The Truth Machine (42 page)

101
. Sampson,
Yesterday's Faces,
20.

102
. Balmer and MacHarg,
The Achievements of Luther Trant,
169.

103
. Ibid., Foreword.

104
. “The Red Dress,” in Balmer and MacHarg,
The Achievements of Luther Trant,
76.

105
. Ibid., 88–89.

106
. Ibid., 95.

107
. Reeve, retitled as “The Scientific Cracksman,” for
Amazing Detective Tales
(August 1930).

108
. Balmer and MacHarg,
The Achievements of Luther Trant,
355.

109
. Compare, for example, “I believe that in the study of mental diseases these men are furnishing the knowledge upon which future criminologists will build to make the detection of crime an absolute certainty. Some day there will be no jury, no detectives, no witnesses, no attorneys. The state will merely submit all suspects to tests of scientific instruments like these, and as these instruments can not make mistakes or tell lies their evidence will be conclusive of guilt or innocence.” “The Crimeometer” 14, in Arthur B. Reeve,
The Dream Doctor, The Craig
Kennedy
Series (New York: Heart's International Library, 1914, originally published December 1912), 217; and “There will be no jury, no horde of detectives and witnesses, no charges and countercharges, and no attorney for the defense. These impedimenta of our courts will be unnecessary. The State will merely submit all suspects in a case to the tests of scientific instruments, and as these instruments cannot be made to make mistakes nor tell lies, their evidence will be conclusive of guilt or innocence, and the court will deliver sentence accordingly.” “Electric Machine to Tell Guilt of Criminals,”
New York Times,
September 10, 1911 V, 6.

110
. Quoted in Sampson,
Yesterday's Faces,
23. The fictional character eerily anticipated William Moulton Marston who in real-life combined science with law and had “both the University and Third Avenue melodrama in his make-up.” As Marston would later also do, Kennedy at one point gives a test to a woman while she watches a movie. See Reeve,
The Dream Doctor.

111
. Reeve was also involved with silent movie serials, some of which featured the Kennedy character. A television series, “Craig Kennedy, Criminologist,” was devised in the early 1950s.

112
. Sampson,
Yesterday's Faces,
25.

113
. Arthur B. Reeve, “The Truth Detector” in
The Treasure Train
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1917), 29.

114
. Arthur B. Reeve, “The Scientific Cracksman” in
The Silent Bullet
(New York: Dodd Mead, 1912).

115
. Quoted in LeRoy Lad Panek,
The Origins of the American Detective Story
(Jefferson: McFarland, 2006), 105.

116
. Charles Edmonds Walk,
The Yellow Circle
(New York: A. L. Burt Co., 1909), 69.

117
. Arthur B. Reeve, “The Lie Detector” in
The War Terror
(Hearst's International Library Co., New York, 1915). The story was first published in
Cosmopolitan
magazine in November 1914 but was only given the title “The Lie Detector” when published as chapter 27 in Arthur B. Reeve,
The War Terror
(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1915), 273–80. It was also apparently reprinted in
The Boston Daily Globe
(February 25, 1917). Reeve also wrote stories around this time with titles like “The Detectaphone,” “The Crimeometer,” “The Truth Detector,” and “The Love Meter.” See John Locke, ed.,
From Ghouls to Gangsters,
189.

118
. Cleveland Moffett,
Through the Wall
(New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1909), 171.

119
. Melvin L. Severy,
The Mystery of June 13th
(New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1905), 523–24.

120
. Although the criminologist Hans Gross had observed, “a large part of the criminalist's work is nothing more than a battle against lies,” his discussion of the lie made no mention of its susceptibility to scientific detection. Particularly pertinent to criminology, however, were the lies of the “insane paralytic,” the hysteric, the epileptic, and the pregnant woman. Prostitutes were apparently addicted to a particular form of lie which Lombroso and other criminologists regarded as “a professional mark of identification.” The lie detector would be completely unconcerned with such “pathoformic lies” and how they signified personological types. Hans Gross,
Criminal Psychology: A Manual for Judges, Practitioners, and Students,
trans. Horace M. Kallen (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1911), 474–80. First published 1905.

