Slowdowns

I'm usually able to get a handful of entries out each month, but it seems like I've been slowing down a little bit lately. Part of the reason is that I'm doing further work with the blog entries in hopes of eventually publishing a book. Right now I'm reorganizing entries into chapters, which is a time-consuming process in and of itself, but eventually I'm also going to have to do significantly more research on a number of the older entries, attempt to get in touch with more local historical organizations, and get some feedback on the manuscript.

In the meantime, I'll continue to do entries on this site, though they may become more sporadic. Currently I've got the framework to start one on a New Jersey politician, plus some upcoming time off. I've also cleaned up the links list and moved it farther up the page. Thanks for reading!

Charles E. Bowles: another mayoral Klandidate

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Hampered in large part by the sensational murder trial of David Curtis Stephenson and the widespread exposure of corruption in the Indiana government that followed, the Ku Klux Klan had lost much of its influence by 1929. Charles E. Bowles, a former Klan candidate for mayor of Detroit, won the office that year without any tangible support from the organization. Within seven months of beginning his term, however, Bowles had been kicked out of city hall.

Detroit was proving to be a popular destination for eastern and southern European immigrants during the 1920s. By 1930, 25 percent of the city's population, or about 400,000 people, was foreign-born. Bowles, who had been born in Yale, Michigan in March of 1884, was a Republican and practicing lawyer. When the incumbent mayor, John C. Lodge, announced he was too ill to complete the rest of his term, the Klan tapped Bowles for their candidate.

Bowles' opponent was a natural Klan enemy. John William Smith was a working class Catholic opposed to Prohibition; his promises included extending more rights to black citizens and putting more black police officers on the city's police force. While Smith campaigned for black and immigrant support, the Klan had failed to get Bowles on the ballot and began pushing for write-in votes. Their tactics included disturbing Smith rallies by showing up and screaming Bowles' name and burning a cross on the lawn of Smith's home. When the approximately 325,000 votes were tallied, Bowles was found to have won by 7,000 votes. However, a technicality kept him out of office. Smith challenged the result, and upon review the election commission determined that any write-in vote for Bowles that was misspelled could not count. Almost 17,000 were invalidated, and Smith settled in for a one-year term.

In 1925, Bowles again ran for mayor with Klan support. Smith again defeated him, this time by 29,787 votes out of about 250,000. The Klan had managed to put four of their five candidates on the city council, but Bowles put aside his attempts at the mayor's office and became a recorder's court judge from 1926 until 1929. In that year, he again challenged Smith, though with Klan support severely diminished or nonexistent. By a margin of 8,595 votes, Bowles was elected mayor. Smith once again demanded a recount, but this time Bowle's victory was upheld.

It wasn't exactly a good time to be coming into office. Not long before the election, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression was beginning to take hold. With welfare expenditures on the rise, Bowles asked the Detroit Bureau of Government Research to survey the problem to keep costs under control. However, differences between Bowles and the city council inhibited attempts to reduce unemployment through public works projects.

Other decisions soon made Bowles an unpopular man. In March of 1930, he announced his intention to raise the streetcar fare from six cents to eight cents despite the mounting economic problems. The suggestion was criticized so much that Bowles backed off it before it went into effect. Frank Couzens, son of Senator and former mayor James Couzens, was the sole opponent of the fare hike on the Detroit Street Railway Commission. Couzens also opposed a decision to change the railway's insurance from multiple insurance carriers to a single one, saying the commission was favoring one carrier when another had offered a lower price. Bowles responded by asking him to resign.

Though he'd come into office promising reform, Bowles' ideas of doing so were not well-received. That same month that Couzens was removed, he announced the retirement of seven veteran police officers and the formation of a citywide vice squad. Under the new framework, the unit would have jurisdiction over all vice cases in the city, where formerly they had been handled by precinct commanders. Rather than reducing vice in the city, however, the city saw an increase in gambling and other such crimes. The squad also enforced some cases more strictly than others, a practice that led to rumors that it was associated with the underworld and going easy on mobsters.

Most controversial were Bowles appointments to different political offices. His choice for employment manager of the Detroit Street Railway declared that he would give fellow members of the Odd Fellows lodge preference for hiring, and the appointment had to be rescinded after he'd held it only two days. John Gillespie, a Republican politician, was named commissioner of the Department of Public Works and was soon accused of using his position to benefit personal business projects, favor certain contractors, and begin building a political machine to work on behalf of Bowles. When the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News became increasingly critical of the administration, Bowles responded by refusing to speak to reporters, an action that only earned him more contempt.

It seemed like the only way to realize the promised reform was to act on the vice problems while the mayor's back was turned. In May of 1930, Bowles and Gillespie left the city to watch the Kentucky Derby. While they were gone, Frank Couzens turned down a chance to return to the Detroit Street Railway Commission, saying he didn't intend to serve "any mayor who would not give me a hand to perform my official duties according to my best judgment in public interest." Couzens himself later became mayor of the city from 1933 to 1938. More importantly, police commissioner Harold H. Emmons was persuaded by citizens and the press to start raiding saloons and underworld dens. While Bowles and Gillespie took in the horse race, 276 people were arrested in Detroit, many of them swiftly convicted and sentenced.

When Emmons said he intended to continue his crackdown on the vice problems, Bowles dismissed him and replaced him with Thomas C. Wilcox. Echoing Couzens' complaints that Bowles was too restrictive, Emmons said the mayor Bowles "insisted on assuming the entire responsibility" for taking care of vice problems; he said that while such a system led to "an increase in efficiency in handling of major crimes, that is, those of violence" it also caused "diminished efficiency in the handling of gambling and other vice."

Bowles denied any interference in police work, but angered citizens thought he had removed Emmons for a job well-done. The action further fueled rumor that Bowles was favoring gangsters, though Emmons said that was not the case. However, he did say that Bowles had reinstated several gambling dens while Emmons was away on a business trip. An editorial in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said that the failure of the government to address the vice issue was hypocrisy at best and collusion at worst. One day after Emmons was removed, a citizens' committee began gathering signatures for a recall election.

While Emmons' dismissal was the main bone of contention, the recall found plenty of other complaints to raise against Bowles. It charged that the mayor "substituted secrecy for frankness in public business," had attempted to "weld street railway and other city employees into a political machine," had "threatened the success of municipal ownership" by attempting a streetcar fare hike, and had forced Couzens off the Detroit Street Railway Commission. The Klan found a voice in the city's politics again, charging that the recall effort was a Catholic hit job. Other supporters said the city's newspapers, most of which threw their weight behind the effort, were upset because Bowles had reduced their influence over the city. Ultimately, however, the petition had accumulated 111,270 signatures when it was filed on June 18, well above the 89,467 needed to call a special election. There may have been even more; Time reported that of about 400 lawyers collecting signatures in the city, two had their petitions seized by police. Wilcox said he wouldn't stand for such behavior by the officers.

Bowles sought to delay the election and was able to win a temporary injunction, but this was later removed. A recall election was scheduled for July 22. When the results were in, 57 percent of the voters, a majority of 30,956, favored removing Bowles from office. The idea that Bowles was colluding with the underworld grew more popular with a sharp increase in violence during the lead-up to the recall election. In a 19-day period, there were eleven murders. It was enough to draw Michigan Governor Fred Warren Green to Detroit to start his own investigation and threaten martial law.

The last of that set of murders was high-profile enough that it overshadowed the result of the recall. Gerald E. Buckley, a popular radio broadcaster and well-known anti-Bowles partisan, went on the air with the election results on the late evening of July 22. He returned to the La Salle Hotel, where he was residing, and sat down in the lobby to read a newspaper. At about 1:40 a.m., three men came entered the hotel and gunned Buckley down, hitting him with 11 bullets.

Over 100,000 people attended Buckley's funeral. Many felt that they only had jobs during the Depression because Buckley had made an effort to find employment for the city's residents. Angry citizens charged that Bowles had sent hitmen to rub out Buckley as payback for his influential efforts to oust the mayor. Others thought the killing was a response to Buckley's denunciations of gambling, or his testimony in a gangland double homicide that he witnessed outside the same hotel where he was later murdered. Police commissioner Wilcox took a different approach: he said that Buckley was himself involved with the mob, and had taken part in racketeering and extortion. Though he claimed to have an affidavit accusing Buckley of receiving $4,000 from a racketeer, he was unable or unwilling to produce it for the press.

The public didn't buy it. The Detroit Times wrote a story agreeing that the motive for Buckley's murder was involvement in racketeering, and included an accusation from Bowles that Buckley had offered to change his tune on the mayor if he were paid off. In response, the newspaper was deluged by complaints, saw its circulation drop by about 12,000, and lost several advertisers. Other papers blasted the slaying as a direct result of negligence in the city government. The Detroit Free Press said Buckley was dead "because the government of the city of Detroit failed to maintain a decent check on banditry and gunmen, but allowed them to think that the town is wide open and 'easy.' His blood cries from the ground for vengeance; and his death is a solemn warning to the municipal officials and to the city."

Bowles was set to continue his roles as mayor until a special election in September, and sought to remedy some of the things that had led to the recall and his own unpopularity. He denounced Buckley's murder as "a terrible thing," abolished the central vice squad, and supported more raids against speakeasies. Gillespie, whose name had come up almost as much as Bowles' in the various implications, resigned. These actions may well have been due to the fact that the recall election did not guarantee that Bowles would be removed from office; he was allowed to run in the election to try to keep his job.

Bowles put in an impressive showing at the special election, which included five contenders. When the result was called, he had earned 93,985 votes, besting by about 8,500 votes George Engel, a former civil service commission chairman who had received the endorsement of the recall committee. Victory, however, went to Democratic candidate Frank Murphy, a judge of the recorder's court, who received 106,637 vote. Murphy's inauguration had to wait another 13 days. Bowles challenged the result, charging irregularities and fraud in the election. Some citizens responded by filing a lawsuit demanding his speedy removal. "Bowles is in by right of a valid election, the election last fall," said Charles S. Abbott, Bowles' attorney. "Nothing, we contend, has occurred since that time to put him out." Though Bowles threatened to take the matter all the way to the Supreme Court, he later ceded the election to Murphy after the City Election Commission failed to find anything that significantly affected the vote.

Three men were indicted in the Buckley shooting, and the prosecutor in the case accused them of being leaders in the vice world who had also contributed $11,000 to Bowles' campaign. Bowles had already recovered from his recall, however; at about the same time that the charge came out in March of 1931, he was nominated in a nonpartisan primary to take up his old job as judge of the recorder's court. Buckley's accused killers were later acquitted, though Time reported that two of them were immediately arrested on other charges.

Continuing his law work, Bowles also took several more stabs at different elected posts. He ran for the House of Representatives in 1932 to 1934. He lowered his sights to the state government later on, making bids for circuit court judge in 1941 and the state house of representatives in 1950 and 1952. Bowles passed away in July of 1957.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, "Klan Candidates Picked For Council" in the Ludington Daily News on Nov. 4 1925, "Police Guard Ballots Pending Recount Demand" in the Ludington Daily News on Nov. 7 1929, "Couzens Saves Himself From Being Fired Again By Declining Position" in the Ludington Daily News on May 20 1930, "Resignation Of Police Head Requested" in the Evening Independent on May 21 1930, "Citizens' Committee Formed To Circulate Petitions For Recall Of Detroit's Mayor" in the Evening Independent on May 22 1930, "Turmoil In Detroit" in Time on Jun. 2 1930, "Detroit Mayor Loses Last Suit To Halt Recall" in the Chicago Tribune on Jul. 9 1930, "The Recall In Detroit" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Jul. 10 1930, "Detroit Radio Announcer Is Shot To Death" in the Evening Independent on Jul. 23 1930, "Admits Buckley Affidavit Is False" in the Evening Independent on Jul. 25 1930, "Death In Detroit" in Time on Aug. 4 1930, "Murphy Elected Mayor Of Detroit" in the Ludington Daily News on Sept. 10 1930, "Chas. Bowles Asks For Recount" in the Ludington Daily News on Sept. 15 1930, "Bowles Is Bound To Hold On To Office Of Detroit Mayor" in the Ludington Daily News on Sept. 17 1930, "Buckley's Murder Laid To Vice War" in the Milwaukee Journal on Mar. 3 1931, "Detroit's Question" in Time on May 4 1931, The American Mayor: The Best and Worst Big City Leaders by Melvin G. Holli, Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age by Kevin Boyle, Frank Murphy: The Detroit Years by Sidney Fine, The Industrial Revolution in America by Laurie Collier Hillstrom, Detroit: A Motor City History by David Lee Poremba

Philemon T. Herbert: breakfast brawl

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The years leading up to the Civil War were fraught with all manner of violent incidents, as the volatile question of slavery contributed to a deepening divide between the North and South. While a Southern native and secessionist, California congressman Philemon Thomas Herbert murdered a man in 1856 not because of anything related to this conflict, but because he was dissatisfied with the service he was getting at breakfast.

By the time he arrived in California, Herbert's temper had already gotten in trouble. Born in Pine Apple, Alabama in November of 1825, he was expelled from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa after stabbing another student in 1844. He moved to Texas the next year, and in 1847 served six months as a private in the First Texas Mounted Volunteers. Around 1850, he arrived in Mariposa City, California.

Herbert's political career was a fairly short one, and ultimately overshadowed by the incident that sent him to the courtroom. He was a member of the state assembly in 1853 and 1854, and in the latter year he was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives. The exact circumstances of the brawl at Willard's Hotel in Washington, D.C. on the morning of May 8, 1856, vary from person to person. Some said Herbert was drunk and abusive and committed homicide in cold blood. Others said he was acting in self-defense against a hostile group of dining room staffers. Whatever the case, Herbert ended the fight by taking out his pistol and shooting an Irish waiter named Thomas Keating in the chest; Keating died soon after.

It all came down to a question of time. Herbert came down to the dining room around 11 a.m. to have his breakfast. He got into a dispute with the staff over the lateness of the hour, since the hotel was supposed to stop serving breakfast at 11, but was ultimately served. When his order was only partially fulfilled, Herbert demanded that Keating get a second waiter to help him. Keating refused. One witness said they heard Herbert call Keating a "damned Irish son of a bitch," while another recalled Keating saying something similar to Herbert before picking up a plate in a threatening manner.

The dispute soon become a physical rather than a verbal one, with the combatants moving from fists to anything that happened to be near at hand. Several witnesses testified that the two men began throwing plates and crockery at each other, and that Herbert picked up a chair at one point to use as a weapon. Patrick Keating, the brother of Thomas, said that he advanced on Herbert armed with a pitcher and sugar bowl and tried to disarm Herbert after realizing that he hd had a pistol. The cook at the hotel, J.E. Devenois, said that he considered the sound of breaking crockery normal for the dining room, and only came out of the kitchen when he heard a gunshot. When he arrived, he said that Herbert and Keating had been separated, but Herbert retained his gun. Devenois testified that Herbert then pointed the weapon at Keating, hestitated for two or three seconds, and then fired.

