The Downfall Dictionary

John Edward Addicks: not for sale

2012-01-12T17:28:00.002-05:00

Image from Wikipedia.org

John Edward Addicks' persistent effort to win a seat in the Senate ultimately had some positive results for politics on both the state and national level. A constitutional amendment would take the appointment of senators out of the hands of state legislators and make the decision one made by the state's electorate as a whole, and black voters would become a more influential part of Delaware's democracy. Yet Addicks' contribution to these advances was ultimately an unintended side effect of a corrupt campaign which frequently paralyzed the state's legislature and forced Delaware to go without representation on the national scene.

Addicks was born in Philadelphia in November of 1841. He worked as a clerk and errand boy before becoming a partner in a flour business. Addicks suffered a setback in the Panic of 1873, but managed to recover. He further diversified his business dealings by becoming involved in wheat and railroad markets, but he would become a millionaire by becoming a major figure in the illuminating gas industry. Boston was his key market, and he did extensive business in other cities as well; in 1883, he was one of the financial backers for the new gas works in Chicago.

Addicks' first association with Delaware came in 1877. He bought a residence in Claymont, a community on the border with Pennsylvania that allowed him to commute easily to the city. Addicks later moved to Boston after his business dealings as the president of the Bay State Gas Company required him to spend more time there. He continued to hold the Claymont house as a summer residence, but for all intents and purposes it seemed he was a Massachusetts citizen. So it came as quite a surprise when Addicks announced in 1889 that he was a Republican candidate for the Senate.

He joined three candidates in the ultimately unsuccessful bid on the declaration that his opponents would compromise the Republican Party. "It is a sort of Kilkenny cat fight, and the election of any one of them would imperil Republican supremacy in the state," he said. "A new man is needed to hold the state, which I regard as the first step toward breaking the solid South. I am greatly interested in the success of the Republican Party and I feel that by my election Delaware can be kept a Republican state, while the election of any one of my opponents would make its retention very uncertain on account of their relation to the factional interests in the party."

It was the first in a series of Senate bids where Addicks would use his wealth and influence to try to buy his way to Washington. One of his most common tactics was paying the delinquent taxes of voters or else covering the poll tax in exchange for political support. With the state legislature the ultimate power behind choosing the Senate representation for Delaware, however, Addicks focused much of his attention on buying the support of legislators with thinly-veiled bribes. In 1892, it was alleged that he funded the campaign purses of several legislators to support his latest Senate bid. Several received $8,000 sums, four times the amount allowed for political campaigning, with the implication that they could max out their campaigns and keep the balance for themselves. Yet ultimately these efforts fell short of the majority needed to win the legislature's favor.

One of the most turbulent years occurred in 1895. The ailing Governor Joshua H. Marvil - elected the year before - died in January. The state senate's president, William T. Watson, replaced Marvil as governor. By this point, Addicks had gained a significant following of "Union Republican" followers to counterbalance the "Regular Republicans" uncorrupted by his influence. Watson's departure from the state senate left the Regulars with a single vote majority in support of their candidate: Henry du Pont, a businessman who had won a Congressional Medal of Honor for his service in the Civil War. Yet Watson was persuaded to return to the senate to cast his vote for Addicks, deadlocking the decision 15-15. Ultimately, du Pont would travel to Washington to try to take his seat on the argument that Watson's vote was null and void, but the Senate didn't accept him; one of Delaware's two seats would remain vacant.

It wouldn't be the last time that Addicks' efforts would stymie the state's representation. For over a decade, Addicks' machinations would occupy much of the legislature's business. Deadlock in the legislature meant that Delaware failed to appoint a senator in 1899, 1901, 1903, and 1905; between 1901 and 1903, neither Senate seat from Delaware was filled.

The strength of the Regular Republicans was enough to prevent every effort to appoint Addicks, but he came close on some occasions. In 1899, he received 21 of the 27 votes needed for the seat. Two years later, he had 22 votes. One article charged that Addicks tried to solidify his support in the legislature by covering the poll taxes of 130 of 134 registered black voters in Kent County and 258 out of 260 in Sussex County in 1902. "Other men have bought votes now and then on a small scale, and other parties have resorted, occasionally, to tricky or dishonest methods; but no systematic attempt was ever made to corrupt the whole population and buy up the whole State until J. Edward Addicks and the Union Republican party took the field," George Kennan wrote in an account of Addicks' activities for Outlook Magazine. "'Addicks or nobody' for their war-cry, they began a campaign of corruption which has no parallel, I believe, in the history of the United States." Kennan said Addicks was displeased enough about spending large amounts of money with no result that he sent a telegram to William Washburn, a former Republican senator from Minnesota, that showed he had little loyalty to the party. "The Republican Party will carry Delaware next year pledged to Addicks for Senator. I made Delaware Republican," Addicks ranted. "If the Republican Party is the party of treachery, I will bury it ten thousand fathoms deep."

Overall, Addicks spent about $3 million on his unsuccessful campaigns. Shortly after the start of the 20th century, his political aspirations were waning. The New York Times reported in September of 1905 that he was becoming a political obscurity, with supporters deserting him. Addicks still had some fight left, however. He said in 1907 that he was considering running for mayor of Wilmington, and four years later announced that he would try to challenge the legislature's election of his old rival, Henry du Pont. He quickly withdrew when it became clear that the deadlock over du Pont was not as serious as he thought. The vacant seat left in 1905 had prompted the legislature to elect du Pont to the Senate in 1906, and he was re-elected in 1911.

State reforms aimed at addressing the corruption included the establishment of a secret ballot and elimination of the poll tax. Both had the secondary effect of scoring a victory for civil rights and empowering black voters. In 1901, the the first black candidate was elected to the Wilmington City Council. Cases like that of Addicks and William Lorimer of Chicago also made it clear that state legislatures were far more vulnerable to corrupt bargaining than the general electorate. In April of 1913, the Seventeenth Amendment was ratified and the election of senators became a matter of a popular vote.

Addicks fell on hard times in his waning years. Once worth between $10 and $15 million, he lost much of his fortune when his investments in the copper market didn't pan out. No stranger to lawsuits, Addicks ignored a summons to appear in court for further proceedings after Hiram H. Burton of Boston won a $20,000 judgment against him. Subsequently, Addicks was arrested in New York City for contempt of court. Two years later, he was again jailed for contempt after prolonged efforts to elude the authorities by only going to the city on Sundays, when he could not be served with papers.

Addicks died in August of 1919.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "New Gas-Works in Chicago" in the New York Times on Jun. 1 1883, "Wants to Save Delaware" in the New York Times on Jan. 5 1889, "Absolute Divorce Asked" in the New York Times on Nov. 27 1894, "The Addicks Divorce Case" in the Philadelphia Record on Jan. 8 1895, "Higgins and Addicks Both Out" in the New York Times on May 9 1895, "Addicks for Senator" in the New York Times on Jan. 19 1897, "Delaware Bribery Case" in the New York Times on May 3 1899, "Political Obscurity Creeps Upon Addicks" in the New York Times on Sep. 3 1905, "Addicks Would Be Mayor" in the New York Times on Dec. 15 1907, "Addicks Out For U.S. Senate" in the Gettysburg Times on Jan. 24 1911, "Concede Du Pont Election" in the New York Times on Jan. 25 1911, "Deputies Arrest J. Edward Addicks" in the New York Times on Apr. 2 1913, "J. Edward Addicks in Jail Over Sunday" in the New York Times on May 18 1915, "J. Edward Addicks, of Gas Fame, Dead" in the New York Times on Aug. 8 1919, "Addicks, Daring and Unscrupulous Political Adventurer, Deserted by the Leeches Who Clung to Him While Wealthy, Passes Away In Obscurity" in the Sunday Morning Star on Aug. 10 1919, Delaware Politics and Government by William W. Boyer and Edward C. Ratledge, Pirates and Patriots: Tales of the Delaware Coast by Michael Morgan

Theodore G. Bilbo: race to the end

2011-09-18T19:10:00.003-04:00

Image from bioguide.congress.gov

Theodore Gilbert Bilbo's earlier career has been virtually overshadowed by the hateful rhetoric he embraced during his time as a United States Senator. Long before his race baiting ways started to eat away at his political strength, however, Bilbo had run afoul of bribery accusations in state level positions. In each bribery matter, he took a dubious but effective defense: admitting to taking a bribe, but maintaining that he only did so to expose corruption by his foes.

The first incident happened in 1909, a year after Bilbo started serving in the Mississippi state senate. Senators for Congress were still chosen by the state legislature, and with the death of Senator A.J. McLaurin in December of 1909 it was up to Bilbo and his compatriots to choose a replacement. The choices came down to former Governor James K. Vardaman and planter Leroy Percy, and after a protracted battle Percy was finally chosen. In March of 1910, a grand jury indicted planter L.C. Dulaney with the charge of tendering a bribe to Bilbo. It declined to indict Bilbo for receiving the bribe, but a resolution still appeared in the the senate to expel Bilbo.

Bilbo went on a swift offensive, explaining that Dulaney gave him $645 to support Percy over Vardaman. Bilbo said he took the money, but gave it to a local minister with a statement of facts as a way of obtaining proof of irregular methods in the election. He said the transaction was supposed to occur in a hotel room where a witness would be handy, but it ended up happening in another room instead.

Bilbo's innocence depended almost entirely on his word, and even this did not carry much weight considering that the minister denied having advance notice of the bribery or taking part in a stakeout in the hotel. The state senator maintained his innocence, but added the caveat asking voters to wait until all the evidence was in. "At this juncture of the greatest fight in the history of the state for a clean government, I feel that I ought to say to the people of Mississippi that the efforts of the politicians and corporate interests in attacking my reputation will prove a miserable failure, for the truth will prevail," he said.

On April 14, the senate took a vote to expel Bilbo. It fell along party lines and was 28 to 15 in favor - one short of the three-fourths majority needed to carry the action out. The Vardaman supporters left the chambers in protest after the vote, leading to a lopsided 25-1 vote favoring a resolution urging Bilbo to resign and criticizing the decision to not reveal the evidence of bribery until after the nomination as "utterly unexplainable and absolutely incredible." However, another resolution unanimously adopted the idea that the election was free from undue influence. Bilbo remained in the senate for the rest of his term, and Dulaney was acquitted at trial in November. The fallout from the matter continued into the next year. In July of 1911, former prison warden J.J. Henry hit Bilbo in the face with the butt of a pistol after Bilbo refused to apologize for remarks about Henry's character; Henry had been one of the witnesses before the committee investigating the bribery allegation.

The second accusation of bribery arose in December of 1913, when Bilbo was the lieutenant governor of Mississippi. He and state senator G.A. Hobbs were indicted on the charge of soliciting a bribe from Belzoni resident Steve Castleman to influence a bill in 1912 to create a new county out of parts of Yazoo, Holmes, and Washington counties. At the trial, Chicago attorney Ira M. Sample testified that Bilbo and Hobbs approached him with the idea of getting legal action against a certain Illinois lumber corporation dismissed in exchange for $50,000 for Bilbo and $5,000 each for the Mississippi attorney general and two special attorneys. Castleman said he agreed to pay $2,000 to Bilbo and Hobbs to support the county bill, and gave $200 to Hobbs in a Vicksburg hotel. The circumstances of the bribe were curiously similar to those a few years earlier, and the outcome was nearly identical. Hobbs claimed that he accepted the bribe to entrap Castlman and was acquitted at trial. Bilbo was also exonerated in July of 1914.

Bilbo was born on a Poplarville farm in October of 1877. He attended Peabody College in Nashville as well as the law department of Vanderbilt University and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He made a living as a high school teacher for five years and started practicing law in 1912, four years after he was admitted to the bar. If his later crusade was all about race, Bilbo's early work was more related to class. He often defended hill country farmers against the wealthier farmers from the Mississippi River Delta region.

The first political bid Bilbo made was in 1903, when he unsuccessfully ran for circuit court judge. Five years later, he started work in the state senate as a Democrat. He stayed there through 1912, when he became the lieutenant governor. Bilbo not only weathered the two bribery scandals, but won the gubernatorial election at the end of his time as lieutenant governor in 1916. During his first term, the state established a tuberculosis sanatorium; eliminated public hangings; founded a state board of embalming, state tax commission, and fish and game commission; and advanced the construction of highways. In another violent incident, the state's assistant attorney general, Walter Dent, knocked Bilbo down during a fistfight in August of 1919; the scuffle was a result of remarks in a newspaper attributed to Bilbo. At the end of his first term in 1920, he ran unsuccessfully for the House of Representatives.

Bilbo hit a rough patch after this term. In 1922, a woman named Frances Birkhead accused Bilbo's successor, Lee Russell, of seduction. It was akin to sexual harassment, and Bilbo's name came up as the person whom Governor Russell allegedly asked to settle the matter involving his stenographer. Bilbo had no desire to appear as a witness, and ignored the summons to court. Russell was ultimately acquitted, but Bilbo was arrested for contempt of court in February of 1923. He was convicted and sentenced to serve 30 days in jail and pay a $100 fine, although the term was later reduced to 10 days and the fine remitted. From his cell, Bilbo announced his candidacy for a renewed gubernatorial term.

