Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-08-18

FOUNDED OMEN
As Attorney General Under Theodore Roosevelt Napoeon
Granddaughter First Organized the Force of Special
Agents of the Department of Justice.

departments Of the Government hav-
ing detective forces. 1t is certain, also.
that not few Of them were impressed
from the Treasury Departments Sc
cret service branch, but being paid
by the Department of Justice out of
special funds appropriated for this
usage.
Organized Own Bureau.
BY act of Congress in 1908 this
practice was forbidden. The Attor-
ney General was forced to organize
his own Bureau of Investigation.
In 1906 the Attorney General had
reported that criminal identification
records were accommodating at the Fed
eral penitentiaries. He recommended
that Congress authorize the collection
and classification of those records and
their exchange with the States. In
1908 he announced that arrange
ments were being made for exchange
The following year, the records which
had been transferred to Washington
the year before we're all sent TO
Leavenworth Penitentiary. in Leaven-
worth, KanS. There the first Bureau
of Identification was set up. It was
not until 1923 that this bureau was
again moved to Washington and made
part of the Bureau of Investigation.
Before 1903 the Department Of JUS
tees group engaged in collecting EVIL
dence Of Federal law violations then
was mixed group hired from other
departments, but paid for from diff
ferent appropriations by the Depart
ment Of Justice. They were called an
office Of examiners and Subdivided
into seven services-for land and tim
Der frauds, peonage, ETC., investiga-
tons.
Executive Force Lacking.
Then came Bonaparte. His first
report, for 1913, says. in part: THE
attention Of Congress should be called
to the anomaly that the Department
of Justice has no executive force. and,
more particularly, no permanent de-
tective force under is immediate con-
troll. This singular condition arises
mainly from the fact that before the
office of the Attorney General was
transformed into the Department of
Justice a highly efficient detective
service had been organized to deal
with crimes against the Treasury laws,
which force has been in effect lent
from time TO time to this department
to meet its steadily increasing need
for an agency of this nature, without,
however. being removed from the con-
troll Of the Treasury Department"
He further suggests that il the De-
partment Of Justice had a small,
carefully selected and experienced
force under its immediate orders, the
necessity OF having these officers de,
the mercenaries from the Treasury
Department, etc. suddenly appointed
special deputies, possibly in consider
able numbers, might be sometimes
avoided. with greater likelihood of
economy and a better assurance. of
satisfactory results"
But behind this recommendation
there had been an inter-oftice memo
randum from ore David D. Caldwell
tn'n young attorney in the ONCE of
the Assistant to the Attorney General
Bonaparte. 1t had suggested, in the
early months Of 1907. that this force
OF hired men from the Secret Service
and elsewhere, who had been doing
the criminal investigation for the De-
partment of Justice, be made q per-
manent part Of the ONCE of the At
fnrr1au
one man there. These Secret Service
men, loaned by John E. Wilkie, then
their chief, were doing good work
riding bumpers and rods on trains out
West, gathering information and ar
resting their men at struggling village
water tanks. But they were not I'M
der the control of the Department Of
Justice Caldwell, now attorney with
the Department of Justice, saw this
as situation likely to need correc-
ton. He is perhaps the first man
who planted the seed which later
grew into the Department of Federal
Investigation.
Finch Headed Examiners.
Within the Department of Justice
at this time, as nominal head Of the
examiners, was Stanley w. Finch, now
attached to the Accounts Division of
the Department of Justice He had
been connected with the department
since 1893, and by 1908 was chief
bookkeeper in the division which took
charge Of Investigations.
He, too, saw the great need Of or
ganizing this heterogeneous group of
examiners under one head in the De-
partment of Justice. Therefore, with
the advent of Bonaparte, he prepared
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