record the crimes against the Osage and wanted to make sure that
the agents who had worked with him were not erased from
history. They had all since died in obscurity and often in poverty.
When one of the undercover operatives was dying, his wife wrote
that she wished he had a retirement fund, and an agent who knew
him advised Hoover that the family was “confronted with a very
gloomy situation.”
Several years after the Osage murder investigation, Wren, the
Ute agent, was forced out of the bureau again, this time for good.
As he left, he cursed and threw items from his desk. His
treatment, he later wrote to Hoover, had been “unjust, unfair and
unwarranted.” Wren’s anger eventually dissipated, and before he
died, in 1939, he sent Hoover a letter that said, “Often when I read
of you and your men I swell up with much pleasure and pride,
then I begin to think again of the long time ago. I am very proud of
you and still call you my old chief.” He continued, “Many of my old
friends have gone to the happy hunting grounds. Many of the tall
beautiful trees have been destroyed, many have been cut down by
the white man. The wild turkey, the deer, the wild horses, and the
wild cattle have gone, and do not live anymore among the
beautiful hills.”
Along with documenting the roles of other agents, White no
doubt hoped to secure himself a small place in history, though
he’d never say so himself. He wrote a few stilted pages, which
read, in part,
After the Director Mr. J. Edgar Hoover briefed me on the importance of the case,
he instructed me to return to Houston, arrange my affairs there, and go as soon as
possible to take charge of the Oklahoma City office. He told me I was to select my
investigators necessary in this case from men I knew best fitted in this line of
work....We realized the importance of men working under cover more than ever
when we arrived on the ground and found the frightened state of mind the Indians
were living under.