This effort, naturally, was not very successful. Bilbo was again elected governor for a term starting in 1928, but met with considerably more difficulty the second time around as the Mississippi treasury was hit by financial setbacks. In April of 1932, a judge declared 217 pardons issued during Bilbo's term null and void since they had been issued without proper notice, but prison trustees refused to rearrest the newly freed men. Economic policies benefiting white farmers became common. These were one of the more subtle forms of racism Bilbo embraced. In October of 1928, he criticized Republican presidential candidate Herbert Hoover for allegedly dancing with a black woman during a flood relief visit to the state the previous year. Hoover replied by saying that it was mere rumor, and that if the voters made a decision based solely on the accusation it would "forever be a most infamous blot on the record of the state of Mississippi." Despite the law against public hanging passed in his first term, Bilbo took a rather more relaxed attitude toward lynchings. After a mob took Charley Shepherd, a black man accused of raping and murdering an 18-year-old girl, and burned him at the stake in 1929, Bilbo publicly declared his opposition to an investigation into the culprits. "I have neither the time nor the money to investigate 2,000 people," he said. Bilbo said no National Guard protection had been requested, or it would have been afforded for Shepherd. To his credit, Bilbo did order such a guard for a black man accused of murdering a white planter in 1931. However, this was likely done with reluctance; only a few months later, the North American Review quoted him as saying, "No colored man is worth calling out the National Guard to protect."

After leaving the governor's office for a second time, Bilbo made another unsuccessful run at the House. In a bizarre development, he managed to get a job with the Farm Adjustment Administration "assembling current information records for the Adjustment Administration from news, magazines, and other published sources." Translated, this meant that Bilbo would be paid to take clippings from newspapers and other published sources. He left the $6,000 post - a salary only $2,500 less than that of a senator - to start a campaign for Senate in February of 1934. In a surprise upset, he took the Democratic nomination from 22-year incumbent Hubert D. Stephens. The party dominated politics in the South to such a degree that a primary victory was a foregone conclusion for the general election; sure enough, Bilbo easily won victory in November of 1934.

Bilbo would stay in the Senate for two terms, chairing both the Committee on the District of Columbia and the Committee on Pensions. He became a strong supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal initiatives, seeing them as a good way to relieve poverty in Mississippi. Midway through his term, he and his bride of 34 years went through a messy breakup. In 1937, a divorce was granted and his ex-wife vowed to use some of the $20,750 she received in the deal to fund a Senate campaign opposing him. In his second term, Bilbo spoke against the idea of having the draft brought down to the ages of 18 and 19. The conflict would be a prolonged one, he felt, and it would be more prudent to call up men with more experience. "I am not opposed to taking 18 and 19 year old boys and training them, but I could never give my consent to putting them into combat service at this tender age," he said.

More than anything, however, Bilbo would become known for his vile, single-minded, and backward attitude on racial relationships. In one of his most shocking proclamations, he said the white race was doomed to decadence if it was to live alongside the black race; he said he would attach an amendment to a federal emergency relief bill to provide $250 million for the transportation of the country's black residents to new homes in Liberia. Worst of all, Bilbo turned to the Nazi regime in Germany as a model. "It will be recalled that Hitler, in his speech on April 9 in Vienna, gave as the basis of his program to unite Austria with Germany, 'German blood ties,'" he said. "Germans appreciate the importance of race values. They understand that racial improvement is the greatest asset that any country can have." Bilbo claimed that he had two million signatures from blacks who were willing to make the move and thought millions more would join in. Bilbo's relocation ideas extended to the nation's capital, with a proposal that 10,000 people be removed from alley homes. "We predict he will be a curse to his party and to his capital. Indeed he is one already," one newspaper commented. "He is one of the worst blights ever to strike our town, and we hold his party and this administration responsible for inflicting this socially benighted man on the people of Washington."

In 1938, Bilbo filibustered a proposed anti-lynching bill. He said violence and race riots would accompany the passage of such a measure, and referred to its supporters as "mulattoes, octoroons, and quadroons." In May of 1943, he said he was prepared to repeat the effort on a bill that would make it unlawful to require a poll tax to vote in a federal election. Such a tax, common in several southern states, was designed to exclude black voters but Bilbo saw the matter as one of states' rights. "I will feel that I am just as much a soldier as a marine on Guadalcanal or a private on Attu Island," he said, admitting that he would yield if essential war issues needed discussion.

In June of 1945, Bilbo filibustered the Fair Employment Practices Commission, saying he felt it was an attempt to fuse races and garner the black vote. By this point, with the war in Europe concluded and the Pacific conflict drawing to a close, the patience for Bilbo's hateful outbursts was growing thin. The Veterans Committee for Equal Rights demanded his impeachment due to his frequent statements against religious and racial equality. The Jewish War Veterans of the United States accused him of promoting divisiveness and violating the Constitution. The Committee of Catholics for Human Rights declared his conduct "a chilling deterrent to the worldwide belief that America is the symbol of democratic freedom and human rights."

Bilbo's conduct signaled the end of his career in Washington. In April of 1946, the Senate established a special committee to investigate election practices. In July, Bilbo won the Democratic nomination for a third term in the Senate. Two months later, a group of black voters charged that Bilbo "conducted an aggressive and ruthless campaign...with the purpose...to effectively deprive and deny the duly qualified Negro electors...of their constitutional rights...to register and vote." Glen H. Taylor, a liberal Democrat from Idaho, had already requested the committee to look into Bilbo's inflammatory speeches in June.

In August of 1946, Bilbo admitted that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan, although he said he had not attended any meetings since his inaugural one since he was "not in sympathy with some things in it." He disputed a quote attributed to him in which he allegedly said that "the way to stop Negroes from voting was to start from the night before" with a clarified, perhaps more horrible statement that kept the intent intact: "The best time to keep a nigger away from a white primary in Mississippi was to see him the night before."

There was little question that Bilbo had urged intimidation and other unsavory practices in the 1946 primary. In a radio campaign, he had called upon "every red-blooded Anglo-Saxon man in Mississippi to resort to any means to keep hundreds of Negroes from the polls in the July 2 primary. And if you don't know what that means, you are just not up to your persuasive measures." In one well-publicized incident, a black war veteran was beaten for trying to register to vote in Mississippi. The National Negro Council denounced Bilbo's requests as "more diabolical than Hitler in his heyday."

In December of 1946, the committee convened for four days of hearings on Bilbo's exhortations prior to the primary. Over 100 witnesses, about two-thirds of them black, told about the restrictions on registration and voting. It wasn't enough to knock Bilbo from his perch. On January 3, 1947, the majority report of the Campaign Expenditures Committee determined that Bilbo's financial conduct was not an issue, finding instead that his anti-black crusade had been a response to "outside agitation" such as the national press, and determined that he was eligible for a seat in Congress. The minority report took a decidedly different tack. It charged Bilbo with violating the Constitution, federal criminal code, and Hatch Act, and with vigorously encouraging state officials to do the same.

It may have marked another close call for Bilbo, but the civil rights violations were not the only matters he was under investigation for. In November of 1946, the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program launched a probe into his relationship with war contractors. This committee was less sympathetic toward the senator, and uncovered a wealth of unscrupulous activity. Over the course of the war, Bilbo had accepted from war contractors a new Cadillac, a swimming pool, the excavation of a lake around his "dream house," the painting of this mansion, furnishings for a second home, and overall a total benefit of between $57,00o and $88,000. The day before the determination that Bilbo had not violated civil rights laws, six of nine members of the defense committee agreed that his connections with war contractors were questionable.

Along with the first Republican majority in 14 years, it was enough to stall Bilbo's seating in Congress. Taylor asked the legislature to bar Bilbo from holding a seat until the Committee on Rules of Administration could review his conduct. The Senate voted 38-20 to table the resolution, but the matter turned out to be something of an anticlimax. Though Bilbo would continue to receive his government salary, he returned to his home state for an emergency surgery.

Somewhere along the way, Bilbo found time to put together a hateful treatise entitled Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization, which continued to embrace the notion of deporting the nation's black population. Ironically, the man who had spewed so much hatred died in August of 1947 following three surgeries for mouth cancer, although the official cause of death was given as heart failure following a surgery to tie off a blood clot. A life size bronze statute of Bilbo was dedicated in the Mississippi Capitol rotunda in 1954, but proved an embarrassment as the civil rights movement progressed. In 1982, Governor William Winter quietly ordered that the statue be removed to an out of the way meeting room.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, National Governors Association, Mississippi History Now, U.S. Senate Art and History Home Page, "Bribery Charged in Mississippi" in the Spartanburg Herald on March 29 1910, "Preacher Didn't Confirm Bilbo" in The Day on April 2 1910, "Look Into Bilbo's Record" in the News and Courier on April 2 1910, "Bilbo is Forced to Resign From the Mississippi Senate" in the Spartanburg Herald on April 15 1910, "Senatorial Primary Called" in the New York Times on April 17 1910, "Real Money in Bribe Trial" in the Boston Evening Transcript on Nov. 30 1910, "Senator Bilbo is Severely Beaten" in the Spartanburg Herald on Jul. 7 1911, "Indict State Officials" in the New York Times on Dec. 3 1913, "Attempted Bribery Alleged in Big Case" in the Pittsburgh Press on Jul. 8 1914, "Bilbo Acquitted By Jury" in the News and Courier on Jul. 10 1914, "Mississippi Governor Knocked Down in Fight" in the Evening Independent on Aug. 9 1919, "Suit Against a Governor is On" in the Lawrence Journal-World on Dec. 7 1922, "Russell Acquitted of Woman's Charge" in the New York Times on Dec. 12 1922, "Ex.-Gov. Bilbo Arrested For Contempt" in the New York Times on Feb. 7 1923, "Bilbo to Run Again" in the Palm Beach Post on Apr. 17 1923, "Reduces Bilbo Sentence" in the Evening Independent on Apr. 20 1923, "Hoover Denies Charge Made by Governor Bilbo" in the Washington Reporter on Oct. 20 1928, "Governor Refuses to Order Inquiry into Negro Lynching" in the Meriden Record on Jan. 2 1929, "National Affairs: People vs. Shepherd" in Time on Jan. 14 1929, "Troops to Guard Mississippi Negro Being Held as Killer" in the St. Joseph Gazette on Oct. 23 1931, "Prison Trustees Refuse to Carry Out Their Orders" in the Herald-Journal on Apr. 14 1932, "Bilbo to Gauge Farm Act Foes by the Shape of Their Heads" in the Gettysburg Times on Jun. 23 1933, "Ex-Governor Quits Post; Eyes Senate" in the Pittsburgh Press on Feb. 23 1934, "Bilbo Rockets Into U.S. Senate" in the Herald-Journal on Sep. 20 1934, "Wife Contests Divorce of Sen. Bilbo of Miss." in the Lewiston Daily Sun on May 19 1937, "Ted Bilbo is a Coward" in the Afro American on Jan. 29 1938, "Bilbo Sees Decadence of Pure Anglo-Saxon Race" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on Mar. 2 1938, "News Behind the News" in the Miami News on May 30 1938, "Sen. Bilbo, Ex-Wife to be Campaign Foes" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jul. 28 1938, "18-19 Draft Bill is Introduced" in the Mt. Airy News on Sep. 11 1942, "Bilbo Ready to Talk 18 Months" in the Tuscaloosa News on May 30 1943, "A Curse on Washington" in the Afro-American on Mar. 25 1944, "Sen. Bilbo Starts Filibuster Against FEPC" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on Jun. 28 1945, "Catholic Group Assails Bilbo" in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on Aug. 8 1945, "Vet Group Asks Bilbo Impeachment" in the Evening Independent on Sep. 25 1945, "Jewish War Veterans Would Impeach Bilbo" in the Deseret News on Nov. 26 1945, "Senate to Investigate Bilbo's Efforts to Keep Negroes from Primary Polls" in the St. Petersburg Times on Jun. 27 1946, "Senator Says He is Klansman" in the Kentucky New Era on Aug. 10 1946, "The Washington Merry Go Round" in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on Oct. 26 1946, "Deny Bilbo a Seat" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Nov. 16 1946, "Senator Bilbo's Case" in the Indian Express on Jan. 5 1947, "Bilbo Succumbs After Operation in New Orleans" in the St. Petersburg Times on Aug. 22 1947, "Governor Fights to Educate Poor, Backward Mississippi" in the Ottawa Citizen on Dec. 11 1982, "Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism, 1938-1947" in the Journal of Mississippi History, Historical Dictionary of the 1940s by James Gilbert Ryan and Leonard C. Schlup, The Governors of Mississippi by Cecil L. Summers

Nelson G. Gross: regular contributor

2011-06-30T08:24:00.005-04:00

Image from the Evening News

Nelson G. Gross was the type of politician who, though deeply influential in government, worked more out of the public eye than as an official. The closest he came to being an elected member of the national government was a failed Senate bid, and he undertook that effort with experience limited mostly to campaigns and party positions. Though he drew some controversy during his work in politics, the incident which would garner more attention was the senseless manner in which his life ended.

Born in Saddle River, New Jersey in 1932, Gross went from being a lawyer to a close involvement with the state's Republican Party. He was a member of the state house of assembly in 1962, but his major breakthrough came six years later as a delegate to the Republican National Convention. Among the New Jersey Republicans, the hope was that the presidential nod could go to "favorite son" candidate Clifford P. Chase, who had been in the Senate since 1955. To the chagrin of some party members, however, Gross led an effort to support former Vice President Richard Nixon and persuaded 18 of the state's 40 delegates to change their vote. When Nixon captured the nomination, Gross led his campaign in New Jersey, where Nixon triumphed by about 60,000 votes on his way to the White House in the 1968 election.

Despite the breakaway from Chase, Gross's relationship with the state Republicans were still strong enough that he chaired the state party in 1969. In April of the next year, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Frederick Lacey announced that Gross was under investigation for ties to a labor union allegedly dominated by the Mafia. No charges came out of the matter, and only a week after the announcement Gross announced that he was resigning as chairman to enter the 1970 Senate race. He easily won the GOP primary against two opponents. A month before the election, he was pummeled by political columnist Jack Anderson. "Nelson Gross, the Republican candidate for the Senate in New Jersey, has made a big show of opening up his records for public inspection. But apparently we are the only ones who have bothered to inspect them. What we found may make Gross wish he had kept his records hidden." Anderson claimed that Gross had charged numerous personal expenses to failing companies he controlled, including bouquets for his wife, vacations, and tickets to the Moscow Circus visit to Madison Square Garden. Anderson said that when confronted with the charges, Gross claimed that the court had thrown the suit out. Anderson countered that a $25,000 settlement had been involved in the resolution.

