Reading Time: 11 minutes [1868 words]
The Atlanta Georgian,
Thursday, 2nd April 1914,
9th Edition (Final),
PAGE 3, COLUMN 1.
"Butch" Mc Devitt, millionaire for a day, has nothing on Guy B. Biddinger, assistant general manager of the Burns Detective Agency, who is in Atlanta investigating the Phagan murder mystery. Mc Devitt, of Wilkes-Barre, lived like a millionaire for 24 short hours. Biddinger spent money as though it were counterfeit for as many days and more.
Biddinger is a man of many personalities, but he is most at home as an aristocratic, rolling-in-wealth individual who is running John D. a close race for financial supremacy. As a latter-day Croesus, he is delightfully genial and expansive. He looks like ready money.
Role of Multi-Millionaire.
It was in the role of a multi-millionaire that he pulled the wool over the shrewd eyes of the Canadian Parliament grafters and gathered into his net Louis Philippe Berard, law partner of none other than the Prime Minister, and many other lesser grafters. Biddinger was persuaded Thursday to tell of the manner in which he trapped the Canadians.
"I was reputed to be worth between fifteen and twenty million dollars," he said, "and of course they fell for me. D. Loren Mc Gibbon, a public-spirited man of Montreal, was the man who engaged the Burns Agency on the case. He had narrowly escaped death from a serious illness, and on his recovery was determined to devote himself to public service.
"He was convinced that graft was being made in the granting of franchises and in obtaining concessions from the Dominion Government, but every effort to get definite proof had failed. Two detective agencies had worked on the graft probe before the Burns people were called in, but nothing came of their investigations because they had failed to overcome one stumbling block, a group of lawyers who acted as the go-betweens for the members of Parliament."
Other Operators Duped.
"The operatives for the other agencies were referred to the legal firm when they attempted to approach the legislators. The lawyers drafted a bill for the executives and charged an enormous fee which, however, was perfectly legal. In this smooth manner they saved themselves from prosecution and at the same time insured a rake-off for their other clients, the members of Parliament.
"When we started on the job, all we wanted to buy was the influence of a legal firm and the votes of certain of the members of Parliament. A practical contractor was sent ahead of me. He told of plans for the incorporation of the Montreal Fair Association of Canada. He breathed vague whispers of a rich uncle (myself) who was coming to finance the scheme. He hinted that there would be big money in it for the members of Parliament who assisted in the passage of a bill to incorporate the new company.
"Shortly I breezed into town. I tried to appear as opulent as a Klondike gold king. I gave it out sub rosa that I had made my pile gambling and wanted to get into something easy. I then laid my plan open. I told them that there were 15,000 pool rooms in the United States that would spend bunches of money to get the returns from the Montreal Fair Association events if we could get such an association started. I showed them where there would be thousands in it for those who let in on the ground floor."
Greedy After Money.
"Just send this bill through for me and you will all be rich," I told the ones that I was after. They were so greedy after the money that the slice I promised them as co-partners with me in the racing association was not enough. They must have something in advance, they said, to buy up votes of doubtful members and insure their own allegiance.
"I engaged a $40-a-day suite of rooms in the Chateau Frontenac. When it became noised around that a multi-millionaire was in their midst all of the legislators immediately got their ears up. A man who gave away $1,000 bills for souvenirs was worth cultivating. In a few days they were camping around my room. By the second week I was afraid they would break my door in. I wanted it to appear, however, that I was an extremely busy man and that I would tell my negro valet (a negro operative in the New York office) to inform the clamoring visitors that I would be unable to see them until the next day. As a matter of fact, I most likely would be lying on the bed reading a paper.
"Those before me had been tried to trap the grafters who had failed because they let the go-betweens and lawyers play their own game and in their own offices."
Sickness as a Ruse.
"But after I had been there long enough to get a notorious lawyer interested, I was taken suddenly ill. A doctor was in attendance and nurses hovered around the sick room. The lawyer grew anxious. I told him that he would have to come to my room. He came. He was entirely unsuspecting. There was the odor of many medicines floating about and he communicated with me in my illness.
"'I am very, very sorry over the attack,' he sympathized. Then we got down to business and we talked it pretty straight. Meanwhile an equipment of detectaphones was carrying every word of the conversation to operatives in other rooms.
