Mounted justice : true stories of the Pennsylvania state police

Foreword

Early one Saturday morning in August, 1913, a pe¬ culiarly brutal murder was committed at Maaikenshof, the estate of my friend Miss M. Moyca Newell, in Bedford Hills, New York. The victim was Sam Howell, a fine young American, contractor’s foreman on a building job. The murderers were four aliens; their motive, to seize the pay-roll that Howell, un¬ armed, was carrying to the building site.

The four did not get the pay-roll, for the reason that Sam Howell, characteristically, gave his life in its stead. But, although fully identified, they escaped scot free, and walk to-day, as far as that crime is con¬ cerned, unpunished and undisturbed.

If an overseeing Olympian, weary of the slackness of mankind, had ordained a tragedy especially to show the futility of all existing provision to cover such an event, the result could not have been more com¬ plete. Howell’s gallant sacrifice, with the immediate consequences, showed in detail and beyond all ques¬ tion that our hoary sheriff -constable system leaves country districts in time of need without protection worthy of the name. The conditions then uncovered were at once humiliating and intolerable; and so, out of sorrow and shame, was born New York State’s movement for a State Police.

The star of this movement shone from Pennsyl¬ vania, whose magnificent State Police Force was then in its eighth year of service. As protectors of life.

VI

FOREWORD peace, and property among country folk, it reflected upon Pennsylvania a dignity and honor unparalleled among the Commonwealths. Therefore, any scheme for redeeming the honor of another State must begin with a thorough study of Pennsylvania’s achieve¬ ment.

So conspicuous did the fact become that, as public opinion strengthened in New York, it peremptorily demanded the working facts about Pennsylvania. Therefore, after a careful study of all sources, and after months of research work and investigation on the spot, I wrote Justice to All, the history of the Pennsylvania State Police.

The book at once became a sort of textbook, and the late President Roosevelt presented a copy to each of the Senators and Assemblymen of the New York Legislature that, a few weeks later, passed New York’s State Police Bill.

In gathering material for Justice to All, however, I accumulated, perforce, far more than could be com¬ pressed into one volume. In the following year, therefore, I published The Standard-Bearers, a collec¬ tion of absolutely true narratives of the work of Pennsylvania State Police officers. Some of these narratives had previously appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, while, simultaneously, others were ap¬ pearing in the Atlantic and in the Outlook,

From The Standard-Bearers, in turn, stories were excluded for lack of space. To these I have now added certain others, with an idea of illustrating still further the infinite variety of the work of the Penn¬ sylvania Force. All three volumes — J ustice to All,

FOREWORD

• 0

Vll

The Standard-Bearers, and Mounted J ustice — are now offered as a sort of combined picture, dimly sug¬ gesting the thousand-faceted life of a great champion of the people’s good.

Of the narratives composing Mounted Justice, two, “Between Two Days” and “The Patent-Leather Shoes,” have appeared in The Popular Magazine, Three, “Quick as God Will Let You,” “Under the Yellow Flag,” and “The Hand-Picked Job,” ap¬ peared in the North American Review, To the editors of both these magazines thanks are due for their courtesy. The other stories in this book are now for the first time published.

When Justice to All went to press, the only State Police Forces in the true sense of the term, on this continent, were the Royal North-West Mounted, the Pennsylvania State Police, and the Texas Rang¬ ers. To-day, in addition to those three, we have the State Police Forces of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, Colorado, and Michigan, with strongly developed movements in other Commonwealths. On October 11th last the Commanding Officers of these Forces allied themselves for cooperation, in an Association of State Police Commanders. On February 27, 1922, that body held its first regular meeting — an occasion rich in promise for the weal of the Nation.

Since Mounted Justice has gone to press, still an¬ other epoch-making step in advance has been taken. On the 18th of March, 1922, the New York State Legislature passed an act “to amend the executive law in relation to the employment of State Police in

FOREWORD

• • •

Vlll

towns, villages, and police districts.” The bill, intro¬ duced in one house by a Democrat, in the other by a Republican, passed practically without opposition, “to take effect immediately.” It provides that any town or village or police district may contract with the Superintendent of State Police for a regular as¬ signment of State Police officers, for a period of one year, to handle the police work of that town, village, or district. The town, village, or district shall pay the detail, at a rate computed pro rata upon the total cost of pay, maintenance, etc., of the whole department. The detail retain all powers and duties of State Police officers, and remain under the authority and disci¬ pline of the Superintendent of State Police. The latter may change the personnel of details whenever he deems it advisable, and may add men to the regular force to fill the places of those detailed.