Gross failed to dislodge the incumbent Democratic, Senator Harrison A. Williams, in the general election. Williams, who had served in the Senate since 1959, earned about 250,000 more votes than Gross. Chase got in a dig at Gross, commenting that his close ties to the Nixon Administration may have hurt him. "Nelson had some excellent position papers. It is a real tragedy that he and his media people did not choose to emphasize them--that his media campaign chose to emphasize the negative side." The ties to the President did help him to secure employment after the loss, however. In August of 1971, he began working for the State Department as a senior adviser and coordinator on international narcotics matters.

Then in May of 1973, Gross was indicted on fraud charges. The charges said Gross issued false invoices to the Stop and Save Stamp Corporation, a subsidiary of Grand Union Co., in order to make a $5,000 contribution to the 1969 campaign of New Jersey Governor William T. Cahill and make it appear to be tax deductible. Gross was also accused of encouraging William H. Preis, president of the Stop and Save Stamp Corporation, to make false statements to the grand jury; Preis pleaded guilty the same month to perjury. U.S. Attorney Herbert Stern said there was no evidence to suggest that Cahill knew about the illegality of the contribution, but the damage was done. The scandal was one factor playing into Cahill's defeat in the 1973 Republican primary, where the gubernatorial nomination went to Representative Charles Sandman. To the charges, Gross said, "I am astounded that anyone could conceivably believe that I would be in a position to counsel or did counsel one of the largest retailing supermarket chains in the country as to the manner in which it should complete and file federal income tax returns."

The trial happened in March of 1974. Among the 28 witnesses to testify over the course of five weeks was Bernard Striar, owner of a Maine textile company. Striar said Gross arranged for him to make a $2,000 contribution to Gross's Senate campaign and illegally deduct it. Gross took the stand in his own defense, not only claiming innocence but accusing the U.S. Attorney's Office of trying to topple his law firm. Gross's father also took the stand, testifying that Gross actually advised Preis to tell the truth to the grand jury rather than lie.

When the jury returned a verdict, it found Gross guilty of tax evasion and perjury. Gross's lawyers made a curious argument for a new trial, arguing that wealthy people were excluded from the jury. In June of 1974, Gross was sentenced to two years in prison and a $10,000 fine; a week later, Preis received the same sentence, but with the jail term suspended. Gross remained a free man while he ground his way through the appeals process. In December of 1974, he asked the three-judge Federal Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to overturn his conviction; they upheld the verdict in February of 1975. In November of that year, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction as well. Finally, in June of 1976, Gross began serving his sentence after first trying to turn himself in at the federal prison in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He ended up serving six months.

In a surprising turn of events, it was revealed a couple of years later that the marshals at the trial had taken a far more active role at the trial than was allowed. Leon Harvey Stacey said he and his fellow officers seduced some of the female jurors, persuading them that the prosecution's case was sound and capitalizing on the increasing dissatisfaction with Nixon. "We all knew Nelson Gross was part of the Nixon administration. It was therefore easy to allude to a general disenchantment with politicians," Stacey said. "In other words, as part of the romancing of the jurors, my reference to politicians was always in a negative attitude." With this revelation, Gross tried to reopen the case and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals in New York granted a hearing in November of 1978. It is unclear how this turned out, but if subsequent developments are any indication it was not very successful. In June of 1981, he was disbarred from practicing law in federal courts due to his conviction and his failure to show up at a hearing. An ethical board later disbarred him from the state courts for three years after finding that he had committed "unethical conduct."

Despite his legal troubles, Gross was still financially successful through his investments in real estate development and restaurants. He was a millionaire in September of 1997, stopping in at a floating restaurant he owned in Edgewater, New Jersey every day for a meal. Then he disappeared. Gross was last seen taking $20,000 from a bank near the restaurant, a transaction not unusual due to his frequent large withdrawals. His wife and son reportedly saw him getting into his BMW with two men, and his son called his cell phone to see if everything was all right. "It's business. It's just business," Gross replied before hanging up. A search for Gross began, and first found his car abandoned about 15 blocks south of the George Washington Bridge in Manhattan. His family offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to his return. Gross's body was finally found on the wooded bank of the Hudson River; he had been stabbed to death.

It didn't take long for police to implicate three youths in the crime. Arrested were 18-year-old Anthony "Alex" Esteves and 17-year-olds Christian Velez and Miguel "Papo" Grullon. They had used the money to buy two used cars, a motorcycle, and jewelry and a bystander reported them to the authorities after overhearing them openly talking about the murder. Velez, who had worked as a busboy at the floating restaurant, was arrested and implicated his two friends. It seemed they had conspired to rob the wealthy businessman, but had not thought the plan through; when they realized that Gross would report the robbery to the police, they took his life as well.

A death notice taken out by Gross's family in the New York Times did not mince words. It said Gross had died after "succumbing to an unprovoked vicious attack by three thugs who inflicted multiple stab wounds to his chest and back." Ultimately, Estevez entered an agreement to testify against his co-defendants if the cases went to trial and Velez and Grullon pleaded guilty to kidnapping and murder. Describing the crime as "cruel and heinous" and a "truly senseless thing," Estevez was sentenced to 17-and-a-half years in prison without parole. His two co-defendants received 30 years in prison, also without parole.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Lacey Says Ties of Gross to Union Are Under Inquiry" in the New York Times on Apr. 2 1970, "Gross Quits as GOP Chairman in Jersey to Run for the Senate" in the New York Times Apr. 9 1970, "Wallace Triumphs in Alabama Run-Off" in the Schenectady Gazette on Jun. 3 1970, "Williams Recovering From Bad Start in N.J." in the Park City Daily News on Oct. 25 1970, "Gross Squeezes Companies" in the Free Lance Star on Oct. 24 1970, "Says Nixon Campaign Wrong" in the Virgin Island Daily News on Nov. 7 1970, "Coordinator" in the Evening News on Aug. 13 1971, "N.J. Republican Pleads Innocent In Funds Case" in The Journal on May 23 1973, "Gov. Cahill Defeated in N.J. GOP Primary" in the Los Angeles Times on Jun. 6 1973, "Illegally Deducted Gift, Magnate Says" in the Bangor Daily News on Mar. 3 1974, "Father Supports Gross Testimony" in the New York Times on Mar. 21 1974, "Gross Accuses U.S. of Harrying Firm" in the New York Times on Mar. 23 1974, "Federal Jury Begins Its Deliberations in Campaign Fraud Case Against Gross" in the New York Times on Mar. 29 1974, "Gross, Citing Jury, Seeks a New Trial" in the New York Times on Apr. 20 1974, "Gross is Sentenced to 2 Years in Jail" in the New York Times on Jun. 15 1974, "Preis is Fined, Term Suspended" in the New York Times on Jun. 22 1974, "New Jersey Briefs" in the New York Times on Dec. 11 1974, "New Jersey Briefs" in the New York Times on Feb. 20 1975, "Supreme Court Upholds 2 Convictions of Gross" in the New York Times on Nov. 4 1975, "Gross Wins Stay of Sentence" in the Argus-Press on Dec. 5 1975, "Nelson Gross Off To Prison" in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Jun. 3 1976, "Candidate's Husband to Try to Reopen Old Case" in the Lakeland Ledger on Feb. 3 1978, "Marshals, Jurors May Have Tainted N.J. Verdict" in the Deseret News on Feb. 10 1978, "New Hearing OK'd in Tax Fraud Case" in the Milwaukee Journal on Nov. 10 1978, "Ex-Jersey GOP Chief is Barred by U.S. Judge" in the New York Times on Jun. 28 1981, "Car of Missing New Jersey Developer is Found" in the New York Times on Sep. 21 1997, "Youths Accused of Killing New Jersey Millionaire" in the New York Times on Sep. 25 1997, "Police: Slain Millionaire Victim of Botched Plot" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Sep. 26 1997, "Gross, Nelson Gerard" in the New York Times on Sept. 27 1997, "Prison For Tycoon Slay" in the New York Daily News on Oct. 8 1998, "2 Are Given up to 30 Years in Murder of Millionaire" in the New York Times on Oct. 8 1998.

Melba Till Allen: We are not amused

2011-04-28T17:14:00.003-04:00

Image from the Tuscaloosa News

Working to root out corruption at the state level early in her career, Melba Till Allen is credited with helping win adoption of a ethics law for Alabama in 1973. Five years later, she and her lawyers were scrambling to show that the law was unconstitutional in order to keep her out of jail.

The daughter of a farmer, Allen was born in March of 1933 in Friendship Community, Alabama. She lived in Hope Hull and Grady before marrying in December of 1950, at the age of 17, to Marvin E. Allen. From a young age she had dreamed of achieving political office, and finally did so in 1966. That year, she was elected state auditor on the Democratic ticket. It was a banner year for women in Alabama politics; Hull replaced Republican Alice Hudson, and five other women were also elected to high office. Hull held the job from 1967 to 1975, and became known as a crusader against state employees with padded expense accounts. It earned her the nickname "Melba 'Watching the Till' Allen."

Allen's first high-profile scuffle came in the years of 1969 and 1970. After Allen made allegations of violations of law in some contracts and purchases at the state docks in Mobile, Governor Albert Brewer ordered an investigation into the matter. The two were soon at loggerheads over the issue. When the governor's probe cleared docks director Houston Feaster of any wrongdoing, Allen accused him of incompetence. "I doubt the competence of his investigators. I believe they were deliberately trying to whitewash the situation or just doing a poor job," she said. Events continued to seesaw in favor of Allen's contentions and against. Brewer fired Feaster in July of 1970 after he failed to appear before a grand jury, reasoning that it was his right as a private citizen but conflicted with the gubernatorial administration. When the grand jury also cleared Feaster, however, Brewer had harsh words for Allen: "We have reached a sad state of affairs when an an elected official, for political expediency, will engage in character assassination and even attack a grand jury and court." Allen contended that the grand jury had been pressured into an early decision. Finally, in January of 1972, Feaster was convicted of one count of tax evasion charging $14,000 in under-reported income in 1966. The trial included testimony by Marvin Massengale, who testified under immunity and said his firm received $93,000 in kickbacks for construction projects at the docks. Though Feaster was accused of seven other counts of tax evasion charging failure to pay taxes on ill-gotten gains between 1965 and 1968, he was acquitted of all of them.

In the midst of these events, Allen announced that she would be running for the Senate. In December of 1971, she said she would be a candidate in 1972, declaring, "I believe that I could better serve my fellow Alabamians in this capacity." Commenting on the decision, Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily staff reporter Mel Newman wrote, "Despite the imposing sound of her title and its constitutional prerogatives, the state auditor has been left without great power to ferret out mishandling of public funds, by lack of support from the governor's office, the legislature, and the general public." However, he said, Allen"can be expected to keep the contest a lively one." She kept the promise, but fell short in the primary. She began serving as state treasurer in 1975, and in April of 1977 said she intended to run for governor in the next year's election.

Five months later, the Birmingham News began printing a series of articles accusing Allen of failing to report to the State Ethics Commission a series of loans in 1975 and 1976. These loans were meant to finance the construction of Stars Over Alabama, an amusement park in northern Alabama which never got off the ground; the site itself was destroyed in a suspicious 1977 fire. The newspaper said a number of loans also aimed to boost other, mostly personal business ventures. By law, the state funds (as much as $550 million) had to be deposited in the 300 banks in Alabama; bankers were willing to play along with Allen, realizing they could get the state as a customer if they made personal loans to Allen. In the end, Allen had taken a total of $2.9 million from 58 banks. These included $400,000 in land investments, $378,000 to expand her husband's trucking business, $281,000 for Stars Over Alabama, $75,000 for a movie distribution company, and $14,165 in a wicker distribution company run by her two children. The loans, or rather Allen's failure to report them, attracted the attention of the State Ethics Commission as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission, Internal Revenue Service, and Federal Deposit Insurance Company. The Montgomery County district attorney, Jimmy Evans, said investigators would probe the allegations against Allen and her assistant.

Allen denied any wrongdoing, saying, "My only mistake has been in putting too much trust in some of my business friends." Her tactic was clearly that the best defense was a good offense. She asked state and federal attorneys to look into whether elements in organized crime were trying to discredit her. She also criticized the February 1978 arrest of her financial adviser and University of Tennessee at Nashville professor John Byron Pennington, who was caught in a sting operation while trying to buy information on grand jury proceedings against her. Allen found out what the grand jury had been doing soon enough. The next month, she was indicted on four counts. These charged her with soliciting or accepting the use of an airplane from Florida financier E.A. Gregory (who was associated with one of the Alabama banks during the time of the alleged offenses); two counts of depositing state funds in the American Bank of Geneva in exchange for loans; and demanding a fee, reward, or compensation from the bank for depositing money. One month later, she was indicted again on a charge of violating the State Ethics Act by failing to disclose her banking activity to the State Ethics Commission, reporting only 12 of 36 loans. Allen pleaded innocent to all counts, declaring she would "fight for what is right. I will never give up." She also announced that she wanted to avoid a "trial by newspapers" and that she still intended to run for governor later in the year.

