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142 Canadun Review of American Srud1es Revue canadtenne detudes amencames David R. Johnson. Illegal Tender: Counterfeiting and the Secret Service in Nmeteenth-Century America. Washington and London: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1995. Pp. 222 and illustrations and tables and index. Professor of history at the University of San Antonio, Texas, David Johnson has written several prominent monographs on crime, including Policing tl.w UrbcmUnderworld (Temple University Press, 1979) and American Law Enforcement : A History (Forum Press, 1981). The current book is an extension of that research, investigating the origins of the Secret Service in 1865, and documenting the history of its law enforcement campaign against counterfeiting down to the end of the century. Utilizing essentially the National Archives, the New York City Archives, and the New Jersey and Ohio historical societies, Johnson has written a highly lucid and at times entertainmg account of the history of illegal paper notes. Along the way, the reader becomes acquainted with the crime-detecting strategies of the service, and its role in the growth of federalism and state formation in the late nineteenth century. The Secret Service was established-under the Treasury Department in 1865-to combat unlawful paper money, and from 1871 onward to enforce the department's exclusive distribution of such currency as part of the expansion of the national economy under Reconstruction. The early nineteenth century marked the transition of paper notes, distributed by pushers and shavers in rural areas, to manufacturing operations in the cities, centred by the 1820s in the unskilled, immigrant, working-class area of Lower Manhattan . The transition also represented a shift from native-born Americans to English, Irish, and eventually Italian immigrants. The notes, whether lawful or unlawful, depended upon institutional networks for their distribution. With the scarcity of money in the 1860s, it was estimated that nearly eighty percent of all notes were counterfeit. Thus local merchants made them, thieves provided them, and constables and marshals were paid off to not prosecute them. The expansion of this illicit m,mufacture and trade to LoU1s1ana , Texas, the Ohio Valley, and Midwest by 1865, caused the creation of the service by Lincoln's cabinet on the day of his assassination. The first, and future, generations of Secret Service directors and officers are fully related in their complexities. Criminal backgrounds, flawed characters, and peripatetic careers highlight their common elements; while interdepartment rivalries, frequent changes in leadership, and the ill will of state and municipal bureaucracies impeded their progress. With a srnff of no more than twenty-five men Book Reviews 143 from 1875 to 1910, their success in disposing of counterfeiting as a maior concern in the first decade of the new century was attributed to high moral standards, good pay, and career advancement. By 1910, this success enabled the service to expand its surveillance activities to the departments of State, \Xlar, Interior, and Justice. This general interpretation has some internal problems. First, the evidence for the history of the service's personnel is thin. There is considerable 111formation on its administration, but it is not clear how the administration actually advanced the work of its men. Neither is it dear how departments which considered the Service a rival institution furthered its growth and development. Indeed, the chronicle of ups and downs recorded here obscures the central thesis of its inexorable rise. Finally, the high rate of guilty pleas by those arrested, especially with bogus bail bonders, inept prosecutors, bought witnesses, and bribed jurors, calls into question the success that can be attributed to the criminal justice system. There are several highlights in this book. One is the detailed tables (for which there is no list ot) which present some of the results of the author's research in tabular form. These include arrests of counterfeiters both by geographical area, and time period. The second highlight is the considerable information that is provided on the major players, who include Andrew Drummond, James Brooks, Elmer Washburn, Hiram C. Whitley, and William P. Wood. Three is the author's willingness to engage the service at both the micro and macro levels. The fourth highlight is the insights into the urban context of organized crime in its formative era. Clearly written and...

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