G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century

Hoover was made acting director of the Bureau of Investigation in May 1925, putting to rest fears that he would be fired during the housecleaning that took place in the wake of Harding’s many scandals. While harboring grand plans for reforming the bureau, Hoover was initially more concerned with pleasing his boss, Attorney General Harlan Stone, even when Stone ordered the closing of the Radical Division in which Hoover had first made his mark. Still, he was able to improve the bureau’s ability to monitor its own agents and established hiring criteria that prized a background in law or accounting. Yet he was closely monitored by both liberals in government, who objected to his harsh methods during the Red Scare, and conservatives, who were eager to roll back Wilson-era expansions of federal power. Hoover tried to thread this needle by depicting his agents as both loyal servants of the Constitution and upright defenders of traditional morality. Prohibition provided a critical test of this proposition: It involved enforcing a constitutional amendment, as well as addressing the nationwide corruption of police departments, whose officers took bribes in exchange for ignoring illegal alcohol sales. This situation created an opportunity to depict the bureau’s activities as an attempt to improve the operations of state and local police, rather than appropriating their functions on behalf of the federal government.