At her trial in May, one banker testified that Allen deposited $100,000 in their institution. In return, Allen borrowed $175,000 and granted the banker 10,000 in Stars Over Alabama stock. Another banker said Allen deposited $775,000 in state funds after he granted a $50,000 loan. The defense tried to throw the case out by arguing that the 1973 ethics law was unconstitutional, but when that failed they could only rely on a string of character witnesses, including Governor George Wallace. After only 45 minutes, the jury found Allen guilty of two counts of using her office to gain loans, a violation of the State Ethics Act. She was the first person convicted in Alabama under the law.

In June of 1978, Allen was sentenced to three years in prison. Her attorneys argued that no one in the state lost money by her actions, and that Alabama had made a net gain due to her cost-saving measures. When asked if she had anything to say, she responded, "So help me God, I am not guilty." A new element was thrown into the mix when a legal argument came up regarding her status as treasurer. Though state law declared that public officials sentenced to prison or hard labor automatically forfeited their office, it was unclear whether it applied to the treasurer since that position and other constitutional officers were normally removed by impeachment. Her attorneys vowed that Allen would stay firmly seated in the treasurer's chair until the issue was cleared up.

In response, the state supreme court returned a decision almost immediately saying that the law was different from an impeachment process, and that Allen was out of the job. Governor Wallace replaced her with Annie Laurie Gunter, director of the State Office of Consumer Protection, to fill the remainder of her term. Meanwhile, Allen tried for a new trial, alleging that one juror said several months before the trial that he thought the treasurer guilty based on news accounts. Right on the heels of the first trial, Allen returned to court on the second indictment. She was quickly convicted and sentenced to serve a year, concurrent with the three-year sentence already pending. The judge also dismissed the remaining counts against her. At the latest sentence, she again proclaimed innocence, saying, "I am absolutely not guilty."

Allen kept up a dogged resistance. In August of 1978, she held a press conference to allege that there had been a conspiracy to oust her from office and asked state attorney general Bill Baxley to investigate while both convictions went to trial. She remained free in February of 1979 and proclaimed, "I know I serve the same God Daniel did and God saved him in the lion's den. I will take whatever I have to take." In March of 1980, an attempt to pardon her died in the state house of representatives' rules committee. Seven months later, Allen had won some stays in the execution of her sentence, but had reached the end of the line with the United States Supreme Court's refusal to hear her appeal. The same month, a circuit court judge finally ordered her to serve six months of the sentence. The judge, Perry Hooper, thought she had suffered enough "humiliation and embarrassment" and felt that the county jail was a more fitting lockup than the state penitentiary. Hooper said Allen had led an exemplary life prior to conviction and was "pulled from the pinnacle of political success" with the conviction. The remaining two and a half years were to be served as probation.

Allen finally began her term of incarceration in November of 1980. The reduced time, along with other perks, led to some editorials charging that her station had helped to get her more leniency than would otherwise be found in similar cases. Allen was not only allowed to visit her family for Thanksgiving, but spent the remainder of her prison term after that time working as a bookkeeper at a retirement home under the supervision of a nun.

In January of 1986, Allen again entered the political fray by putting her name up for consideration in the lieutenant governor's race. She had to again argue that she had been wrongly convicted, and mustered less than 2,000 votes at the June primary. The next April, she opened The Little Red Hen Restaurant in Wadsworth. Allen died of cancer in Montgomery in October of 1989.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, "The Petticoat's Place in Alabama Politics Assured" in the Sumter Daily Item on Nov. 17 1966, "Brewer Orders Probe of Docks" in the Tuscaloosa News on Feb. 13 1969, "Docks Probe Called Whitewash" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jun. 17 1969, "Ala.'s Dock Director is Fired" in the Ocala Star-Banner on Jul. 27 1970, "Brewer Charges State Auditor With 'Witch Hunt' at State Docks" in the Gadsden Times on Aug. 1 1970, "Reporter's Notebook" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Dec. 5 1971, "In Alabama" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Dec. 6 1971, "Feaster Denied A New Trial" in the Tuscaloosa News on Apr. 19 1972, "Allen Has Eye on the Governorship" in the Tuscaloosa News on Apr. 21 1977, "Melba Till Allen Denies Charges" in the Tuscaloosa News on Sep. 24 1977, "Melba Till Allen Challenges Reports" in the Tuscaloosa News on Oct. 17 1977, "Ethics Probe on Allen" in the Tuscaloosa News on Oct. 22 1977, "Allen Says Crime Tied to Probes" in the Tuscaloosa News on Dec. 1 1977, "DA To Probe Allen Affair" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Dec. 9 1977, "Mrs. Allen Raps Arrest" in the Tuscaloosa News on Feb. 24 1978, "Melba Till Pleads Innocent" in the Gadsden Times on Mar. 30 1978, "Mrs. Allen is Indicted a Fifth Time" in the Tuscaloosa News on Apr. 12 1978, "Mrs. Allen is Candidate for Governor" in the Tuscaloosa News on Apr. 30 1978, "Melba Convicted on Two Counts" in the Gadsden Times on May 25 1978, "Melba Till Fights Ouster From Job" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jun. 9 1978, "Nation: Too Much Trust" in Time on Jun. 11 1978, "Alabama Treasurer Lost Her Job On Conviction" in the Lewiston Evening Journal on Jun. 10 1978, "Mrs. Allen Loses Bid For New Trial" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Jun. 11 1978, "Governor Wallace Replaces Melba Till As State Treasurer" in the Gadsden Times on Jun. 13 1978, "Melba Till Sentenced to One Year" in the Gadsden Times on Jun. 28 1978, "Conspiracy is Charged" in the Tuscaloosa News on Aug. 25 1978, "Melba Till Allen Faces Jail" in the Tuscaloosa News on Feb. 22 1980, "Allen Pardon Proposal Dies in House Committee" in the Florence Times and Tri-Cities Daily on Mar. 20 1980, "No Hearing, Melba Till Told" in the Gadsden Times on Oct. 7 1980, "Melba Till Gets 6 Months in Jail" in the Tuscaloosa News on Oct. 29 1980, "Melba Till Allen Goes to Jail" in the Gadsden Times on Nov. 3 1980, "Justice: Holiday at Home For Some" in the Tuscaloosa News on Nov. 30 1980, "Melba Till Allen Kicks Off Her Political Drive" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jan. 5 1986, "Official Vote Tally Reflects Only 'Minor' Changes" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jun. 5 1986, "Former State Treasurer Opens Restaurant" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jul. 31 1987

Herman Methfessel: the racketeer housewives of Staten Island

2011-03-09T20:59:00.002-05:00

Image unavailable

For most of his career, Herman Methfessel stayed out of the news. In the midst of his career as a New York City prosecutor, he made the syndicated column "Dizzy Doings in the News" in a 1942 account of fishing tales. Without noting Methfessel's profession, it took his claim that he caught two 14-inch bass on the same plug and cast with a grain of salt. Nine years later, Methfessel's own handling of questionable tales would end his career in the Empire State.

Born somewhere in the vicinity of 1901, Methfessel worked as a newspaper reporter before becoming an attorney. He was elected to the New York state assembly as a Democrat and served there between 1935 and 1938. From there, he went on to become the second assistant district attorney of Richmond County, and was promoted to the first assistant district attorney at the end of 1944. Three years later, he was elected to be district attorney of the county with backing from the Republican Party. In April of 1949, he witnessed the shooting of former Republican representative Ellsworth B. Buck outside his office by, Charles van Newkirk, 57-year-old former marine engineer who confessed that it was retaliation for Buck heading a congressional committee returning decision against him; Buck survived his injuries.

Methfessel's time in office ended ignominiously in September of 1951. As the New York State Crime Commission investigated rackets in Staten Island, 36-year-old housewife Anna Wentworth testified that she had seen Methfessel in a gambling den run by the D'Alessio brothers, known to be key players in gambling and racketeering operations in Richmond County. Wentworth served as their maid, and said the district attorney was at a roulette party there; the implication was that Methfessel was protecting vice. Methfessel responded by having her arrested for perjury.

The action appalled other members of the commission and New York government. Wentworth said she was terrified that the officers might not be legit, and said they refused to allow any of her six children to call a lawyer. Methfessel, along with commission chairman Joseph M. Proskauer, asked that a special prosecutor be used for testimony related to Wenworth. At the request of the Crime Commission, however, Governor Thomas E. Dewey ordered that a special prosecutor would supersede Methfessel in all matters related to the investigation. Dewey added that the officers admitted they didn't have a warrant for Wentworth's arrest and left her with black and blue marks after dragging her from her home. "On the basis of the facts before me, it is clear that the district attorney in using the power of his office to direct the arrest and questioning of a person who testified against him personally was a gross abuse of power," said Dewey. "The use of a district attorney for personal or political purposes is intolerable." Dewey appointed William B. Herlands, a former New York City commissioner of education, to replace Methfessel.

Methfessel was unapologetic when speaking before the commission on the incident. Wentworth, he said, had been an "unqualified liar" in her testimony; he also contended that she was seeking publicity and wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. He didn't meet with much sympathy. When he said the officers had followed a regular routine in the arrest, Proskauer replied, "Well, if this happens in every police station it's time we found out. This is America, not Russia." John M. Harlan, chief counsel for the commission, said Wentworth's arrest amounted to intimidation. In September of 1951, gambler Michael D'Alessio admitted that he made thousands of untaxed dollars, and contributed to the GOP but also was on friendly terms with Methfessel. The scandal resulted in an easy defeat in the 1951 election, as voters chose Republican-Liberal candidate Sidney O. Simonson to replace him.

Methfessel's ouster didn't quite close the book on the matter. He was charged, along with an assistant named Irving Rivkin, with official misconduct. The case went before a disciplinary trial in June of 1952, but both were acquitted at the recommendation of Supreme Court referee Peter P. Smith on the basis of insufficient evidence. Herlands tried to get the case reopened, but was denied by an appellate court. Wentworth, meanwhile, sued the city for $100,500 in December of 1951 after charging false arrest. A magistrate dismissed the perjury charge against her in February of 1952. The civil charge didn't come to trial until 1958, by which point the damages had ballooned to $1,175,000 sought from Methfessel and the two detectives involved in her arrest; it ultimately settled for a mere $3,500.

Methfessel moved to Miami, Florida to become a private attorney. He resurfaced briefly when John M. Harlan, who acted as counsel for the crime commission, was considered to be a Supreme Court justice. Before Congress, Methfessel accused Harlan of springing Wentworth as a surprise witness during the crime commission investigation and never allowed him to cross-examine her or introduce witnesses to dispute her testimony. Methfessel claimed that the debacle led to his re-election defeat despite the fact that he was never formally implicated. He told the congressmen that Harlan's "attitude toward cross-examination and toward a right of a person to defend himself is not the attitude that I feel should be carried into the Supreme Court." Nevertheless, Harlan was confirmed and served on the high bench until 1971.

Methfessel continued working as a lawyer until July of 1963, when he suffered a fatal heart attack while driving along the North-South Expressway.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, "Dizzy Doings in the News" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Jul. 16 1942, "Named Assistant Prosecutor" in the New York Times on Dec. 31 1944, "Says Shooting 'Spite Job'" in the Ottawa Evening Citizen on Apr. 6 1949, "DA Faces Quiz on 'Intimidation'" in the Pittsburgh Press on Sep. 21 1951, "District Attorney Barred by Governor in N.Y. Crime Case" in the Wilmington Morning Star on Sep. 22 1951, "Gambler Admits Making Untaxed Fortune" in the Milwaukee Sentinel on Sep. 25 1951, "William B. Herlands" in the Wilmington News on Sep. 27 1951, "Corruption, Racketeering Issues in Several Elections Today" in the Reading Eagle on Nov. 6 1951, "City Sued for $100,500" in the New York Times on Dec. 23 1951, "Mrs. Wentworth Cleared" in the New York Times on Feb. 29 1952, "Methfessel Case Goes to Referee" in the New York Times on Jun. 6 1952, "Hear Methfessel Motion" in the New York Times on Nov. 15 1952, "Methfessel Is Cleared" in the New York Times on Dec. 9 1952, "Herland Reopens Methfessel Case" in the New York Times on Jan. 18 1953, "State Loses Appeal in Methfessel Case" in the New York Times on Mar. 6 1953, "Oppenheimer Pal Wins Solons' Approval" in the Spokesman-Review on Feb. 25 1955, "False Suit Settled for $3,500" in the New York Times on Jun. 13 1958, "Motorist Died of Heart Attack" in the Miami News on Jul. 12 1963, John Marshall Harlan: Great Dissenter of the Warren Court by Tinsley Y. Yarbrough

Walter E. Brehm: nothing but the tooth

2011-01-15T16:28:00.002-05:00

President Harry Truman signs the bill creating the National Institute of Dental Research. Walter E. Brehm is second from the left.

It took a single, random incident to provide the impetus for the end of Walter Ellsworth Brehm's career in the House of Representatives: an old woman breaking her arm a thousand miles away. From this mishap and its aftermath, political columnist Drew Pearson was able to piece together enough evidence to implicate Brehm in a kickback scheme.

Brehm was born in Somerset, Ohio in May of 1892. After completing high school, he earned money through jobs in steel mills, rubber factories, and oil fields. He was also a member of Company D, Seventh Regiment, of the Ohio Infantry from 1908 to 1913. He attended Boston University and Ohio Wesleyan University, graduating from the Ohio State University Dental School in 1917. He began a dental practice in Logan, Ohio in 1921.

After about 15 years in this field, Brehm started dabbling in politics. Between 1936 and 1938, he was treasurer of the Republican executive committee of Hocking County and also served on the city council of Logan. He served in the state house of representatives from 1938 to 1942 before moving on to its federal counterpart after the election of 1942. He was returned in the next three elections and maintained a rather unassuming presence in Washington. His profession did influence his work there to some degree. His most notable action was the introduction of a bill to establish the National Institute of Dental Research. President Harry Truman signed it into law after it passed both chambers.