Herbert was charged with manslaughter, but granted a $10,000 bail. Later, he was indicted for murder, with his trial scheduled for July. Ebenezer Knowlton, an Opposition Party representative from Maine, asked the House Committee on the Judiciary to investigate whether Herbert should be kicked out of Congress for disorderly conduct. However, Democratic Representative Howell Cobb of Georgia said such an action would be out of order, since it was up to the court to determine the veracity of the charges. The House voted 79-70 to table the question of whether Herbert had committed a breach of privilege.

Though the murder had nothing to due with slavery, it took place only two weeks before Preston Brooks' attack on Charles Sumner. Robert Francis Engs and Randall M. Miller later wrote that abolitionists quickly found out that Herbert came from a Southern slaveholding family, and that his action at the hotel indicated that such men "contemptuously treated northern free laborers like slaves." The New York Times later quoted a defense closing argument as saying the disparity between the social statuses of Herbert and Keating had led to "a persistent effort to build up a war of classes - a war of antagonism between those more and less favored by fortune." Indeed, prior to their trial coverage, the Times had bemoaned the murder as more of a breach of etiquette than anything. "Whatever the result, it must be a source of poignant regret to Mr. Herbert and his friends, that he carried arms with him into the hotel breakfast-room, and that even if he found it necessary to assail at all one whose station was so far beneath his own, he should have permitted himself to take the life of his fellow being when a wound in the arm or some other part not vital would have disabled him just as effectually," the newspaper opined.

The shooting was witnessed by Henry Dubois, the Dutch Minister to the United States, and prosecutors made a prolonged effort to get him to testify in the case. "Mr. Dubois was, it is believed, the only unprejudiced person who witnessed the whole affair, and it is not probable that justice can be done in this case without his evidence," Secretary of State William L. Marcy wrote to August Belmont, the U.S. Minister to the Netherlands. Dubois had expressed this own belief himself, saying that the other people in the dining room were all friends of Keating's. Unfortunately for the prosecutors, he also declined a request from Philip Barton Key, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and son of national anthem author Francis Scott Key, to appear at the trial. Dubois invoked his privileges under international law and said his standing in the country would be compromised if he testified. Dubois offered to talk about the incident with the State Department and give them the names of other people who might be of assistance in the case, but such testimony would not be admissible at trial. Herbert's attorneys later said they had also been eager to get Dubois on the stand for exculpatory purposes, but he never appeared.

At the trial, Key called several staffers from the hotel to give their recollections of the brawl and Keating's death. Herbert's lawyers argued that the waiters were all strong men who attacked and outnumbered Herbert, and that he had shot Keating in self-defense. The New York Times had previously quoted a friend of Herbert's expressing this view, who said that Keating would have killed Herbert if he had not acted as he did. The newspaper also said the fight had left Herbert "scratched and bruised, but not seriously." These arguments were strong enough that in his closing Key urged the jury to find Herbert guilty of manslaughter instead of murder. After several hours of deliberation, the jury announced they couldn't come to a decision.

A second trial took place during the same month. The prosecution again shied away from the murder, saying Herbert should only be convicted on the charge if it was found that he shot Keating without provocation after using foul language and improper behavior to harass the waiter. They outlined several ways he could be found guilty of manslaughter, including if it was determined that he shot Keating in a moment of rage after Keating provoked him or could have retreated from the fight but pressed the attack instead. They also said self-defense wasn't a viable defense if the conflict arose out of Herbert threatening Keating with the pistol.

Among the final instructions approved by the judge was that Herbert's homicide was justifiable if he had reason to believe he was in imminent danger and that it didn't matter who struck the first blow. The judge also said Herbert was bound to retreat if he was to claim self-defense, but that the caveat was not pertinent if he didn't have the opportunity to leave the scene; he could also claim self-defense if he had gotten into the fight without intending to kill Keating. The jury found Herbert not guilty of murder.

Despite the acquittal, Herbert found that the shooting had made him an unpopular man in Congress. He did not run for office again in 1858. He moved to El Paso, Texas around 1859 and began practicing law after a brief foray into mining. In an ironic epilogue to the trial, Key was himself killed by a congressman in 1859. Democratic Representative Daniel E. Sickles, suspecting Key of having an affair with his wife, shot him at Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C.; Sickles was also acquitted of murder, though he too did not run again at the next election.

Herbert became a delegate to the Secession Convention and joined the Confederate Army after the secession of the Southern states. During the Civil War, he became a lieutenant in the Seventh Texas Cavalry and was ordered to begin serving in Louisiana. He was wounded at the Battle of Mansfield on April 8, 1864 and died of his injuries in Kingston, Louisiana a little more than three months later.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, The Political Graveyard, The Handbook of Texas Online, "From Washington" in the New York Times on May 12 1856, "The Herbert Trial" in the New York Times on Jul. 14 1856, Reports of Cases, Civil and Criminal, Argued and Adjudged in the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia by John A. Hayward and George O. Hazleton, Hinds' Precedents of the House of Representatives of the United States by Asher C. Hinds, The Birth of the Grand Old Party: The Republicans' First Generation by Robert Francis Engs and Randall M. Miller, Centennial History of the City of Washington, D.C. by Harvey W. Crew and William Benson Webb and John Wooldridge, Recollection of Men and Things at Washington by Lawrence Augustus Gobright, The Executive Documents of the Senate of the United States, Third Session, Thirty-Fourth Congress

J. Herbert Burke: only there for the articles

Image from bioguide.congress.gov

By 1978, J. Herbert Burke had firmly established himself as the representative from Florida's 10th District. He had won six elections, was set to run for a seventh term, and, though not one of the more well-known members of Congress, had still earned a reputation as a respectable congressman. That would literally change overnight, however, with an incident in Burke's home state and a questionable explanation for it.

Burke was a native of Chicago, born in the city in 1913 and attending Central YMCA College there as well as nearby Northwestern University. In 1940, he graduated from Kent College of Law and was admitted to the bar. Burke's entry into the legal profession was soon delayed by World War II, and he served with the U.S. Army in Europe between 1942 and 1945. He was discharged as a captain, having picked up the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, European Theater Medal, and American Theater Ribbon along the way. Upon his return to the United States, Burke began practicing law in Chicago and stayed there until 1949.

In that year, Burke decided to move to Hollywood, Florida. Three years later, he was elected as a Republican to be a Broward County commissioner. He held the position until 1967, and continued to build his political resume in other ways, including serving as a Republican state committeeman from 1954 to 1958. Burke's first stab at a national office came in January of 1955, when he ran for an opening in the House of Representatives created by the death of Democratic Representative Dwight Rogers. In the late stages of that campaign, Burke personally visited President Dwight D. Eisenhower and declared that he could "get more done under President Eisenhower than a Democrat can get."

Burke lost the race to Paul Rogers, another attorney and the late congressman's son. Eisenhower was apparently impressed with Burke, however, as he appointed him to the Southeastern Advisory Board of Small Business in 1956. That same year, Burke became the assistant campaign manager for Republican gubernatorial candidate William A. Washburne, Jr. Burke's law practice and commissioner's duties likely kept him busy, as he disappeared from the state and national radar for the next decade. When a new congressional district was allotted to Florida in 1966, though, Burke threw his hat into the ring and this time was successful in his bid for the House.

Burke's first serious challenge came only two years later, when the 10th District was redrawn. As a result, a more conservative portion of northern Broward County was excised and the more liberal areas of northern Dade County attached. Burke complained that the move amounted to gerrymandering, but was nonetheless able to eke out a victory over Democratic state representative Elton Gissendanner. In September of 1967, less than a year into his first term, the ultraconservative group Americans for Constitutional Action rated Burke (and 23 other congressmen) as 100 percent in alignment with their ideals.

Burke's most notable activities in Congress were his trips to numerous foreign countries as part of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. In February of 1969, he and Democratic Representative Charles Diggs of Michigan visited Biafran leader Odumegwu Ojukwu at his official residence in Nigeria to discuss the civil war in that country. Noam Chomsky later criticized him for his reaction to congressional testimony from James Dunn, who had interviewed refugees from East Timor about atrocities committed in that country after Indonesia invaded in December of 1975. A ranking minority member on the House Subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Affairs, Burke wrote, "I have my own suspicions regarding what might be behind the testimony, and I agree with you that it is in all our best interests to bury the Timor issue quickly and completely."

Burke's most notable action regarding foreign affairs was his recommendation that Ukraine and Byelorussia be expelled from the United Nations. He argued that despite the strong sense of nationalism in the regions, they were still a part of the Soviet Union and serving to give that country an extra two votes in the UN. Not sparing any words, Burke said the two regions "have been transformed into one constituent part of one vast slave state created from the blood of countless millions of murdered people who believe in their independence and who lost their lives because of that basic belief that we take for granted." In July of 1974, he criticized news coverage of the Symbionese Liberation Army, which had recently kidnapped Patty Hearst, of creating sympathy for the organization.

Burke also opposed welfare reform, arguing it would lead to an increased allocation of tax money and "socialism." When Congress voted to seat Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. at the cost of a fine, Burke said, "I couldn't conscientiously vote to seat him. Things haven't changed from two years ago. But I am glad the thing is disposed of." Despite these opinions, another conservative group, the Committee for the Survival of a Free Congress, ranked him only "moderately conservative" in October of 1977. One possible reflection of this opinion is Burke's about-face regarding President Richard Nixon. Though he was one of 36 House members urging Nixon to declare his intentions to run for President in January of 1968, Burke opposed granting immunity to Nixon after he resigned in 1974 in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

While Burke's activities sometimes earned him mention or even headlines in the news, he was a fairly low-key individual. That changed in the early morning hours of May 27, 1978 when police were called to the Centerfold Bar, a night club in Dania, Florida that included the attractions of naked go-go dancers. According to a police report, Burke was there, being "belligerent and verbally abusive," and "yelling, shouting, disrupting business." He was arrested on charges of disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest, without violence, by the two officers.

Burke was released after being briefly jailed, and almost immediately threatened to sue the Dania Police Department for wrongful arrest. He said that he was only at the club because he'd followed two men there after overhearing them discussing a narcotics deal. Burke said he never took in the dancers, but instead stayed outside to witness what looked like a drug exchange. After finding that his car wouldn't start, he told the bar manager, a man named Joseph Dangles, to call the police. He claimed to be caught completely off-guard when the cops put the cuffs on him instead.

Aside from his word, the only thing backing up Burke's story was the fact that he was a member of the House Select Committee on Narcotics Abuse and Control at the time. Aligning more with the drunk and disorderly version was a rambling rant Burke wrote on the wall of his jail cell: "My name is J.H. Burke. The time is 12:20 a.m. I have not been charged. I want to make a charge against the (illegible) by the Dania police. I was molested by the Dania police without right of counsel with charges being made against me. I was abused, molested, abused and prevented from calling a lawyer, a friend or making a complaint. J. Herbert Burke."

Burke was indicted by a grand jury in June, and another charge was added to the two he'd been arrested on: influencing a witness. This charge alleged that Burke had tried, without intimidation or bribery, to get Dangles to falsely testify about the incident. The indictment concluded, perhaps a little melodramatically, that Burke had provided an "evil example" and offended "the peace and dignity of the state of Florida." Three months later, Burke pleaded guilty to disorderly intoxication and resisting arrest without violence, and no contest to the witness tampering charge. He was fined $177.50 and put on probation for three months.

The plea took place with only about a month to go before Election Day. The Democratic runoff chose Ed Stack, a Broward County sheriff and former Republican who had unsuccessfully challenged Burke for the party's nomination for the House in 1966 and 1968, over state representative John Adams, who had tipped off the press to Burke's arrest. Both Stack and Burke said they did not think the incident at the Centerfold Bar would significantly affect the contest, but it was later blamed for the election result that turned Burke out of office. "I never felt what I did was a sinful thing," he said. "I didn't rob anyone. No one wanted to face my side and when I faced the whole thing and pleaded guilty, I felt if one incident can wipe out 26 years of public service, well..."

Burke did not return to political life, and split his time between homes in Falls Church, Virginia and Fern Park, Florida. The most prevalent result of the scandal was that it inspired Carl Hiaasen, a resident of Burke's district, to write a novel entitled Strip Tease. The story follows a congressman who becomes obsessed with a stripper, and was later made into a movie starring Burt Reynolds and Demi Moore. In June of 1993, Burke died of a heart attack at a hospital in Altamonte Springs, Florida.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Candidates For Congress Busy With Campaign" in the Ocala Star-Banner on Jan. 9 1955, "Washburne Names Aide In Governor Campaign" in the St. Petersburg Times on Sept. 20 1956, "Right Wing Rates Congressmen" in the St. Petersburg Times on Sept. 6 1967, "36 In House Urge Nixon To Declare" in the New York Times on Jan. 12 1968, "Two New Faces Added To Florida's Delegation" in the St. Petersburg Times on Nov. 7 1968, "Gibbons Decries 'Fee'" in the St. Petersburg Times on Jan. 4 1969, "Florida's 14 Congressmen Voted, Fought...And Sat" in the St. Petersburg Times on Jan. 2 1972, "Florida's Congressmen Got Around" in the St. Petersburg Times on Apr. 26 1972, "S.L.A. Sympathy Charged" in the New York Times on Jul. 24 1974, "Leaders Divided On Nixon Immunity" in The Ledger on Aug. 8 1974, "Congressional Rating Game Is Underway" in The Ledger on Oct. 24 1977, "Florida Congressman Arrested At Nightclub Featuring Nude Dancers" in the St. Petersburg Times on May 28 1978, "Burke Says He Will File False Arrest Suit Against Police" in the Boca Raton News on May 29 1978, "Burke Still Tough Foe Despite Arrest" in The Ledger on May 29 1978, "Attorney To Represent Rep. Burke" in the Ocala Star-Banner on Jul. 21 1978, "Burke Will Skip Hearings" in the Boca Raton News on Jul. 18 1978, "Burke Says Plea Won't Hurt Bid" in the Boca Raton News on Sept. 27 1978, "Congressional Police Blotter" in The Village Voice on Oct. 30 1978, "U.S. House: Democrats Now Have 12-3 Margin" in the St. Petersburg Times on Nov. 9 1978, "J. Herbert Burke Dies; Was Florida Congressman" in the Washington Post on Jun. 18 1993, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, Beyond Entitlement: The Social Obligations of Citizenship by Lawrence M. Mead, Writers on Writing: Collected Essays from the New York Times

Preston S. Brooks: dignity vs. decorum

Image from clerk.house.gov

The brutal attack of Preston Smith Brooks on a fellow congressman was not the first time violence had erupted on the floor of Congress, or even the first time an assault involving canes occurred there. What made Brooks' action so noteworthy was the severity of the injuries he dealt, and the cheerful acceptance of the act by the majority of the South. The incident, which clearly demonstrated the increasing polarization between the North and South, is rightfully included as one more factor in the increasing tensions between the two regions that later exploded into the Civil War.