It needs no elaboration to show the potentiality of this measure in raising and standardizing the peace service of the State while keeping down costs and taxes.

Neither does the measure leave room for doubt as to the esteem in which the people of the State of New York, after four and a half years’ trial, hold their own State Police — the New York State Troopers.

ELa-therine Mayo

Bedford Hills

Marchy 1922

Contents

I. The Coughlin Case 1

II. Between Two Days 83

III. “Quick AS God will Let You” 101

Part II

Next morning, the morning of Saturday, July 31st, Major Adams and Captains Gearhart and Price, three highly electric and electrified citizens, boarded a local train on the Reading line for Atlantic City via Camden. Already they had re-discussed their earlier plan, pertaining to another locality and road, and had decided to adapt it to this new development. Now, distributing themselves separately through the train, they read their papers till Camden Station blocked the light.

Thence, very quietly, as the deliberate local halted on its way, each one of them began to take notes — notes of the nature of the country, of features occur¬ ring along the sides of the track. And they studied time-tables with exceeding care. Four times, no less, did they repeat that whole reconnaissance.

Sunday morning they spent in conference together in a Philadelphia hotel. Each man pointed out the spot that he, in “the Crank’s*’ place, would choose to hang out his flag, considering, as the factors, opportunity for escape, probability of interruption, danger of observation by track-repairers, etc.

And the fact that the three argued to three differ¬ ent conclusions but proved the further the difficulty of their task. ’ ^ *

Then they charted the route, leaving out of con¬ sideration all settlements and stretches of open country, dealing only with tracts of woodland or of brush. And they divided the territory thus remain¬ ing into zones. Eighteen zones, sometimes con¬ tinuous, sometimes not, varying from seven eighths of a mile to five miles in length.

Said Adams, his pencil rapping the map:

“If I were our friend the Crank, I’d pick Zone 13, this five-mile stretch from Ellwood to Egg Harbor. And here are some of the reasons why:

“Zone 13 gives a four-mile tangent of straight¬ away view up and down the track. It also gives excellent cover from which to observe that view. He’s got to have such a place. Then, the track re-

THE COUGHLIN CASE SI

pair is finished here. He’ll see no labor-gangs around. And he has a long walk to get out again, which makes his trail less open to checking. Zone 13 is my guess.”

Said Price; “I don’t agree with you, sir. Now, if I were the Crank ...” and then proceeded to excellent reasoning in support of another point of view.

“We can take no risks on any ground so logical,” said Gearhart — “neither on this little bit down here.” And he began on the strategy of still a third sector.

Which brought them, in the end, to reckoning the number of men necessary to the whole job.

Seventy had been their figure after the first recon¬ naissance of the road. Then eighty-five, then ninety-two. Now Adams exclaimed:

“Fifty-eight miles, by patches, to cover! It looks almost impossible. Therefore we’ll make it a cer¬ tainty. Gentlemen, a hundred and ten men. Now we’re off.”

Fifteen minutes later he had accomplished his next move — found a certain one-time Trooper of The Force, later infantry captain in France, now a “sane” and prosperous Philadelphia merchant. Adams and “Billy” Morgan, in the earliest days of The Force, had been comrades in the hard-bitten ranks. When Adams was Captain of “A” Troop, Billy Morgan, as Sergeant, had been a right-hand man. Billy Morgan, now, had left his soldier days behind. Yet, where Billy Morgan stood, his old friend knew, there stood a man a man could tie to.

want a quiet, unnoticeable place, here in town, to rendezvous a detail,” said Adams to Billy Morgan, prosperous business man.

The erstwhile Sergeant gazed up at his old com¬ mander with hungry, hungry eyes. All he said was:

“Would our Veterans of Foreign Wars hall do, sir.f^ Over on Arch Street?”