Brehm received a major test just a few months before the regular election of 1950. In September and October, Pearson wrote in his "Washington Merry-Go-Round" column that Brehm had accepted kickbacks from a woman who formerly worked as a clerk for him. Clara Soliday, a 75-year-old widow, worked for Brehm between January of 1945 and January of 1948. Pearson accused Brehm of taking $100, about half of Soliday's paycheck, each month and increasing the amount with each pay raise until it hit $240 a month. Though Brehm told Soliday that the money was going to a committee in Ohio for campaign work, Pearson asserted that this was illegal under the Corrupt Practices Act since Soliday's pay was provided by taxpayer dollars and was not to be used for political purposes.

Pearson seemed more concerned with ethical issues. He clearly didn't think much of a man who was routinely taking money from an elderly woman. Pearson said Soliday worked for the Treasury before taking the job with Brehm, since it was a slightly better salary even with the kickbacks and she didn't know those payments were illegal. He said Soliday was fired after she broke her arm late in 1947 while visiting her sister in Cleveland. Soliday got her X-rays in Washington, D.C. and cashed her paycheck with the Sergeant-at-Arms in the House. She told her daughter that she could get an additional $240 from her pocketbook, and the woman was surprised to find that it was in an envelope addressed to Brehm. Her son, Ray Soliday, delivered the money in person but asked that she be allowed to keep it to address her doctor's bills. Brehm refused, but eventually allowed Soliday to keep $100 of the allotted money. Perhaps seeing the writing on the wall, Brehm fired Soliday not long after and replaced her with his son, James F. Brehm. All told, Pearson said, Brehm pocketed some $7,300.

Brehm denounced the columnist as a liar, but Pearson was unfazed; he'd received a similar response from J. Parnell Thomas and Andrew May, he noted, and both of them had gone to jail on charges of receiving illegal income. He added that Brehm was apparently trying to keep Ray quiet, accusing the congressmen of telling Ray not to talk to Pearson. Pearson also said that Brehm was pressuring Ray to tell FBI investigators that the kickbacks only amounted to $1,200. Then in late October, Soliday sued Brehm to recover the approximately $7,300 with another $10,000 in punitive damages. Brehm said the charges were "so fantastic" that "I just do not have anything to say." He later responded with a countering lawsuit accusing her of a political attack, asking for dismissal and $5,000 in damages. The quarrel and Pearson's accusations became an issue in the 1950 election, but Brehm still triumphed over Democratic rival Mell G. Underwood, Jr.

A federal grand jury didn't find Soliday's charges to be fantastic. In December of 1950, it indicted Brehm on six violations of the Corrupt Practices Act in 1947 and 1948. Whether or not Pearson's charge that Brehm was tampering with Ray was accurate, the amount of pilfered money was much lower than the columnist's count and quite close to the tally Brehm was allegedly trying to get Ray to agree to: $1,380. In addition to Soliday, Brehm was accused of taking chunks out of the paycheck of another clerk named Emma Craven. Brehm accepted the news with aplomb, saying, "Now maybe we can get the facts on the record. This is the only way I know to clear the good name of all concerned. I have never at any time or any place or under any circumstances committed a criminal act."

The trial started in April of 1951. Both clerks testified that they had given up half of their salaries, mailing the money to Brehm when he was in Ohio and delivering it in person when he was in Washington. Midway through the trial, Brehm's attorney argued for acquittal on the argument that the prosecution didn't have a solid enough case. The judge refused, and Brehm took the stand to say that he was unaware of the existence of the Corrupt Practices Act and that none of the money went to personal use.

After four hours and 20 minutes of deliberation in May, the jury found Brehm guilty of five of the counts, charging that he received $1,000 from Craven. The next month, he was given a suspended jail sentence of five to 15 months and a $5,000 fine. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction in October of 1952. Brehm retired from Congress not long after, having decided against running for a sixth term.

Brehm returned to dental work, eventually retiring from private practice and joining a dental supply company. He died in Columbus in August of 1971.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Washington Merry-Go-Round" in the Tuscaloosa News on Sep. 26 1950, "Washington Merry-Go-Round" in the Southeast Missourian on Oct. 2 1950, "Washington Merry-Go-Round" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on Oct. 9 1950, "Solon Of Ohio Faces Suit For Kickback" in the Deseret News on Oct. 25 1950, "Rep. Brehm, Of Ohio, Is Indicted On Illegal Contributions Charge" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on Dec. 21 1950, "Legislator Loses Acquittal Plea" in the Pittsburgh Press on Apr. 24 1951, "Congressman's Trial Near End" in the Pittsburgh Press on Apr. 30 1951, "Brehm Is Guilty On Five Counts" in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on May 1 1951, "Rep. Brehm Gets Suspended Sentence" in the Miami News on Jun. 11 1951, "Refuses To Review Rep. Brehm Case" in the St. Petersburg Times on Oct. 14 1952, Dental Science in a New Age: The History of the National Institute of Dental Research by Ruth Roy Harris, Biographical Directory of the United States Congress 1774-2005 by Andrew R. Dodge

Richard T. Hanna: jumping the gun

2010-12-11T14:03:00.003-05:00

Richard T. Hanna at the Miles Square Park groundbreaking. Image courtesy of the Orange County Archives.

Though Richard Thomas Hanna deserves credit for taking responsibility for his wrongdoing, it is ironic that this action may have left his reputation worse off than if he had fought the charges harder. Several politicians were implicated in the "Koreagate" scandal in the 1970s, but Hanna was the only one who was criminally convicted in the case.

Hanna was born in Kemmerer, Wyoming, in June of 1914. He eventually migrated to California, graduating from the Pasadena Junior College as well as the University of California with a bachelor's degree in law. He promptly began a private practice, though he served in the U.S. Navy Air Corps between 1942 and 1945. Beginning in 1956, he spent six years as a member of the California state assembly. In 1962, he bucked the trend in his traditionally conservative Orange County district by winning a seat in the House of Representatives after running as the Democratic nominee. Even more impressive, he held the seat in the next five elections. In March of 1974, however, Hanna announced that he would not seek re-election due to his wife's health. In November, Orange County decided to keep a Democrat in the House, electing Santa Ana city councilman Jerry M. Patterson over former Vietnam prisoner of war and GOP candidate David Rehmann.

The same month he announced he would resign for unrelated reasons, investigative journalist Jack Anderson described Hanna as "Capitol Hill's premier globe-trotter." Writing in the Washington Merry Go Round column and citing State Department cables, Anderson wrote that Hanna had been escorting South Korean businessman Tongsun Park on his quest to find oil deals. Anderson wrote that in January Hanna had been in Indonesia as a guest of the Pertamina Oil Company and flew to meet Park in Yemen. This column ultimately let Hanna off easy, describing him as a "likable liberal" and printing Hanna's insistence that he had promised capital investment in Yemen but had not made any business deals alongside Park, but only talked to officials at informal gatherings such as cocktail parties.

The same month, however, Anderson was a little tougher. He gave Hanna another nickname, "King of the Road," noting how he made three junketing trips in 1973 to the Soviet Union and Africa. Anderson accused Hanna of demanding red carpet treatment in Japan, including a military helicopter to fly him over Tokyo's persistent traffic jams. He said Hanna also escaped Egypt during the outbreak of war by taking a train to Alexandria and boarding a freighter to Greece. Altogether, Hanna had taken numerous trips to Asia, Europe, and South America, mostly on the taxpayers' expense.

It would be another two years before the Justice Department gathered enough evidence to attach criminal charges to Hanna's activities. In October of 1976, the Washington Post reported that the department was investigating the funneling of gifts and cash from the Korean government to U.S. congressmen, with over 20 past and current politicians under examination. The newspaper reported that President Park Chung Hee of South Korea was accused of personally guiding agents in the goal to create a legislative environment more favorable to that country, with Tongsun Park acting as the key lobbyist. Park said he made payments to Hanna and two other congressmen, former Democratic representatives Cornelius Gallagher of New Jersey and Edwin W. Edwards of Louisiana, then governor of that state. The Post said they'd also obtained copies of six checks, totaling $22,500, that Park had written to Hanna in 1973 and 1974. One source said Park gave Hanna about $4,000 to be used on his house.

Hanna admitted to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct that he had been involved as a silent partner in Park's import-export work, earning $60,000 to $70,000 over the course of three years. Hanna said he had never taken a political contribution from Park, and that Park had never tried to influence congressional legislation. However, he did say that he grew uncomfortable with the relationship due to the possibility of a conflict of interest, especially as Park pressed for introductions to other legislators. "I guess I was his original friend on Capitol Hill," said Hanna. "He often told me I was his oldest, dearest, closest, most valuable friend. Then he turned around and kicked me."

By this time, Hanna's travel was continuing on a smaller scale. The Orange County board of supervisors had considered him as a potential Washington lobbyist for local issues, but he withdrew his name from consideration in December of 1975. From there, he moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas and was living there in seclusion when a probe of Park's business named 27 current and former representatives and senators in September of 1977. As a foreign national, Park was prohibited from making campaign contributions and had also failed to register as a foreign agent. Two former directors of the Korean Central Intelligence Agency, named as unindicted co-conspirators, said U.S. rice dealers paid substantial amounts to Park as an agent for rice sales to Korea. Kim Hyung-Wook, one of the former directors, said Hanna and Park visited the Korean prime minister to discuss rice commissions and that Park had run lobbying efforts out of a club he owned in Washington, D.C. since 1966. Kim said Hanna wanted rice to be bought in California, and that it would be easiest to do so with Park as an agent since he could take care of payments to other congressmen to favor Korean causes. It was a rather lucrative business, since rice could be bought at subsidized prices and sold for four times the world average in Korea. Out of $9 million in rice subsidies, Park funneled $850,000 to congressmen. The misconduct led to 36 criminal corruption charges against Park, and Hanna was named as an unindicted co-conspirator for his advisory role to Park in the alleged scheme to determine which congressmen could be bought and at what price.

In October of 1977, Hanna was brought up on criminal charges of his own. An indictment charged him with three counts of bribery, one count of failing to register as a foreign agent, 35 counts of mail fraud, and one count of conspiracy. Park, as well as the two former Korean CIA directors, were named as unindicted co-conspirator in the indictment. The charges accused Hanna of getting a cut of commissions paid to Park by U.S. companies in exchange for influencing decisions related to Korea. Park admitted to giving Hanna $262,000 for his role in the scandal.

In March of 1978, most of the laundry list of charges was dismissed after Hanna pleaded guilty to the single conspiracy count, three days before he was scheduled to go to trial. "I apologize as a lawyer, as a person who held public office," he said at his sentencing. "I hope in some way to atone for what I have done, whatever years I have left." However, Hanna also thought Congress as a whole had gotten a "bad rap" from the affair and characterized the payments as campaign contributions rather than bribes. In April, Hanna was sentenced to serve six to 30 months in prison; he began the sentence the next month at the minimum security prison at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.

Though Hanna was closer to the scandal than the other congressmen, he may still have had better luck if he had taken the case before a jury. Three other California Democrats were reprimanded by the House: Edward R. Roybal, Charles H. Wilson, and John J. McFall. Another former Democratic representative, Otto Passman of Louisiana, was indicted on bribery and conspiracy charges on the accusation that he took as much as $213,000 from Park. Hanna was named as a witness at the trial, but Passman was found not guilty. The indictment against Park, who had spent at least some of his time following his indictment in Seoul, was dismissed in August of 1979 as part of an immunity deal for his giving investigators 31 names in the scandal. Hanna, the only person convicted in the entire Koreagate uproar, was released from prison after serving a little more than one year.

Hanna resigned from the bar in September of 1982 and spent the rest of his days out of the spotlight. He died in June of 2001 in Tryon, North Carolina.

Sources: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Rep. Hanna Won't Seek Re-election" in the Los Angeles Times on Feb. 13 1974, "Traveling Companions" in The Dispatch on Mar. 28 1974, "The Washington Globetrotters" in The Dispatch on Apr. 12 1974, "Brown Leads Democratic Sweep" in the Press-Courier on Nov. 6 1974, "Hanna To Quit As Prospect For Lobbyist Post" in the Los Angeles Times on Dec. 23 1975, "Gifts, Contributions From South Korea Under Investigation" in the Argus-Press on Oct. 26 1976, "Park Surrenders Bank Records" in the Lakeland Ledger on Oct. 27 1976, "Lawmaker Admits Korean Ties" in the Daytona Beach Morning Journal on Nov. 10 1976, "27 Present, Ex-Members Of Congress Linked To Park In Grand Jury Indictments" in the Toledo Blade on Sep. 7 1977, "Government Unveils Indictments Against Park" in the Rome News-Tribune on Sep. 7 1977, "Korea Probes Indict Former Lawmaker" in the Milwaukee Journal on Oct. 14 1977, "Koreagate Shadow Hits Hanna" in the Palm Beach Post on Oct. 15 1977, "Korean Agent Ties Hanna To Bribe Plot" in the Modesto Bee on Oct. 22 1977, "Korean Says Hanna Set Up Bribe Scheme" in the Anchorage Daily News on Oct. 22 1977, "Hanna Pleads Guilty In Korea Influence Buying Conspiracy" in the Lodi News-Sentinel on Mar. 18 1978, "Hanna Sentenced In Bribery Case" in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Apr. 25 1978, "Park Admits Handing $850,000 To Politicians" in the Montreal Gazette on Apr. 4 1978, "Hanna Begins Prison Term" in the Palm Beach Post on May 9 1978, "Rep. Hanna To Talk At Trial" in the Lodi News-Sentinel on Mar. 21 1979, "Passman Cleared In Korea Case" in The Dispatch on Apr. 9 1979, "Koreagate Charges Dismissed" in the Gadsden Times on Aug. 17 1979, "Ex-Congressman In Bribe Scandal" in the Los Angeles Times on Sep. 9 1982, Troubled Tiger: Businessmen, Bureaucrats, and Generals in South Korea by Mark Clifford, Taking Care of the Law by Griffin B. Bell and Ronald J. Ostrow

Donald Edgar Lukens: deliniquent girls, delinquent bank book

2010-11-09T20:00:00.006-05:00

Image from nytimes.com

The first sex charge against Donald Edgar Lukens emerged when he was nothing more than a college kid. He was investigated for child molestation in 1954, but the parents declined to file charges. That same year, Lukens graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in sociology and joined the United States Air Force. He was 23 years old, having been born in Harveysburg, Ohio in February of 1931. He became a captain and served six-and-a-half years with the service, specializing in criminal investigation and counterintelligence, and was later a member of the Air Force Reserve. Thirty-five years later, when Lukens was well into a political career, an aide revealed the criminal investigation from his past. It was only in relation to another allegation, however, and by that time Lukens was well on his way to getting thrown out of office and into a jail cell.

