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14 Stud. L. Pol. & Soc'y 25 (1994)
A "New Breed of Detective": The Rise of the FBI Special Agent

handle is hein.journals/slps14 and id is 37 raw text is: A NEW BREED OF DETECTIVE: THE RISE OF THE FBI SPECIAL AGENT John A. Noakes Looking back on the twentieth century, it is difficult to identify a federal agency that has had as much of an impact on domestic politics as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Yet, as I will detail below, the Bureau was a largely unintended agency. When, in 1907, Attorney General Charles Bonaparte first raised the possibility of locating a detective agency in the Department of Justice, most Congressmen quickly dismissed the idea. No reform movements pushed for the creation of a Bureau of Investigation. Moreover, Theodore Roosevelt and several others in his administration favored the expansion of the Secret Service to meet their desire for a comprehensive federal detective agency. Soon after Roosevelt issued an executive order creating the Bureau in 1908, however, the agency established a secure niche in the federal bureaucracy. By World War I Bureau special agents were critical players in the wartime prosecution of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), responsible for collecting and interpreting the evidence used to convict over one hundred Wobblies for the union's alleged opposition to the war and its refusal to stop organizing workers and calling strikes after the United States had entered into combat. This paper analyzes the building of the Bureau from its modest beginnings through World War I. I contend that the critical factor in the expansion Studies in Law, Politics and Society, Volume 14, pages 25-42. Copyright ® 1994 by JAI Press Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved. ISBN: 1-55938-571-5 25

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