Last edit March 23, 2023, 8:28 PM ET

To see the document larger click on it once, click on it again, and click on it once more. 

Bruce Mcnamee,
correspondent for the International News Service,
Munsey Building, Washington, DC,
to  "Mr. [John Edgar] Hoover."
November 10, 1919.

Significant Contents: The journalist, W. Bruce Macnamee, writes to J. Edgar Hoover that Agent Burke (Assistant Director and Chief of the Bureau of Investigation, Washington, DC) suggested he contact Hoover, then head of the US Justice  Department's General Intelligence Division (GID), to report on "this Adams woman."

Macnamee says Eve is working for The Liberator (a major socialist periodical) and that he met her “while covering the industrial conference recently.” She “talks communism constantly,” he says, and she has “bright red hair cropped short, and looks the part [of a radical] in every way."

Macnamee refers to The First Industrial Conference called by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, October 6 To 23, 1919. The proceedings of the conference were published as a book. 

On October 11, 1919, The Liberator reported that it had assigned “Eve Adams” to cover a conference in Washington, D.C., the first public report of Eve using her whole new name, and the first reference to Eve as a reporter and potential writer.
Source: “The following press representatives have been assigned to cover the conference” called by President Wilson in Washington, DC. Liberator (N. Y.)—Eve Adams”.
SOURCE: “Four Editors in Big Conference: Newspaper Men Called to Help Solve Country’s Big Problems,” Fourth Estate, October 11, 1919, 12, via Google Books. It apparently at this conference that Eve met journalist Macnamee and talked to him about socialism or communism, resulting in his alerting John Edgar Hoover to Eve as a radical of interest.

Topic for discussion: "communism"
What might “talks communism constantly” mean? Is Macnamee referring to communism, socialism, anarchism, syndicalism, or some other left radical movments?

Topic for discussion: "bright red hair cropped short"
What does Macnamee means by referring to Eve's "hair cropped short"? What does he means by referring to Eve's gender presentation in this way? 

Research:
What can research in newspapers and perhaps in Macnamee's papers tell us about his politics, including his gender politics?

Background: Lawyer John Edgar Hoover was first hired by the Department of Justice on July 26, 1917, and rose quickly in government service.

In November 1918, he was named assistant to the attorney general, and the following year [1919], he led the Department's General Intelligence Division (GID).

When the GID was moved into the Bureau of Investigation in 1921, he was named assistant director of the BOI.

On May 10, 1924, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone appointed the 29-year-old Hoover acting director of the Bureau, and by the end of the year Mr. Hoover was named Director. See the FBI website: https://www.fbi.gov/history/directors/j-edgar-hoover

Document discovered by Brian Joseph Ferree on Fold3.