“Bight,” said Adams, “the very thing. We’ll use it to-night.” j

“Very well, sir,” said the prosperous business man, wishing his prosperity in Hades.

So, a bit before noon on Sunday the 1st of August, Troops B, C, and E of the Pennsylvania State Po¬ lice, these being the easternmost and the central Troops, received orders to despatch to the tryst their specific allotments.

“Plain clothes. And men will not wear their best, as there may be occasion to go into woods, some¬ where.”

But no other indication did they get as to the nature and purpose of their detail.

In the manner specified, so came the men. Not waiting for the midday meal, then about to be served, some dressing as shabby laborers, half-washed, some as young loafers, cheaply smart, some as decent, self-respecting citizens, and all in face and carriage solemnly bearing out their several parts, the de¬ tachments from the three Troop barracks shot out at the call.

But barracks reserves alone could not supply the full quota. So, in each Troop’s case, men on substa¬ tion must be drawn. With the result that, all through

S3 the later afternoon and early evening, inconspicuous figures, lonely or in pairs, trudging along the streets of Philadelphia, gravitated to the door of that ob¬ scure Veterans’ Hall. Entered in and disappeared, while not one thought of comment stirred to action in the mind of the idlest neighbor nor of the police¬ man on the beat.

So that when, by ten o’clock in the evening. Major Adams, Captains Gearhart and Price, Mr. Coughlin and Mr. Larzolere, entered the hall, the whole round number, to a man, saluted them.

An assembly less significant as to bearing and array never met the eye. For pure dull mediocrity or sub¬ mediocrity in all its unemphasized drab forms, nothing further could be pictured. But for keen, luminous alertness, as the men, snapping to atten¬ tion, listened to their orders, the last word stood there incarnate. ^

And something rose suddenly into Coughlin’s throat, something blinded his eyes as his own black pain of late had ceased to do, at the sight of that mag¬ nificent young crusading spirit, up in arms for a rescue.

Now for the first time were they hearing why they had been summoned. With chiselled clearness their Commander explained his immediate plan and their duty therein; how they would be allotted, each to his zone; and how the white flag of the kidnapper would rise in one of those zones, to a certainty.

“In a murder we send out three men. But here a life is at stake — a. hahy^s life. Keep that foremost in your minds. Every possible contingency has been foreseen and provided for. No chance of a hitch re¬ mains unless some one man falls down absolutely. If the flag is raised in your zone, and you fail to get the man that raised it — no excuse will be good enough.”

Did they want an excuse? Every lad on that floor, more than he asked for life itself, asked Fate to grant him just one little, little chance at the reptile that makes capital of mothers’ love and babies’ suffering.

The Commander looked down upon them with 'pride in his heart. How does it feel to wield an instru¬ ment like that — a clean, bright, infinitely sensitive instrument driven by the one all-victorious power, the power of the Spirit of the Service of God through Man in selfless wholeness?

It feels like what it is, a privilege beyond all price, a responsibility that no fit man dare retain except in all humbleness and self-watchfulness and by the guiding grace of his Maker.

“The man that captures the flag-raiser,” said Adams, looking down at his hearers, “gets thirty days’ leave, as a token.”

But he smiled as he said it, as a man may smile at innocent folly.

Meantime, another thread had been weaving.

That afternoon, as the first lot reported in Phila¬ delphia, a selected twelve men were summoned into the presence of Captain Gearhart. Briefly, Gearhart explained to them the shape of the case, and of the task before them.

“Now, boys,” he finished, *‘you know your main duty. Captain Price will take you out over the Atlantic City Railroad, giving you your final instruc¬ tions. You are to act as guides for the others, in the morning. This fellow will appear to-morrow, some¬ where between Camden and Atlantic City, with the flag. He vnll not get away. Do you hear meV*

So, as directed by Price — soldier bom and soldier taught, soldier made and finished — the twelve en¬ trained; not all at Philadelphia, mind you, but scat¬ tering along the road, each buying his own ticket to his own post. At last, as Camden Station rattled behind, the whole thirteen sat aboard — thirteen lumps of unnoticeability.

/‘What dull young men! What dull lives!” you might have thought, had you thought anything at all concerning them.

