William J. Burns
William J. Burns | |
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Director of the Bureau of Investigation | |
In office August 22, 1921 – May 10, 1924 | |
President | Warren G. Harding Calvin Coolidge |
Deputy | J. Edgar Hoover |
Preceded by | William J. Flynn |
Succeeded by | J. Edgar Hoover |
Personal details | |
Born | Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. | October 19, 1861
Died | April 14, 1932 Sarasota, Florida, U.S. | (aged 70)
Signature | |
William John Burns (October 19, 1861 – April 14, 1932) was an American private investigator and law enforcement official. He was known as "America's Sherlock Holmes" and earned fame for having conducted private investigations into a number of notable incidents, such as clearing Leo Frank of the 1913 murder of Mary Phagan,[1] and for investigating the deadly 1910 Los Angeles Times bombing conducted by members of the International Association of Bridge, Structural, Ornamental and Reinforcing Iron Workers.[2] From August 22, 1921, to May 10, 1924, Burns served as the director of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), predecessor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
He was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and he was educated in Columbus, Ohio. As a young man, Burns performed well as a Secret Service Agent and parleyed his reputation into the William J. Burns International Detective Agency, now a part of Securitas Security Services USA. A combination of natural ability as a detective combined with an instinct for publicity made Burns a national figure. His exploits made national news, the gossip columns of New York City newspapers, and the pages of detective magazines, in which he published "true" crime stories based on his exploits.
Marriage and children
Burns married Annie M. Ressler in 1880. The couple had six children. Burns's sons, Raymond J. and William Sherman, also worked as detectives for the William J. Burns National Detective Agency.[3]
Los Angeles Times bombing
The City of Los Angeles hired Burns to catch those responsible for the bombing of the Los Angeles Times building on October 1, 1910, which killed 20 people. Revenge or anger was the suspected motive as Times publisher Harrison Gray Otis was a staunch opponent of labor unions, and the incident was similar to a nationwide series of dozens of earlier but not-fatal bomb attacks that Burns had been investigating for the National Erector Association.[4]
After months of investigation, Burns's son Raymond and police officers from the Detroit and Chicago police departments arrested Jim McNamara and associate Ortie McManigal on April 14, 1911, in Detroit. Ironworkers Union secretary-treasurer John McNamara, Jim's brother, was arrested later that month in Indianapolis, Indiana. Extradited to Los Angeles, the brothers pleaded guilty to murder in the bombing.[5] The MacNamara brothers were important members of the Ironwokers Union and the investigation implicated numerous other members of the union up to President Frank M. Ryan.[2] Burns's investigation found the Ironworkers Union leadership knew and approved of over 100 bombings between 1905 and 1910, perhaps the largest domestic terrorism campaign in American history.[2]
BOI career
Burns was considered well qualified to direct the Bureau of Investigation, and was friends with President
At the request of Attorney General Daugherty, Burns sent agents to investigate Montana Sen.
Burns Detective Agency and Teapot Dome
In October 1924, the CPUSA's Daily Worker newspaper reported that Jacob Spolansky, recently resigned from the BOI, had joined the Burns Detective Agency, run by "Bill" Burns, "King of Dicks."[8]
Burns also became indirectly involved in the
At a new hearing, Sinclair's defense was that he had had the jurors followed to protect them against federal influences and that in no case had the operatives made direct contact with the jurors. Sinclair was convicted on corruption charges and sentenced to six months in jail, Day to four months' imprisonment, William J. Burns to 15 days' imprisonment, and Burns's son, William Sherman Burns, was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine. The father immediately appealed, and the Supreme Court later reversed his conviction (Sinclair v. United States, 279 US 749 – Supreme Court 1929).[9]
Later life and death
After his retirement from the Burns Detective Agency, Burns moved to Florida and for several years published detective and mystery stories based on his long career. He died of a heart attack in Sarasota, Florida, in April 1932.
Burns was portrayed by actor Paul Dooley in the television miniseries The Murder of Mary Phagan and by Gary Basaraba in the film Killers of the Flower Moon.
Writings
- The masked war; the story of a peril that threatened the United States New York, George H. Doran Co. 1913
- The Argyle case with Arthur Hornblow, Harriot Ford and Harvey O'Higgins New York, London, Harper, 1913
- The crevice with Isabel Ostrander New York : Grosset & Dunlap, 1915
See also
- Palmer raids
- Teapot DomeScandal
- Gaston Bullock Means
- The $5,000,000 Counterfeiting Plot
Notes
- ^ Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, at 210 (Modern Library 2003).
- ^ a b c Robert Fitch (2006) Solidarity for Sale: How Corruption Destroyed the Labor Movement and Undermined America's Promise. Bublic Affairs Books
- ^ Bailey William G. ed., The Encyclopedia of Police Science, second edition(1995) Pg. 49.
- ^ Adamic, Louis. Dynamite: The Story of Class Violence in America. New York: Viking Press, 1931.
- ISBN 978-0-307-34694-0
- ISBN 9781613734254.
- ISBN 978-0-300-11914-5, p. 79
- ^ Manuel Gomez (October 27, 1924). "Spolansky and His Old Pal, 'Bill' Burns, King of Dicks, Casting Their Lots Together" (PDF). Daily Worker. p. 1. Retrieved November 19, 2022.
- ^ Time Magazine, Day In, Burns Out, June 10, 1929
References
- Caeser, Gene. Incredible Detective: The Biography of William J. Burns. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.
- Blum, Howard. American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century. New York: Crown, September 2008. ISBN 0-307-34694-3
- Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri, The FBI: A History, University Press of Kentucky (2007), ISBN 978-0-300-11914-5
External links
- "Federal Bureau of Investigation: Directors, Then and Now". Archived from the original on July 19, 2014. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
- Works by William J. Burns at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about William J. Burns at Internet Archive
- Works by William J. Burns at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)