Brooks was born in Edgefield, South Carolina, in 1819, and 20 years later he graduated from South Carolina College. One year later, a dispute over James Henry Hammond's gubernatorial bid led Brooks to challenge Louis Wigfall, a future Senator from Texas, to a duel. Wigfall had already dueled with two members of Brooks' family, killing one, but Brooks had better luck. Each man wounded the other but came away alive, Brooks with a bullet lodged in his hip. The injury would require him to use a walking stick for the remainder of his life.

Brooks served as an aide-de-camp to Hammond from 1842 to 1844, and around this time he was admitted to the bar. He began practicing law in his hometown, and in 1844 served a single term in the state house of representative. During the Mexican War, Brooks fought in the Palmetto Regiment of the South Carolina Volunteers. During Brooks' later notoriety, the New York Times said Sumner had commanded companies at both Mexico City and San Angel. However, the newspaper also said that in the latter neighborhood he "distinguished himself by gallantly discharging the six barrels of his revolver into a crowd of men and women in the market-place, for some fancied insult to his dignity."

In 1852, Brooks was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat. Two years later he was re-elected, and became chairman of the Committee on Expenditures in the Department of State. Like many politicians before and since him, his career would not have elevated him to much note in history, but for the imbroglio he involved himself in.

On May 19 and 20 of 1856, Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, who had been elected in 1851 as a Free Soil candidate, gave a speech entitled "The Crime Against Kansas." A pronounced opponent of slavery, the speech supported the admission of Kansas into the Union under the Free State Constitution. Sumner also pinned the blame for the violence in the territory on pro-slavery raiders, and targeted some members of Congress for what he saw as their complicity in the bloodshed. Sumner named these people early in his speech, though he referenced them throughout. One of the lawmakers named was Democratic Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina, who was not present during the speech. Sumner compared Butler and Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, and charged Butler with denouncing opposition to slavery as "sectional and fanatical" while promoting sectionalism himself. "The Senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight, with sentiments of honor and courage," said Sumner. "Of course, he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in sight of the world, is chaste in his sight. I mean the harlot Slavery." Sumner also accused Butler of hypocrisy in his denunciations of abolitionists as fanatics. "If the Senator wishes to see fanatics, let him look round at his own associates, he said. "Let him look at himself."

Sumner never named Brooks in the speech, though he was not very charitable to South Carolina. He said the state had a "shameful" history in its association of slavery, including a qualification requiring a state representative to own "a settled freehold estate, or 10 Negroes." He also compared the state to the Kansas territory, saying the territory had already established more scholarly institutions than South Carolina and there was nothing in the state's history comparable to the "heroic spirit in a heroic cause" of the repulse of pro-slavery raiders at Lawrence. "Were the whole history of South Carolina blotted out of existence, from its very beginning down to the day of the last election of the Senator to his present seat on this floor, civilization might lose..." Sumner apparently paused, then continued, "I do not say how little; but surely less than it has already gained by the example of Kansas, in its valiant struggle against oppression, and in the development of a new science of emigration."

The oration was, of course, denounced in the slave states of the South as a grave insult. There was also some question of whether Sumner was implying other barbs, including the suggestion that the reference to Butler's marriage to "the harlot Slavery" insinuated the rape of female slaves by their masters. More insulting was Sumner's phrase that Butler "overflowed with rage at the simple suggestion that Kansas had applied for admission as a state; and, with incoherent phrases, discharged the loose expectoration of his speech, now upon her representative, and then upon her people." Some saw this as a low blow referring to Butler's condition, as he was recovering from a stroke which had left him unable to stop himself from drooling.

Brooks was one of the many people offended by the speech, especially since Butler was a family member (sources differ as to whether he was an uncle or cousin). He considered challenging Sumner to a duel, but felt that Sumner had not distinguished himself as a gentleman and therefore unworthy of the challenge. In fact, Brooks thought Sumner was so lowly that he was more deserving of a chastisement via whipping, a method approved in a pamphlet entitled Code of Honor. Brooks consulted with some of his peers on his plans to "punish" Sumner, with Democratic Congressman Henry A. Edmundson of Virginia advising him against attacking Sumner outside the Capitol because he would tire himself in the climb up the steps.

On May 22, as Sumner wrote at his desk following the adjournment of the Senate, Brooks entered the sparsely-populated chamber with Democratic Congressman Laurence Keitt, also of South Carolina. Brooks waited until a few women in the galleries had departed, and then approached Sumner, who was too immersed in his work to notice Brooks until he began to speak to him. His exact words differ from account to account, though the meaning remains the same in all of them. "Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully," Brooks said, according to the most popular rendition. "It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine."

One account sympathetic to Brooks claims that Sumner tried to attack him, though most agree that Brooks was already beginning his assault as he spoke or did so after Sumner began to stand up. Though a strong individual, Sumner was almost powerless as Brooks began to strike him multiple times with a heavy inch-thick gutta percha cane; he was unarmed and seated with his legs under the desk, which was fastened to the floor. Sumner was finally able to tear the desk out of the floor and stagger away, but Brooks continued to beat him until he collapsed, bleeding and unconscious. Overall, Brooks managed to land dozens of blows, only stopping when he shattered the cane. At one point, Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky came forward to intervene, but Keitt, who was standing near Brooks and armed with his own cane and a pistol, ordered Crittenden to stay back. The two congressmen from South Carolina left after Brooks retrieved the gold-topped head of his broken walking stick.

Brooks was briefly detained and brought before a judge, and put up $500 as a surety for his court appearance. The bail was more than his punishment for the crime. In July of 1856, the Criminal Court of the District of Columbia fined him $300. The New York Times opined that the punishment was "a mockery of justice, and an insult to the country."

Some Southern newspapers sought to diminish the severity of the assault, which had left Sumner with injuries to his head that were considered life-threatening for a time. Though Brooks later boasted that Sumner "bellowed like a calf" after about 30 blows, the Richmond Enquirer incorrectly reported that Brooks had bested Sumner with a single blow when the Senator deserved "nine-and-thirty every morning." The Richmond Whig was cold in its assessment, arguing that the reports of grievous injuries were a "miserable Abolition trick" intended to gain sympathy for Sumner and the anti-slavery movement. "Nigger-worshiping fanatics of the male gender, and weak-minded women and silly children, are horribly affected at the thought of blood oozing out of a pin-prick," the article spat. "And Sumner is wily politician enough to take advantage of this little fact."

Brooks later sent a note of apology to the Senate, saying he had intended the assault as a redress for personal wrongs rather than a breach of the privilege of that body. A Senate committee determined that they had no authority to punish Brooks, since he was a member of the House of Representatives, and could only ask the other chamber to take action. A House committee recommended the expulsion of Brooks, as well as censures for Keitt and Edmundson. However, a minority report expressed the opinion that no breach of privilege had been committed and any action would go beyond the scope of the Constitution.

A vote to accept the minority report failed, with 145 voting against it and 66 in favor. When the vote to expel Brooks came to the floor, 121 supported it (including a solitary Southerner) and 95 voted against it. Brooks was spared, because the tally did not meet the two-thirds majority needed for expulsion. Keitt was censured, but Edmundson was not.

Brooks and Keitt both chose to resign from the House after the vote, with Brooks giving a departing speech on July 14. Brooks said he would have been ill-regarded by the people of his state if he had taken no action against Sumner, and that he meant no insult to Congress or Massachusetts. "Whatever insults my state insults me," he said. "I did not then, and do not now, believe that the spirit of American freemen would tolerate slander in high places, and permit a member of Congress to publish and circulate a libel on another, and then call upon either House to protect him against the personal responsibilities which he had thus incurred." Brooks also said that the House had no power to punish him for an action that took place in the Senate, and that the collusion between the two chambers was risking tyranny. "Matters go smoothly enough when one House asks the other to punish a member who is offensive to the majority of its own body," he said, "but how will it be when, upon a pretense of insulted dignity, demands are made to this House to expel a member who happens to run counter to its party predilections, or other demands which it may not be so agreeable to grant?"

Brooks also denied that he ever intended to kill Sumner, which was why he had used a cane given to him by a friend in Baltimore three months before the assault rather than a more potent weapon. He appeared to recognize that his attack had done much to fan the flames of hatred in a none-too-fraternal nation. "Sir, I cannot, on my own account, assume the responsibility, in the face of the American people, of commencing a line of conduct which in my heart of hearts I believe would result in subverting the foundations of this government and in drenching this hall in blood," he told the Speaker. After saying that he believed some of the votes in favor of his expulsion were "extorted" by constituents rather than a reflection of some members' own opinions, Brooks announced that he was no longer a member of Congress and walked out.

The absence of Brooks and Keitt was short-lived. Both returned on the first day of August after being elected to fill their own vacancies, and also won re-election in November. Sumner, though re-elected to the Senate in 1857, did not recuperate enough to return to his seat until December of 1859. Until that time, his empty seat stood as a silent reminder of the attack. When Governor Henry Gardner proposed having the state pay for Sumner's medical bills, Sumner is said to have responded, "Whatever Massachusetts can give, let it go to suffering Kansas."

The divide in the nation was starkly visible in the reactions to the assault. Northerners were revolted, and held spontaneous meetings to condemn Brooks. Along with a dummy of President Franklin Pierce, "Bully Brooks" was hung in effigy in front of the New Hampshire State House in June. The abolitionist movement gained some support, and thousands of copies of "The Crime Against Kansas" were run off for use in the 1856 elections. One cheeky New York City man challenged Brooks to a duel with gutta percha canes somewhere along the Mason-Dixon line, "I having the privilege to take him sitting with his legs under a desk with his cane half a mile from him."

Writing in the New York Tribune, William Cullen Bryant asked, "Has it come to this? Are we to be chastised as they chastise their slaves? Are we too, slaves, slaves for life, a target for their brutal blows, when we do not comport ourselves to please them?" The Economist referred to the incident as "the most ruffianly attack ever committed in a country claiming to be civilized." The newspaper reported that only one Southern newspaper was condemning the attack; this was apparently the Mobile Advertiser, which the Examiner said in another report was giving the rather tepid opinion that "considering the time and place of the act, it admits of no justification."

The result was exactly the opposite in the South. Public meetings, especially in South Carolina, supported Brooks' action. One held in Columbia endorsed him for "inflicting upon Mr. Sumner the punishment he so richly earned by his libelous attack upon the state of Carolina and its faithful Senator, and upon the entire South." A meeting in Edgefield supported his conduct and promised "encouragement and sympathy to all similar and future instances of vindication of the character of Southern institutions and Southern men." Incredibly, the Columbia Times reported that a delegation of slaves was planning to present Brooks with an "appropriate token of their regard to him who has made the first practical issue for their preservation and protection in their rights and enjoyment as the happiest laborers on the face of the globe."

Brooks was also showered with gifts, which included a silver pitcher and golden goblet. The most popular presents by far, however, were canes sent to replace the one he had broken over Sumner's head. Brooks' rapidly growing collection would have quickly become common knowledge, but the repeated implication was that Brooks should treat each new stick as he had his old one. Their inscriptions included "Revilers Beware" and "Hit him again." A representative from Brooks' district said the ladies there would send hickory canes "with which to chastise Abolitionists and Red Republicans" whenever Brooks wanted one. Embracing the carnage that would arrive some five years later, the Charleston Mercury opined, "The South certainly has become generally convinced that it is by hard blows, and not by loud blustering and insulting denunciation, that the sectional quarrel is to be settled."

Congress was less accommodating of Brooks. Despite his earlier denunciation of sectional strife, he now made sure to uphold the reputation he had established with his assault. In September, the New York Times reported that Brooks had called for the South to invade the nation's capital and make off with its archives and treasure. When Republican Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts denounced the attack as "brutal, murderous, and cowardly," Brooks challenged him to a duel, which Wilson refused to accept. Brooks finally met his match with Republican Congressman Anson Burlingame of Massachusetts, who accepted Brooks' challenge of a duel after denouncing the attack "in the name of that fair play which bullies and prizefighters respect." Burlingame named Clifton House on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls as the dueling site, and even started for the location before Brooks rescinded the challenge. He said the location was unfair to him, as he would have to venture through hostile territory to get there.

Brooks died unexpectedly of the croup in Washington, D.C. in January of 1857. The furor over his attack had died down enough that most of the eulogies in Congress steered clear of mention of the assault. Sumner is said to have forgiven him, saying when asked how he felt about Brooks, "Only as to a brick that should fall upon my head from a chimney. He was the unconscious agent of a malign power." On another occasion, Sumner was quoted as saying, "What have I to do with him? It was slavery, not he, that struck the blow."

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "The Washington Brutality--The Pro-Slavery Side Of The Story" in the New York Times on May 24 1856, "The Brooks Affair" in the New York Times on Jun. 3 1856, "President Pierce, Preston S. Brooks, and Col. George Hung In Effigy At Concord, N.H." in the New York Times on Jun. 6 1856, "Outrage In The American Senate" in The Economist on Jun. 7 1856, "Brooks In The Mexican War" in the New York Times on Jun. 10 1856, "Testimonials to the 'Gallant Conduct' of Preston S. Brooks" in the New York Times on Jun. 10 1856, "The Outrage On Mr. Sumner" in The Economist on Jun. 21 1856, "The Sumner Case" in The Examiner on Jun. 21 1856, "Bully Brooks Challenged By A Gentleman Of His Own Kidney" in The Agitator on Jun. 26 1856, "The Case Of Brooks" in the New York Times on Jul. 9 1856, "The Sumner Outrage" in The Examiner on Aug. 2 1856, "More Honors To Preston S. Brooks" in the New York Times on Aug. 23 1856, "Compliments To Mr. Preston S. Brooks" in the New York Times on Sept. 1 1856, "Invasion And Capture Of Washington" in the New York Times on Sept. 8 1856, "Posthumous Honors" in The Agitator on Feb. 5 1857, The World's Best Orations: From the Earliest Period to the Present Time edited by David J. Brewer, The Magazine of History with Notes and Queries Vol. XIV, The Crime Against Kansas by Charles Sumner, Life of Charles Sumner by Walter Gaston Shotwell, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists Triumphant 1854-1861 by William H. Freehling, Encyclopedia of the American Civil War edited by David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler, The House: The History of the House of Representatives by Robert Vincent Remini, The Shattering of the Union: America in the 1850s by Eric H. Walther

Sherman Adams: a coating of scandal

Adams announces his resignation. Image from pro.corbis.com.

