Murphy's Marshals

Leaving to others such national projects as Recovery, Economy, National Defense, new Attorney-General Frank Murphy has devoted his energies to cleaning up bad spots in the Department of Justice. Last week he put his finger on U. S. deputy marshals, of whom his Department employs 992 at $1,800 to $3,700 per year.

Many of them are political hacks or indigent relatives of Congressmen. Lately some of them have been publicly disgraced. In Washington, a Federal deputy marshal tried last autumn to fix a jury to help the Brothers Warring, rich operators of a numbers racket. In Kansas City, two deputy marshals escorting a prisoner from Fort Leavenworth to Chicago got drunk. Last week Thomas E. Ott, former chief deputy marshal of Washington, D. C., was arrested in Cleveland for embezzlements which brought his discharge last December.

Under Homer Cummings last year, marshals and deputies were required to be fingerprinted. Seven were discovered to have criminal records. Also, FBI started investigating the character of candidates for marshal jobs. Going further, Frank Murphy last week asked Congress to put all deputies into the Civil Service and require them to take physical examinations. The last was inspired by a certain 400-pounder in Illinois who, too fat to get out of his car to serve warrants, employed as his helper a village character called Silly Willy.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.