You’ll find everything on my declaration.” He was a slender,
middle-aged man with thinning hair and tattoos on his forearms.
“It’s a routine check,” the inspector said. “You’ve got nothing to
worry about.”
The seaman made no move to stand aside. “I told you there’s nothing in
here,” he insisted.
“Look, Mac,” the inspector snapped, “you’ve been through this sort of
thing before and you know it’s got to be done. So let me get at it.” He
pushed his way into the cabin.
On a table he saw a hypodermic needle. He picked it up and turned to
the seaman. “Are you a junkie?” he asked. “Have you got any narcotics?”
The seaman’s face reddened with anger. “Hell, no! I wouldn’t touch the
stuff.”
The inspector wasn’t impressed with the denial. That’s what they all
said until you found their supply of narcotics.
When he started to open a locker, the crewman said, “It’s empty. I’ve
already taken everything out.”
The inspector looked at the man’s hands shake as he lit a cigarette.
“Why don’t you sit down and take it easy, mister?” he said. “I’ve just
decided to take a good look around.”
Slowly he went over the cabin. At last he pulled the locker away from
the bulkhead and saw a small cotton bag taped to the back of the
locker. He yanked it loose and held it out toward the seaman. “What is
this?”
The seaman made a grab for the bag. “Give that to me!” he said. “It’s
nothing that interests you.”
The inspector opened the bag and saw that it contained a white powder
which looked suspiciously like heroin. He said, “Mister, if this is
heroin, you are in trouble.”
“It’s not heroin,” the seaman said sullenly.
“If it isn’t heroin,” the inspector said, “then what is it? Why did you
hide it behind the locker? What are you trying to hide?” But the seaman
remained silent.
The inspector said, “You are not to leave this ship until I have an
analysis made of this powder. Do you understand?”
The seaman nodded. The inspector left the cabin and went to the
captain to explain the situation. He requested the seaman be detained
on the freighter pending a chemical test of the powder.
“It looks like heroin,” the inspector said. “If it is, we’ll have to
take him into custody.”
“How long will it take to make the test?” the skipper asked. “We’re
sailing tomorrow afternoon. If this man is in trouble, I’ll have to
take on another seaman.”
“We should know the results before you sail,” the inspector said. “I’ll
be in touch with you.”