Llewelyn Sherman Adams, better known by his latter two names, officially held the title of Assistant to the President during Dwight D. Eisenhower's administration. Critics who felt that Adams possessed too much influence in the White House contended that he could more properly be called Assistant President. It was an especially hard-hitting blow for Eisenhower, then, when scandal forced Adams to leave his office.

Adams was born in 1899 in East Dover, Vermont, but relocated with his parents to Providence, Rhode Island, at a young age. After a six-month stint in the Marine Corps during World War I, he graduated from Dartmouth College in 1920. Adams began working in the lumber industry, taking a position as clerk and sealer with the Black River Lumber Company in Healdville, Vermont. Within a couple of years, however, he had advanced to logging foreman and company treasurer. In 1923, he was hired by Parker-Young Company, the parent group of Black River, and continued working there until 1944, eventually becoming general manager. The business was not without its share of adventure. In one incident, Adams' front teeth were knocked out when he was struck by a runaway skidder. On a wintry evening in January of 1942, a B-18 bomber returning from a patrol over the Atlantic Ocean crashed on Mt. Waternomee. Adams was among a crew of woodsmen and local residents who battled the elements to climb the peak and rescue the five survivors.

When Adams entered politics, it was at the request of his superiors at the company, who thought state legislators were not doing an adequate job. He served in the state house of representatives from 1941 to 1944, including two years as speaker. He left state politics in 1944, when he was elected as a Republican to the House of Representatives. He gave up this seat in 1946 after launching a campaign for Governor of New Hampshire, and lost this contest by 157 votes.

Beginning in 1946, Adams represented the American Pulpwood Industry. He ended his association with them in 1948, when he tried for Governor again and was elected over Democrat and Dartmouth College professor Herbert W. Hill. While in office, Adams trimmed the state's administrative offices by nearly half, reducing them from 83 to 43. He was re-elected in 1950, but opted not to run again in 1952 due to his support of Dwight D. Eisenhower's campaign for President.

Adams was one of six Governors endorsing Eisenhower for the Republican nomination for President in 1951. In September of that year, he announced that Eisenhower's name would be entered in the New Hampshire primary. Opting to support Eisenhower in a more direct way, Adams worked as the floor manager at the Republican National Convention in Chicago in 1952. After this experience, Adams became Eisenhower's campaign manager. Known for his stony demeanor, some nicknamed Adams after one of New Hampshire's more prominent features: "The Great Stone Face." Adams took the joke in stride, and accepted a modified moniker: "The Rock."

After Eisenhower was elected, he initially considered Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts for the position of Assistant to the President, but ultimately decided that Lodge would be better suited in representing the country in the United Nations. He offered the job to Herbert Brownwell, a New York lawyer, but Brownwell declined and suggested Adams. Eisenhower agreed, and in January of 1953 Adams came to the White House on a $22,500 annual salary.

In a profile written after his nomination in November of 1952, Martin S. Hayden said Adams would have more power than previous people in the Assistant's position, and would in fact serve as "a full-fledged assistant president with a hand in all operations." Eisenhower, the renowned World War II general, planned to carry something of the military structure into his Presidency. Along the lines of a military chief of staff, the Assistant would keep apprised of executive decisions and see that they were carried out, and also ensure that only the more important tasks were delegated to the President. Adams would later say that Eisenhower did the most important tasks, while he did the next most important ones.

The chief of staff metaphor was used during the campaign, and on the night before Election Day Adams introduced himself by saying, "I am Governor Sherman Adams of New Hampshire. In this campaign General Eisenhower likes to call me his chief of staff." Though the position itself later became known as Chief of Staff, Eisenhower later shied away from the comparison, saying "the politicians think it sounds too military."

As part of his duties, Adams attended Cabinet and National Security Council meetings, and also led White House staff meetings at least twice a week. Known for being curt and to the point, one of Adams' more notable quirks involved eschewing a "hello" or "good-bye" from his phone calls. It was not uncommon for the person on the other end of the line to hear a dial tone as Adams considered the conversation over and hung up without warning, and even Eisenhower was once cut off in such a way. Adams was also known for asking staffers, "What have you done for your country today?" as he passed them in the hallways. In a lengthy 1956 article in Time, he was described as "often inconsiderate, always demanding, possessed of the disposition of a grizzly with a barked shin," but also possessed of "loyalty, integrity, and selflessness."

Adams, like Eisenhower, was on the more moderate side of the Republican Party. He opposed Senator Joe McCarthy's hunt for latent Communists and helped form a White House strategy to put an end to it. He also supported civil rights and assisted in the appointment of Fred Morrow, the first black man to receive an executive position in the White House. While these positions earned Adams some grumbling from more radical Republicans, he earned more criticism for rejecting access to the President except to those he felt had the most pressing issues. This behavior earned Adams another nickname: "The Abominable No-Man."

Yet another nickname of Adams, "The Boss," reflected another criticism: the perceived belief that Adams wielded an incredible amount of power when it came to Presidential decisions. Though the suggestion that Adams would be "Assistant President" rather than simply an assistant to Eisenhower went back at least as far as Hayden's profile, some grumbled that Adams was influencing the President by choosing which people saw him and what matters were most important. This perception gained momentum after Eisenhower suffered a heart attack and Adams was instrumental in guiding the White House staff in their actions during the President's recovery. Eisenhower was quoted as saying, "The only person who really understands what I'm trying to do is Sherman Adams." A 1957 Newsweek article deemed Adams the "second most powerful man in the White House." Despite the accusations, Adams said in a 1957 interview that he wouldn't want to be President. "You wouldn't have to be around here very long to see why I wouldn't want the job," he said.

The first hint of real trouble involving Adams came in February of 1958. Dr. Bernard Schwartz, counsel for the House Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight during their investigation into Federal Communications Commission decisions, was fired and suggested that the subcommittee members were seeking to whitewash any sign of collusion between White House officials and high-ranking Republicans. Schwartz later told the subcommittee's members that Adams had intervened in at least one regulatory case. Adams, Schwartz charged, had talked with the Civil Aeronautics Board in 1953 about the future of the faltering North American Airlines. Soon after, the CAB postponed a decision to order the airline out of business. The subcommittee also read two letters from Sherman to Murray Chotiner, the airline's counsel, regarding Adams' discussions with Harmar D. Denny, who had been CAB chairman at the time. One letter concluded by asking, "Is there anything further in this case that I can do?"

The North American Airlines question fizzled out, though the subcommittee did begin looking into Adams' relationship with some businessmen that same month. One key witness was John Fox, who in 1952 had bought the Boston Post with help from a loan provided by Bernard Goldfine, a New England textile manufacturer as well as friend and political contributor to Adams. The relationship between Fox and Goldfine later soured, and the Post went bankrupt in 1956 after Goldfine called in his loan. Fox was more than happy to implicate Goldfine before the subcommittee. At one meeting between Adams, Goldfine, and Goldfine's son, Fox said that Goldfine had boasted that Adams would take care of a problem involving one of his sons, one of his mills, and the Federal Trade Commission. Fox also testified that Goldfine directly said he was financially supporting Adams and had given securities to public officials in return for favors. He said that one of Goldfine's contributions towards Adams was the purchase of a house in Washington, D.C. after Adams began working for Eisenhower.

Not much credence was later given to Fox's testimony. Oren Harris, a Democrat from Arkansas and chairman of the subcommittee, questioned how reliable Fox was. Adams denounced the insinuations at a press conference, saying, "It is incredible to me that any committee of the Congress would permit a completely irresponsible witness to use the committee as a forum for making such vicious accusations." But while Fox's volley of charges, especially regarding the house, may have proved untrue, the subcommittee found that the underlying accusation of an improper relationship between Goldfine and Adams had some truth to it.

The investigation determined that Goldfine had been in touch with Adams for his assistance regarding his problems with the Federal Trade Commission and Securities and Exchange Commission. In 1954, Adams called the FTC chairman to get a full report on charges that Goldfine was violating the Wool Labeling Act by producing textiles with more nylon than was advertised in the nylon-vicuña ratio on the tag. Adams provided the report to Goldfine, and the matter was closed a month later. In 1956, Adams asked Eisenhower's special counsel to look into the status of complaints against Goldfine, which accused his East Boston Company and a subsidiary of failing to file financial reports over the course of eight years.

The aspect of the scandal gaining the most attention, however, was the gifts that Goldfine sent to Adams. The most prominent was a vicuña coat, though Adams also accepted an expensive Oriental rug and a few mats. The subcommittee also determined that Goldfine paid about $3,000 worth of hotel expenses for Adams' trips to New England. The investigation looked into whether Adams had sought to influence $40,382 in penalty refund payments to the defunct Raylaine Worsteds Corporation, but that charge was dropped for lack of evidence.

When he testified before the subcommittee, Adams was unapologetic. He said that Goldfine did not receive any special treatment, and that the calls to the FTC and SEC were routine and only to ask questions. The rug was offered as a loaner replacement for a shabbier one in his New Hampshire home, but Adams said that he considered it impractical and asked Goldfine to take it back. Adams also testified that Goldfine had offered to put Adams up in a Boston hotel suite he owned if Adams was coming through, and that he did not consider anything wrong with that. Adams had less of an explanation for the coat, saying that it only cost Goldfine's mill $69 to make one and that it did not have any effect on his behavior. Adams even said he had discussed the issue of accepting gifts with his staff, and had advised them against doing anything that could be misconstrued. "I have no excuses to offer. I did not come up here to make apology to you or this committee. If there were any errors, as I have already stated, they were errors, perhaps of inexperience," he told the subcommittee. "I will say this: that if I had the decisions now before me to make, I believe I would have acted a little more prudently."

Some Republicans began calling for Adams' resignation as the investigation continued, believing that the scandal would hurt the party in the 1958 elections and contributions towards the campaigns. In response, both Eisenhower and Vice-President Richard Nixon publicly supported him. Nixon, in a sense, was returning a favor; Adams had defended Nixon against efforts to oust him from the 1952 ticket due to questions over his expenses, a controversy that culminated in Nixon's "Checkers" speech. "The trouble with Republicans is that when they get in trouble they start acting like a bunch of cannibals," Nixon said. In June, Eisenhower said Adams was "an invaluable public servant doing a difficult job efficiently, honestly, and tirelessly." He also listed a series of points, saying that he believed Adams was telling the truth when he denied wrongdoing, personally liked him, admired his abilities, and respected his integrity. What gained the most attention, certainly for those who thought Adams had too much power over the Presidency, was his concluding point: "I need him."

The pressure to against Adams increased. Eisenhower's support was seen as a double standard, since he had promised that he would not tolerate unethical behavior in his Administration. In an early election in Maine in September, Democratic Governor defeated Republican Senator Frederick Payne for Payne's seat. Payne had also accepted gifts from Goldfine, namely a $3,500 loan that hadn't been repaid, and the result was seen as a reaction to the Adams scandal and a possible preview of the November elections.

Not long after the Maine upset, Eisenhower reluctantly asked Adams to resign. During his outgoing speech, which was televised and broadcast on on the radio, Adams said he was the victim of a "campaign of vilification" and that the efforts of those seeking to remove him from the White House "have been intended to destroy me and in so doing embarrass the Administration of the President of the United States." Any further civil rights actions of the Administration were hindered, as Adams was replaced by anti-segregationalist Wilton "Jerry" Persons. Eisenhower described his decision to let Adams go as "the most hurtful, the hardest, the most heartbreaking decision" of his Presidency. He also sent Adams off with a sterling silver bowl inscribed with the message, "To Sherman Adams...from his devoted friend, Dwight D. Eisenhower."

Later analysts questioned how unusual Adams' actions were. Goldfine was found to have paid hotel bills for at least three congressmen. Even Eisenhower received some vicuña cloth from Goldfine in 1956, if not a full coat. Another comparison questioned how the Adams scandal compared with Eisenhower accepting several gifts to adorn his Gettysburg farm.

Goldfine refused to answer questions before the subcommittee, and was charged with contempt of Congress. He received a suspended year in prison, as well as a suspended $1,000 fine that was replaced by two years of probation. He was later convicted of tax evasion.

Adams dropped from the public eye in the immediate aftermath of the scandal, but also did writing and lecturing. In 1961, he wrote a book entitled First Hand Report, consisting mostly of anecdotes from his time in the Eisenhower Administration but also some pages defending his actions in the scandal. He founded a ski resort on Loon Mountain, a peak visible from his New Hampshire home, in 1966. Adams also championed the effort to change the name of Mount Pleasant in the Presidential Range to Mount Eisenhower, a switch that occurred in 1972. The summit building on nearby Mount Washington is named for Adams.

Adams died in Hanover, New Hampshire, in October 1986 from respiratory arrest and renal failure after being hospitalized for a month. Not long after his death, William Safire published a column saying the Internal Revenue Service had been after Adams for years for about $300,000 in unreported income. Even if true, however, it was too late to do anything about it.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Voters in 7 States Name Candidates in Primaries" in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on Sept. 15 1948, "Adams Will Have Greater Authority Than Any Prior President's Assistant" in the Toledo Blade on Nov. 25 1952, "The New Administration: Assistant To The President" in Time on Dec. 1 1952, "The Administration: O.K., S.A." in Time on Jan. 9 1956, "Ike Assistant Wouldn't Be U.S. President" in the Deseret News on May 10 1957, "Eisenhower Aide Adams Is Accused" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Feb. 18 1958, "Ike Says 'I Need Him' About Sherman Adams" in the Free-Lance Star on Jun. 18 1958, "The Administration: Man In The Storm" in Time on Jun. 30 1958, "Up From South Boston: The Rise & Fall Of John Fox" in Time on Jul. 7 1958, "Investigations: Tales Of The Wild Hare" in Time on Jul. 7 1958, "Adams Resigns Under Pressure As Ike's Assistant" in the Daily Collegian on Sept. 23 1958, "The Administration: Exit Adams" in Time on Sept. 29 1958, "Goldfine Gets Suspended Term, Fine" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Jul. 24 1959, "Sherman Adams Drops From Public View, Lives Quiet Life In New Hampshire Town" in the Ocala Star-Banner on Jul. 27 1959, "Sherman Adams Repleads His Case" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Jun. 5 1961, "Sherman Adams, Was Top Assistant For Eisenhower" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Oct. 28 1986, "The Great Sherman Adams Cover-Up" in the Toledo Blade on Nov. 4 1986, Eisenhower & Landrum-Griffin: A Study in Labor-Management Politics by R. Alton Lee, The New Hampshire Century edited by Felice Belman and Mike Pride, Eisenhower by Geoffrey Perret, Eisenhower and the American Crusades by Herbert S. Parmet, logginginlincoln.com, mountwashington.org

Alan Cranston: a beating from Keating

Image from bioguide.congress.gov

The lifelong mission of Alan MacGregor Cranston was putting an end to the arms race. These efforts may have been the legacy of the Democratic Senator from California, and to some extent they are. Unfortunately for Cranston, his involvement in a scandal in the waning days of his government days would forever associate his name with a savings and loan scandal.

