Safe Makers and Safe Breakers

Evening Star, Issue 20292, 28 September 1929, Page 6

Safe Makers and Safe Breakers

A Long War Brains and Ingenuity Matched [By Jaijk Gket, in the New York 'Outlook.’] Jimmy Valentine was a myth; safes cannot be opened by intelligent crooks with sand-papered fingers. But the war between the safe manufacturers and the bank robbers has been waged since 1865, and brains and ingenuity have played their part on each side.

Tii© battle between the safe makers and the safe breakers started practically with the robbery of the Concord, Massachusetts, National Bank on September 25, 1855. There had been other safe robberies before that time, but this vas the first big bank robbery that occurred. The man who planned and executed the Concord job was Langdou W. Moore, one of the cleverest cra6ksmen that ever carried a “jknmie.” The cracksmen of that period were a resourceful gang of criminals. They were artists in a sense. Burglarising a bank in those early days was a task that demanded brains of a sort, cunning, and the patience of a saint. The “ pete man ” had to be a mechanic He had to make his own tools, and the type of tools varied as the type of safes varied. The old time cracksman frequently bought safes and dissected them for the purpose of mastering their construction and learning their weak spots. Powder was the only explosive that could be obtained during Moore’s time, but few cracksmen knew how to .use it. Most of them preferred to rob banks on the quiet; minus the noise of explosions which .frequently aroused light sleepers in the vicinity of the bank and interrupted the robbery. No explosives were use! on the Concord Bank robbery. Moore robbed that bank by making skeleton beys which opened the vault and safe. He spent six months on the job.; The “burglar-proof vault and safe ” was locked with six different locks, all of which interlocked, and no two "ere -l entical. Every night for six months Moore and his pal Harry Howard entered the bank after midnight and worked for hours at a time fitting and refitting skeleton keys to the safe and .vault.

They encountered trouble when they trie! to make keys that would open the “burglar-proof bos” on the inside of the safe. The safe and vault doors had been a comparatively easy job, but the “burglar-proof box” in which the funds of the bank reposed was something else. After live months’ work, during which time they took over' a hundred impressions and made over a hundred skeleton keys, they were : bout to admit defeat when the unexpected occurred I r orre bad . learned the identity of the cashier who carried the keys which opened the safe and vault. One afternoon he followed the cashier from the bank to his home. The, next morning when the cashier arrived at the bank to open up for business Moore followed him into the bank and requested change for a hundred dollar hilt He watched the cashier closely as he opened the safe and vault. And then Moore made a discovery which no doubt thrilled him from head to feet. He had observed that the cashier carried the keys with which he unlocked the vault door and the safe door in his pocket, but when he got ready to unlock the “burglar box” on the inside of the sale he saw him reach over to a shelf on the left side of the vault for the key that unlocked the compartment in which all the bank funds reposed. When the cashier locked up the bank and went home for lunch that day, Moore entered the bank with his skele ton keys, locking all doors behind him With the keys which he and Howard had already fashioned, ho quickly opened the vault and safe. Once inside the vault, he instituted a hurried search of the shelves, on the left side. He found the precious bey to the “burglar box.” He took out 310,000d0l in cash and negotiable securities. He locked the safe and vault and all the doors as he went out of the

bank to join his pal Howard, who waited down the street for him with a team of fast horses and a carriage in which they escaped to Moore’s farm, fifty miles away. The news of this daring and skilfully executed robbery spread all over the United States rapidly. There was great alarm among the bankers when they heard that the “burglar-proof” safe and vault of the Concord Bank had been plundered. Depositors became more or less apprehensive over the security of their deposits. The safe and vault makers realised at once that the key-locking safe and vault was no longer burglar-proof, and that a much more intricate looking device had to be prepared, otherwise bank robberies