Epigraphs.
Charles Edmonds Walk,
The Yellow Circle
(New York: A. L. Burt Co., 1909). “What electric investigative device was invented by Nova Scotia-born John Augustus Larson in 1921?”
Trivial Pursuit, Genus II
question (Canadian edition).

1
. Anne Roller, “Vollmer and His College Cops,”
Survey
62 (1929): 304.

2
. “Inventor of Lie Detector Traps Bride,”
San Francisco Examiner,
August 9, 1922. Quoted in Ken Alder,
The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession
(New York: Free Press, 2007), 11.

3
. “The Lie-Detector,”
The Literary Digest
3 (December 26, 1931): 35.

4
. John A. Larson, “The Lie Detector: Its History and Development,”
Journal of the Michigan State Medical Society
37 (1938): 893–97.

5
. Albert A. Hopkins, “Science Trails The Criminal,”
Scientific American
146, February 6, 1932, 96.

6
. “Lie Tracer is Honored,”
New York Times,
January 21, 1933, 17.

7
. William A. Dyche, “Science in the Detection of Crime,”
The Review of Reviews,
January 1932, 52–54.

8
. “Lie Detecting,”
Outlook and Independent
153, 1929, 533.

9
. “Lie Detector Seals Doom of Murderer,”
New York Times,
March 2, 1937, 44.

10
. “Marston Advises 3 L's for Success,”
New York Times,
November 11, 1937, 27.

11
. William Moulton Marston,
The Lie Detector Test
(New York: Richard R. Smith, 1938), 18.

12
. Robert Sampson,
Yesterday's Faces: A Study of Series Characters in the Early Pulp Magazines. Vol. 2, Strange Days
(Bowling Green: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1984), 27.

13
. “Science Devises a Painless “3rd Degree,'”
Current Opinion
76, April 1924, 474.

14
. Frederick L. Collins, “The Future Looks Dark for Liars,”
Collier's,
August 16, 1924, 7, 26.

15
. Ibid., 7.

16
. Gene E. Carte and Elaine H. Carte,
Police Reform in the United States: The Era of August Vollmer
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975), 2.

17
. Marston,
The Lie Detector Test.

18
. “Marston, William Moulton,”
Encyclopedia of American Biography,
n.s. 7 (New York: The American Historical Society, 1937), 23.

19
. Marvin S. Bowman, “New Machine Detects Liars,”
Boston Sunday Advertiser,
May 8, 1921, B3.

20
. Ibid.

21
. “William Moulton Marston,”
Harvard Class of 1915 25th Annual Report
(Pusey Library, Harvard University Archives, 1940), 480–81.

22
. William Moulton Marston, “Have a Vacation Every Day,”
The Rotarian
56, January 1940, 26.

23
. “Marston, William Moulton,”
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Current Volume, E, 1937–38
(New York: James T. White and Co., 1938), 29.

24
. William Moulton Marston, “Lie Detection: Its Bodily Basis and Test Procedure,” in
Encyclopedia of Psychology,
ed. Philip Lawrence Harriman (New York: Philosophical Library, 1946), 358.

25
. Eugene B. Block.
Lie Detectors: Their History and Use
(New York: David McKay Co., 1977), chap 4.

26
. Eloise Keeler,
The Lie Detector Man: The Career and Cases of Leonarde Keeler
(Boston: Telshare Publishing, 1984), 2.

27
. Fred E. Inbau, “Scientific Crime Detection: Early Efforts in Chicago,” an oral history conducted in 1972 by Gene Carte, in
August Vollmer: Pioneer in Police Professionalism, Vol.
2. (Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 1983), 6.

28
. William W. Turner,
Invisible Witness: The Use and Abuse of the New Technology of Crime Investigation
(New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1968), 33.

29
. Dwight G. McCarty, “Detecting the Liar,” chap. 12 in
Psychology and the Law
(Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1960).

