There have been times in years past when the practices of the FBI have been attacked. Twenty years ago, for instance, before the bureau assumed its present status, it was denounced by many prominent officials and attorneys, including the present Chief Justice Hughes and Justice Frankfurter, as well as by the Senate Judiciary Committee, for the so-called Palmer red raids of 1920. But all attacks on ihe bureau up to now have bounced off without much damage.
The FBI apparently was not created with any Ogpu in mind. It was originally established in 1908 to provide the Justice Department with a permanent investigative force under its own control.
The bureau was elevated in public popularity by the investigation of the Lindbergh kidnap-ring, and after that its growth was phenomenal. One of the first results was passage of a bill giving the FBI agents authority to carry guns, to serve subpoenas and warrants, The bureau is now charged with the enforcement of 21 acts creating Federal crimes, most. of which were passed after the Lindbergh kidnapping, Practically all of these laws were the result of the crime wave which followed repeal and which apparently moved former liquor racketeers into new fields of activity. The chief point of all of them was to bring the Federal power to bear on such persons when they moved across State lines.
At present the FBI has more than 1000 employees of the type who can make investigations and arrests, plus another 1,050 who are chiefly employed in Washington and who range from clerks and stenographers to keepers of the bureau's fingerprint files.
Appropriations from Congress for the FBI have risen rapidly. Whereas in 1933 only about $2,800,000 of the Justice Department funds were allocated to it, in the present fiscal year, ending next June, the total appropriation so far has amounted to $8,775,000. And the bill carrying new Justice Department appropriations carries a total of FBI allocations of $9,910,000. Whether Congress may change its attitude toward the "G-men" as a result of the current attacks and cut this appropriation down somewhat, is a question still to be settled,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.