like the Concord one would become common occurrences. Possibly they thought that a series of such robberies might very easily destroy the depositors’ faith in the ability of banks to safeguarded their funds. It v. _ s a situation which demanded immediate relief. COMBINATION LOCKS The safe makers lost no time in getting to work, and within a short time after the Concord robbery they announced that they had worked out a combination-locked safe which couldn’t be opened with keys of any kind. This, they thought, solved the problem and stopped the cracksmen. True enough, tho combination-locked safe did baffle the safe cracker for a time. Langdon W Moore and the rest of the fancy thinkers who had been robbing banks with keys, roamed the country far and wide looking for banks with key locking safes and vaults, and passing up those places in which the combinationlocked safe and vault reposed. But every time they plundered a bank that had the key-locking safe and vault they were brought so much nearer to the day when they would have to resort to n w methods or reform, because the robbed banks replaced the key lockers with combination-locked safes and vaults. Eventually all the key locking safes and vaults disappeared, and bank burglaries at night fell off. Tho safe makers had triumphed.. There was peace among the bankers. In the crime world there was a weeping and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth. But only for the time being. The criminal foiled in one line of crime turns to another. If. the police could be persuaded to recognise this all-im-portant fact and plan accordingly, there wouldn’t be so much crime. It is quite possible to anticipate the criminal if you study him. Thus, when the combination-locked safe and vault put an,end, temporarily, to bank bi iry, the cracksman turned hold-up man. “Masked burglaries” became the vogue. They began to attack banks at night through the medium of helpless and unprotected bank employees. ■ The combinationlocked safe a"d va ’ had eradicated one form of crime .only tq set up another. This new method of attack was alarmingly prevalent between 1867 and ,1875. More than one loyal and courageous bank employee forfeited his life to .his trust. ' The safe and vault makers realised that they, more .than .anybody else, were responsible for the advent of tho masked burglar, with his cowardly and terrorising tactics. They saw at once that something had to be done to make his raethoils useless. And in doing this very thing, they were; probably, very much concerned with eventualities.- No doubt they, {recognised the importance and necessity of finding a remedy which would not entail consequences of the kind that followed the use of the combination lock. That product of their genius, as you have seen, brought the masked burglar; now they had to devise something which would eliminate him.

TIHE LOCK

The inventor of the best locks that the banking world of this country has ever known now came to the rescue. His name was James Sargent, subsequently of the firm of Sargent and Greenleaf, of Rochester, New York. Mr Sargent’s invention, a complete time and combination-lock in.one case, was the thing that put the masked burglar out of business—when the bankers accepted it! The bankers of the United States did not show much enthusiasm when Mr Sargent ■■intro-' duced his invention to them. Many of them openly ridiculed . it. They were sceptical about adopting a time-lock which predetermined the moment of unlocking their safes_ and vaults, oven though it might eradicate attacks upon' their employees by masked burglars. Mr Sargent had to .institute a vigor- , ous educational campaign among the; bankers. He protested that the timelock was indispensable and that it would not only put an end to the masked burglar but would make safe burglaries more difficult than ever.- The experts and bankers finally - saw the light; immediately thereafter attacks upon bank employees in their homes began to decrease until eventually the masked burglar became a thing of the past. Then the masked burglar went back to master the combination safe. He learned how to use drills and powder. But drills were not widely used, until the arrival of what cracksmen termed the “ back-lopking pete,” or the safe in which the combination , lock-box was situated behind the last sheeting in the door. The front-lock safe, in which the combination lock-box was behind the first sheeting in the door, E receded the back-lock safe and could e opened with no more energy or brains than one would require to steal a lollipop from an infant. The back-