Cranston was born in Palo Alto, California, in 1914. After attending Pomona College and the University of New Mexico, he graduated from Stanford University in 1936. While at the university, Cranston became a noted track athlete and would keep up with the sport throughout his life. In 1969, the same year he began serving in the United States Senate, he set a world record in the 100-yard dash for 55-year-olds with a time of 12.6 seconds.

Following his graduation, Cranston joined the International News Service, the precursor to United Press International. In a later interview, Cranston claimed to be the first non-fascist journalist allowed into Germany under the Nazi regime. He only worked with the news service from 1937 to 1938, but it was a busy period in which he covered prewar occurrences in England, Germany, Italy, and Ethiopia. He later said that he left journalism because, "I didn't want to spend my life writing about such evil people and their terrible deeds; I'd rather be involved in the action."

Cranston got his chance in 1939, a matter of months before Germany invaded Poland. Having returned to the United States, Cranston spotted a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in a Macy's bookstore in New York City. Noticing that it was slimmer than the copies he had seen in Austria, Cranston was shocked to find that the English language version of the German dictator's memoir had been whitewashed to eradicate any mention of anti-Semitism or militarism. Moreover, every sale of the three-dollar book sent about 40 cents in royalties to Hitler.

Cranston responded by producing his own, unexpurgated take on Mein Kampf. Working from the original German version and two translations, Cranston produced a 32-page pamphlet in eight days. Released through a William Randolph Hearst publisher, the pamphlet made no secret of its intentions. The sections that had been cut out of the English translation were highlighted, and it included editorial commentary exposing Hitler's lies and deceptions. The cover showed Hitler carving up the planet against a red background, and boasted, "Not 1 cent of royalty to Hitler." Instead, the proceeds would go toward helping refugees from Europe.

The publication didn't last long. Houghton-Mifflin, the U.S. publisher for Mein Kampf, sued for copyright infringement. In a Connecticut court, Cranston's lawyer argued that the book's copyright had been secured in Austria, and had ceased to be valid once Germany annexed the country. The judge didn't go for it, and ordered a halt to production of the pamphlet. In the 10 days the pamphlet had been out, it had sold about 500,000 copies for a dime a piece.

Prior to the U.S. entry into World War II, Cranston worked for the Common Council for American Unity, an organization that helped European immigrants adjust to American life. From 1940 to 1944, he became chief of the foreign language division of the Office of War Information. The duties included explaining the rationale behind the war to German, Italian, and Japanese immigrants, as well as how price controls worked. In 1944, he declined a deferment and enlisted in the U.S. Army. Though he served until the end of the war, Cranston was soon taken out of the infantry to return to journalism in the field, which included writing up the war aims for soldiers. He was discharged as a sergeant.

In 1946, Cranston published The Killing of Peace, a book he had been working on during his service in the war. It focused on the failure of the United States to join the League of Nations after World War I, and encouraged the country to join the United Nations, the other world organization then coming into being. The New York Times named the work one of the top 10 books of the year.

Cranston's first noted work with demilitarization came when he became the national president of the United World Federalists in 1949. The organization called for strengthening the UN, including giving it "the power of law to control all weapons and prevent aggression," to make a more effective world federation. The first step would be the hardest, however. While speaking in support of a congressional disarmament proposal in 1950, Cranston said that the U.S. should not disarm "until all countries disarm under an effective control system." Meanwhile, the idea of creating a world federation was radical enough that Cranston had to fend off charges that the organization was linked to Communism, and it was revealed in 2003 that the Federal Bureau of Investigation began monitoring Cranston after World War II and continued doing so during his political career. Cranston remained president of the United World Federalists until 1952.

Cranston moved on to found the California Democratic Council and serve as its president from 1953 to 1958. He won his first political victory in 1958, when he was elected comptroller of the state. He served until 1967, leaving office after losing a re-election attempt, and spent the next few years in land investment and home construction, serving as president of Homes for a Better America and vice-president of Carlsberg Financial Corporation.

In the midst of these activities, Cranston launched another campaign: a bid for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senator in the race to replace ailing incumbent Claire Engle. Though Cranston enjoyed the support of Governor Edmund "Jerry" Brown, the race became contentious when former JFK speechwriter Pierre Salinger entered the race as another popular candidate. Salinger was backed by Jesse Unruh, the speaker of the state assembly, who knew that his perception as something of a political boss would hurt Salinger if he ever publicly declared support. Cranston declared that Unruh would "take violent sides in a Little League game if he thought he could own the winner."

In the first attack on his fundraising methods, a former state inheritance tax appraiser accused Cranston of selling lucrative posts in exchange for campaign contributions as comptroller. When the Salinger campaign took up the charges, Cranston responded by filing a $2 million libel suit against them. Salinger maintained the accusations, saying the people appointed by Cranston only kept their jobs due to contributions. The ugly race finally ended with Salinger winning the nomination, though losing the general election.

Cranston met with more success in the 1968 Senate race. He was matched up against Max Rafferty, the Republican state superintendent of public instruction. Though Crafferty blasted Cranston for his support of halting bombing in Vietnam and association with left-wing groups such as the California Democratic Council, Rafferty's own image was tarnished after news reports implicated him as a draft-dodger. Cranston won the election with 52 percent of the vote.

Cranston would go on to win another three terms, and served as the Democratic whip from 1977 to 1991. He chaired the Committee on Veterans' Affairs from 1977 to 1981, and again from 1987 to 1993, and ultimately held positions on the Foreign Relations, Intelligence, Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committees. He supported the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, threw his weight behind bills on environmental protection and civil rights, and was a strong supporter of Israel. Cranston introduced the California Desert Protection Act and a bill to allow journalists to keep their sources confidential. He also co-sponsored a bill in 1977 seeking to decriminalize the possession and non-profit sale of small amounts of marijuana and the Cranston-Gonzales National Affordable Housing Act.

For the early part of his career, Cranston's potential for embarassment came not from his actions, but from his family. His son, Robin, was accused of drugging his girlfriend, who was also a former Playboy Bunny. Robin was cleared of the charges in February of 1973 due to lack of evidence. However, he was arrested again six years later, this time on suspicion of trying to murder a different ex-girlfriend by strangulation and setting fire to her house. Robin's attempted murder and arson charges did not stay in the headlines for long, so it is unclear what happened with the case. In May of 1980, he died after he was struck by a van.

Cranston was also humbled some years later, when he sought the Democratic nomination for President. He became the first Democrat to announce his candidacy, in February of 1983, and based his platform entirely around nuclear disarmament. "There can be no cure for growing unemployment, decreasing productivity, the diminishing opportunity for individual Americans to enhance their well-being, if we continue to pour a mounting portion of our national resources - our money, our technological skills, the energies of our people and our government - into an arms race," he declared. His plan was to gain a foothold in the campaign through solidarity with voters who felt strongly on the nuclear issue, then begin building on the other issues.

In June of 1983, the New Republic reported that Cranston had spent $4,000 of surplus campaign funds from his 1980 re-election on voice lessons, speechwriting services, and travel and lodging expenses for his wife. He denied any wrongdoing, saying he had consulted with the Internal Revenue Service and Senate Ethics Committee on the matter. His senior assistant, Roy Greenaway, admitted that the funds were used for Cranston's wife for events "in which there was a role for her," while the other expenses aimed at making Cranston a better public speaker. It apparently wasn't enough. Though Cranston performed well in some non-binding votes, including a straw poll in Wisconsin, he dropped out of the race in February of 1984 after finishing seventh with only three percent of the vote in the New Hampshire primary. A Cranston campaign worker named Bernard Rapoport later attributed the failure to Cranston's lack of charisma, dry manner of speech, and poor appearance on television. "He was one of the most intelligent senators I have ever known," said Rapoport, "but he did not generate any excitement on the campaign trail."

Campaign violations continued to pile up on and around Cranston, although most were minor. The marketing director for a failed bank pleaded guilty in 1986 to having the bank make and hide an illegal contribution to Cranston's presidential campaign, although Cranston was found to be unaware of the impropriety. In 1988, Cranston was fined $1,500 for violations of the campaign laws in his 1986 re-election. There, it was found that his re-election committee did not report approximately $225,000 borrowed from 13 lenders within 60 days, and also that it accepted about $7,000 from contributors who exceeded the $1,000-per-individual limit. Four men were charged with illegally channeling funds exceeding the limit to a third-party candidate in an attempt to split the Republican vote. Finally, in June of 1989, Cranston was fined $50,000 by the Federal Election Commission for violations in his presidential campaign, including that he accepted too much money from his sister and several businessmen.

So while Cranston was well-known for his ability to raise funds for his campaigns, it often came at a price. The scandal that would most affect Cranston first appeared in a small story in the Los Angeles Times in June of 1988. According to the newspaper, public records showed that Republican businessman Charles H. Keating, Jr. of Arizona contributed $85,000 to the California Democratic Party and raised $40,000 for Cranston's 1986 re-election campaign. It was also noted that Cranston, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, and four other Senators met with federal regulators in April of 1987 to ask that they ease up on their investigation into the Keating-owned Lincoln Federal Savings and Loan Association in Irvine, California. Greenaway, again speaking on behalf of Cranston, said that the Senators were seeking to put a halt to over-regulation on the government's part. It would be another 10 months before the incident blossomed into the scandal involving the "Keating Five."

Keating, a businessman with interests in several states, acquired Lincoln in 1984. He proceeded to shift most of the institution's assets into riskier real estate investments, foreign transactions, and other speculative ventures. Lincoln's practices also involved the sale of "junk bonds" and deceptive accounting that recorded the trading of empty lots as a profitable undertaking. Keating found himself under fire from state and federal regulators, who suspected him of failing to abide by federal disclosure and government accountability rules.

Lincoln collapsed in April of 1989, leaving 23,000 mostly elderly depositors devoid of their savings. The federal government took over the institution at a cost of about $2.6 billion to taxpayers. It was one of the larger blows of a growing savings and loan meltdown that cost the government hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out. With the fall of the institution, the meeting involving Cranston and the other Senators came under more scrutiny.

Aside from Cranston, the Keating Five included Democrats James DeConcini of Arizona, John Glenn of Ohio, and Donald Riegle of Michigan, as well as Republican John McCain of Arizona. All of the Senators except Riegle, who helped arrange the meeting, came together in DeConcini's office in April of 1987 to meet with Keating. Edwin Gray, a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and President Ronald Reagan's chief regulator of savings and loan institutions, said Keating offered to return Lincoln to more traditional home loans if the Senators pushed to get rid of the direct investment rule. The promise would have rung rather hollow, considering the rule limited the amount of money that could be invested in high-risk ventures. The Senators all denied that the offer even took place.

In another meeting a week later with regulators in San Francisco, all of the Senators pressed for more deregulation against Lincoln. While the Senators said they were concerned that too much pressure was being placed on Lincoln, most backed off once it was revealed that the regulators were looking into possible criminal action against Keating. Cranston and DeConcini, however, continued to meet with regulators to advocate on behalf of Keating. Cranston met with regulators six times in a two-month period to keep abreast of the possible sale of the institution.

The Senate Ethics Committee received a request to investigate Glenn in September of 1989, and then another one seeking an inquiry into the entire group in October of 1989. Cranston intially kept quiet about the scandal, postponing his marriage to his third wife so the ceremony would not be waylaid by reporters. Then in January of 1990, he came out swinging against Gray, calling him a "political hack" and accusing him of seeking scapegoats because the savings and loan crisis happened on his watch. He also said Gray treated the federal bank board to extended lines of credit and lavish junkets. Cranston also showed no signs of being significantly rattled in a May 1990 interview. "It's a big nuisance," he said. "I think you're fair game when you're in public life for whoever wants to take you on." He also lamented that he would have to raise money for both a legal defense fund and re-election campaign for the 1992 contest, and that some would see his image as a reformer compromised by his acceptance of campaign funds from a conservative Republican. "My words and deeds show that I am a reformer on many fronts," he said. "Then this thing blows up and it doesn't matter what I did."

The Ethics Committee began its hearings in November of 1990 and continued them until January of 1991. Shortly before they began, Cranston announced that he would not seek re-election in 1992. He had recently been diagnosed with prostate cancer.

During the hearings, it was found that Keating had donated $1.3 million to the five senators. Cranston, whose constituencies included Lincoln, received a disproportionately large share: close to a million dollars. Some of the funds went toward his campaigns, but the majority of that money went toward voter registration groups supported by Cranston, though there was some question of whether the groups (one of which was headed by another son) were actively seeking to recruit more Democrats than Republicans. In November of 1990, Cranston testified that it was "politically unwise and stupid" to meet with Keating in the way he and the other senators did, but insisted that he had done nothing wrong. The unfortunate truth of politics, he said, was that those who contributed money had easier access to politicians, and it was only natural that they would seek some return on their investment.

In February of 1991, the committee released its initial findings. The chief counsel, Robert S. Bennett, charged Cranston with soliciting or taking donations from Keating on four occasions that correlated with political actions that favored Keating. Among the findings were a hint from Cranston's chief fundraiser in January of 1987 that contributors, including Keating, would "rightfully expect some kind of resolution" on Lincoln's problems; a call to the regulatory board of the savings and loan institutions shortly after Keating's aides delivered $250,000 to his campaign in November of 1987; and, in an incident Cranston denied, a dinner in Los Angeles in January in 1988 in which Cranston came up to Keating, patted him on the back, and said, "Ah, the mutual aid society."

The committee declared that Cranston acted improperly, and that there was "substantial credible evidence" of his official activity being influenced by Keating campaign funds. The other four Senators got off with written rebukes, while Cranston's case entered a long period of bipartisan stalemate over how to proceed on the matter. In August of 1991, Republican Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina, a member of the committee, leaked Bennett's recommendation: censure for Cranston.

The case was finally resolved in November of 1991, when Cranston accepted a reprimand from the committee for "improper and repugnant conduct." The action avoided a formal floor vote, and was motivated at least in part by Cranston's illness and decision not to run again. Although his punishment was not much more severe than the other four senators in the Keating Five, Cranston was incensed and let the Senate know. He said the rest of the chamber would be unable to look clean after the scrutiny he had gone through, and that his actions were normal for the Senate. "You are in jeopardy if you ever do anything at any time to help a contributor -- no matter how worthy the cause, no matter how proper the need for help and no matter how proper the help you render," he said. "I stand before you as an illustration of that jeopardy." At the same time, Cranston urged that money be removed as a factor from campaigns. He said he had narrowly won his last election after spending $11 million, and that such contests made politicians more concerned with getting money than with serving the people. "There is only one way to get out: get money out of politics," he said. "Enact public financing and enact it now."

