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St. Louis City Resolution Number 133 July 11, 2008 |
| Resolutions adopted during the 2008 session by the St. Louis City
Board of Aldermen have been converted to electronic format by the staff of the St. Louis
Public Library. This electronic version has been done for the interest and convenience of
the user. These are unofficial versions and should be used as unofficial copies. Official printed copies of St. Louis City Ordinances may be obtained from the Register's Office at the St. Louis City Hall. |
WHEREAS, we pause in our deliberations to recognize the 100th Anniversary of the Federal Bureau of Investigations; and
WHEREAS, the FBI, originally created as the Bureau of Investigation, was created on July 26, 1908 to assist the Attorney General in investigating criminal cases. Attorney General Bonaparte appointed a force of Special Agents within the Department of Justice. Accordingly, ten former Secret Service employees and a number of Department of Justice peonage (i.e., compulsory servitude) investigators became Special Agents of the Department of Justice. On July 26, 1908, Bonaparte ordered them to report to Chief Examiner Stanley W. Finch. This action is celebrated as the beginning of the FBI; and
WHEREAS, the first major expansion in Bureau jurisdiction came in June 1910 when the Mann ("White Slave") Act was passed, making it a crime to transport women over state lines for immoral purposes. It also provided a tool by which the federal government could investigate criminals who evaded state laws but had no other federal violations; and
WHEREAS, on May 10, 1924, J. Edgar Hoover was selected to head the Bureau of Investigation. When Hoover took over, the Bureau of Investigation had approximately 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents who worked in field offices in nine cities. By the end of the decade, there were approximately 30 field offices, with Divisional headquarters in New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Chicago, Kansas City, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Portland. He also scheduled regular inspections of the operations in all field offices. Then, in January 1928, Hoover established a formal training course for new Agents, including the requirement that New Agents had to be in the 25-35 year range to apply. He also returned to the earlier preference for Special Agents with law or accounting experience; and
WHEREAS, during the early and mid-1930s several crucial decisions solidified the Bureau's position as the nation's premier law enforcement agency. Responding to the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby, in 1932, Congress passed a federal kidnapping statute. Then in May and June 1934, with gangsters like John Dillinger evading capture by crossing over state lines, it passed a number of federal crime laws that significantly enhanced the Bureau's jurisdiction. In the wake of the Kansas City Massacre, Congress also gave Bureau Agents statutory authority to carry guns and make arrests; and
WHEREAS, since 1917, the FBI and its predecessor agencies had investigated suspected acts of espionage and sabotage. In 1939 and again in 1943, Presidential directives had authorized the FBI to carry out investigations of threats to national security. This role was clarified and expanded under Presidents Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. Any public or private agency or individual with information about subversive activities was urged to report it to the FBI. Later, executive orders from both Presidents Truman and Eisenhower gave the FBI responsibility for investigating allegations of disloyalty among federal employees. In these cases, the agency requesting the investigation made the final determination; the FBI only conducted the investigation and reported the results. Many suspected and convicted spies, such as Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, had been federal employees. Therefore, background investigations were considered to be just as vital as cracking major espionage cases; and
WHEREAS, the turning point in federal civil rights actions occurred in the summer of 1964, with the murder of voting registration workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and James Chaney near Philadelphia, Mississippi. At the Department of Justice's request, the FBI conducted the investigation as it had in previous, less-publicized racial incidents. Only after 1966, when the Supreme Court made it clear that federal law could be used to prosecute civil rights violations, were seven men found guilty. By the late 1960s, the confluence of unambiguous federal authority and local support for civil rights prosecutions allowed the FBI to play an influential role in enabling African Americans to vote, serve on juries, and use public accommodations on an equal basis. Other civil rights investigations included the assasination of Martin Luther King, Jr., with the arrest of James Earl Ray, and the murder of Medger Evers, Mississippi Field Secretary of the NAACP, with the arrest of Byron De La Beckwith who, after two acquittals, was finally found guilty in 1994; and
WHEREAS, throughout the 1980s, the illegal drug trade severely challenged the resources of American law enforcement. To ease this challenge, in 1982 the Attorney General gave the FBI concurrent jurisdiction with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) over narcotics violations in the United States. The expanded Department of Justice attention to drug crimes resulted in the confiscation of millions of dollars in controlled substances, the arrests of major narcotics figures, and the dismantling of important drug rings; and
WHEREAS, on September 4, 2001, former U.S. Attorney Robert S. Mueller, III was sworn in as FBI Director (2001 to present) with a specific mandate to upgrade the Bureau's information technology infrastructure, to address records management issues, and to enhance FBI foreign counterintelligence analysis and security in the wake of the damage done by former Special Agent and convicted spy Robert Hanssen. Within days of his entering on duty, however, the September 11 terrorist attacks were launched against New York and Washington. Director Mueller led the FBI's massive investigative efforts in partnership with all U.S. law enforcement, the federal government, and allies overseas. On October 26, 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the U.S. Patriot Act, which granted new provisions to address the threat of terrorism, and Director Mueller accordingly accepted on behalf of the Bureau responsibility for protecting the American people against future terrorist attacks. On May 29, 2002, the Attorney General issued revised investigative guidelines to assist the Bureau's counterterrorism efforts
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED by the Board of Aldermen of the City of St. Louis that we pause to recognize the many contributions of the Federal Bureau of Investigations to the citizens of the City of St. Louis and, and we further direct the Clerk of this Board to spread a copy of this Resolution across the minutes of these proceedings and to prepare a memorial copy for presentation at a time and place deemed appropriate by the Sponsor.
Introduced on the 11th day of July, 2008 by:
Honorable Samuel L. Moore Alderman 4th Ward
Adopted this the 11th day of July, 2008 as attested by:
_____________________
David W. Sweeney
Clerk, Board of Aldermen____________________________
Lewis E. Reed
President, Board of Aldermen