lock safe was designed for the purpose of making safe-blowing with di ills more difficult, but the cracksmen met the advance by having extensions put on ! their drills. Let it be known that there were no Jimmy Valentines in those days nor in any other days. That fancy thinker with the’ sand-papered paws never existed. ■ No burglar that I’ve ever known was able to manipulate combinations by sand-papering his dirty paws. Safes cannot be op-vued that way. • Tho safe burglars led the safe makers a merx - y chase for a few years. Although bank burglaries had declined, the robbery- of safes in post offices, railroad stations, express offices, and stores increased tremendously. The bank burglar was almost extinct because the banks with their time-locking devices and their steel safes were practically impregnable. They couldn’t be drilled and they were so • mpactly put together that the. cracksmen couldn’t c ,:t' enough powder in them to blow off the door. Eventually the automatic timelocking safes put the old time' bank burglar out of business. Men like Jimmy Hope, who engineered the Manhattan Bank robbery in New York City in October, 1876, Mark Shinburn, Dutch Ban, Big Frank Mi’Coy, George Bliss, and other “knights of the puff and rod (powder and gun) ” quit when they learned that powder was useless on the auto: rtio tima-lockers. For a year or two bank robberies iii the United ' States were -few r >'cl far between. THE HEW GRMAL Then a new criminal appeared on tho scene in the person of the Yeagman, not Yeggmari, as it has been consistently mis-spelled. The Yeag took up tho battle where the old timers had left it. He was a product of the world' of the professional, tramp. No more elusive and desperate marauder ever lived. He moved in a world all his own. He never associated with other crooks. All women .were black-listed. A Yeag wouldn’t have anything to do with a crook who had a steady relationship with a woman. He said women were dangerous and' couldn’t be trusted. He said women made “ Johnsons,” as they termed, themselves, soft and-senti-mental. It was the Yeag who •introduced dynamite' into the .business) of blowing safes. He was tho first cracksman to “beat” the automatic time-lockers. After they mastered the use of Myna- ‘ mite they did a land office business with the banks. ' ', , ■ But just as soon as- the Yeags began' to attack banks again the safe makers began to improve the time-lock safes. They tightened lip, the door jams so that dynamite couldn’t be inserted. They designed a' new combination spindle wdiich couldn’t be driven back or pulled out. These improvements stopped the Yeag, He could do nothing with the automatic time-locker now, because these improvements made it impossible to get the dynamite confined, and dynamite not confined was of no more use to him than powder or ice water. The safe makers had triumphed once more. The Yeag had to go back to the small time racket of post offices, railroad stations, and stores where 500 or 600 dollars was considered jyhat would bo called “ a big touch.’

Although the Yoag cracksman had been using dynamite tor a year or more he had failed to realise that its active principle, nitroglycerine, could bo easily extracted from the fuller earth and other ingredients with which it was combined in the dynamite stick. It took him a year to discover that the “ soup ” in the dynamite could crash the improved automatic time-locker. “ Michigan - Red, the Wild Cat,” was the fancy thinker who found that nitroglycerine could bo extracted from dynamite. But Nemesis dogged this discovery. Red himself was blown to pieces while trying to master the use of the dangerous “grease.” Fifteen or twenty lives were lost during tho time that they were experimenting with nitroglycerine. Some thieves were killed- while working on safes. Some passed on by virtue of a sudden explosion while they were riding on freight trains either to or from a robbery. Some of the. more timid ‘ ‘ Johnsons ’ ’ abandoned the use of “soup” after they had seen a few of their old pals go skyward like a rocket. Two of the pioneers. “ Denver Dude ” and Seldom Seen, who had made numerous experiments with “soup ” on rocks, concluded that two ounces of nitro would blow open any safe door. They were poor guessers. One night they selected a conveniently located coal yard office safe in the suburbs of Nashville, Tennessee, upon which to test their theory that two ounces of “soup” was the necessary dose. “Denver Dude” stopped inside the coal yard office to apply the explosive to the safe. “Seldom Seen” stood guard outside. “The Dude” applied two ounces of “soup” and ignited the fuse. Before he could escape the explosion occurred. It wrecked the building and the safe and killed him instantly. “Seldom Seen” tore down the street and hasn’t reappeared since.

The experience probably drove him to honest work. SHOOTING THEM OPEN But such fatalities did not deter the more determined- Yeag, so he carried on until he became so expert with “grease” that ,he could shoot open an automatic time-locker without disturbing the sleeping cat on top of it. When the Yeag became expert in the use of nitroglycerine the safe makers realised that they were confronted with the great and most difficult problem of producing a_ drill-proof and ex-plos'ive-proof safe and vault. It looked like an insuperable task. The Yeags didn’t think it could be done. Their philosophy was: “What the pete makers put together we will tear asunder.” For ten years or more bank burglaries were nightly occurrences. In the interim the safe makers had' been experimenting with a number of ideas on burglar-proof safes, none of which proved effective. Relief did not come until Sir Hubert Hadfield, a noted English scientist, announced to the world his discovery of manganese steel, a steel which could bo neither drilled nor blasted with explosives. With this steel the safe makers set to work to design a safe which would be a departure from anything that had gone before. Within a short time the screwdoor safe ’ appeared on the market. A formidable looking object! Burglarproof, figuratively speaking, was written all over it. The door were so artistically machined that if one laid a thin piece of paper on the jams it mldn’t be locked. The Yeags themves voted the screw door pete “ the works” when they first saw it, but -with characteristic bravado they said: “Wait until we give ’er a few shots of ‘soup,’ then we’ll see if she’s bur-glar-proof.” They soon learned that the screw door “pete” was burglar-proof. It couldn’t be drilled. They couldn’t get nitroglycerine into it ; They couldn’t even find space sufficient to confine a half-teaspoonful. The screw-door safe created unemployment in the underworld of the safe crackers. DAYLIGHT HOLD-UPS “Well,” they said, “if we can’t beat these jugs with soup, why, we’ll have to take a poke at ’em in daylight.” For the first time in his career the Yeag cracksman deserted the “jungles” for the highways of the cities. He entered the more desperate racket of daylight _ banditry. In support of piy contention that , the seventy-five-yepr conflict between the safe makers and safe, burglars produced the daylight bandit of 1912, I ask you to note the significant fact that between 1885, when the old bandit clans of the West were practically exterminated, and 1912, when the screw-door safe stopped the night burglaries of banks, the daylight hold-up of n bank was indeed a rare thing. I dare say that not over eight or ten banks had been robbed in daylight between 1885 and 1912. But from 1912 to 1924, 1,033 banks were held up in daylight, according to the American Bankers’ Association records.

