This Week In History 26 July 1908 Fbi Formed

The US has always encouraged trade among its states and regions

, an arrangement that worked well because of the diversity of the resources of the still-growing country. For more than the first hundred years of its existence, however, disputes continually arose as not just changes in trade but also advances in technology pitted one party against another. And as is so often the case, one of those disputes resulted in the formation of a federal agency whose mission is now very different from its original purpose.

One of those disputes was a case brought before the Supreme Court called Wabash, St. Louis and Pacific Railway Company v. Illinois. Two customers transported the same type of goods from two different towns in Illinois to the same destination in New York. The state of Illinois charged the railroad had engaged in discrimination because it had charged the customer whose goods traveled a shorter distance more than it had charged the customer whose goods had to go eighty-six miles farther to reach their destination.

In its 1886 decision, the Supreme Court said that whether discrimination existed or not, Illinois-and individual states in general-had no jurisdiction over such cases because states had no power to regulate interstate commerce. That power belonged to the federal government.

That decision was followed in 1887 by the Interstate Commerce Act, which made it the responsibility of the federal government to enforce laws regarding interstate matters. At its inception, this fell under the purview of the Justice Department, which had no staff to deal with such matters and did not take much action to correct the shortage until more than a decade later.

At that time, Attorney General Charles Joseph Bonaparte looked to find investigators in other government agencies, including the Secret Service, to deal with these interstate matters. But that agency was still a part of the Treasury Department, and Congress forbade the use of Treasury employees by the Justice Department with a law it passed in 1908.

As a result, the attorney general decided to create a separate formal Bureau of Investigation and staff it with its own special agents. For this he did receive twelve special agents, provided by the Secret Service, who became the first members of the new agency. This was done on July 26, 1908. The new Bureau would not be known as the Federal Bureau of Investigation for years to come-it officially became the FBI in 1935.

The FBI's image of men with a certain "look"-clean-shaven, soberly dressed-has made its way into popular culture, and lends a plot element to the L. Ron Hubbard tale The Chee-Chalker. FBI Agent Bill Norton travels to Ketchikan, Alaska to find out what happened to his boss, who disappeared while investigating a heroin smuggling ring. In the rough-and-ready town of Ketchikan, the smooth-faced and conservatively clad Norton stands out like a sore thumb, which leads some of the local tough guys to decide that he's nothing but a "chee-chalker"-a newcomer, a greenhorn, a tenderfoot-and therefore an easy mark. They learn their error as Norton pursues the case to its inevitable conclusion.

by: Lee Barwood

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