James J. Metcalfe - Early Life and FBI Career

Early Life and FBI Career

Metcalfe was born in Berlin, Germany and emigrated to the United States as a boy. His mother was a concert pianist, He was educated at Notre Dame, and obtained a law degree from Loyola University. Soon after completing law school, Metcalfe joined the FBI's Chicago Bureau, where he participated in operations against several Midwestern gangsters, including Ma Barker, Pretty Boy Floyd, and John Dillinger. Metcalfe was among the agents who ambushed Dillinger outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago, resulting in Dillinger's death.

In later years, after achieving fame as a nationally-syndicated poet, Metcalfe wrote a poem in tribute to those who served with him during the FBI's early years, entitled "We Were the G-Men:"

We were the vaunted G-men once...we did our little bit.
Where now, we could not qualify...to be a part of it.
...
For now the FBI is not the group it used to be...
It is the model of success and of true efficiency.
...
We had to learn the hard way then the things we did not know...
And as we took our chances great, we helped the Bureau grow.
...
We suffered heartaches and we lost the lives of several men,
But surely every one of us would do that job again.
...
Because today the FBI is worthy of its name...
And we are proud and happy that we helped create its fame.

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