The speech drew some angry outcry from other Senators. Republican Warren Rudman of New Hampshire called it a smear on the Senate, and said testily, "Everybody does not do it." Republican Trent Lott of Mississippi also criticized Cranston. "The accused, who frankly was getting off quite lightly, in effect became the accuser," he said. Keating would go to prison after being convicted of racketeering and fraud charges, but his 12-year sentence was overturned in 1996 after it was determined that the jury was biased by the savings and loan crisis and did not have enough evidence to convict him. In the 1992 election, Democrat Barbara Boxer was elected to Cranston's seat.

After returning to Palo Alto, Cranston joined the U.S.-Kyrgyz Business Council and also served as senior international adviser to the Schooner Capital Corporation. In 1996, he partnered with former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to chair the Gorbachev Foundation/USA, an organization advocating nuclear disarmament. In 1999, he founded his own organization with the same goal in mind, the Global Security Institute. The next year, he co-founded the Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign. While the Keating scandal never came up in the 2000 interview, which took place at UC Berkeley, he again called for the removal of money as a factor in campaigns, echoing his argument from nine years before: "[U]ntil we get money out of politics, money is going to affect every issue that comes along, often adversely to the interests of the public." On New Year's Eve of that year, Cranston died of natural causes unrelated to his cancer diagnosis.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Justice Douglas A Vice President Of Federalists" in the Evening Independent on Feb. 18 1950, "World Federalists Deny Communist Tie" in the New York Times on Feb. 25 1950, "Group Supports Call To Disarm" in the Toledo Blade on Jun. 22 1950, "Salinger-Cranston Senate Race Absorbs California" in the Toledo Blade on May 4 1964, "Cranston Sold Jobs, Ex-Appraiser Claims" in the Los Angeles Times on May 21 1964, "The Difficulty of Selling Soap" in Time on May 29 1964, "Salinger Issues Reply To Cranston Libel Suit" in the Los Angeles Times on May 30 1964, "Salinger Defeats Cranston" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Jun. 3 1964, "Who's New In The Senate" in Time on Nov. 15 1968, Copyright's Paradox by Neil Netanel, "Jury Clears Senator's Son" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Feb. 10 1973, "Cranston Backs 'Pot' Decriminalization" in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 4 1977, "Senator's Son A Suspect" in the Spokesman-Review on Feb. 19 1979, "Didn't Leave Will" in The Bulletin on May 21 1980, "Cranston Starts Longshot Run For Presidency" in The Ledger on Feb. 3 1983, "Cranston Used Funds For Voice Lessons" in the Gainesville Sun on Jun. 5 1983, "First To Enter, Cranston Becomes First To Exit" in The Ledger on Mar. 1 1984, "Ex-Bank Aide In Guilty Plea" in the New York Times on Jun. 7 1986, "Sen. Cranston Went To Bat For Big Contributor" in the St. Petersburg Times on Jun. 14 1987, "Cranston Fined For 1986 Campaign Law Violations" in the Los Angeles Times on Jun. 7 1988, "Cranston To Pay Penalty For Campaign Violations" in the Los Angeles Times on Jun. 30 1989, "4 Men Are Accused of Election Fraud" in the New York Times on Dec. 15 1988, "Cranston Inquiry Widens To Include Signups of Voters" in the New York Times on Dec. 6 1989, "Cranston Decides To Fight In Effort To Overcome Image In Savings And Loan Failure" in the New York Times on Jan. 21 1990, "Washington At Work; Cranston, A Picture Of Calm In The Eye Of A Political Storm" in the New York Times on May 18 1990, "Citing Cancer Of Prostate, Cranston Rules Out '92 Bid" in the New York Times on Nov. 9 1990, "Cranston Accused Of Helping Keating For Contributions" in the Deseret News on Nov. 16 1990, "You Sold Your Office" in Time on Nov. 26 1990, "Cranston Says He Was 'Unwise' In Dealings With S&L" in the New York Times on Nov. 30 1990, "Ethics Committee Singles Out Cranston" in the New York Times on Feb. 28 1991, "Cranston Censure Urged By Counsel" in the New York Times on Aug. 5 1991, "Cranston Rebuked By Ethics Panel" in the New York Times on Nov. 21 1991, "Senate Panel Reprimands Cranston" in the St. Petersburg Times on Nov. 21 1991, "Reprimanded Cranston Rails At Fellow Senators" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Nov. 21 1991, "FBI Watched Cranston For Years, Paper Says" in the Los Angeles Times on Aug. 27 2003, The Sovereignty Revolution by Alan MacGregor Cranston et al., Being Rapoport: Capitalist with a Conscience by Bernard Rapoport, Senate Elections by Alan I. Abramowitz and Jeffrey Allan Segal, Ethics In Congress: From Individual to Institutional Corruption by Dennis Frank Thompson, Encyclopedia of White-Collar and Corporate Crime, Vol. 2 by Lawrence M. Salinger, In the Ring: Trials of a Washington Lawyer by Robert S. Bennett, "Conversation with Alan Cranston" in UC Berkeley's Conversations with History series (available at http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Cranston/cranston-con0.html), "In Memoriam: Alan MacGregor Cranston" at gsinstitute.org

James H. Lane: soldier of misfortune

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Like William Hull, James Henry Lane could be considered as much or more of a military man than a politician. Though he had considerably more political experience than Hull, Lane nevertheless spent much of his time in the field. Ultimately, it was a mix of both political and military issues that led to Lane's downfall.

Lane was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, in 1814. After attending school and studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1840 and opened up a practice in his hometown. While there, he became a member of the city council and speaker of the Indiana house of representatives. Six years after opening his practice, Lane left to join the Third Indiana Volunteers. Ultimately, he became a colonel and served in the Mexican War, leading a brigade at the Battle of Buena Vista. Upon returning home, Lane raised the Fifth Indiana Volunteers and served as Lieutenant Governor from 1849 to 1853.

Lane left this position after being elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives in 1852. He served one term, during which his most noted vote was one in favor of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, an act that led to the "bleeding Kansas" struggles between pro- and anti-slavery settlers in the territory. Not one to shy away from trouble, Lane moved to the Kansas Territory after his term in the House and joined the anti-slavery "free state" faction.

In 1855, Lane became the chairman of the executive committee of the Topeka constitutional convention, which formed the first state government. He was also elected major-general of the Free State Troops, and organized the defense of Lawrence during the conflict in late 1855 known as the "Wakarusa War." The key feature of the defense was a network of rifle pits throughout the settlement's streets, ensuring that any attacking pro-slavery army would pay a high price. In a speech after Lawrence's successful defense from Missouri raiders, Lane declared, "That beloved Union, for the safety of which we trembled, will not again, we trust, be imperiled by a foreign force from a sister state invading our Territory. They must and will see the impropriety and injustice of meddling in our affairs until they become our fellow citizens."

Lane was known for such speeches in his efforts to encourage anti-slavery settlers to come to Kansas and in his general denunciation of slavery. In an 1856 speech, Lane blamed Franklin Pierce for the bloodshed, since the territory had been rejected for statehood, and arraigned the President as a murderer. The accusation referred to the government's decision that year to not recognize a memorial presented to Congress requesting statehood. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois accused Lane of perpetrating fraud, since the memorial was plagued with added sentences and several signatures that appeared to be in the same handwriting. An incensed Lane challenged Douglas to a duel, but Douglas refused to accept, saying Lane was not a Senator and therefore not his equal. The rebuke was especially cutting because the Topeka government had appointed Lane to sit in the Senate if statehood was granted. According to John Speer, a compatriot and biographer of Lane, Douglas and Lane eventually became friends due to the approaching Civil War, and Lane mourned Douglas when he died a few months after the conflict began.

Lane continued his activities against pro-slavery men in Kansas, earning him the nickname "The Grim Chieftain." When raiders sacked Lawrence in May of 1856, Lane gathered troops from Iowa and Nebraska and entered Kansas to bolster the anti-slavery forces and drive out raiders. During the same month, Lane was indicted for high treason. The New York Times, in Lane's obituary, reported that Douglas County handed down the indictment for Lane's support for the Topeka government, while historian Donald L. Gilmore says the indictment was handed down by a U.S. district court chief justice who charged Lane and a number of other anti-slavery leaders with resisting territorial laws.

The indictment led Lane to keep out of sight more than usual, but by the next year he was back on the scene, assisting with efforts to remove raiders from Bourbon and Lion counties. He served as president of the Leavenworth constitutional convention, and was elected major-general of the Kansas troops by the territorial legislature. Lane also corresponded with John Brown during 1857, appointing him a brigadier-general and encouraging him to come to the territory to fight. Brown declined, as he was making preparations for his famed 1859 raid against Harper's Ferry in Virginia.

Lane's first serious trouble came in June of 1858, when he shot and killed fellow free state leader Gaius Jenkins as Jenkins came onto land that both men claimed in order to get water from a well. According to Lane's account, Jenkins was accompanied by three other armed men, and he did not open fire himself until three shots had been leveled at him, including one that struck him in the knee. Lane was charged with homicide, but ultimately released on the grounds of self-defense. The incident haunted Lane for at least another year, when a public resolution called him a coward and murderer and said the incident "adds one more infamous page to a life of treason, stratagem, and spoils." In a response published in the Lawrence Republican in March of 1859, Lane declared that he had not expected to kill Jenkins. "It is true that Mr. Jenkins fell by my hand," he wrote. "But no one has more deeply felt or grievously mourned that misfortune than myself."

After Kansas was admitted to the Union as a state in early 1861, the legislature elected Lane to the U.S. Senate with 55 votes, a slight majority over Samuel C. Pomeroy, the other man appointed. By this time, Lane had fallen in with the Radical Republicans, who not only opposed slavery but supported civil rights for African-Americans. He had also fallen on poor times. Speer said that when Lane was elected, he was so poor that he "was refused credit for a loaf of bread in Lawrence."

With the Civil War underway, one of Lane's most notable actions was commanding the Frontier Guard. Made up of Kansas troops, the Guard was raised for the defense of Washington, D.C. in the early part of the war. They were even camped in the East Room of the White House for a time, according to the New York Tribune. Lane also sent the men on a few offensive actions, including an attempt to capture Confederate general Robert E. Lee. While this failed, they did manage to capture the first rebel flag of the war from the homestead of a secessionist.

In June of 1861, President Abraham Lincoln nominated Lane to be brigadier-general of the volunteers. Lane accepted, and for four months commanded the Kansas Brigade, made up of three volunteer units. Following the retreat of Union troops at Wilson's Creek and threats of further violence by pro-slavery raiders, Lane gathered troops and fought skirmishes at Dry Wood and Papinsville. He then led the men on to sack Osceola, Missouri.

Lane's military activities back in the West weren't exactly conducive to his duties as a U.S. Senator. Following his nomination to be brigadier-general, the Judiciary Committee determined that he "virtually resigned his seat." Governor Charles Robinson appointed Frederick P. Stanton, a former governor of the Kansas Territory, to fill the vacancy. Robinson was not very fond of Lane, resentful of his influence and troop-raising activities, which were not strictly within his authority. Though the Senate considered the question of whether Lane was "not entitled to a seat in this body," the seat remained Lane's when the question was amended in January of 1862 to remove the word "not" and accepted.

Though Lane's hope was to raise an expedition of Kansas troops, Native Americans, cavalry, and artillery to invade the southwestern portion of Confederacy, the idea was abandoned due to impracticality. Nevertheless, Lane continued to see action in the West during the Civil War. In July of 1862, he was named commissioner to superintend the recruitment of volunteers.

One noted result of Lane's recruiting efforts was the First Kansas Colored Volunteers, the first black regiment created in the Union army. He sent agents throughout the Union to raise troops, but ultimately the War Department asked that it be put to a stop after receiving complaints that it was hindering efforts to recruit white men. Undeterred, Lane continued to muster troops without federal or state backing. He even hired black recruiting agents, promising pay equal to their white counterparts. Eventually, the regiment received federal authorization.

Already an enemy of pro-slavery forces in Kansas, Lane's activities and declarations (including one that overthrowing slavery would destroy the Confederacy) did nothing to endear him to them. One goal of William Quantrill's 1863 raid on Lawrence was to find and kill Lane. Though his house was one of some 185 buildings torched, Lane was not among the approximately 150 casualties of the massacre. He had managed to escape through a window and nearby cornfield. Enraged by the attack, he called for western Missouri to be converted into "a desert waste." He also pressured a local brigadier-general to pass an order calling for the inhabitants in four Missouri counties to evacuate if they were not loyal to the Union and relocate to a military post if they were. In October of 1864, Lane was named volunteer aide-de-camp when martial law was proclaimed in Kansas.

Lane managed to find some time in these adventures to do work in the Senate. He chaired the Committee on Agriculture during 1864, and also helped to get the Union Pacific Railroad moved three miles to access Lawrence and Topeka. When the railroad requested $300,000 to counteract the loss of funds the diversion would cause, Lane responded, "Before you get a dollar out of that burned and murdered town, you will take up every stump, and every old log you have buried in your grade to save money, and stone-ballast every rod to Lawrence; and even then, when you get your first subsidies, let Jim Lane know!"

When the war concluded, the Chicago Tribune published an account suggesting that a U.S. Senator was personally receiving $20,000 in a deal involving Indian Bureau transactions and military contracts. Though the newspaper didn't name anyone, the Boston Commonwealth suggested it could be Lane. He denied any involvement in such a deal, and was supported by the Senators from Indiana, who declared him innocent after looking the matter over.

Though he was exonerated on the accusations, the incident only further stressed Lane, who had been returned to the Senate in 1865. He lost favor among the Radical Republicans when he opted to support President Andrew Johnson's watered-down approach to the Reconstruction, including Johnson's opposition to the Freedmen's Bureau and veto of the Civil Rights Bill. In July of 1866, Lane visited his brother-in-law, a Captain McCall, and the two rode out from Fort Leavenworth. When McCall opened the carriage door for him at a stop, Lane stepped out, said, "Goodbye, Mac," and shot himself in the head. He died 10 days later.

In pondering the incident, contemporary sources often turned to mental illness as a way to explain the suicide. Speer, declaring Lane overworked and deranged, said, "There is nothing strange about such a man becoming insane." The New York Times obituary stated, "Mr. Lane's present term in the Senate was unmarked by ought that was peculiar or out of the ordinary routine. He was eminently social, kind-hearted, and just faithful ever to his friends, relentless ever to his foes." Initially referring to his condition as "temporary insanity," the newspaper declared four days later that a doctor had determined that the suicide was "attributed solely to mental aberration, induced by extreme prostration and derangement of the nervous system, and aggravated by anxiety."