"It was not long before I had recovered. Then I began serving banquets to the lawyers and legislators. Some evening there were sixty to seventy bottles of champagne on ice for the little parties. Two negroes had the burden of serving the dinners. They were operatives from the New York office. Always there was talk of the deal that I was putting over and always the detectives were at work."
Principals in the Case.
"I was put in touch with the 'right' men through the crooked lawyer. Three of the principal men were J. O. Mousseau, chairman of the private bills committee in the Lower House; Berard, of the Upper House, and Achille Bergevin. Mousseau gave the names of others who should be approached. Thousands of dollars were spent. Members of the Legislature received nearly $5,000 in cash. They were promised as much more, which they never collected.
"When it came time to put the bill on its passage, a delegation of the grafters came to my room and tried to hold me up for $25,000 to get the bill through. This was just what I wanted.
"'Do you mean to tell me that it is going to take $25,000 to get that bill through?' I shouted angrily at them, speaking loud for the benefit of the detectaphone.
"They reckoned that it would. Then I called them several kinds of robbers and grafters, and told them that I would spend $250,000 before I would let them put anything like that over on me. I threatened to expose the whole deal to the newspapers."
Clear Record of Bribery.
"This took them back considerably, and for the next few minutes they were engaged in calming me down and giving me assurance that they would try their best to put the bill through on the amount that I already had given or promised them. By the time the conversation was finished there was about as clear a record of accepted bribery as one could wish.
"After getting all of the detectaphone evidence, we got documentary evidence to back it up, including the signatures of the principals, and then we 'broke' the story. A daily paper came out with a declaration that it had proof of grafting. The managing editor and the city editor were subpoenaed to submit this proof, and then were told to consider themselves under arrest until they were able to substantiate their statements.
"The crooked lawyer, getting a little shaky, called me up over the phone from Quebec, and said: 'What is all this talk about an expose?' I answered right back that I guessed it was all straight, as I was a Burns detective myself and not the bloated millionaire that he thought me."
In Panic at Expose.
"'Don't tell me that don't tell me that!' he said, in a panic, and I thought there was going to be a funeral at the other end of the line. He was still speechless when he hung up the receiver. As a parting admonition I warned him not to take the $1,000 bills he had with him in a tin box, as they all had been photographed before being given over into his care."This was virtually the end of the case, so far as the Burns agency was concerned. It was called back from New York to testify, after being promised immunity from any prosecution on the charge of bribery. A few thousands of the Canadians wanted to lynch all of the Burns operatives for their work in uncovering the scandal, but none of us ever was harmed.
It was as a Standard Oil magnate that Mr. Biddinger rounded up the gang of West Virginia politicians who sought to buy a seat in the Senate for their favorite.
PAGE 3, COLUMN 3
NOTED BURNS SLEUTH
ON THE PHAGAN CASE
GUY B. BIDDINGER.
PAGE 3, COLUMN 5
BURNS AND AIDES
NEARING END OF
FRANK PROBE
Biddinger Called Out of Town on New Development Report
Expected Soon.
William J. Burns, his two aides Guy B. Biddinger and Dan S. Lehon and their operatives are nearing the end of the trail in the investigation of the Phagan murder mystery. This was indicated Thursday at the local agency.
Burns is out of town running down loose ends of the case that never have been thoroughly investigated before. When he returns he will be ready to make his final report on the case and point out the man he is certain killed Mary Phagan.
Biddinger, who worked secretly in Atlanta from Saturday until Wednesday, when his presence was discovered by The Georgian, was found Thursday to have disappeared as mysteriously as he entered town. He was reported to be in another city working on an important new development.
The trio of detectives believe that they will be able to close up the whole case within a few days, but they assert that no matter how long it takes them they will stay on it until every uncertain and disputed point has been cleared up and explained. They have gone over everything that developed on the trail, and in addition have seen many persons who were not asked to testify. They intimate that some of the most important new evidence has come from persons of the negro class.
Preparations are being made by the lawyers for Frank to amend the extraordinary motion for a new trial which will be filed with Judge Hill Thursday, April 16. It is understood that many discoveries by Burns and his men will be incorporated in the amended motion. None of the results of Burns' work found a place in the extraordinary motion as it was submitted to Solicitor Dorsey.
Counsel for Frank were not disturbed Thursday by the rumor that Dorsey is preparing to fight their right to add amendments to the original motion. They declared that the law was clear and that there could be no doubt of the right.