By working at the Library of Congress, he had a chance to watch Herbert Putnam, a master in the art of bureaucratic empire building. In Putnam's stewardship over the library, he made it one of the most efficient parts of the federal government.
This Librarian did well at the Library of Congress. In his four years and a half years there (1913 to 1917), his pay rose steadily to $70 a month.
Later he found the skills he learned as a librarian invaluable....
Suddenly America faced the menace of Communism and our character took a leading role in fighting it. He responded to this new challenge immediately. "The former librarian set up a card index system listing every radical leader, organization, and publication in the United States...within three months he had amassed 150,000 names and by 1921 some 450,000."(Gentry)
He immersed himself in reading everything he could get his hands on about the Communist movement. To fight this enemy he had to thoroughly understand it and its objectives. He was preparing himself to become the most knowledgeable person in government on the subject. As Powers points out, these growing files on various radical movements gave him "a semi-monopoly over a sort of information so difficult to obtain, so extensive in coverage, and so commonly inaccessible as to make its independent verification almost impossible."
This ultimately provided the power and foundation of the now famous and infamous life of......... J Edgar Hoover :)
Court TV Crime Library
 | R. Philip Reynolds preynolds@sfasu.edu rm. 202b 936.468.1453 Subjects - Computer Science, Military Science, Philosophy/Religion, Political Science/Geography |
