In a Fugitive's Wake

Last week a jury at Lima, Ohio condemned Harry Pierpont to the electric chair for shooting the town sheriff in freeing Desperado John Dillinger from Lima's jail last October. Last week in Crown Point, Ind., Deputy Sheriff Blunk and Turnkey Cahoon were arrested, charged with deliberately aiding Desperado Dillinger to bluff his way out of Crown Point's jail fortnight ago with a wooden gun. Last week in Chicago police, chasing automobiles believed to contain Desperado Dillinger, were twice halted by machine gun fire. But these alarms and excursions were less serious to many a politician than the repercussions of Dillinger's escape.

Said a judge in Crown Point: "This case is beginning to smell." The resignation of Sheriff Lillian Holley, from whose jail Dillinger escaped, was demanded by the county board which threatened to appeal to Governor McNutt if she refused. Democrats throughout Indiana feared that the public reaction to Dillinger's escape would cost their party a fat wad of votes in the next election. Ridicule, most dangerous of all political weapons, was already at work. A Captain of the State Police received a book entitled How to Be a Detective.

In Washington Attorney General Cummings pointed disgustedly at a newspicture of Desperado Dillinger clubbily grouped with Sheriff Holley and Crown Point's Prosecutor Estill (see cut). The photograph was taken six weeks ago when Dillinger was first brought back to Crown Point's jail after his capture in Arizona. Snorted "General" Cummings:

"That's the sort of thing that makes the enforcement of laws difficult. If they had been Federal officials when the picture was taken, they would not be now. I would remove them in ten minutes. This shows a complete lack of a sense of responsibility or of propriety and common sense. The negligence of these people may result in the death of some honest person. . . ."

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