THE EARLY F.B.I.
I grew up without any knowledge of the F.B.I. So did thousands
of others of my age. I was twenty-years old before I ever heard of the
F.B.I. for the simple reason that it did not exist until that time. It started
to become what it is today in March of 1935.
The investigation of crime was, in those days, largely a local affair.
City, county and state police looked in to such matters and, as I
remember, there were numerous private detectives for hire as well as
associations and agencies which offered, for a fee, often in the form of
a membership payment, protection of groups of the citizenry
from molestation by disreputable persons know as hoodlums and
gangsters.
When we thought of dealing with criminal violence we thought
of depending on individuals - the detective, who was “called in” to
”solve” the mystery or to catch the criminals. In the literature of the
time, the astute individual who could see thorough the Machavialian
meanness of the bad guys, came many sizes, shapes and
configurations. Very often, to keep him or her from being too perfect,
they were given some physical impairment or a quirky attitude which
also helped make them distinctive from others of their ilk. We were still
very much with the Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson way of doing
crime solutions.
The seed of the agency came from the fact that some members
of the Secret Service were “moonlighting” a bit and worked for the
Justice Department from time-to-time as special agents. Someone
blew the well-know whistle. We don’t know why or how, but it was
some one with clout, because the Congress quickly passed a routine
Civil Service bill in which it was stated that such agent off-time work
was a no-no. The fine for any such in infraction by a Secret Service man
was “two years suspension”. Then someone, with even heavier
influence, where it mattered most, modified it a bit to allow such
agency work on behalf of the Treasury Department and , then,
fine-tuned the legislation to say ”except in cases of counterfeiting”.
There was a need for a government-wide investigative body.
One was set up in July of 1908. It came to be called the B.O.I. - the
Bureau of Investigation which evolved. Later it became the D.O.I. - the
Division of Investigation. We did not, however, know them with the
familiarity which the acronym “FEB.” quickly acquired.
The B.O.I was not closed allied with crime investigating
authorities throughout the states. They were, to some extent, when
called upon to do so, helpful in a mild forensics sense, because they had
available laboratories and test facilities others lacked locally. Those
were B.O.I men on the scene of the Lindbergh kidnapping case in New
Jersey in 1932. A year later, the Congress set forth the kidnapping
legislation which grew out of that celebrated case and the B.O.I. was
also given a bloated designation, either B.O.I. or the U.S.B.O.I. They
came to be the ones who had to deal with the growing mobster,
gangster and violence which was working havoc in our large cities,
too. And, of numbers rackets, protection schemes, outright con artist
trickery and gambling infesting our small towns, as well. It strikes me as
an amazing fact that the Congress of this nation of ours did not deem
it necessary or proper for these guardian forces to be allowed to
officially arrest troublemakers nor could they bear firearms of any kind.
They could perform only what is called “people’s arrest”, which is a civic
function you and I can do today if we wish to get that involved in a
situation without even a pea-shooter or a sling-shot in our possession at
the time.
Future TV, movies and the print media would have been severely
deprived if someone had not invented the nick-name of “G-Men”
meaning government men or the F.B.I. It is widely said, but contested,
that the originator of that term was none other than “Machine Gun”
Kelly, The story has it that, when besieged by the U.S.B.O.I, he had
called out: “Don’t shoot! G-men, don’t shoot!”. That seems odd to me
since the said besiegers were not allowed to carry guns until a year
later. It is conceded that, since, Kelly was not exactly the
pleading-for-mercy type, that he probably may have used the term
“G-men” in a scathing, derogatory sense when being interrogated by
men of the U.S.B.O.I. or the D.O.I. Accounts differ as to name at that
moment.
‘Way Back in 1921, William J. Burns, head of the famed Burns
Detective Agency, was named Director of the B.O.I. and he took on
board a young man of twenty-two years of age, by the name of Edgar
Hoover, who was to become part and parcel of the department for
many years to come...even forever.
Read up on the history and exploits of our Federal Bureau of
Investigation and its accomplishments. Yes, and of its restraints, as well,
well as it has functioned in a democracy. We can all be very proud of
our G-Men. A.L.M. July 23, 2002 [c858wds]
