The federal Bureau of Investigation before Hoover: Volume 1: The fBI and Mexican Revolutionists, 1908-1914

The federal Bureau of Investigation was founded in 1908 to provide the Justice Department with its own investigative force. The Bureau began with an emphasis on land fraud investigations and Mann Act enforcement. This focus quickly transformed into enforcement of the US Neutrality Laws mostly along the border with Mexico. Resistance against President Porfirio Diaz began with the Flores-Magon movement, largely based in the US and seen as a national security threat because of connections to the anarchist and labor movements. Marking the beginning of the Mexican Revolution, Francisco Madero, who organized his faction on US soil, overthrew Diaz in 1911. He was himself overthrown and killed in 1913 after several challenges to his rule from factions emanating from Texas. In the resulting civil war, all major revolutionary factions continued to source finance and supplies in the US. Smuggling, profiteering, mounting armed incursions, and recruiting for the different Mexican factions set the border on fire. Navigating local resistance to federal involvement, hostile courts, corruption, and switching loyalties of Mexican revolutionary leaders posed the largest challenges for the burgeoning Bureau. Meeting these challenges on a shoestring budget, and suffering some embarrassing setbacks, the Bureau developed from a small office in Washington DC into an effective national investigative force within a few years. The expansion of the Bureau accelerated rapidly under the leadership of A. Bruce Bielaski, who became the second chief of the Bureau in 1912. Neutrality Law enforcement prepared the Bureau for the challenges of the coming World War, when it developed from largely a law enforcement agency to the premier intelligence and counterintelligence agency of the US government.