Meck-South Rotary Club :: A Friday with the Secret Service
If you're in Charlotte and would like to attend Charlotte's most active, fun-filled Rotary Club, join us each Friday morning at Piper Glen Country Club (7:30) for an hour of breakfast, entertainment and comaradarie! You'll definitely want to be in attendance this Friday when we have Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Charlotte Secret Service Office, Glen Kessler, as our speaker.
Piper Glen Country Club | 4300 Piper Glen Drive | Charlotte, North Carolina | 28277
Thank you Tinny Shifley for providing this lesson in the history of the Secret Service for us:
During the Civil War, as much as one-third of the nation’s currency was counterfeit. The currency dilemma was so overwhelming that Secretary of the Treasury Hugh McCulloch approached President Lincoln on April 14, 1865 with a plan to assign a handful of men to the problem. Ironically, President Lincoln signed the order and then left to attend a play at Ford’s Theater where he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
On July 5th, 1865, the Secret Service Division began with eight Secret Service “operatives” with undercover identities so their work could remain “secret”, thus the name Secret Service. Chief William Wood was sworn in as the head of the agency and within one year, he had placed operatives in 11 cities around the country and had arrested 200 counterfeiters and destroyed many of the counterfeit plants.
Continuous full-time Secret Service Presidential protection did not begin until 1901. After the assassination of Lincoln, Congress discussed Presidential protection, but nothing was done at the time. The second Presidential assassination of James Garfield in July 1881 also failed to bring about any organized protection from Congress. Finally, after President McKinley was assassinated in September 1901, the Secret Service operatives began protecting Theodore Roosevelt, although Congress still did not pass a law authorizing it until 1906.
Today’s Secret Service missions are still two-fold. Agents investigate counterfeiting and any high-technology crimes, such as computer hacking and access device fraud, while still protecting the President and Vice-President, their immediate families, former Presidents and spouses, visiting heads of state and major Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidates.
Friday evening I was honored
to win tickets to the charity event to benefit 