History Of The FBI

In 1908, the population of America was booming. This was in part of a large increase of immigrants entering the United States. The increase of immigrant population created diversity within the states, but with some of these immigrants also came crime, drugs, and Mafia relationships. A growth in population like this increases the chances of crimes being committed, whether it be due to racial tension or a change in the economy. The FBI was very much needed at the time of it’s establishment. From its small beginnings, the FBI has grown to become a very important part of America’s government today. First, I will discuss why the FBI was greatly needed at the time of its inception. Then, I will go over its beginnings and its impact on the history

There were other agencies and law enforcers in the states that were paid for and bound to political party leaders, many of whom were corrupt. The Department of Justice, in the late 1800s only hired private investigators to look in on federal crimes. By the turn of the century, Attorney General Charles Bonaparte was appointed by President Roosevelt, McKinley’s successor. Bonaparte was only equipped with trained accountants to find evidence and root out corruption and push back the waves of crime that have been rising during the early twentieth century. Bonaparte had to borrow Secret Service agents from the Department of Treasury to perform investigations and sometimes arrests. Most of these agents did not answer directly to him so “[he] brought political pressure to bear on Congress to allow him to control investigations under his jurisdiction, and on May 1908, a law was enacted preventing the Department of Justice from engaging Secret Service agents” (Peterson 29). Charles Bonaparte had no other choice but to form an agency of his own. On July of 1908, Attorney General Charles Bonaparte hired ten Secret Service agents that he had contact with before and banded them together with twenty-five other investigators to form his own investigative force. “The date when these agents reported to duty–July 26, 1908–is celebrated as the genesis of the FBI. By March 1909, the force included

This effect comes with the uncertainty of the future of any small group. Influence from politics, bribery, and transfers were common in their positions because the consequences of these actions didn't seem to weigh much. In the FBI website under their history page, they mention the story of an agent that was actually tending to his cranberry farm, off to the side, while he was working for the Bureau. Despite these bumpy ongoings, the Bureau of Investigation pushed through nonetheless. They were working a few relatively smaller cases regarding bank fraud, civil rights cases, and many more. The Bureau was growing at this time handling anarchists, treason, and adding more members to their ranks. By 1915, the Bureau had more than three-hundred agents just in time for the Great War. At this time, the Bureau was investigating three cases involving German bomb threats between the U.S. and Canada. These investigations provided a push for Congress to declare war, siding with the