30
. Thomas J. Deakin,
Police Professionalism: The Renaissance of American Law Enforcement
(Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1988), 98.

31
. “Marston, William Moulton (1893–1947),” in
The World Encyclopedia of Comics,
ed. Maurice Horn, 2 vols. (New York: Chelsea House Publishers), 480–81.

32
. Trina Robbins,
The Great Women Superheroes
(Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink Press, 1996), 4.

33
. Jim Korkis, “William Moulton Marston,”
Comic Book Marketplace
23 (1995): 46.

34
. Les Daniels,
Wonder Woman: The Complete History
(London: Titan Books, 2000). Echoes of Marston's claim to priority are evident in his son's recent comments: “I know there was some controversy as to whether he was the first to discover the relationship [between blood pressure and lying], but he did much basic research and had developed a crude working apparatus while still at Harvard” (12).

35
. Gerard Jones,
Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book
(London: William Heinemann, 2005), 206.

36
. See, for example, Vollmer's proposed syllabus for the Berkeley School of Police: A. Vollmer and A. Schneider, “The School for Police as Planned at Berkeley,”
Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology
7, no. 6 (1917): 877–98.

37
. Gene Carte, “Introduction,” in
August Vollmer: Pioneer in Police Professionals, Vol.
2, viii.

38
. William Moulton Marston, “Systolic Blood Pressure Symptoms of Deception,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology
2 (1917): 117–63; William Moulton Marston, “Reaction Time Symptoms of Deception,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology
3 (1920): 72–87; and William Moulton Marston, “Psychological Possibilities in the Deception Tests,”
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology
11 (1921): 551–70.

39
. Marston, “Systolic Blood Pressure Symptoms,” 162.

40
. Ibid., 163.

41
. Marston, “Psychological Possibilities in the Deception Tests.”

42
. Bowman, “New Machine Detects Liars,” B3.

43
. Ibid.

44
. John A. Larson,
Lying and its Detection: A Study of Deception and Deception Tests
(Glen Ridge: Patterson Smith, 1932), 261–62 (emphasis added).

45
. In 1938, Marston claimed that he had initially employed a continuous measure of blood pressure, but he later “gave up the continuous record because I believed constant pressure on the subject's arm altered his blood pressure.” Marston,
The Lie Detector Test,
98.

46
. John A. Larson, “The Lie Detector: Its History and Development,” 894.

47
. John A. Larson, “The Cardio-Pneumo-Psychogram and Its Use in the Study of the Emotions, with Practical Application,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology
5 (1922): 323–28. Keeler would later describe his polygraph as a “pneumo-cardio-sphygmo-galvanograph.” Leonarde Keeler, “Debunking the ‘Lie-Detector,'”
Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology and Police Science
25 (1934–35): 157.

48
. John A. Larson, “Introduction,” in Marston,
The Lie Detector Test.

49
. Ibid.

50
. William Moulton Marston, “Reaction Time Symptoms of Deception,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology
3 (1920): 72–87.

51
. Bowman, “New Machine Detects Liars,” B3.

52
. Marston, “Reaction Time Symptoms of Deception,” 87.

53
. Ibid., 83.

54
. Collins, “The Future Looks Dark for Liars.”

55
. Tom White, “Every Crime Is Entrenched Behind a Lie,”
Scientific American
133, 1925, 298–99.

56
. “Transmission of Criminal Traits,”
The Green Bag
3, 1891, 215–16; Edmund R. Spearman, “Criminals and Their Detection,”
The New Review
9, 1893, 65–84; Sanger Brown, “Responsibility in Crime from the Medical Standpoint,”
The Popular Science Monthly
46, 1894–95, 154–64.

57
. “Inventor of Lie Detector Traps Bride,” quoted in Ken Alder,
The Lie Detectors,
11.

58
. “Machine Tests Veracity,”
New York Times,
June 11, 1922, 5.

59
. “Science Devises a Painless ‘3rd Degree'”; Collins, “The Future Looks Dark for Liars.”