GUTTING TORCH

In 1913 “Oakland Tommy” discovered a method by which the ex-plosive-proof secret-door safe could be <• beaten.” I refer to the torch. I do not mean that he invented the torch. The cutting and'burning torch was the invention of two men—Foucho, a Frenchman, and Jotram, a Scandahavian. Fouche invented the welding torch based on the idea of burning acetylene in an atmosphere of oxygon, while Jotram invented the process of cutting steel with oxygon. His idea was to heat the metal until it became red with Fouche’s torch and. then to throw against it a hot spot of oxygon. This is the cutting and. burning torch that “ Oakland Tommy stumbled across one night in a null in Pennsylvania. . . , ' On that particular night Jemmy was not looking for torches. .Indeed, ho didn’t know that there was such a thing on earth. Ho had never hoard of a cutting torch. He and his comrades had long since given up the idea of ever finding a method by which that screw-door safe could be “ beaten.” Tommy’s mind was occupied with other matters. In his inside coat pocket there reposed a small bottle of nitroglycerine, a few caps, and a couple of fuses. Ho was on his way to Tyrone, where he intended to blow a “ pete ” in a general merchandise store, when he was put off the blind baggage of a passenger train which he had ridden from East Liberty, Pa. It was very cold this night, so Tommy had to find a nice, warm place in which he could “flop” until morning. Nearby was a mill with its roaring furnaces and cupolas. Tommy headed for the mill. Mill workers invariably are a tender-hearted crowd, and a bum can always obtain a “flop” from them, especially if the bum has a union card in his possession.

Of course, Tommy had a union card—a “phony” one. The union mill men received the cracksman with open One of them opened his supper pail and invited Tommy to help himself. Tommy sat down and began to eat. Suddenly he saw a workman with a blazing torch in his hand burning cooled metal and slag out of frozen ladles. He was fascinated. Ho saw the frozen ladles withering under the flame of the torch. When the supper hour whistle blew. Tommy found the foreman and told him that he wanted a job. The foreman put him in a labouring gang, but Tommy spent most of his time around the torch outfit. Within a few weeks he mastered tho use of the torch and went forth to spread the glad news to his brothers “tho Johnsons.” The ex-plosive-proof screw-door safe succumbed to the torch. In 1913 the Yeags burned open thirty-four banks. In 1.924 they burned open 234 banks. But the safe makers had not been idle. They had been alive to the menace of tho torch long before the Yeags had discovered it and converted it into an instrument of attack. Tho menace of the torch had been foreseen when Foucho and Jotram introduced it to industry, consequently the safe makers had been at work on torch-resisting materials before “Oakland Tommy” and his associates adopted it to attack the screw-door “pete.” After long and patient experimentation, during which many well-known metallurgists participated, a secretlycompounded copper vault and safe was introduced to tho banking world which is torch proof. Once again there is unemployment in the underworld of tho Yeag. Approximately 400 of them are engaged at tho present time on little safe jobs in stores, railroad stations, express offices, and so on. And there, for the moment, let us leave them; not, however, with any assurance that they will stay there.