Speech #770034211

I think the House will be interested to know that the Bureau has on file now nearly 16.000.000 fingerprint records. of which the large majority are criminal prints. The fingerprint identification unit is working on a 24hour basis. endeavoring. without too great success I must reluctantly say. to keep pace with the daily fingerprint receipts which have reached a total of approximately 17.000 per day. The responsibilities placed on this unit have been made further burdensome by the necessity of classifying. filing and making reports on each one of approximately 5.000.000 fingerprints taken by the Alien Registration Division of the Immigration and Naturalization Service in connection with the recent Nationwide alien registration program. The amount of overtime being performed by the employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation has assumed stupendous proportions. Hundreds of thousands of hours of noncompensated extra duty are being performed by both the employees at the seat of government as well as by the clerks and agents in the field.