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Q '92 0 0 s> February 22, 1940 Honorable Robert H. Jackson Attorney General Department of Justice Washington, D. C. my dear Mr. Jackson: H. It is with considerable hesitancy that I write you_upon the subject of the activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have heard so many complaints of the activities of this Bureau that it has seemed to me I ought to write you regarding them. _ I have made no attempt to investigate the various charges I have heard, but from what I have heard, from sources I believe to be reliable, I cannot help but reach the conclusion that there is some well-grounded fear that the activities of this Bureau are overstepping and overreaching the legitimate objects for which it was created. I have also heard considerable complaint as to the treatment which has been given by this Bureau to persons arrested, tending to humiliate prisoners unnecessarily, often to prevent them from pursuing the ordinary means and methods which, it seems to me, under the Constitution ought to be open to everyone who is charged with a crime. These complaints have been so widespread and some of them have been given such publicity that you are perhaps as well aware of them as I am, and know better than I would know whether the legitimate rights and liberties of any of our people have been frustrated and denied. For example, it has been alleged and given considerable publicity that in Detroit quite a number of persons were arrested and handcuffed to- gether, and their pictures taken in this condition. As I understand it, the charge against these people was that they had assisted men to enlist in the Loyalist Army in Spain. They were not criminals; there was no reason to believe that any of them would try to escape. They were not charged with an offense that had any odium attached to it, and yet they were treated as if they were well known to be criminals of the lowest type. This treatment of any citizen has a tendency to coerce him, to'break him down, to disgrace him.unnecessarily, and is, it seems to um, indefensible. About this some time, other similar arrests were made in other cities of the United States,