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, The Kansas Historical Society, Territorial Kansas Online, "Obituary: James H. Lane, United States Senator From Kansas" in the New York Times on Jul. 4 1866, "Gen. James H. Lane; His Conduct Previous To The Attempt To Commit Suicide" in the New York Times on Jul. 8 1866, Life of General James H. Lane, "The Liberator of Kansas" by John Speer, Jim Lane: Scoundrel, Statesman, Kansan by Robert Collins, Rebel Invasion of Missouri and Kansas by Richard Josiah Hinton, Compilation of Senate Election Cases from 1789 to 1913, The Black Military Experience by Joseph Patrick Reidy, Kansas edited by Frank W. Blackmar, John Brown, Abolitionist by David S. Reynolds, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies Vol. 3, Encyclopedia of the American Civil War edited by David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler, John M. Schofield and the Politics of Generalship by Donald B. Connelly, Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield by James Gillespie Blaine, Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border by Donald L. Gilmore, "New Perspectives On The West" at pbs.org

Matthew Lyon: pomp and consequence

Depiction of Lyon brawling with congressman Roger Griswold. Image from vermont-archives.org

Matthew Lyon's first infraction as a politician was essentially a failed delivery. A member of the Vermont state house of representatives and clerk of the Court of Confiscation, he was impeached in 1785 for refusing to bring records to the Council of Censors. The request had been made by a Tory contingent in the house, which was seeking compensation for lands seized during the American Revolution. In addition to the impeachment, Lyon was reprimanded and fined 500 pounds for never showing up for the trial. Once these penalties had been imposed, Lyon requested a new trial, and one was granted. Whatever happened next is lost to history, but events worked out in Lyon's favor. The trial never occurred, but the impeachment was rescinded, the fine remitted, and the reprimand withdrawn. It wasn't the first time that Lyon had managed to escape trouble unscathed, and it wouldn't be the last.

Lyon was born in 1749 in County Wicklow, near Dublin, in Ireland. There, he attended school and began training to be a printer. In 1765, when he was 15, Lyon took a ship for the British colonies in America. A biography by James McLaughlin says that Lyon was supposed to receive free passage because he worked as a cabin boy during the journey, but was betrayed by the captain upon his arrival and sold into indentured servitude to pay for his passage. He worked on a farm in Woodbury, Connecticut, before his master traded him for a pair of bulls. Until the end of his life, one of Lyon's favorite sayings was, "By the bulls that redeemed me."

After fulfilling his debt, Lyon remained in Connecticut for a time and in 1774 moved to Wallingford in the New Hampshire Grants, which would later become the state of Vermont. When the Revolution began in 1775, he joined the Green Mountain Boys militia and took part in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga. Later in the year, he became an adjutant with Col. Seth Warner's regiment in Canada, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in July of 1776. In an incident that would later be of great consequence on the floor of the House, Lyon was court-martialed for cowardice and cashiered after his company abandoned a fort on Lake Champlain due to the threat of Indian attack.

Lyon was eventually reinstated and promoted to a captain. He also helped guide a retreat from Fort Ticonderoga to safety after realizing that the troops were in danger of running right into a British force and possible capture. In 1777, Lyon moved to Arlington, Vermont and resigned from the army the next year.

Upon his retirement from the military, Lyon turned to administrative duties and took part in the convention that established the state constitution. He also served as assistant judge of Rutland County and deputy secretary to Governor Thomas Chittenden, meeting and later marrying Chittenden's daughter along the way. He was a member of the state house of representatives from 1779 to 1783 and for 10 of the years between 1783 to 1796. His other accomplishments included founding the town of Fair Haven in 1783 and building and operating several mills for iron casting, paper production, and timber sawing.

Lyon, a stout anti-Federalist and member of the Democratic-Republican Party, made three unsuccessful bids for the House of Representatives between 1790 and 1794. In 1793, he established a printing office to start cranking out the Farmers' Library, which would later become the Fair Haven Gazette. Essentially, Lyon's reason for starting up the newspaper was to introduce more political opinion into the Vermont press, which was dominated by Federalist publications from surrounding areas.

In 1796, Lyon was successful in winning a seat in Congress, then based in Philadelphia. Not one to spare words, he directly accused Alexander Hamilton, the Federalist leader, of "screwing the hard-earnings out of the poor people's pockets" so the government would be able to "vie with European Courts in frivolous gaudy appearances." One of Lyon's main targets was a ceremony borrowed from the British Parliament, in which the House sent a committee to formally request the President to address Congress.

Lyon quickly became one of the main enemies of the Federalists. He was derisively called "the roaring Lyon of Vermont" and other nicknames, and openly mocked as he traveled through strong Federalist areas between Vermont and Philadelphia. After unsuccessfully trying to amend the practice of requesting the audience of the President so that any members who didn't wish to participate weren't compelled to do so, Lyon questioned whether he alone could be exempted; another member suggested that Lyon was insane and should be locked up while the rest of the congressmen visited the President. In one of his better-known speeches, Lyon said that it did not matter how well-born one was, but only how well they served the country. He said one of the reasons he did not support the ceremony was because he did not trace his ancestry to "the couriers of Oliver Cromwell, nor those who hanged witches, or punished their horses for working on Sundays."

Among the Federalist attacks on Lyon was the story, almost certainly apocryphal, that he had been forced to wear a wooden sword as punishment after being cashiered from the army. Though Lyon could hold his own against the attacks on him, the slander on his military record proved a sore spot. In one incident in January of 1798, he was talking with the Speaker of the House during an off time in the deliberations and criticizing the Connecticut congressmen, saying their actions in the House were contrary to the desires of their constituents. Boasting loudly enough for the nearby Connecticut delegation to hear, Lyon said he would be able to foment a revolution of political opinion within six months if he were to go into the state with a printing press. Upon hearing this, Federalist congressman Roger Griswold of Connecticut asked Lyon if he would be wearing his wooden sword when he went there. After Griswold pressed the question, Lyon spat in his face.

The incident was referred to the Committee on Privileges, making Lyon the first congressman to have an ethics complaint lodged against him. The committee determined that he should be expelled for "a violent attack and gross indecency." The House debated for two weeks the question of whether Lyon should be allowed to remain in Congress, with one member saying the nation would dissolve into civil war if that were allowed. The majority favored expulsion in a 52-44 vote, but did not carry enough support to make the two-thirds majority necessary to remove Lyon. Some congressmen suggested that a censure would be more appropriate, but ultimately no action was taken on that recommendation.

The feud with Griswold was far from over, however. Seeking to take his own revenge, Griswold entered the House a couple of weeks after the vote and attacked Lyon with a hickory cane as the Vermont representative was seated at his desk. After sustaining a few blows to the head and face, Lyon managed to escape and get ahold of a set of fire tongs near the House fireplace. Most accounts say Lyon and Griswold both lost their weapons soon after, grappled for awhile, and then took a breather. The fight resumed when an ally of Lyon armed him with a hickory stick of his own, and Lyon got in at least one strike against Griswold as he stood near the a water table. Friends of Griswold moved to get the congressman his own weapon back, but the fight was finally broken up when the Speaker called for order to be restored.

Newspapers on both sides went berserk. Anti-Federalists said Griswold had refused a duel challenge from Lyon and that it was a sign of Federalist cowardice. A Federalist paper in Connecticut threatened Lyon with tarring and feathering if he ever tried to enter the state. In the House, some exasperated congressmen said that both Lyon and Griswold should be thrown out. Though the Committee on Privileges supported the recommendation, neither side was very supportive. Federalists did not want to lose Griswold; Anti-Federalists argued that Lyon was an innocent victim in the brawl, and that it had not disrupted Congress because the House hadn't been in session at the time (an argument also employed in the first debate over Lyon's expulsion). A vote to expel the two members failed 73-21, and though a resolution to reprimand the two congressmen was immediately introduced the House narrowly decided against accepting the question, 48-47.

1798 was shaping up to be quite the banner year for Lyon. In the midst of increasing tension between the United States and France in that year, the Sedition Act passed. The law established penalties for encouraging riots or uprisings, or for forming groups to oppose government measures. The most controversial aspect made it illegal to publish any false or scandalous works intended to defame the government. Opponents of the law saw it as a transparent attempt to cut down on opposition pieces criticizing President John Adams or other government officials. Lyon predicted that he would be the first person arrested under the Sedition Act due to his unpopularity with the Federalists.

In the summer of 1798, Lyon ensured he would meet his prophecy by publishing a letter in Spooner's Vermont Journal explaining why he rejected the idea of "Presidential infallibility." He criticized Adams' fast day proclamation, saying it used "the sacred name of religion as a state engine to make mankind hate and persecute one another," and that "every consideration of the public welfare was swallowed up in a continual grasp for power, and unbounded thirst for ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice." The letter also said decent men were turned out of office for independence of thought while yes-men were sheltered.

Lyon also printed a letter from Joel Barlow, an expatriate in France, in response to a speech by Adams on the United States' relationship with France. Barlow wondered why the response to Adams' speech, which declared France's religion and morality at an end and suggested that the United States remain perpetually armed against the country, had not been "an order to send [Adams] to a madhouse." In addition to the two letters, Lyon launched a magazine entitled Scourge of Aristocracy and Repository of Important Political Truths, which declared its aim to be telling the truth and opposing the lies of the Federalist Party.

Lyon was indicted in October of 1798 by a federal circuit court in Vermont, the first person prosecuted under the Sedition Act. The trial took place the same month in Vergennes, Vermont. The charges against Lyon were attempt to stir up sedition and bring Adams and the government into contempt; malicious publication of Barlow's letter; and assisting and abetting the publication of Barlow's letter. The prosecutors essentially let the publications stand on their own, but also showed that Lyon had been using the writings at public meetings in Vermont and in his political campaign for re-election to the House in the 1798 election.

Lyon served as his own defense during the trial. He argued that the court did not have jurisdiction in the matter because the Sedition Act was illegal; that the publication was innocent; and that the contents spoke the truth. On the last contention, he asked the presiding judge, William Patterson, whether he had not "dined with the President, and observed his ridiculous pomp and parade." Patterson said he hadn't, and that the dinners were simple affairs. When Lyon asked him whether the President had more servants and pomp than the tavern at Rutland, Patterson apparently remembered his role as a judge and kept quiet.

Oddly enough, the Chief Justice of Vermont at the time was Israel Smith, who had served in Congress for eight years before being unseated by Lyon. At the trial, Smith appeared as counsel for Lyon in the closing arguments, but declined to make a reply. Lyon ended up taking up the task himself, stressing the unconstitutionality of the Sedition Act. Patterson told the jury that they weren't to consider constitutionality and that the Sedition Act was law until it was declared null and void. After an hour, the jury returned a guilty verdict.

Patterson told Lyon that he had no business violating the Sedition Act, considering he was a lawmaker and expected to remain within its boundaries. He considered "the reduced condition of [Lyon's] estate" a mitigating factor after Lyon claimed that he could only contribute $200 toward a fine because the depression of 1798 had seriously affected him. Patterson then surprised Lyon by unexpectedly including four months of jail time in the sentence, along with a $1,000 fine and payment of the prosecution costs. Patterson also warned that Lyon could spend more time in jail if the difference of the fine was not raised by the time the sentence expired.

Federalist papers rejoiced in the conviction, declaring it a victory over "the unbridled spirit of opposition to the government" and the end of "the vile career of the beast of the mountain." Vice-President Thomas Jefferson, an anti-Federalist serving under Adams due to a quirk in the original electoral system, criticized the decision, saying it made federal judges "objects of national fear."

Friends of Lyon quickly came to his aid, with some upstarts even vowing to break him out of jail. From his cell window, Lyon encouraged them to show their support at the polls instead; he was still a congressional candidate, after all. With the help of his son, Lyon began distributing letters from the jail to keep his campaign going, adding some criticism of his condition as well. In one letter, he complained of being thrown into a cramped and smelly cell usually reserved as a "common receptacle for horse-thieves, money-makers, runaway-negroes, or other types of felons." While still in jail, Lyon prevailed in the 1798 election with almost twice as many votes as his opponent. One year later, Vermont printer Anthony Haswell was charged with violation of the Sedition Act for accusing the Federalist marshal in charge of Lyon of cruel punishment and saying the government had appointed Tories who had been opposed to independence to government positions. Haswell was sentenced to two months in jail and a $200 fine.

The remainder of the fine proved to be no issue. Lyon's constituents raised money to help pay it off, and Lyon also raffled off his property to raise money. Another fund was started in Virginia, and included contributions from future Presidents Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. More than twice the amount necessary was collected in the course of these fundraising efforts, so Vermont and Virginia supporters each paid half the fine.

Lyon was released from jail in February, in time to make it back to Congress to resume his newly elected term. He was warned that there might be efforts to prosecute him for sedition based on the letters he sent from the cell, but he claimed immunity from arrest as a congressmen en route to the capital. There, he was met with yet another expulsion attempt based on the conviction, as defenders argued that he had been unjustly prosecuted. The vote broke along party lines, with the 49-45 majority once again not meeting the necessary two-thirds majority. A Federalist paper angrily declared, "happy must the nation be where it is but a single step from the dungeon to the Legislature!"

Lyon's survival in the House may well have affected the course of history. Though Lyon did not run in the 1800 election, the contest of note in that year was the Presidential race. When electors tied in their votes for Adams or Jefferson, the matter went to the House. It once again deadlocked there, with eight states in favor of Jefferson, six in favor of Adams, and two states, including Vermont, contested. The other representative from Vermont was a Federalist, but eventually absented himself from the deliberations at his uncle's request. Lyon promptly cast Vermont for Jefferson, giving him the majority necessary to become President.

In early March, the terms of Lyon, Adams, and the Sedition Act all came to a close. Lyon immediately took advantage of the expiration of the law that had convicted him, sending a long, critical letter to Adams. Lyon declared that he was heading west, "where I have fixed for myself an asylum from the persecutions of a party the most base, cruel, assuming, and faithless that ever disgraced the councils of any nation." He berated Adams, saying he had not fulfilled promises, "expected a crown," bullied France and sought to involve the nation in war, and supported unconstitutional laws. "I hope and pray that your fate may be a warning to all usurpers and tyrants and that you may, before you leave this world, become a true and sincere penitent, and be forgiven all your manifold sins in the next," Lyon concluded.

Lyon kept his word about moving west, heading to Caldwell County, Kentucky in 1801 and founding the town of Eddyville. He also started a newspaper and shipyard there, and was a member of the state house of representatives a year after arriving. Jefferson offered him a commisaryship in the Western Army, but he declined. In 1803, he was once again sent to the House and served there for eight years. He lost the 1810 election over his opposition to going to war with England, which would occur in 1812. Despite his opposition to war, Lyon nevertheless became involved with gunboat manufacturing to assist in the military efforts.

