Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 90, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 August 1934 — Page 19

AUG. 24, 1934

VAN METER DIES. BRINGING END TO j SORDID CAREER Finger Man of Dillinger Mob Knew He Was Living on Borrowed Time. (Continued from Pare One) ground and let the other mobsters do the actual bank robbing and take the lion s share of the loot. Had "Ratlike” Courage But In his death and in many episodes of his career with Dillinger. Van Meter displayed a ’ ratlike’’ courage. He aas a fierce fighter when his back aas to the wall. Trailing the gangster for two! weeks after a woman stool pigeon had put the • finger" on Van Meter as he had -put the finger ’ on so many robbery victims. St. Paul police, under Chief Frank Cullen, converged on the gangster late yesterday at University and Marion avenues. St. Paul. With their sub-machine guns trained on the fugitive, police officers called upon Van Meter to halt. Instead, he turned, whipped out his pistol and fired twice at the pursuers Before the police could retaliate an aged woman stumbled unwittingly into the line of fire. I.urk Does Not Hold For a moment it seemed that | Lady Luck which had saved Van Meters life so many times was about to intervene again. The police held their fire, afraid of hitting the woman. Van Meter i began to run. Then the woman moved away and the police artillery j spoke. Van Meter dropped. Like Dillinger. Van Meter had had his face lifted, it was discovered when his body was examined at the St. Paul morgue. A conspicuous mole, prominently mentioned in polire circulars, had been removed by plastic surgery. A tatto mark on his left arm likewise had vanished. The gangster sported a small mustache. Captain Matt Leach of the Indi- j ana state police expressed the belief j that the same surgeon who had performed the face-lifting operation on Dillinger had operated on j Van Meter's features. "Contacting the crooked surgeon who lifted’ their faces was only one I of the services Van Meter performed for Dillinger and the gang, said Captain Leach. Career Reads Like Fiction Small, dark and wiry and possessed of an ingratiating personality, * an Meter performed services ft the gang which sound almost fictional, police related. They told of how the Dillinger gangsters first looked over the possibilities of stealing army weapons from the arsenal at Ft. Benjamin Harrison last fall and decided it was too risky. The gang was badly in need of weapons. Then Van Meter boldly visited the Peru tlnd.) police station one night and asked for a policeman who had won considerable fame locally for solving a burglary case. He told the flattered policeman that he was a writer for a detective story magazine and wanted to write up his fine work in the bur-

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ILLUMINATION EXPERTS TO CONDUCT CLASSES

wjuSjfa JB .

Clifford Ham

A staff of nationally known specialists in the science of illumination will lecture at a training school here Sept. 4 to 7 for engineers and service workers of the Indianapolis Power and Light Company, and other interested persons. The lecturers include Harold Green, specialist in commercial lighting. and Clifford Ham, lighting sales representative, bot hos the General Electric Company.

glary case. The policeman told his story, went to his home with Van Meter and returned with an Armload of photographs. Bursting with pride he showed the gangster around the police station, pointing proudly to the new arsenal containing a fine supply of sub-machine guns, bullet-proof vests and tear-gas bombs. Arsenal Is Robbed Van Meter thanked the policeman and left, promising to send him a copy of the -story" when it was published. The next night Dillinger and Pierpont, armed to the teeth, walked into the Peru police station at midnight. Unceremoniously they routed the few policemen, still on duty. They demanded the guns. When a trembling cop attempted to hold out some of the weapons, Pierpont consulted a small memorandum in his hand. The memorandum, showing the exact number of guns in the arsenal, had been given him by Van Meter. “Don't try to hold out on us,” he warned. “You have eleven submachine guns in there and we want 'em all.” Van Meter accompanied Dillinger to the Warsaw police station and helped to loot the arsenal there shortly after Dillinger’s escape from Crown Point jail. Plotted Pierpont Rescue Always he was ahead of the gangster chief and his mob spotting banks to be robbed, helping gun molls to rent apartments and planning hideouts and getaways for the gang. Van Meter it was, according to state police, who conceived the preposterous plot to free Harry Pierpont. Charles Makley and Russell Clark from the Lima (O.) jail by disguising Dillinger gangsters as national guardsmen and boldly attempting to storm the closely guarded courthouse where the mobsters were on trial for the murder of Sheriff Jess Sarber. Dillinger discarded the plot as too fantastic. Sentenced to Michigan City prison for a train robbery in Lake coun-

