Department of Easy Virtue

Department of Easy Virtue was the derisive name given to the United States Department of Justice during a period of political corruption in the early 1920s. Its significance lies in the contradiction it makes memorable: an agency bearing the language of justice had become, in the account, an instrument of favoritism and unlawful protection.

Meaning and Use

The phrase was not the department’s official name. It was a critical label for the institution under the Harding administration, when the department was packed with political cronies and unscrupulous officials. The wording turns the promise of public virtue into an accusation: “easy” suggests that the department’s standards had been compromised rather than upheld.

The Corruption Behind the Name

William Burns, appointed director of the Bureau in 1921, bent laws and hired crooked agents. One was a confidence man who sold protection and pardons to members of the underworld. The nickname therefore pointed beyond individual misconduct to an institutional failure: the machinery of law enforcement could be used to shelter people who should have faced it.

The surrounding investigation of the Teapot Dome scandal sharpened that indictment. By 1924, congressional scrutiny exposed efforts by Burns and the attorney general to obstruct inquiries into corruption, including surveillance of lawmakers, break-ins at their offices, and tapped phones. The phrase’s force comes from this reversal of purpose: powers meant to detect and prosecute crime were deployed to protect profiteers, bribe takers, and political favorites. After Burns was removed, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone concluded that the Bureau required transformation from top to bottom, underscoring how far the institution had fallen from the justice its name promised.