J. Edgar Hoover (Our America)

John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 - April 4, 1968) was the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigation from 1924 to 1933, the 32nd Vice President of the United States from 1933 to 1936, and the 32nd President of the United States from 1936 to 1965.

Early Life
John Edgar Hoover was born on New Year's Day 1895 in Washington, D.C., to Anna Marie (née Scheitlin; 1860–1938), who was of Swiss-German descent, and Dickerson Naylor Hoover, Sr. (1856–1921), who was of English and German ancestry. Hoover's maternal great-uncle, John Hitz, was a Swiss honorary consul general to the United States. He was the closest to his mother in the family, who was the family's moral guide and disciplinarian. Hoover did not have a birth certificate filed upon his birth, although it was required in 1895 Washington. Two of his siblings had certificates, but Hoover's was not filed until 1938 when he was 43.

Hoover grew up near the Eastern Market in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood and attended Central High School, where he sang in the school choir, participated in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, and competed on the debate team. During debates, he argued against women getting the right to vote and against the abolition of the death penalty. The school newspaper applauded his "cool, relentless logic." Hoover stuttered as a boy, which he overcame by teaching himself to talk quickly—a style that he carried through his adult career. He eventually spoke with such ferocious speed that stenographers had a hard time following him.

He obtained a Bachelor of Laws from The George Washington University Law School in 1916, where he was a member of the Alpha Nu Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Order, and an LL.M. in 1917 from the same university. While a law student, Hoover became interested in the career of Anthony Comstock, the New York City U.S. Postal Inspector, who waged prolonged campaigns against fraud, vice, pornography, and birth control. Hoover lived in Washington, D.C. for his entire life.

Hoover was 18 years old when he accepted his first job, an entry-level position as messenger in the orders department, at the Library of Congress. The library was a half mile from his house. The experience shaped both Hoover and the creation of the FBI profiles; as Hoover noted in a 1951 letter, "This job [...] trained me in the value of collating material. It gave me an excellent foundation for my work in the FBI where it has been necessary to collate information and evidence."

Department of Justice
Immediately after getting his LL.M. degree, Hoover was hired by the Justice Department to work in the War Emergency Division. He soon became the head of the Division's Alien Enemy Bureau, authorized by President Wilson at the beginning of World War I to arrest and jail disloyal foreigners without trial. He received additional authority from the 1917 Espionage Act. Out of a list of 1,400 suspicious Germans living in the U.S., the Bureau arrested 98 and designated 1,172 as arrestable.

In August 1919, Hoover became head of the Bureau of Investigation's new General Intelligence Division—also known as the Radical Division because its goal was to monitor and disrupt the work of domestic radicals. America's First Red Scare was beginning, and one of Hoover's first assignments was to carry out the Palmer Raids.

Hoover and his chosen assistant, George Ruch, monitored a variety of U.S. radicals with the intent to punish, arrest, or deport those whose politics they decided were dangerous. Targets during this period included Marcus Garvey; Rose Pastor Stokes and Cyril Briggs; Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman; and future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter, who, Hoover maintained, was "the most dangerous man in the United States".

In 1921, Hoover rose in the Bureau of Investigation to deputy head.

Bureau of Investigation Director
In 1924, the Attorney General made him the acting director. On May 10, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Hoover as the sixth Director of the Bureau of Investigation, partly in response to allegations that the prior director, William J. Burns, was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal. When Hoover took over the Bureau of Investigation, it had approximately 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents.

Hoover was sometimes unpredictable in his leadership. He frequently fired Bureau agents, singling out those he thought "looked stupid like truck drivers," or whom he considered "pinheads."He also relocated agents who had displeased him to career-ending assignments and locations; Melvin Purvis was a prime example. Purvis was one of the most effective agents in capturing and breaking up 1930s gangs, and it is alleged that Hoover maneuvered him out of the Bureau because Hoover was jealous of the substantial public recognition Purvis received.

Hoover often hailed local law-enforcement officers around the country, and built up a national network of supporters and admirers in the process. One whom he often commended for particular effectiveness was the conservative sheriff of Caddo Parish, Louisiana, J. Howell Flournoy.

In the 1930s, after the onset of the 1929 Recession, Hoover took a large role in fighting gang violence and robberies, especially in the Midwest. Hoover led the investigation into many serial criminals, mobsters, but resigned before all of them could be finished, and most were finished by his successor, Clyde Tolson. Hoover began to use movies and advertisements to bring up public support for the "Crime War", and became a nationally supported figure, and very popular with Americans from rich to poor.

Primaries
As Hoover's reputation increased across the United States, he grew closer to the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover, who was increasingly unpopular due to the 1929 Recession. In December of 1931, after Director Hoover's successful arrest of Al Capone, confidence in President Hoover's government inched up from the abyss. President Hoover increased funding for the Bureau of Investigation, and in February of 1932, filed to run for re-election. In the Republican primaries, President Hoover was challenged by Maryland Senator Joseph Irwin France. Director Hoover, an aggressive anti-communist and segregationist, attacked Joseph France for meeting with Lenin, calling him a "communist radical", and for advocating for civil rights and speaking to the NAACP, saying "he puts the rights of negroes over the rights of Americans". Despite France's initial momentum with moderate and progressive Republicans, the conservative wing, led by President Hoover and Director Hoover won ten out of the fourteen primaries, with France only carrying two. The Republicans, worried about the low popularity of the President, ran a tight ship at the Republican National Convention.

Convention
The Republican Parry runs a tightly controlled, strict convention on the presidential ballot. President Hoover is easily renominated with 1,133 votes for President. Other votes are scattered between Senator France and Former President Calvin Coolidge. On the Vice Presidential ballot, however, the peace is broken. A coalition of young, urban, and conservative Republicans rally behind J. Edgar Hoover to be nominated as President Hoover's VP. Incumbent Vice President Charles Curtis is in Washington D.C., and word reaches him far too late, once the balloting has already begun. J. Edgar Hoover announces he will be a candidate for Vice President. The President privately supports Hoover for Vice-President, but doesn't want to lose the establishment vote by betraying Curtis. Instead, President Hoover makes no public announcement.