Young J. Edgar Hoover: The Making of a Despot

An axiom of journalism holds that there are no new stories: only new reporters, editors and readers. Kenneth D. Ackerman’s "Young J. Edgar Hoover" traces the reactions of small people to attacks on this country. Those reactions are almost exactly the same as the reaction of the Bush administration to 9/11. The big difference is then there were giants like Clarence Darrow, Felix Frankfurther and Louis Brandeis who stood up to government overreaching.

Albert Camus observed that men rebel in search of justice. But, if they win, they are likely to be more tyrannical than the government they overthrew. Ackerman deals with a rebellion which began with the Molly McGuire movement in 1870s Pennsylvania and progressed into the International Workmen of the World’s One Big Union movement of the early 1900s. Then, as now, much of the labor in this country was performed by immigrants, either legal or illegal, under appalling conditions. Strikes were put down by breaking the heads of the strikers and the workers fought back.

One attempt involved sending 17 letter bombs through the mail. One blew the hands off a maid at the home of Senator Hardwick of Georgia. Thanks to an alert New York City postal official, the rest were intercepted.

Then, on the night of June 2, 1919, nine bombs, all set to go off at a little after 11:00 PM were set in Washington, DC, Boston, MA, Cleveland, OH, New York City, Patterson, NJ, Pittsburgh, PA, and Philadelphia, PA. One of those bombs damaged the home of U.S. Attorney General, A. Mitchell Palmer. More by luck than skill, the bombs killed only two people, the person trying to plant the Palmer bomb, and a night watchman outside Judge Charles Nott’s house in New York. Although an Italian-English dictionary was found in the bomb’s detritus, Palmer used the event to mount a campaign against Russian immigrants on the grounds that they were Bolsheviks. Palmer enlisted the aide of a 24-year-old draft evader named John Edgar Hoover to plan and carry out what became known as the infamous Palmer Raids, in which thousands of people were rounded up, beaten and then released for lack of evidence, rather like today’s alien combatants.

Hoover, a recent Georgetown law school graduate, was a tireless worker, a magnificent organizer and a data sponge who collected information on thousands of people. Unfortunately, Hoover was also completely indifferent to the laws, rules and regulations of the land. He was also a facile and fluent liar. Presumption of innocence was as alien to Hoover and Palmer as it is to Alberto Gonzales, the current Attorney General. Palmer and Hoover also shared the present administration’s aversion to a prisoner’s right to counsel and the right to be informed of the charges against him. Palmer and Hoover worked for a president, Woodrow Wilson, who was more interested in the League of Nations than domestic policy, so they were left entirely to their own devices.

After Palmer’s raids were exposed and the Attorney General skulked into deserved obscurity, Hoover managed to get himself appointed director of the Bureau of Investigations, as the present Federal Bureau of Investigation was known, by the expedient of lying to then Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone. Hoover told Fisk that he really had nothing to do with the Palmer raids. Incredibly, Stone believed him because Hoover had been much too young for much responsibility in 1919. Apparently, it never occurred to him that Hoover might be too young for the responsibility he was giving him.

Thus began a 50 year reign of illegal surveillance, black bag jobs, and mind boggling spin that has made the FBI what it is today.

Oh, by the way, after the Palmer Raids it was discovered that the bomb which destroyed Palmer’s house was probably planted by members of the Galliani gang of anarchists working out of Lynn, MA. By the time their involvement was discovered most members of the gang had left the country. However, two members, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Venzetti, were executed for another crime after a trial of questionable legality.

Young J. Edgar Hoover ought to be read by anyone who would rather study history than repeat it.

Tom Gordon
Tsg0008@sbcglobal.net