But, as the engine paralleled the farther boundary of Zone 1, Price spoke gently to the man beside him.

There,” he said, “begins your zone. Corporal. Get the picture of it into your head now. On the spot make yourself thoroughly acquainted with every feature in it. Find the best hiding-places for the men who will come to-morrow. Find and trace all trails, and be ready in the morning to tell the officer in charge of Zone I’s detail exactly where each of his men is to go.”

Then, as they reached the station at that zone’s farther end, Price, dropping his first man off, moved to a seat beside the next to go; and repeated the proc¬ ess till the last zone to be surveyed had duly received its scout.

After which, returning straightway to Philadelpliia, he made for the Veterans’ Hall.

The men as he entered fairly drank him in. Know¬ ing personally every Trooper in the hall. Price now proceeded to assign them by name, and in groups, according to his own shrewd judgment, till the list and the map checked together.

“You have a fine section — a very likely spot. Up on yom toes with you! ” he privately told each detail.

And, the rascal, most thoroughly did he impress upon each and every detail commander that the great event was morally certain to come off in his own par¬ ticular province.

“Now, then,” he finished, to the lot, “each of you has a time-table. On each of those time-tables the zones are marked. The train that the Crank is look¬ ing for, the 2.10 Express, will run, from Camden on, ten minutes behind the schedule. On the schedule of the 2.10 will run, instead, a train consisting of an engine, three baggage cars, and a combination car. You will watch that combination car. As it passes your zone, if its windows are blank, you will know that the Crank and his flag are farther ahead — that the train has not yet passed him. You will then move up on the zone next beyond you, surrounding it. If, on the other hand, you see in a window, as the train passes you, a white card carrying the num¬ ber of the zone next behind you, you will immediately leave your post, running back to surround that zone. But, if the number shown on the card is that of a zone more than one remove back, you will return quietly to the nearest railway station and take the next train home. We wish to attract the least atten¬ tion possible.”

Then, after midnight. Price left them, to take till morning such rest as the excitement would permit. None of them had eaten since noon, many of them not since breakfast. Scarcely would they taste food till the job was done. Food could not be brought into the hall, neither must any one of them rouse the slightest attention anywhere without.

Absolute secrecy, you see, was the core of success. One thinnest vapor of suspicion afloat, one littlest syllable breathed to the eager huntsmen of the press, and their whole plan was ruined, the criminal forever lost to justice, the last chance of the baby’s life sacri¬ ficed. If little Blakeley indeed yet lived in the hands of “the Crank,” he would draw his last breath on the moment that his captor learned of the net now swinging for him.

And some of the papers thus far, despite repeated pleas for another attitude, had displayed a greater consciousness of their duty to the public as newspurveyors than of their duty as cooperating factors in the public weal.

Meantime, as to those twelve scouts in the wilder¬ ness:

Dusk was falling, rain descending, as Price dropped his last man overboard into the brush. But the spirit that burned in them all burned white, white-hot. There alone in the dark, each had his bit to do for the Honor of The Force; nothing should stop his doing it to the very limit of human power — and then, perhaps, God helping him, just a little bit more.

Practically the whole belt from end to end is wood¬ land, and practically all brush-covered bog. Corporal

Snodgrass, for example, working back from Pleasantville Terrace at the far end of the chart, splashed into a deep swamp. There did he stay, wallowing, tiU the end of the job. All night long he wallowed, look¬ ing for possible trails, using his flashlight but rarely and then with the greatest caution, working back and forth, back and forth, from the comparatively solid strip along the railway track through soft mo¬ rass toward a rim of higher ground covered with stunted pine. Some two miles back from the track, he found, wandered the nearest highway — scarcely more than a path winding through pine scrub.

Twice during that night Snodgrass sat down. With what haste he might, he floundered up again. For the thick yellow water rose to his waist. And always mosquitoes covered him utterly.

The other eleven similarly slopped and slapped their way through the night — after the first ten minutes soaked to the skin with rain -and with claychoked bog water. Mosquitoes, likewise, ate them alive.

“We thought the Philippine mosquitoes were bad,” said one, next day, “but compared to this Jersey swamp tribe Filipinos are as tame kittens to tigers.”

