te of then Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover. J. Edgar was eventually offered the job only after he was able to convince Stone that he was innocent of any corruption from the previous administration. Hoover accepted the job on two conditions that he created. Fist, the "Bureau must be divorced from politics and not be a catch-all for political hacks. Appointments must be made on merit. Second, promotions will be made on proved ability and the Bureau will be responsible only to the Attorney General." Hoover held the belief that those of high moral character could be trusted and expert administrators of this type could be relied on best to enforce the laws in a fair manner. Stone shared these views, but differed on exactly how these laws should be enforced. He set forth certain rules of investigation against wiretaps and investigations into political activities. Hoover began to follow these orders at first by severing ties with those that were not of the sound character he was looking for in the Bureau. It seemed as though he was working furiously to clean up the Bureau as the new Attorney General had set out to do. Through his great effort and loyalty to his superiors many people excluded the idea that Hoover would ever disregard an order from Stone. This trust was extremely misplaced by many though. Hoover had begun to reform the operations of the Bureau and was able to improve the quality of its performance, but he had had not completely ended his surveillance of radical groups that could possibly be a danger to the federal government in the future. He was able to achieve this by having his field offices name their agents as "confidential informants" in all reports. This took a large cooperation among his men who were in charge of each office. It was also a testament to their loyalty to Hoover since each of these men knew what the new rules were. The Attorney General had made several public statements assuring the public that viola...