After his time in the Air Force, Lukens (who nicknamed himself "Buz" out of distaste for his given name) became a minority counsel for the House Rules Committee. In 1963, during a tumultuous convention, he became the chairman of the Young Republicans. Lukens was an ultraconservative, and this post marked one of a series of victories that swayed the party farther to the right at that year's convention. New York Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller, a moderate, even accused Lukens and his compatriots of using the "tactics of totalitarianism" at the convention. At one point, Lukens was accused of promoting biased journalism for advocating the injection of 100 Young Republicans into media jobs. He led the organization for two years, which included active stumping for unsuccessful 1964 GOP presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.

In 1966, Lukens came to the House of Representatives and two years later he was re-elected. He was a staunch advocate of the Vietnam War, speaking at a rally in 1969. Imitating President Nixon's "V for Victory" sign, he said, "no one declares North Vietnam to withdraw from the war, and yet they're the ones that started it." He deemed antiwar protesters "selfish Americans and some of them, let's face it, are indeed cowardly." He opted not to run in 1970, instead trying unsuccessfully to win that year's gubernatorial race in Ohio.

Lukens remained in Ohio and began serving in the state senate in 1971. This service was nearly cut short a few years later. He was barred from consideration in the Republican nomination for governor in 1974 after failing to file a 1972 campaign finance report. Lukens said he had done so and that the document must have gotten lost in the mail. The next year, however, he was nearly banned from running for re-election under a campaign financing law penalizing people who did not file such reports in time. The law was amended in time for him to win re-election in 1976. In 1984, the state board of elections split 2-2 on the question of whether he still complied with the residency requirements of his seat after his divorce. Lukens responded that he'd been living with a friend only a few blocks away, and that the issue was simply harassment by the state's Democrats. Lukens finally left the state senate after 15 years when he was elected to the House again in 1986, as well as re-election in 1988. During this second stint in Washington, he opposed the continuation of sanctions on apartheid-era South Africa and supported continuing aide for Nicaraguan contra rebels.

Lukens' fall from politics was an ugly affair that stretched over several years. It began in February of 1989, when he was indicted on a misdemeanor charge of contributing to the unruliness and delinquency of a child. The charge was only punishable by a maximum of 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine, but it was essentially another child molestation accusation. The mother of a 16-year-old girl had gone to Columbus television station WSYX regarding the matter and agreed to have the station secretly videotape a meeting between her and the representative. The two met at a McDonald's fast food restaurant, where the woman questioned Lukens about past sexual encounters with her daughter. One occurred in 1985, when the girl was 13; the other in November of 1989, when she was 16. The mother found out about the incidents after overhearing a conversation between the girl and her friend. When confronted with the allegations at the restaurant, Lukens said he didn't know at the time that the girl was underage. He then said he would see if he could find a government job for the woman. It was a rather baldfaced effort to keep things quiet, but the FBI determined that there wasn't enough evidence for a bribery charge. Lukens denied the charges when they first came up, suggesting that he was set up and approached for money on a general allegation.

The trial began in May of 1989. The girl testified that she told Lukens she was 19, but that he had laughed it off and responded, "No, you're not." Much to Lukens' discomfort, she described the second time they hooked up. As the girl told it, she and her 19-year-old friend went to Lukens' apartment, where the congressman greeted them wearing nothing but his boxer shorts. Lukens asked them to get changed into black robes (commenting that the white robes he had were for "white people, other kind of people;" both girls were black). They slept together, and Lukens paid her $40 and gave her birthday gifts of a pink lace fan and a silver pillbox. He also gave her friend $30, a bottle of perfume, and a diamond pendant and compensated the duo for cab fare.

The defense attacked the girl's mother as chronically unemployed and desperate for publicity and money, but to no avail. The jury found Lukens guilty after one-and-a-half hours of deliberation. Chalmers Wylie, senior Republican representative from Ohio, called for his resignation immediately. The verdict came down at about the same time as another girl accused him of paying to have sex with her five or six times in 1985, when she was 15. "I refuse to allow the lies and deceit of one delinquent individual to ruin me," Lukens said in a statement responding to the verdict. "I am now fighting for my life." He went on to say that the girl had "fantasies about 'getting even with the establishment.'"

In June, Lukens was sentenced to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine, along with sex offender counseling and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. The sentence was stayed while Lukens appealed, seeking to have the girl's school and juveniles records admitted for consideration by the court. The girl in the case wasn't exactly an angel. A month after the trial, she was in a fight with a man and the preliminary investigation determined that she was a courier for cocaine, money, and guns. In August, her mother had her arrested after a fight between the two resulted in threats and the girl breaking in a door with a crowbar. The judge and prosecutor had clearly had enough on this score, however. Prosecutor Rita Mangini said "her prior unruliness was not a factor in this case." Judge Ronald Solove declared, "The court is particularly struck by the unwillingness of the defendant to recognize that he was not the victim" and the ridiculousness of the idea that he was "somehow seduced by a child." Prosecutors also threatened to pursue felony charges related to Lukens' 1985 conduct if his appeal of the misdemeanor was successful.

The legal fight came at about the same time that Lukens had to go through the normal run for the GOP nomination. The Ethics Committee said it would look into whether Lukens violated any House rules, along with Democratic congressmen Gus Savage of Illinois (accused of molesting a Peace Corps volunteer during a trip to Zaire) and Jim Bates of California (accused of sexually harassing female staffers). Vice President Dan Quayle, in a trademark gaffe, caused snickers at a Young Republicans meeting when he accidentally used Buz Lukens' name instead of Buzz Aldrin when referring to the 20th anniversary of the Moon landing; the St. Louis Dispatch quipped "Quayle Puts Sex Offender on Apollo 11." With the convention approaching, Lukens finally gave a curt mea culpa: "I apologize. I made a dumb mistake. I'm sorry." He came in third place in the May primary, with 17 percent of the vote. The nomination, and subsequent series of elections, instead went to state representative John Boehner.

One month later, Lukens' appeal was rejected by a state court. He finally resigned on October 24, 1990 "for the good of Congress and the integrity of the institution." Even then, it took one last incident to force him out. A few days before, he was accused of fondling a young female House elevator operator. The resignation saved him from an inquiry by the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The committee had opted not to pursue an investigation after Lukens' primary loss, but in light of his remaining few months of office and the recent allegations they were ready to reopen the matter. In November, the Ohio Supreme Court upheld the verdict. Lukens finally began serving his sentence in January of 1991, but only completed nine days of the month-long sentence; the judge agreed to an early release so he could start attending sex offender counseling.

Lukens was not quite out of hot water yet. The girl's mother filed a lawsuit against Lukens, seeking $250,000 in damages, but a judge threw it out in December of 1993 after Lukens could not be located. Then the bribery charges started to poke up again. The House Ethics Committee determined in 1978 that he had received two $500 gifts from South Korean businessman Tongsun Park (later indicted for bribery) during his first four years in office. In July of 1994, Pentagon contractor Edward Krishack was acquitted of 16 criminal charges, including one suggesting that he gave Lukens $5,500 to get access to a congressional committee during his last year in office. Krishack was cleared at trial when it was determined that he gave Lukens the money but that it did not constitute a crime.

Lukens found himself in court again not much later. In February of 1995, he was accused of taking $27,500 in bribes from two businessmen who were trying to keep the Cambridge Technical Institute trade school in Cincinnati in the federal student loan program. One businessman, John Fitzpatrick, was also charged; the other, Henry Whitesell, had been murdered in 1990. The state alleged that the bribery occurred at about the same time that Lukens was struggling to find money to pay his legal bills on the sex charge. The potential maximum penalty was much worse this time around: 65 years in prison and a $1.25 million fine.

In October of 1995, a jury found him innocent of three bribery charges but deadlocked on a fourth charge as well as a single count of conspiracy. Another trial was held in March of 1996. Prosecutors argued that he received $15,000 from the businessmen a week before the 1990 primary, when he was operating on a shoestring. In June of 1996, he was sentenced to the minimum term of 30 months in prison; he began serving seven months later. Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of conspiracy in March of 1997 and got two years in prison.

Not much was heard of Lukens after that. He moved to Texas, taught English as a second language courses, and volunteered with the Red Cross. He died of cancer in Dallas in May of 2010.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Only Two Incumbent House Members Meet November 8" in the Times-News on Nov. 3 1966, "Thousands Attend Washington Rally In Support Of Nixon Vietnam Policy" in the Toledo Blade on Nov. 12 1969, "Buz Lukens Asks Supreme Court Action" in the Bryan Times on Feb. 24 1973, "Lukens May Get Relief" in the Daily Sentinel on Mar. 8 1974, "Panel Questions Lukens' Status On Residency" in the Toledo Blade on Mar. 2 1984, "Brown Votes To Certify Sen. Lukens For Primary" in the Youngstown Vindicator on Mar. 22 1984, "Tape Links Congressman To Sex With Teen" in the Pittsburgh Press on Feb. 2 1989, "Ohio Congressman Indicted On Sex Charge" in the Tuscaloosa News on Feb. 24 1989, "Congressman Indicted In Sex Case With Teenager" in the Rock Hill Herald on Feb. 24 1989, "Lukens Defends Himself, Says Sex Charge A Setup" in the Toledo Blade on Feb. 27 1989, "Congressman Denies Morals Charge" in The Telegraph on May 20 1989, "Mother Takes Stand In Lukens Sex Case" in the Reading Eagle on May 24 1989, "Teen Says Congressmen Paid Her For Sex" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on May 25 1989, "Lukens Convicted Of Sex Charge" in the Herald-Journal on May 27 1989, "Congressman Won't Resign Despite Morals Charge" in the Anchorage Daily News on Jun. 2 1989, "Girl In Lukens Case In Fight" in the Portsmouth Daily Times on Jun. 7 1989, "Lawmaker Sentenced To Jail For Sex Crime" in the Union Democrat on Jun. 30 1989, "Lukens May Face Felony Charges" in the Gadsden Times on Jul. 4 1989, "A Quayle Of A Gaffe" in the Times Daily on Jul. 16 1989, "House to Probe Lukens" in the Portsmouth Daily Times on Aug. 5 1989, "Lukens' Accuser Jailed On Charges Filed By Her Mother" in the Reading Eagle on Aug. 16 1989, "Lukens Apologizes, But Will Seek Re-Election" in the Portsmouth Daily Times on May 3 1990, "Lukens Loses After Sex Scandal" in the Free Lance-Star on May 10 1990, "Lukens Will Appeal To State High Court" in the Portsmouth Daily Times on Jun. 13 1990, "Lukens Quits To Avoid New Ethics Investigation" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Oct. 25 1990, "Ex-Legislator Loses Appeal In Sex Case" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Nov. 22 1990, "Lukens Released From Jail" in the Toledo Blade on Jan. 10 1991, "Judge Tosses Out Suit Against Former Congressman" in The Vindicator on Dec. 17 1993, "Man Acquitted Of Bribing Lukens" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jul. 11 1994, "Ex-Legislator Accused of Bribery" in The Hour on Feb. 24 1995, "Ex-Statesman Gets Bribery Mistrial" in the Gainesville Sun on Oct. 20 1995, "Lukens Convicted On Bribery Charges" in the Toledo Blade on Mar. 16 1996, "Ex-Congressman Gets 30-Month Prison Term" in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Jun. 20 1996, "Lukens Begins Sentence For Accepting Bribe" in the Toledo Blade on Feb. 20 1998, "Trade School Operator Enters Guilty Plea" in the Toledo Blade on Mar. 7 1998, "Donald Lukens, 79, Dies" in the Washington Post on May 25 2010, "Donald Lukens, Scandal-Tainted Lawmaker, Dies at 79" in the New York Times on May 25 2010, "Former Congressman Donald Lukens Dies" from United Press International on May 25 2010, The Little Quiz Book of Big Political Scandals by Paul Slansky

Daniel E. Sickles: through the perilous fights

2010-10-25T06:56:00.005-04:00

Image from nps.gov

Congressmen with murderous tempers were not new to Philip Barton Key, but his prior experience had not exactly prepared him for the events of February 27, 1859. Key was used to handling such matters from behind a prosecutor's table. A few years before, his duties as the U.S. district attorney for Washington, D.C. compelled him to try Democratic Representative Philemon T. Herbert for a bizarre murder. Herbert's argument with a waiter at Willard's Hotel grew physical, and it culminated in the congressman taking out a pistol and shooting the waiter dead. Two trials later, Herbert was acquitted under arguments that included intimidation by other waiters during the scuffle.