Harold Green

ty in March, 1925, Van Meter subsequently was released on parole. Until his encounter with federal agents in a St. Paul flat from which Dillinger and Evelyn Fret chette escaped and in which Van Meter shot it out with R. C. Coulter, a federal agent, the ■fingerman" never had been wanted for anything except technical violation of parole. Although he was believed to be one of the men who robbed a bank at Sioux Falls, S. D., on March 6 of $40,000, it had not been proved definitely at the time of his death. Police and federal agents nevertheless regarded him as more of a menace than some of the submachine gun-toting members of the gang because they knew that many of the diabolical schemes executed by Dillinger were hatched in the cunning mind of the "fingerman.”

MONEY OPERATORS PUZZLED BY MOVES Currency War Is Hinted in Markets. By United Pres* Operators in world currency markets were apprehensive and puzzled today by under-cover movements in terms of francs. Assurances by Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau that no currency war was contemplated apparently eased the tension. The British equalization fund, after being inoperative for tw'O days, intervened to support the pound with the purchase of sterling and the decline in the pound value was appreciably checked. The dollar was fractionally stronger in Paris, standing throughout the trading day at 14.94 (6.694 cents a franc). The British gold price w’as raised 7’i pence in terms of pounds, to 139 shillings 3 pence—approaching its record high of 140 shillings of last February. At this price, how rever. w’ith the pound at $5.0714 the price per ounce was only VA cents above yesterday’s figure.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

ROOSEVELT AND JOHNSON DEGIN NRA DISCUSSION President, Blue Eagle Head Confer on Future Course. By United Pre ** WASHINGTON, Aug. 24.—President Roosevelt discussed with General Hugh S. Johnson today reorganization of the recovery adminis- ! tration in the first of a series of conferences designed to end an inter-administration dispute over the future NRA setup. General Johnson went to the hite House shortly after arriving byairplane from Bethany Beach, Del., where he had been vacationing. General Johnson refuse# to discuss the controversy which has arisen between himself, Labor Secretary Frances Perkins and Donald

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Ricmberg over reorganization of the recovery agency. “I won’t talk until we’re through ” General Johnson said as he left his NRA office. Similarly, at the White House he strode past newspapermen without comment. Before the day was over, the | President was expected to reach a | decision as to the future course to i be charted for the NRA. although it | was possible conferences might be continued tomorrow. WAR VETERAN HELD IN EOX EXTORTION CASE Frenchman Threatened to Kidnap Film Head, Is Charge. By United Pre** NEW YORK. Aug. 24.—Maurice Monnier, 35. a French national who ! served in the American army dur- ; ing the World war, was held in federal detention prison today await- | ing grand jury action on a federal charge that lie threatened to kidnap members of the family of Wili liam F. Fox, former movie executive, I unless he was paid $50,000. Specif-ally, he is charged with | violating the so-called Lindbergh law in that he is alleged to have sent the threatening letter to Mrs. Fox. The statute carries a maximum penalty of twenty years’ im‘Prisonment and a SIO,OOO fine.

TWO STATE TRACTION LINES TO BE LEASED Hearing to Be Held Aug. 30 in Indianapolis. By Unit'd Pre• * FT. WAYNE. Ind.. Aug. 24.—Bowman Elder, Indianapolis, receiver for the.lndiana Service Corporation, will lease two traction lines oper-

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PAGE 19

!SECURITIES AID NAMED Former Civil Service Official Is Commisftinn Secretary. By United Pre** WASHINGTON. Aug. 24—Francis P. Brassor today was selected :secretary of the new’ securities and exchange commission. Joseph P. Kennedy, chairman, announced. He j formerly was connected with the | civil service commission and the initemal revenue bureau.