After each successive shower of rain the creatures rose in masses like swarms of bees. Every move of a man’s body in the sedge put them up in clouds. And their bite drew blood. By morning the faces of the twelve were swollen beyond recognition, their shirts were red, and their clothing stuck to the raw flesh. Three full months later the scars of that ordeal had not yet cleared away.

As dawn broke, the scouts, finishing their work, took careful cover in the brush, to avoid observation from passing trains. In their minds, by now, was stored every detail of the ground, every peculiarity of trail, foothold and cover.

At dawn, also, a further phenomenon occurred. A certain old “local” that potters about between Camden and Atlantic City took to doddering worse than ever, as though this time indeed “letting the old cat die.” Having always stopped at unimagined stations, it now began stopping at mere crossroads — at nowhere at all.

“What in the world is the matter?” the few pas¬ sengers asked, “Government ownership? — Spring¬ halt?”

“Search ?7ie/” sighed the conductor, too humble to resent what any man might say. “Them last two was flag stations. We gotta stop there if any one asks us. But nobody ever asked before!”

“Jew notice the couple o’ young fellers just got off? ” eagerly put in another. “ Wa jew say? — Might be Federal men, huntin’ for stills?”

“Federal fiddlesticks!” scoffed a third — “an’ yet an’ all, they might be huntin’ all right, all right — like the rest of us poor devils. Good luck to ’em if they be!”

Price, sitting back in the midst of them, joined cheerfully in their laugh.

Every stop on the time-table did that devoted old local make. But only at its obscurest stations, at crossroads in the woods, did Price’s ninety-two men, by twos and threes and fives, drop off.

And as each detachment took water, its com¬ mander, promptly in contact with his waiting scout, disposed his men in their right concealment, while the Captains of the three Troops represented, each on the spot, handled each his own men, after The Force ’s established principle.

Thus, by half after nine on the morning of August 2d, were one hundred and four officers and men of the Pennsylvania State Police Force mobilized en masse on the cause cSlebre of the hour. And not a syllable of leakage occurred. Not a soul outside The Force save two alone were a whit the wiser.

So passed a long morning, while the hundred and four, breathing in red-hot mosquitoes, breathing out dumb wrath, soaked and bled and waited, hidden from mortal view in that slippery, slimy, bottomless swamp.

Murmured a young trooper to his Sergeant, ** Sup¬ pose, now, the Crank did n’t come!”

“Are you raving? A hundred and more of Us here to meet him and him not comeU^ . . . But words failed the senior to convey his scorn.

So passed noon, passed one, came two o’clock and nine minutes after.

Two-nine. In Camden Station, a plain little train slid over the track — just an ordinary, humble little no-account train, made up of an engine, plus one dingy combination and three old baggage cars.

An engineer and his fireman constituted all the crew.

“Kinda dull-lookin’ proposition that, ain’t it!” observed a station loafer to a shabby young man who sat on a baggage truck nursing a dog between his knees.

“You’ve said it,” replied the other. “Reckon it’s the Bivalve Accommodation.”

“ Wha’ kinda dog you got there? ” pursued the other. “ Don’ seem ’sif I ’d ever see jes’ that kinda dog before.”

“What, this?” the yoimg man shifted the straw between his teeth. “Why, this here’s what you call a red rabbit hound.”

Then he hauled himself indolently together, and, with his dog, boarded the object of his own contempt — twelfth and last of its passengers.

So out of Camden Station lurched the dingy train. But if the station loafer could have followed it with his eyes a bit farther down the track, those eyes might have opened wider.

For suddenly, as though new life had struck it, the little old bobtailed thing began to go. In a mo¬ ment or two it had reached the speed of an express. And by the time it passed the hither boundary of that road-section, known to a certain interested few as “Zone 1,” it was skimming along like a hawk.

But, for reasons more conclusive than idleness, the loafer could not have watched that train far: Its bunker was filled with green coal. Its fireman was stoking green coal. And its engineer, moreover, had seen fit, as he pulled out of Camden, to close up his draft, with the result that the little dingy train al¬ most at once disappeared behind a smoke-screen of its own making.