Lyon's later life is somewhat unknown. He was appointed a U.S. agent to the Cherokee Nation in the Arkansas Territory, but sources differ as to whether it was in 1817 or 1820. He also ran to be a delegate to Congress from the territory, but sources also differ as to whether or not he was successful. Some say James W. Bates won that election, while others say that Lyon prevailed but died before he could take office. In 1822, Lyon died in Spadra Bluff, Arkansas; in 1833, he was re-interred in Eddyville, whose county was renamed Lyon County after Lyon's son, Chittenden Lyon.

Five years after Lyon's death, Chittenden Lyon began serving in the House of Representatives and stayed there until 1835. In 1840, Congress ordered that the fine Lyon paid after his conviction be refunded to his heirs, with interest; four years later, they made the same provision for Haswell, the printer who had defended him. In 2001, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont invoked Lyon in a speech discussing his decision to leave the Republican Party and become an Independent. Vermont people had always been independent thinkers, said Jeffords, and "proudly elected Matthew Lyon to Congress, notwithstanding his flouting of the Sedition Act."

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Matthew Lyon, Redemptioner" in The Journal of the American-Irish Historical Society, "The American Pym" in New England Magazine, Volume 31, "Jeffords: Independence Is The Vermont Way" in the Los Angeles Times on May 25 2001, Matthew Lyon, the Hampden of Congress by James Fairfax McLaughlin, American State Trials by John D. Lawson, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism by Geoffrey R. Stone, A History of the People of the United States From the Revolution to the Civil War by John Bach McMaster, The Federalist System, 1789-1801 by John Spencer Bassett, A Speaking Aristocracy: Transforming Public Discourse in Eighteenth Century Connecticut by Christopher Grasso, The Early American Republic by Sean Patrick Adams, Censures: Webster's Quotations, Facts, and Phrases by Icon Group International, Lyon Memorial by Albert Brown Lyons and George William Amos Lyon and Eugene Fairfield McPike, Abridgment of the Debates of Congress from 1789 to 1856, Collections of the Vermont Historical Society, The Kentucky Encyclopedia by John E. Kleber

James J. Walker: will they still love him?

Walker on the cover of Time. Image from coverbrowser.com.

Despite being targeted by an investigative commission that had been uncovering corruption in New York City for years, mayor James J. Walker was nonplussed when he was finally called to court to give some answers in 1932. There were even flowers spread on his path into the courthouse, certainly an unusual display for a public official accused of graft. A roaring '20s dandy, Walker is a prime example of personality trumping political competence.

James John Joseph Walker was born in Greenwich Village, New York in 1881. He entered the New York Law School in 1902, but left three years later. Walker aspired to be a songwriter, and met with some success. In 1908, he wrote the lyrics for the hit song "Will You Love Me in December As You Do In May." When he failed to produce additional hits, Walker returned to law and was admitted to the bar in 1912.

Prior to that, in 1910, Walker was elected as a Democrat to the New York state assembly, with backing from the Democratic Party machine Tammany Hall. He served until 1914, and the next year he was elected to the state senate. He became the minority leader in 1921. As a state politician, Walker certainly solidified his popularity with the electorate by supporting measures to ease restrictions on sports and entertainment, including allowing movies and baseball games to take place on Sundays.

Most notably, he fathered a bill in 1920 to legalize professional boxing in New York. The legislation called for the major players in the sports, such as the fighters and referees, to be licensed. A state board of commissioners would have the power to revoke licenses if necessary. The sportswriter W.O. McGeehan encouraged passage of the bill, using something of an unfortunate example when he told Governor Al Smith that the sport was "conducted as honestly as American politics and I venture to say more honestly than the stock market." The bill was signed into law in May of 1920.

In 1925, Tammany and Smith backed Walker as their candidate for the mayor of New York City. The only catch was that a Democrat, John F. Hylan, had already been in office for two four-year terms. Not willing to go quietly, the introduction of Walker led to what Smith referred to as "a little family quarrel" but what was in fact quite a nasty bout of mudslinging. Smith said Hylan had a "blind subservience to a super-boss" and also accused him of secretly meeting with members of the Ku Klux Klan during the 1924 Democratic National Convention. Hylan shot back that Walker would allow thieves and prostitutes to run rampant in the Big Apple; he also described the party as a family, if something of a dysfunctional one. "The Governor has walked deliberately into our city and made trouble in a happy family," he declared. "A few grafting politicians, Wall Street, and the traction gang have tried to get your mayor by the throat, but I have stood like the Rock of Gibraltar running the city for the interests of all the people."

Hylan dropped out of the race in September, leaving Walker to face off against Republican candidate and fountain pen manufacturer Frank D. Waterman. Walker's platform included the advocacy of new highways, expansion of subway system, and maintenance of the subway's five-cent fare; Smith also stumped for him, touting Walker's work for housing, child welfare, soldier bonuses, and other issues. Perhaps more influential, Walker's support of entertainment initiatives earned him plaudits from movie stars, musicians, and sports fans. Irving Berlin wrote him a campaign song which featured the lyric "Win with Walker, he's a corker."

The campaign was also not without its dirty tricks, including one that left Waterman fending off accusations of anti-Semitism. Staffers sought to make a reservation at a hotel Waterman owned in Florida using the false name of Robinowitz. The hotel sent a written reply explaining, "Our clientele is such that the patronage of persons of Hebrew persuasion is not solicited." Walker easily won the general election.

Walker's inauguration in 1926 was notable for a few reasons. In the first of several incidents of tardiness that would earn him the nickname "The Late Mayor," Walker was one and a half hours late for the event. He was also the first mayor to have his inauguration speech broadcast by radio. When he abandoned the microphone to help a woman who had fainted in the crowd, many New Yorkers worried that the dead air signified that he had been assassinated.

Walker's tenure in office was marked by a lackadaisical attitude toward schedules and duties, and historians have offered the opinion that his legislative experience did not adequately prepare him for the administrative tasks of the mayor's office. He also earned the nickname "The Night Mayor" for his propensity to hit the night life, including a well-known but generally ignored affair with a showgirl named Betty Compton. In one incident, Walker is said to have been with Compton in a Montauk casino when the joint was raided by police, and managed to escape by running into the kitchen and disguising himself with a cook's outfit.

The two nicknames directly corresponded with one another. Time reported that Walker "seldom appears before noon, if at all." Sometimes he arrived hung over, and, suddenly a stickler for punctuality, would be short with visitors if they spent more than their allotted five minutes proposing a measure for the city. Needing a break from whatever work he did manage to do, Walker took seven vacations totaling 143 days during his first two years in office. In 1927, he traveled to Italy and personally met the country's dictator, Benito Mussolini.

Walker had made no promises to end the graft and proliferation of speakeasies that were thriving in Prohibition-era New York, the latter thanks in part to police officers willing to take payoffs to turn a blind eye to the establishments. The citizens of New York, if not the nation, seemed to take a similar attitude toward Walker's laziness and affair with Compton. When he went to Philadelphia in November of 1926 as part of a New York City delegation to the Sesquicentennial Exposition, crowds there declared him "our next President."

Walker was known for having an easygoing charm that was able to boost the adulations. His sayings included, "A reformer is a guy who rides through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat" and "I'd rather be a lamppost in New York than mayor of Chicago." When the Republican candidate Fiorello La Guardia challenged him in 1929, he made the accusation that the city's judges were corrupt and the District Attorney, Thomas Crain, was a dolt. He also criticized the mayor's decision earlier that same year to boost his salary from $25,000 to $40,000. "That's cheap!" Walker responded. "Think what it would cost if I worked full time!" Walker won re-election.

Walker's turn in court was still several years away, but the events that would lead to that event began a month after the election. Then, magistrate Albert Vitale was honored at a dinner attended by judges, city officials, and mobsters. The event did nothing to help Vitale, as he had already admitted to taking a $19,500 loan from mobster Arnold Rothstein, who was murdered in November of 1928. It helped spur the formation of an investigative committee, headed by Samuel Seabury, an anti-Tammany Democrat and unsuccessful candidate for the 1916 gubernatorial election.

The investigation focused on the legitimacy of 50 magistrates in Manhattan and the Bronx under the committee's jurisdiction. Seabury assembled a team of young lawyers who he felt would not be corrupted by Tammany Hall, and the commission heard from over 1,000 witnesses in 1930. Magistrates were questioned in private, and many resigned when asked if they would repeat their testimony publicly. One, George Ewald, paid Tammany $10,000 to get his seat. Others had been appointed in exchange for favors. "This evidence presents a situation which is a scandal and a disgrace, as well as a menace, to the City of New York," said Seabury. The investigation also targeted Crain for his practice of letting people charged with serious crimes plead to misdemeanors. The commission determined that Crain was merely incompetent, not corrupt.

Reverend John Haynes Holmes and Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, acting on behalf of the City Affairs Committee, charged Walker with ignoring corruption, appointing incompetent officials, and poor administration of the city government. Walker's own response to the assessment was that the City Affairs Committee was subject to Socialist influences. Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, hoping to secure Tammany backing for his own political ambitions, was at first reluctant to take on corruption in the city and declared that there wasn't enough evidence to remove Walker. However, when the Republican-controlled legislature called for an investigation into the city administration in March of 1931, Roosevelt approved $250,000 for a committee. Seabury joined the effort again as counsel.

The most disturbing aspect of the city government uncovered by the investigation was the outright framing of innocent people by the police department's vice squad. Most of the victims were women accused of prostitution. It was made clear to them that their options were to go to jail or fork over enough cash for their freedom. Other officials were found to have amassed much more money than they should have. Sheriff Tom Farley resigned after it was found that he had accumulated $400,000 after six years in an $8,000-a-year job. Russell T. Sherwood, a financial agent who shared a lockbox with the mayor, fled the city after he was subpoenaed to explain how he had made $700,000 after serving five years with a $10,000 annual salary.

When Seabury looked into the mayors financial records, he declared Walker's letters of credit "the fatal blow to Tammany Hall." He discovered that politicians and businessmen in the city had maintained a slush fund for Walker in exchange for favors, and that the club kept Walker's name off the record by referring to him as the "boyfriend." On one occasion, publisher Paul Block opened a Wall Street brokerage account with Walker, earning the mayor $246,692.72 even though the mayor never invested any money in it. On another, he received $26,535 in bonds from a stock broker interested in taxicab securities. John A. Hastings, a Democratic state senator and one organizer of the Equitable Coach Company, paid for one of Walker's vacations while aiming to gain control of the city's bus routes. Walker was also found to have accepted other gifts, such as the renovation of his childhood home on St. Luke's Place and a railroad car.

When Walker was summoned to court to answer questions about the finances, his popularity was still going strong. Time opined that his admirers "really would not care if it were proved that 'Jimmy' had stolen the Brooklyn Bridge." Walker's charm might have kept the galleries wooed, but it didn't work on Seabury; in fact, he had been warned against looking directly into Walker's eyes to help escape whatever wiles the mayor would employ. Seabury resolutely kept up the questions about the shady financial dealings in the city, and Walker's confidence slipped. Not long after the proceedings, he was booed at a baseball game at Yankee Stadium.

Seabury recommended to Roosevelt, by now the Democratic nominee for the 1932 Presidential election, that Walker was unfit for office. Walker sent his own defense to Roosevelt in the form of a 27,000 word letter in which he said the prosecution was politically motivated. "I have lived my life in the open. Whatever shortcomings I have are known to everyone--but disloyalty to my native city, official dishonesty or corruption, form no part of these short-comings," he said. It was also reported that Walker would seek the Democratic nomination for Governor if he were to be ousted. Ultimately, Walker unsuccessfully tried to get a court injunction in his favor and resigned from office on September 1, 1932, with a single sentence: "I hereby resign as Mayor of the City of New York, said resignation to take effect immediately."

Not long after his resignation, Walker took off for Europe with Betty Compton, whom he would later marry. Another Tammany man, John P. O'Brien, took his place, but the Seabury commission essentially marked the death blow for the political machine. In 1934, La Guardia was elected mayor with backing from Roosevelt, and the city slipped from Tammany's grasp. Roosevelt's New Deal program further weakened the institution, making people less dependent on Tammany for jobs. The machine had something of a recovery in the 1950s, but ultimately faded out of existence in the 1960s.

Walker's flight was a handy way of taking another European expedition while letting the controversy and his own tax status return to manageable levels. He returned to New York in 1935, doing law work and hosting a short-lived radio program. In 1937, he got a job as an attorney with the city's Transit Commission to prosecute grade crossing infractions. Seabury also happened to be on the commission as a judge, and suggested that Walker be on the payroll for 60 days before claiming a pension, saying it was not to be used as a "refuge from disgrace."

The next year, Walker visited FDR in the White House. In 1940, La Guardia named him labor arbitrator of the Manhattan garment industry. He continued his devotion to boxing by regularly speaking at the annual dinners of the Boxing Writers Association; he received the Edward J. Neil Memorial Award for Outstanding Contributions to Boxing, and in 1940 received another award for his years of service to the sport. Following his death, the award would be named after him.

Walker also briefly returned to the musical world, becoming president of Majestic Records in 1945. The next year, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Ultimately, he remained a popular figure. A movie about his life starring Bob Hope was produced, and in 1992 he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Sources: The New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division, The National Parks Service, The Political Graveyard, "Paints Hylan Klan Servant" in the Evening Independent on Aug. 28 1925, "Word Battle Grows Hotter" in the Evening Independent on Aug. 31 1925, "Hylan May Run On Independent Ticket" in the Evening Independent on Sept. 16 1925, "Hylan Won't Run" in the New York Times on Sept. 30 1925, "Hail Mayor Walker As 'Next President'" in the New York Times on Nov. 13 1926, "Again, Walker" in Time on Mar. 5 1928, "Subway Jam" in Time on May 14 1928, "His Honor's Honor" in Time on Jun. 6 1932, "New York's Mayor Assails Accusers" in the Evening Independent on Jul. 29 1932, "Walker, If Removed, To Run For Governor" in the New York Times on Aug. 1 1932, "Walker Again" in Time on Aug. 30 1937, "Jimmy Walker, Tsar" in Time on Sept. 16 1940, "Former Mayor To Head Majestic Records" in the Christian Science Monitor on Feb. 16 1945, "The Late Mayor" in Time on Nov. 25 1946, A Flame of Pure Fire: Jack Dempsey and the Roaring '20s by Roger Kahn, The Boxing Register: International Boxing Hall of Fame Official Record Book by James B. Roberts and Alexander G. Skutt, New World Coming: the 1920s and the Making of Modern America by Nathan Miller, Big Town, Big Time: A New York Epic edited by Jay Maeder, The Epic of New York City: A Narrative History by Edward Robb Ellis, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Champion of Freedom by Conrad Black, Mackerals in the Moonlight: Four Corrupt American Mayors by Gerald Leinwand