The FBI ’s Begining

https./rockingwithdannie.blogspot.com2024/7/the FBIsbeginingtpl 

In 1900, William McKinley, our 25th President,   faced  several  serious problems... Anarchists, who wanted to bring down the government, and increasing crime. In his second term he was assassinated by  an Anarchist  and his  Vice-president, Theodore Roosevelt, former Governor of New York, became President.

 Rosevelt was a strong believer in laws and their enforcement.  He appointed  Charles  Bonaparte, a man of  like beliefs,  as  US Attorney  General.  Bonaparte soon .discovered he had very few men to carry-out  the investigations  his job required. He solved  the problem by “borrowing” well -trained, men from the Secret Service.  This was  very  expensive, and  these   men made their reports to  their boss, leaving  Bonaparte  in the dark.

When Congress  decided there was no law  authorizing this expenditure  they canceled the funds  After a long and  complicated session with Congress an agreement  was reached, and funds were made available for the Attorney General to form an  investigative force  of his own.

The  year was 1908. and considered the year the fledgling FBI was born in the form of the Bureau of  Investigation. It operated under. this name (((or BOI),  for a number of years then changed to the Federal   Bureau of Investigation–the FBI.

From a  beginning work force of about forty, it has grown  to 35,000 including over 10,000 special agents and others with special knowledge and talents.

 

Mothe's Yard https://rockingwithdannie.blogspot.com/2024/07/mothes-yard.html

petunia

In the 30s  and 40s,  green close clipped lawns were a rarity.  Although lawn mowers had been invented, these were years of the Great Depression and very  few people had money for  such a non-essential item. 

 So yards were bare ground  and  either raked smooth or swept, depending upon the type of soil. My mother's yard was of deep sand.  Sweeping was a hopeless  project, and raking almost  as bad, so she pulled up the weeds  and bought a few packages of flower seeds.

Of course, they were annuals, but when  the flowers are allowed to mature, and  drop their seeds they’re almost as nice as perennials Every petunia and phlox seed must have come up.

Snapdragon and larkspur were not as plentiful, but had enough blooms to pick a few for playtime–like making necklaces by stringing their flowers together, or popping  the snapdragons“mouths” open.  Hollyhocks towered over it all.

The sandy sidewalk was lined  with jonquils, the smaller, fragrant version of daffodils  Perennial sweet-pea grew nearby.   It was actually a  vine,  but mother contained  it with a wrap  of chicken  wire to  hold its  tendrils in a  bush-like mound. 

There was no place for a vine to grow  because the  only  fence  was between the house  and the field,  and was covered with a trumpet  vinevine, and both ends  of the front  porch were covered with honeysuckle and Seven  Sisters rose vines.  

 It’s an understatement to  say  my  mother loved flowers.

My Civics Class 1941 https://rockingwithdannie.blogspot.com/2024/07.html

The most memorable teacher of my high school days was my civics teacher, a man named Kroeger. He had a distinct accent, German , we thought, but made the lesson absolutely clear; and with good reason. He had immigrated to the US to escape the rise of Nazism in Germany.

  

Each day we were tested on the previous day’s lesson. We groaned and protested, but  nothing changed–Mr. Kroeger continued to pound the details of our government into our heads, always stressing that it would be our responsibility as adults to not only vote, but also take part in community affairs.

It was the fall of 1941 and inspire of the daily tests, we liked Mr. Kroeger.  We were pleased that he had chosen our county because of its system of government, but mostly because he was a likable person. His lectures on our freedoms fell a little flat on kids who had never experienced anything else.

Then, the attack on Pearl Harbor happened, and our level of patriotism shot up as we  considered the posibility of Nazism or Fascism setting foot in our country.

Mr. Kroeger did not return the next year. Whether his contract wasn’t renewed. or he simply moved on, or, since we were at war, fighting Nazism’s take-over of Europe. he may have enlisted. Its something I’ve wondered about for years.

 

I am grateful for that class, although today I use Google more than my memory.