Federal Bureau of Investigation

Founding and Early History

Although the FBI is the best known federal law enforcement agency, it is neither the largest nor the oldest. From its creation in 1870 until 1908, the Department of Justice had no special agents of its own but relied on either private detectives or agents from the Secret Service to investigate its cases. In 1907, a year before Congress passed legislation restricting the Secret Service to investigating counterfeiting and protecting the president of the United States, Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte was refused congressional approval to hire his own investigative staff but, with approval from President Theodore Roosevelt, on July 26, 1908, he created an investigative agency to which the President transferred a number of Secret Service agents. Despite the controversy surrounding its creation, this unit attracted little attention under its first chief, Stanley W. Finch, who, reflecting the agency's roots in the Secret Service, held the title of chief examiner. In 1909, Attorney General George Wickersham named the group the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) and changed Finch's title to chief.

The BOI concentrated on banking, bankruptcy, antitrust, naturalization, peonage, and land fraud matters, since there were few federal criminal statutes and the investigations of most crimes were the responsibility of local police. Because no formal training was offered, preference was given to applicants with prior law enforcement backgrounds. The first significant movement toward a broad definition of federal crimes came in 1910, with the passage of the White Slave Traffic Act (better known as the Mann Act), which made it a federal offense to transport a woman across state lines for an immoral purpose. With U.S. entry into World War 1 in 1917 the BOI investigated acts of sabotage, espionage, and draft-dodging under the Selective Service Act. Agents also engaged in counterintelligence efforts against Germany even before U.S. entry into the war and agents stationed near the Mexican border concentrated on neutrality matters, smuggling, and intelligence collection in conjunction with the aftermath of the Mexican revolution.

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