J Edgar Hoover Case Study

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J. Edgar Hoover was a man of Victorian morals. These Victorian morals remained remained with him throughout his entire life but was the fuse of his complex personality”. They determined J. Edgar Hoover’s thoughts about, God, the country, women and African Americans. Hoover was attached to his mother and always supervised her and that is why when he was offered a scholarship to University of Virginia he declined the offer. Therefore, he went to night school at George Washington University and worked in the Library of Congress. As a result of Hoover working in the Library of Congress, “he mastered the Dewey decimal system, which, with its classifications and numbered subdivisions, because the model for the FBI’s Central Files and General Indices. …show more content…

Therefore, in the several Palmer Raids that were conducted, they captured Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman. Goldman and Berkman were deported back to Russia. Palmer was praised by Congress about his raids but was meant with complaints by Attorney Isaac Schorr. After denying Hoover’s request and suggestion, Attorney Schorr made Hoover’s enemies list and therefore a file was opened. Hoover had won his first important case with the deportation of Emma Goldman. After that, Hoover issued over three thousand warrants for arrest and William B. Wilson found out, the country’s fist secretary of labor and was appalled and disallowed the raids to occur. However, BI Chief Flynn approved the warrants. Numerous raids were conducted and people were arrested and faced deportation. Hoover made sure that at every trial there was an agent present. There was media attention around these deportation hearings and Hoover defended the image of the Department of Justice by writing several memos to Attorney Palmer. He denied that the Department of Justice mistreated those arrests. Nevertheless, a sixty-seven-page report was conducted and the content was not its greatest impact but its signers. Hoover reacted by opening a file on each of its signers. Subsequently, after the public embarrassment Palmer was forced to cease his name on the presidential …show more content…

Roosevelt became president and Homer Stile Cummings became the new Attorney General. During Roosevelt presidency is when the jurisdiction of the Bureau developed. Congress passed nine major bills due to the lobbying of Cummings and Hoover and were significant because it gave the federal government “for the first time a comprehensive criminal code.” The Bureau was no longer bond to only cases about interstate auto theft, white case slaves, and federal bankruptcy violations. Now they had the ability to go after “national bank robbers, the transportation of stolen property, the transmission of threats, racketeering in interstate commerce and flight of a felon or witness across state lines to avoid prosecution or giving testimony”. The Bureau become went after mobsters such as John Dillinger. Hoover became the face of the Bureau and the G-Men became popular that they were featured in Hollywood films. The Bureau was confronting an image problem and was called several names throughout the years. Therefore, Ed Tamm came up with the new name of the Bureau, FBI, which stood for fidelity, bravery and integrity. Hoover gave full credit to Attorney General Cummings for the name

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