Yet, from the beginning of Zone 1, eyes watched the passer as she flew — sharp eyes peering through good cover. And when her windows showed blank to the end, figures still hidden in the brush sprang backward and away, speeding east, as the train sped, behind cover.

On the train itself rode the Nerve-Trigger. Cocked. Cocked,

Adams sat in the cab — on his lips that queer, still smile, in his eyes that smouldering flare that comes with the final show-down. Gearhart, breathing hard, or scarcely breathing, yet the image of flawless com¬ posure, leaned forward in his seat in the combination coach, from time to time methodically handling a package of pasteboards; most methodically slipping a card to the back of the pack as the train flew on. Two Federal post-office inspectors, brought for a purpose — one of them a shortish, stoutish figure — occupied a seat to the rear of the coach.

Six non-committal young men sat between. In six stiff weeks of training the six best runners, these, developed out of the whole picked body in the Penn¬ sylvania State Police Training School.

And, eleventh and last. Corporal John Russell, of “A” Troop, with his “red rabbit hound,” otherwise Commissioner, Pride of the Troop, shivering between his knees.

Commissioner, the sole member of The Force who has not entirely grasped the art and require¬ ments of camouflage, eased from one fore-quarter to the other, shuffling his big paws like a dancer, croon¬ ing to himself a small high song of prophecy, while he gazed into Russell’s understanding eyes for the very thing he found there.

No flag. No flag.

Just the same smooth scene that two of the com¬ pany knew now so passing well. Each rod of it they could have mapped from memory. •

Zone 12 — the rhythm of the wheels — the rack of the train — the green flow past the windows.

Zone 13 — Ellwood Station.

Adams, in the engine cab, leans forward a bit while that queer, still smile cuts just a trifle deeper and its light flares up in his eyes.

From Ellwood Station, for some four and a half miles a strip of woods parallels the tract, leaving between a cleared fire trail perhaps two hundred and fifty feet deep. The wood is choked with underbrush, behind whose fringe begins the swamp.

Zone 13 — flowing past. Adams, in the cab, mo¬ tionless, brooding, watching, the spirit incarnate of the Ancient Hunt. Gearhart, in the coach, with a thought in his head for all mothers, a thought for a little life to win, inwardly vowing his all for victory, outwardly silken calm. Behind Gearhart the Six, close-nerved to the cracking point. Pressing hard against Russell’s knees. Commissioner, raising ever high and higher his small, fine hymn of prophecy and war. Zone 13, green with sedges, flowing, flow¬ ing, flowing past. i

Suddenly Adams draws back a bit. Ahead, on the right, two trees, advance-posts of the wood, aligned obliquely to the track. Between those trees — yes ! — is stretched a sheet — in very truth a White Flag.

On flies little Bobtail, racketing, rocketing, champ¬ ing furious at her green-coal fodder, blocking the air with ink.

Until, at Adams’s ‘"Now,” she suddenly begins to slack down.

About a mile and a half from the flag it was. And while yet her pace runs fair, off leaps Adams, followed in a flash by the ten, the while that able smoke¬ screen, hugging close and heavy, forbids any ob¬ server from behind to know that Bobtail has slowed at all, or to detect the figures springing from her side.

Adams and Gearhart, each taking a trail, in an instant disappear.

The six runners spread out on either side of the track, the rebound of each man’s leap lifting him into his first stride. A mile in five minutes is their practice pace — five minutes to a mile of woods and imderbrush — terrible running. That leaves them, now, two minutes’ margin to get back to the flag be¬ fore the 2.10 Express shall pass. ■

For this were they trained and chosen. And this, calculated to a dot, is their allotted part — just to close up the net against any chance of the quarry taking to the open — against any last surprise that Fate might spring.

“When you get there, boys,” Gearhart had im¬ pressed upon the runners, “keep away from the flag. Leave the dog a clean scent.”

Do you call such people dogs?^

Commissioner, boring between human legs, had sprung from the train third in the lot. His song silenced now, his whole mind and life and thought drove to the work he had to do.

How did he know?

How do all animals know? Not by slow and cum¬ brous speech, not by our poor means of intercourse, so often roundabout, so often blind. He knew, as we shall one day know, by the immediate touch of his mind on the minds of those around him. He knew. And he, too, gloriously resolved to do his finest.