The incident may have taught Key not to cross a congressman at breakfast, but it did nothing to suggest that sleeping with a representative's wife was a bad idea. Not long after the unsuccessful trial, Key had befriended incoming representative Daniel Edgar Sickles and his wife, Teresa. Sickles was more than twice Teresa's age, having married her in 1852 when she was 15 years old. He was also not the most dedicated family man, and his work in Congress in the tumultuous period leading up to the Civil War did nothing to improve matters. During his frequent absences, Teresa wound up spending more and more time with Key. Their relationship did not go unnoticed in the higher ranks of Washington society, but Sickles remained oblivious. That precarious balance continued for several months, until an anonymous tipster inadvertently caused one of the most talked about events in the nation's capital.

Sickles had left a wake of minor scandals through his career, but nothing to derail it. Born in New York City in October of 1819, he attended New York University for a time and apprenticed as a printer. He later changed his focus to law, was admitted to the bar in 1843, and started practicing in the city. Though he was charged with grand larceny three years later in the theft of an $800 deed, he was acquitted on technical grounds. Sickles' frequent dalliances with a prostitute named Fanny White also failed to throw him off the political track. Aided by the Tammany Hall machine, he became a member of the state assembly in 1847 and the corporation attorney for New York City in 1853. Sickles supported the idea of a central park in Manhattan, an idea which eventually came to fruition during his lifetime.

In 1853, Sickles was tapped to be secretary of the legation at London by Democratic President Franklin Pierce. The key goal of this body was to promote the freedom of the seas and convince the British government not to interfere in the American aspiration to acquire Cuba from Spain. Sickles spent two years in this position, but caused a few embarrassments along the way. In 1854, he refused to toast the health of Queen Victoria on the Fourth of July. He likely had a role in the Ostend Manifesto, a document boldly proclaiming that the United States would take Cuba by force if Spain did not part with the island peacefully. The ultimatum was not well-received in both Europe and the U.S., and Pierce was forced to distance himself from the manifesto. When Sickles returned from England, he soon wound up in the state senate. His time here was cut short when he was elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives in 1856.

Sickles allied himself with the Southern, "Hardshell" wing of the Democratic Party. As crises related to slavery and the balance of power in Congress mounted, the Hardshells sought to preserve the union of states even if it meant the practice of slavery were to stay in place. To that end, Sickles supported the proposal by Democratic President James Buchanan to admit Kansas as a slave state. The measure passed the Senate, but ran into defeat in the House.

It was not long after he was returned for a second term in the House that Sickles was confronted with a bitter piece of news about his marital relations. On February 24, 1859, he received a letter signed only by someone identifying themselves as "R.P.G." This tipster, whom the New York Times later melodramatically dubbed an "enemy of mankind," suggested that Sickles' friend Key rented a house on 15th Street for no other reason than to meet clandestinely Teresa. "He hangs a string out of the window as a signal to her that he is in and leaves the door unfastened and she walks in and sir I do assure you he has as much the use of your wife as you have," R.P.G. hinted. "With these few hints I leave the rest of you to imagine."

Sickles decided to embark on an investigation. Visiting the address, he questioned a few neighbors and found to his dismay that they readily recalled that a man and woman matching the description of Key and Teresa had regularly convened at the house. Sickles confided in a few friends, one of whom surveyed the house from a rented apartment across the street and turned up nothing. Sickles even had a brief glimmer of hope, when a witness recalled seeing Teresa on a date he knew her to be in another location; this quickly faded when it turned out that the witness had simply gotten the date wrong. Finally, Sickles confronted Teresa and forced her to write a lengthy and detailed confession when she admitted to the affair. "I did what is usual for a wicked woman to do," she concluded.

Key remained aloof of this development. So it was that three days after Sickles received the letter from R.P.G., several witnesses say Key loitering around the congressman's residence. At one point, he even made a clumsy attempt to signal Teresa, waving a handkerchief while petting the Sickles family dog after it ran out to see him. When Sickles finally saw Key outside, he was enraged. Though one of his friends, Samuel Butterworth, urged him to go the gentleman's route by challenging Key to a duel, Sickles would have none of it. He strode out to confront the district attorney, shouting that he was a scoundrel who had dishonored his house and threatening his life. He then took out a derringer and fired.

The first shot only grazed Key's hand. Key managed to grab hold of Sickles' coat collar, which was enough to prevent Sickles from firing again. Instead, he dropped his weapon and pulled free, only to take out a second gun and shoot again. This time, Key was struck in the leg near the groin. At some point during the struggle, Key took a pair of opera glasses he happened to have on him and threw them at Sickles, an attack which obviously didn't do much harm. With a serious wound, Key now begged Sickles not to kill him. Sickles ignored him, firing again. The gun misfired. He shot again, this time hitting Key in the chest. Even at this point, Sickles wasn't satisfied and tried to shoot Key in the head, only to have the fickle weapon misfire a second time. The incident took place in Lafayette Square, directly across the street from the White House.

Finally, the witnesses in the square interceded and Sickles surrendered his weapon. A surgeon had heard the shots and run to the scene, and Key was taken to a nearby house soon after. It was too late to do anything for the man, however, and he died before any medical treatment could be given. A White House page reported the matter to President Buchanan, a friend of Sickles. Whether he was ignorant of the judicial process or simply lying, Buchanan told the page that he could be detained indefinitely as a witness to the murder. He urged the page to flee the city, and he did. Teresa wasn't far behind. Her lover dead and her husband in jail, she returned to New York a disgraced woman.

Sickles was indicted for murder in March. His trial began the next month, after a lengthy jury selection in which numerous people admitted bias one way or another. The prosecution's case included evidence from the autopsy, which showed that Key had not been struck in the heart but rather died after his chest filled with blood from the wound. The one bullet retrieved from the body did not match the gun Sickles surrendered to authorities, so the prosecutor suggested that the congressman may even have had a third weapon. Their main argument was that Sickles had acted with malice aforethought, going so far as to deck himself out with multiple firearms before confronting Key.

In reply, Sickles' defense team tried out a rather risky argument: temporary insanity. The shock of learning about Teresa's affair, they argued, had driven him briefly out of his mind and caused him to gun down his friend and rival. It was the first time the argument was used in a court of law. The defense was easily able to dodge the testimony of numerous witnesses that Sickles didn't seem like a raving lunatic at the time of the shooting by simply pointing out that the witnesses had never been to an asylum, where plenty of committed people seemed perfectly normal on the surface.

Perhaps the most anticipated part of the trial never came about. After some debate, the judge opted not to admit Teresa's confession into the record. It leaked to the press soon after at any rate. As a result of this ruling, the judge also declined to admit similarly enticing evidence suggesting that Sickles himself had committed adultery with another woman in a Baltimore hotel. During the closing arguments, the defense reiterated their temporary insanity argument and suggested that one of the weapons dropped during the confrontation may have belonged to Key. The prosecution responded that Sickles had seemed normal before the shooting, attending his duties in Congress with no sign of mental disturbance and even making sure his remarks on a minor issue were recorded correctly.

After only 70 minutes, the jury returned a not guilty verdict. It may have been in error, since Sickles allegedly walked by the site with two friends not long after his acquittal and commented that he had meant to kill Key all along. Nevertheless, sympathy with Sickles was high since his action was seen in many quarters as a reasonable defense of his honor. One of the jurors told the press, "I would not have been satisfied with a derringer or a revolver, but would have brought a howitzer to bear on the seducer." So rather than the killing itself, Sickles got more flak when he and Teresa kept in contact with one another, fueling rumors that they were reuniting. They did keep in touch, but remained somewhat estranged.

Sickles was not very active in Congress following the trial, though after Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 he blamed the increased threat of secession on abolitionists. Sickles even went so far as to say that if the North and South separated, New York City would break itself away from the country as well. "I tell you, that imperial city will throw off the odious government to which she now yields a reluctant allegiance; she will repel the hateful cabal at Albany, which has so long abused its power over her; and with her own flag, sustained by the courage and devotion of her own gallant sons, she will, as a free city, open wide her gates to the civilization and commerce of the world," he proclaimed. Once the Southern states actually did secede, however, Sickles pretty much flipped this opinion on its head and became a staunch supporter of Lincoln. "In all the partisan issues between the South and the Republican Party, the people of the city of New York are with the South, but when the South makes an untenable issue with our country, when the flag of the Union is insulted, when the fortified places provided for the common defense are assaulted and seized, when the South abandons its Northern friends for English and French alliances, then the loyal and patriotic population of that imperial city are unanimous with the Union," he said.

In this way, Sickles became a friend of Lincoln and was frequently able to meet with the President. He urged Lincoln to keep troops garrisoned at Fort Sumter, perhaps indirectly contributing to the attack there that would launch the Civil War. Sickles was not a candidate for renomination by the Democrats in 1860, likely due to his murder trial, but found himself with plenty to do when the war broke out. He committed himself to raising volunteers in New York, and within a month he helped to raise 40 companies totaling 3,000 men. Dubbed the Excelsior Brigade, the units were briefly threatened when Republican Governor Edwin Morgan asked him to disband all but eight of the companies since Sickles' top-notch recruiting was making it harder for the state to meet its own recruitment quota. Sickles thought it amounted to little more than political maneuvering, and won relief when he appealed directly to Lincoln.

Sickles now turned his focus entirely to the war. The Senate declined his nomination to brigadier general in March of 1862, but the appointment was confirmed by one vote in May. He saw action during the Peninsular Campaign, the aborted attack on Richmond from eastern Virginia, as well as Chancellorsville. He performed reserve duties during the battles at Fredericksburg and Antietam. He was promoted to a major general in 1863. Ultimately, Sickles would become best-known for his role in the Battle of Gettysburg, which caused even more controversy than his shooting of Key.

During the preparations for this battle in July of 1863, Sickles and his Third Corps were ordered to hold a portion of the Union line on Cemetery Ridge. Sickles noted that his ordered position left the high ground in front of him unoccupied, and thought leaving it to the Confederate Army would result in slaughter. He had already seen how the enemy's use of high ground in Chancellorsville had contributed to the Union defeat. He asked to advance, but never got an answer from General George Meade. Sickles took this as a license to move, and advanced the corps to the peach orchard atop the hill.

The move remains a disputed one. By advancing his troops, Sickles created a gap in the Union line and spread his troops more thinly than they would otherwise have been in their assigned position. Yet Sickles may well have been right in believing that the result of the battle would have been different if the Confederates had taken the orchard without any resistance. At any rate, Sickles' worst mistake may have been that he never passed on word of his new position, leaving nearby units to believe that he was still in his assigned location.

The Third Corps was subject to a major attack as the Confederates tried to break this weak point in the line. The soldiers held the line, but not without heavy losses. One of the casualties was Sickles, who was struck in the right leg by a cannonball while riding a horse on the second day of the battle. The impact was severe enough to shatter the leg into uselessness, but Sickles tried to keep up morale by looking nonchalant and clamping a cigar between his teeth as he was taken off to a field hospital. Surgeons amputated the leg partway up the thigh.

Lincoln visited him during his recovery, and soon after the draft riots in New York City the city council there ordered a gold medal struck for him. In October of 1897, Sickles would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Gettysburg, namely "most conspicuous gallantry on the field, vigorously contesting the advance of the enemy and continuing to encourage his troops after being himself severely wounded." Not everyone was so satisfied with his performance. Meade complained that the three-quarters of a mile advance "nearly proved fatal in battle." Sickles fired back during testimony before the Joint Committee on the Conduct of War, saying Meade was slow to act and missed the opportunity to destroy the Confederate army after the Union victory at Gettysburg.

Sickles was anxious to return to service, but Lincoln was understandably reluctant to do so given his injury. Instead, he gave him emissary duty in January of 1865. This meant Sickles spent several months in Greater Colombia (then comprising Colombia, Costa Rica, and Panama) to convince the government to reopen the territory for Union troop crossings and to consider the possibility of taking in freed slaves after the war. At the same time, Sickles used his position to secure exotic animals for the Central Park Zoo.

Following the war, Sickles became the military governor of South Carolina and later North Carolina. One of his more notable actions came on the first day of 1866, when he overturned South Carolina's Black Code to give equal judicial rights to freed slaves. He also exempted freed slaves from special taxes and allowed them freedom of movement. President Andrew Johnson, who rose to power following Lincoln's assassination, was not as big a fan of Sickles' work as his predecessor and the two frequently clashed. Sickles thought Reconstruction should be managed by Congress rather than the White House. Johnson finally removed him from office when Sickles overextended his authority, using a military commission to try a local crook after the federal authorities declined to take the case.

Sickles returned to diplomatic work. After turning down an offer by Johnson to become Minister to the Netherlands and an offer by Republican President Ulysses S. Grant to become Minister to Mexico, he accepted an appointment as Minister to Spain. This once again put him in a position to discuss Cuban issues. Teresa died of consumption in January of 1867, and four years later Sickles remarried, this time to a woman named Caroline de Creagh whom he met at a diplomatic party in Paris. Sickles didn't see much of his new family either; he last saw a daughter de Creagh bore him when she was five years old, and then not again until 17 years later. Sickles' commission in Spain ended when he prematurely closed the American embassy in response to the execution in Havana of 53 Americans on board the ship Virginius, suspected of smuggling arms and revolutionaries into Cuba. The issue was resolved instead by direct communication between the Spanish government and the Secretary of State, leaving Sickles out altogether. He retired from the military in April of 1869 with the rank of major general.

Sickles returned the New York City and became involved in a numerous local offices, serving on the New York State Civil Service Commission and New York Monuments Commission and becoming sheriff of New York City in 1890. Two years later, he was returned to the House for a single term. Among his friends he counted James Longstreet, the Confederate general at Gettysburg, who said the position Sickles took in that conflict "saved that battlefield to the Union cause."

