G-man—that is the word the American criminal underworld uses for its worst enemy. Government-man, an oticer of the United States Government who watches for violations of any federal law. In the last few years, G-man has come to mean a member of J. Edgar Hoover's Federal Bureau of Investigation. The bureau has been mostly concerned with kidnappers, bank robbers, and gangsters Who cross state lines and thereby come under federal jurisdiction, There are at least nine other government agencies, however, that also do detective work and check violations of federal law.
Seven of the detective services are in the Treasury Department. They are as follows: Customs Patrol—The customs men search baggage when people go back into the United States. They look for articles upon which the law requires one to pay duty. They deal in everything which enters American ports—narcotics, dia-mands, onions. These men are stationed in every port in the United States. They also cover the land borders, and check entries from Canada and Mexico, Customs Investigative Unit—The men in this bureau are mostly plain-clothes men, Their business is to investigate smugglers' gangs, and to give the officers in port tips as to when illegal shipments of any kind may arrive.
Coast Guard.—Three-fourths of the men in this service are assigned to life-saving stations, The rest of them ce-operate with the Customs Patrol and Customs Investigative Unit, When a ship is suspected of smuggling, coast-guard cutters shadow it from continent to continent. They pick up and decode the smugglers' radio signals. When they wish to prevent messages being sent, they jam the traders' wireless, Bureau of Narcotics—These agents are plain-clothes detectives to a man. Their business is to stop the sale of narcotics throughout the United States. (The customs services check the importation of drugs). Alcohol Tax Unit Enforcement Division.—Tracking down stills and following the trails of illegal vendors occupy more than 1,600 men in this department,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.