Chief Askew's Diary: March 12, 1930

He calls on the Justice Department to investigate an interstate car theft

A “young Negro boy” driving a Hudson Coach automobile had a wreck on Newnan’s Greenville Street — a popular place for crashes! — this afternoon, abandoned the car and made a run for it, but was apprehended at the train station.

“Had a telegram from the Department of Justice this p.m. said they would be down tomorrow and investigate him,” he wrote. It turns out the car had gone missing in Birmingham, Alabama, and because it had traveled across state lines, it became a federal case. “He is now reclining in the clay top,” the chief wrote. I don’t know what he means by that, but it sounds a bit ominous.

The DOJ’s Bureau of Investigation was headed by J. Edgar Hoover, who would remain in the job — for better or for worse — for five decades. Paid subscribers can read on about its role in recovering stolen cars and trucks.

This 1924 photo of an up-and-coming Hoover is from the collection of the Library of Congress, accessed via Wikimedia Commons.