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crime
==Career==
==Career==
John Edgar Hoover was born in Washington to well-education minor government officials. He graduated from public schools, and, skipping college, earned law degrees at night from George Washington University in 1916 and 1917. In 1917 he went to work for the Department of Justice (DOJ), which expressed the prevailing [[Progressive Era]] emphasis on [[Efficiency|scientific efficiency]] and professionalism. Hoover promoted this philosophy throughout his career, As an administrator of alien enemy matters, he dealt with detention or parole for citizens of Germans and Austria who violated the World War I Alien Enemy Act. After the war, he moved up to assistant to Attorney General [[A. Mitchell Palmer]] and effective head of the General Intelligence Division, where he collected publicly available information on radicals. Reading radical literature convinced him that Communists posed as much danger to the United States as they had to Russia in 1917. He never deviated from this opinion.
John Edgar Hoover was born in Washington to well-education minor government officials. He graduated from public schools, and, skipping college, earned law degrees at night from George Washington University in 1916 and 1917. In 1917 he went to work for the Department of Justice (DOJ), which expressed the prevailing [[Progressive Era]] emphasis on [[Efficiency|scientific efficiency]] and professionalism. Hoover promoted this philosophy throughout his career, As an administrator of alien enemy matters, he dealt with detention or parole for citizens of Germans and Austria who violated the World War I Alien Enemy Act. After the war, he moved up to assistant to Attorney General [[A. Mitchell Palmer]] and effective head of the General Intelligence Division, where he collected publicly available information on radicals. Reading radical literature convinced him that Communists posed as much danger to the United States as they had to Russia in 1917. He never deviated from this opinion.
===Crime Buster===
As the nation reeled from the Great Depression, the news media (newspapers, newsreels, magazines and films) glorified a new breed of outlaw, the glamorous gangster. The standard script included a cops-and-robbers soap opera complete with blood, sex, death, money and amazing, hair-raising escapes. The media coined colorful nicknames for them -"Gentleman Johnny" Dillinger, "Pretty Boy" Floyd, Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, "Ma" Barker, Bonnie and Clyde, and "Baby Face" Nelson. The hapless cops were depicted as stupid Keystone cops (after the the famous buffoons in the silent movies). Money from illegal liquor fueled the gangs, and provided fast cars that crossed state lines.
Only a national solution could solve the problem. Hoover had the answer: scientific detective work by the best trained "G-Men" (government men). As Dillinger slipped out of one trap after another, the media speculated that Hoover might be fired for the failure. Instead, Hoover doubled the size of his anti-Dillinger squad and dubbed the outlaw "Public Enemy Number One," a moniker the editors loved. He also offered a $10,000 reward for information on Dillinger's whereabouts, and that brought immediate results. Hoover promised that G-Men would soon catch up with the rest of the nefarious bank robbers. Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed in Louisiana in May. In October, G-men gunned down Pretty Boy Floyd. In November they killed Baby Face Nelson in a gunfight that left two G-men dead. In January 1935, the G-Men cornered Ma Barker and her son Fred in a Florida and blew them away.
Only one Public Enemy was at large, Creepy Karpis. Hoover has been mocked because as a bureaucrat who never actually arrested anyone in April 1936 flew to New Orleans, where he could joined the team that nabbed Creepy; "Put the cuffs on him, boys," Hoover said.
The gangsters got their ballads and films, but the real winner of the war on crime was Hoover and his agency. At first the small bureau was little known. When it ended, Hoover and his newly re-named "Federal Bureau of Investigation" were famous, hailed in newspapers, radio shows, comic strips and James Cagney's hit movie G-Men. Besides an organizational genius, proved a master of the Washington arts, as he convinced the public, and Congress, that the FBI deserved more money, personnel and power. Increasingly he forged direct ties with the president in office, bypassing his nominal superior the Attorney General. By setting up services for local police, especially training programs in scientific methods and a national fingerprint database, the FBI built a solid connection with police departments across the nation.
==Politics==
==Politics==