an officer as other men his age were being drafted to war, but as sole provider for his mother he was exempt from the draft.He also got his first taste of federal service when his uncle got him a position as a clerk in the files office of the Department of Justice. He quickly rose in the Dept. in part because of the void left by other men his age being drafted. After several successful posts he was finally made acting Chief of the General Bureau of Investigation in 1924. (Bardsley, Ch.2, pp.1-2)Media coverage came quickly for Hoover as he was involved in several high profile busts early in his career. In the early thirties a crime wave was hitting the mid-west. This gangster era was marked by names such as John Dillenger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Machine Gun Kelly, and Ma Barker. This was a time of depression and prohibition, a time when distrust of lawmen and the government was at an all time high. Newspapers and magazines celebrated the crimes and the criminals. (Bardsley, Ch.4, pp.1) Some of the criminals burned mortgages and loan papers as they robbed the banks, this turned them into modern day Robin Hoods and they were made into folk heroes. His first bust involved the capture of Machine Gun Kelly. Hoover made the arrest at Kelly’s farm without the firing of one bullet. The newspapers loved it.They praised Hoover and the articles made up ground in the public trust. The Bureau was taking on a whole new image with the American people. (Bardsley, Ch.4, pp.2)His future media attention would not be so clean. When John Dillenger, a convicted bank robber, and Public Enemy Number One, escapes from prison another Special Agent, Melvin Purvis, asks for Hoover’s help. They set Dillenger up with the help of a local madam and Dillenger is gunned down in an alleyway as he leaves a theater. Again the media swarms over this real-life drama. This time they are not as generous to Hoover with their praise. Purvis gets all of the credit for t...
