The FBI: A century of crime fighting

From an anonymous band of accountants and lawyers tasked with halting the white-slavery trade, the FBI has emerged as the nation’s premier crime-fighting force, routinely taking on greater — and more visible — investigative responsibilities throughout its 100-year history, capturing the public imagination and becoming as synonymous with law enforcement as Scotland Yard.

It would have been nearly impossible to predict the bureau’s ascendancy during its early years.

The roots of the FBI lead to the descendant of an emperor. Attorney General Charles Bonaparte had no particular affection for his great uncle, Napoleon I, and secured his place in FBI history by an act of bureaucracy rather than aristocracy.

On July 26, 1908, Bonaparte issued a terse memo announcing the formation of a force of special agents who would carry out investigations for the Justice Department.

Bonaparte’s force of 34 special agents, under the direction of Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch, didn’thave a name. The force wouldn’t be named the FBI for nearly 30 years.

• Visit TWT’s interactive special section on the force’s 100th anniversary, 100 Years of the FBI.

The special agents had wide jurisdiction but relatively few laws to enforce. They didn’t carry guns or even have arrest powers. They investigated white-collar crimes, such as land fraud and forced labor for debt payment, as well as treason and violations of the neutrality act, which included raising money in the United States for foreign revolutions.

“We always had that balance between criminal investigations and national security,” says FBI historian John F. Fox Jr.

Hoover and Hauptman

The scandals that crippled Warren G. Harding’s administration seeped into the fledgling Bureau of Investigation, which later became the FBI.

The bureau was notorious for corruption and politically motivated investigations, such as the probes into senators who questioned the corrupt dealings of Harding’s Cabinet.

Harding died in office in 1923. Not long after Calvin Coolidge was sworn in, the attorney general and the director of the Bureau of Investigation were both fired.

Tasked with cleaning up the bureau, new Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone envisioned a highly professional agency that was apolitical and investigated only violations of federal law.

Stone’s choice to lead the agency: the bureau’s 29-year-old assistant director, John Edgar Hoover.

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