Accusations of fiscal mismanagement dogged Sickles from the larceny accusation on, and a few final instances of this occurred near the end of his life. Despite his father leaving him a $5 million estate upon his death in 1887, Sickles continued to run up debts. At one point, his wife had to sell her jewels to pay them off. Then in 1912, the state controller discovered a $28,476 disparity in the records of the New York Monuments Commission. The entire commission, including now 93-year-old Sickles, was suspect. He was arrested in January of 1913 by a reluctant and apologetic sheriff, but immediately bailed and allowed to remain at home. In April, the state decided not to press the case against him. Several people had made offers of financial support , but none materialized and the state was convinced he did not have the assets to make up the disparity.

In May of 1914, Sickles died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was the last surviving corps commander from Gettysburg, and the third last surviving corps commander of the entire Union army. A piece of Sickles is still visible in the nation's capital today. The surgeon who amputated his leg knew the Army Medical Museum in Washington, D.C. was looking for samples and sent the severed limb there. Today, Sickles' broken femur is still on display at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Dreadful Tragedy" in the New York Times on Feb. 28 1859, "Sickles Indicted For Murder" in the Chicago Tribune on Mar. 17 1859, "Sickles In Custody For A Minute Only" in the New York Times on Jan. 28 1913, "General Sickles To Go Free" in the Gazette Times on Apr. 25 1913, "Gen. Sickles Dead" in the Star and Sentinel on May 6 1914, The Outlook Vol. 107, American Scoundrel: The Life of the Notorious Civil War General Dan Sickles by Thomas Keneally, Generals in Blue and Gray: Lincoln's Generals by Wilmer Jones, Wicked Washington: Mysteries, Murder, and Mayhem in America's Capital by Troy Taylor, The Second Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership edited by Gary Gallagher, Brigades of Gettysburg: The Union and Confederate Brigades at the Battle of Gettysburg by Bradley M. Gottfried

Harry M. Daugherty

2010-10-03T18:57:00.009-04:00

Image from ohiohistorycentral.org

The controversial existence of Harry Micajah Daugherty in the world of politics is probably best exemplified by the fact that his name is linked with a key phrase in underhanded wheeling and dealing: "the smoke-filled room." In 1920, Daugherty served as the campaign manager for longtime friend Warren G. Harding, a Republican senator from Ohio. Harding was not expected to be a favored choice, but sometime before the summer convention Daugherty made an odd declaration. "At the proper time after the Republican National Convention meets some 15 men, bleary-eyed with loss of sleep and perspiring profusely with the excessive heat, will sit down in seclusion around a big table," he said. "I will be with them and will present the name of Senator Harding to them, and before we get through they will put him over."

The prediction, which basically said Harding would be chosen out of frustration , may have cost Daugherty a seat at the convention as a delegate-at-large. After all, he was openly saying that he and other political bosses, likely men of the "Ohio Gang" of Harding backers, would wield more power at the convention than the delegates. Daugherty proved rather clairvoyant in his statement, however. The convention at Chicago ground its way through several ballots, unable to reach a consensus on the Republican ticket for the year's presidential contest. Several political bosses met in a hotel room made hazy by the cigar smoke of several of the participants and decided that if the deadlock could not be broken, Harding would be an acceptable choice. Daugherty and other members of the Harding team helped by raining pro-Harding postcards down on the convention from the rafters. Finally, on the tenth ballot, Harding was selected with Governor Calvin Coolidge of Massachusetts as his running mate. Daugherty's prediction had come true, but it would hardly do him any favors. For the rest of his political career, he would be waylaid by enemies accusing him of incompetence or complicity in the corruption that emerged under Harding's presidency.

Daugherty was born in Washington Court House, Ohio in January of 1860. He pursued a legal career, which included a period serving as the Fayette County prosecuting attorney. This morphed into a political path, as he was elected a township clerk for the county, served two terms on the city council of Washington Court House in the late 1880s, and held a seat in the state house of representatives from 1890 and 1894. From there, Daugherty sought to go on to bigger and better things, but never with any success. He made failed bids for the nominations for Ohio attorney general in 1895 and governor in 1899, and wasn't able to get the Republican nod for the Senate races in 1910 and 1916. In 1912, he contented himself with managing the Ohio campaign of Republican presidential candidate William Howard Taft. It marked yet another flop on Daugherty's record, as Taft not only failed to best Democratic candidate Woodrow Wilson but also tallied fewer votes than former President Theodore Roosevelt's third party bid. During these dry years, Daugherty supported himself by representing corporate interests and acting as the vice president of the Columbus Savings and Trust Company.

After Harding was selected as the Republican presidential nominee in 1920, Daugherty continued to be a close compatriot. He accompanied the candidate on all of his speaking engagements and served on the campaign's legislative committee. Along with other bosses ushering Harding toward the election, Daugherty earned the scorn of Democratic presidential candidate James Cox, another Ohioan and governor of that state, when Harding declared himself "the freest man that was ever nominated by any party for the presidency." Cox fired back that Harding was essentially in the pocket of big business and asked, "What promise have you made to Harry M. Daugherty, corporation lobbyist, and what promises was he authorized to make in your behalf in order to secure your nomination at Chicago?" Harding was nevertheless able to win the 1920 election, and in February of the next year Harding announced that he was appointing Daugherty to the post of Attorney General. The favor and Daugherty's character continued to draw ire for some time hence. When Harding reportedly cautioned newspapers against printing criticisms of Daugherty, Democratic Senator Augustus Stanley of Kentucky asked, "Will the President say in his desperation to shield his friend, Harry M. Daugherty, that senators and representatives who denounce the nefarious and crooked operations of a political broker are 'political blackguards?'" The Attorney General did find some support amid the rash of accusations that befell him, however. In July of 1922, the Ohio bar passed a resolution proclaiming their support for Daugherty, charging that "certain propaganda has been made in Congress and in the press tending to discount and discredit the service and character of Mr. Daugherty."

Daugherty still took plenty of flak from opponents. One of the earliest things to come across his desk was the case of Eugene V. Debs, a Socialist leader charged under the Espionage Act for utterances made against World War I in Canton, Ohio. Debs had been convicted in June of 1917 and sentenced to 10 years in prison in September of 1918. Following an unsuccessful appeal, Debs began serving the sentence in April of 1919; he was eligible for parole in August of 1922, with the sentence scheduled to end in December of 1925 with good conduct. Daugherty considered the original sentence too harsh, since it didn't take Debs' age (61 at the time of conviction) into account. He recommended in December of 1921 that the sentence be commuted at the end of the year. Daugherty suggested that Debs did not intentionally break the law, and that it would be a wise political move to commute due to Debs' considerable clout, but stressed that the decision shouldn't amount to a pardon. "No right-thinking man would set up a government, or a system of government advocated by Debs, as against the government founded by the wisdom of our forefathers and supported by every right-thinking American who has an understanding of the benefits and necessity of government and the security and opportunity it affords," he said. "I became satisfied while talking with Debs that his conviction and imprisonment in the penitentiary have had no effect upon his incorrect opinions."

Despite these explanations, Daugherty was still the chief recipient of opponents' anger when Harding followed through on the Debs recommendation. Another more serious pardon issue related to an earlier case. In May of 1922, Thaddeus H. Caraway, a Democratic senator from Arkansas, accused Daugherty of receiving $25,000 from New York shipbuilder Charles W. Morse to get him released from prison in 1912 following conviction on charges of violating banking laws. Caraway said the money passed through Georgia attorney Thomas B. Felder into Daugherty's hands. The Justice Department responded that the Taft-era pardon only took Morse's health problems into consideration.

Caraway demanded Daugherty's resignation, but nothing came of it. Four months later, Republican Representative Oscar Keller of Minnesota proposed the start of impeachment proceedings against the Attorney General on a different issue, namely injunction proceedings started by the Justice Department against striking railroad unions to keep the trains running. Keller charged violations of the First Amendment, specifically that Daugherty acted "in a manner arbitrary, oppressive, unjust, and illegal," threatened punishment against opponents, illegally used funds to prosecute individuals and corporations for lawful acts while failing to prosecute illegal acts, and recommended release of offenders of Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Daugherty was unfazed. He grinned broadly when told of the resolution, which was referred to the House Judiciary Committee with little hope of progress. Later, he proposed an expansion of the injunction, including forbidding strikers from trying to stop people crossing the picket line, picketing near the entrances to rail sites, or using threats. The impeachment effort collapsed during committee hearings in December of 1922, when Keller tried to read a prepared statement and was told he could not "lecture" the representatives and needed to be under oath. Keller angrily tossed the statement before Andrew J. Volstead, committee chairman and another Minnesota Republican, saying he wouldn't cooperate if he could not read it. Keller then stormed out, accusing the committee of a "bare-faced attempt to whitewash Harry M. Daugherty." The committee later recommended exoneration for the Attorney General, and the House agreed in a 204-77 vote in January of 1923.

The blow that finally toppled Daugherty came in the form of the most famous of the scandals to rock the Harding Administration: the Teapot Dome Scandal. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased naval oil fields in Wyoming and California to respective oil men Harry F. Sinclair and Edward L. Doheny in 1922, and the deal had been sweetened by $409,000 paid to Fall. The Secretary of the Interior ultimately had to serve a year in prison and pay a $100,000 fine after his conviction on bribery charges. Daugherty was never implicated in the crimes, but his enemies were quick to question why he had not caught this misconduct earlier. Burton K. Wheeler, a Democratic Senator from Montana and one of Daugherty's most outspoken foes, asked President Coolidge (Harding died in August of 1923) to demand Daugherty's resignation. Wheeler later amended his request, asking for an inquiry into the Justice Department. He also accused Felder of being a former partner to Daugherty who collected money in exchange for selling appointments and dismissing cases related to Prohibition-era alcohol violations in New York. Felder responded that the two were associated with several of the same cases, but never partners; he also said such accusations had arisen before, with no result. Nevertheless, Felder was ultimately convicted of conspiracy in a scheme to bribe Daugherty to remove evidence from Justice Department files.

Daugherty came under even more fire when the committees investigating the corruption received a report in February of 1924 that he dealt in Sinclair oil stock. He refused to resign, asking, "Shall reputations be destroyed and public officials driven from office by clamor, insinuation, and falsehood?" The next month, Daugherty was blasted in testimony by Roxie Stinson, the divorced wife of Daugherty's friend and assistant, Jesse Smith. In 1923, Smith had been found dead of apparent suicide in the apartment he shared with Daugherty. Stinson said she remained friendly with Smith following their separation, and that he had told her Daugherty procured stock in companies such as White Motors and Pure Oil for nothing; she said Smith even gave her some small blocks of stock. She said the corruption put a great deal of stress on Smith, and that she tried without success to get him to break his loyalty to Daugherty. She agreed that Smith killed himself, but held that the Attorney General was "morally responsible" for the death.

One charge came up that Sinclair turned over securities to Daugherty and Will H. Hays, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, to cover a deficit incurred by the party in the 1920 campaign. The committee also heard testimony that Daugherty and Hays each received $25,000 to secure Harding's nominations at the 1920 convention, while Senator Boies Penrose of Pennsylvania got a $50,000 payout. Amid the hubbub, Daugherty still refused to resign, proclaiming, "I wouldn't have given 30 cents for the office of Attorney General, but I won't surrender it for a million dollars." When he refused to supply documents on various aspects of Harding corruption, Coolidge had had enough and asked for Daugherty's resignation. Daugherty agreed to do so, and left office at the end of March of 1924. "I have no personal feeling against the President," he insisted. "I am yet his dependable friend and supporter." Coolidge chose Harlan Fiske Stone, former dean of Columbia Law School and director of several corporations, as his successor.

The investigation into Daugherty continued, at least until his counsel abruptly announced in June of 1924 that he would not testify before the committee. The Senate voted 70-2 to pursue the matter anyway, and take it to the Supreme Court if need be. While out of office, Daugherty had to defend himself against numerous accusations. They included failure to actively pursue the collection of millions of dollars in war debts, failure to identify fraud within the Justice Department, collecting bribes via Smith to get the government to look the other way on Prohibition matters, and the appointment of anti-labor William J. Burns to the department's Bureau of Investigation (Burns also resigned under fire in 1924).

In May of 1926, Daugherty was incited alongside former Alien Property Custodian Thomas Miller and former Republican national committeeman John T. King on charges of conspiracy to defraud the government in relation of a $7 million sale of American Metal Company assets seized during World War I to German metal magnate Richard Merton. Smith was also implicated, but of course could not be charged due to his death; King died before he could go to trial. Daugherty was the first Attorney General indicted for crimes in office, and prosecutors charged that $49,335 in Liberty bonds could be traced to him, deposited via his brother's bank in a joint account with Smith. Altogether, the men were accused of receiving $441,000 in kickbacks in the sale.

The trial began in September of 1926. Merton testified that he had no dealings with Daugherty, and that the sale was conducted through a supposedly neutral Swiss corporation. The strongest evidence against Daugherty came from his brother, Mal S. Daugherty, though all he could do was say evidence was no longer available. Mal, the president of Midland National Bank in Washington Court House, said Harry told him he had burned three accounts of bank ledger sheets related to the American Metal Company transfer. Daugherty's attorney gave the rather awkward argument that he destroyed the documents "in a moment of madness," partially fueled by the constant attacks against him, and meant to burn records related to a Harding campaign fund instead. Prosecutors said the lost bank ledgers would have proved Daugherty's guilt.

After lengthy deliberations, the jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting Miller and 7-5 in favor of convicting Daugherty. Another trial was scheduled, and in the interim Daugherty testified as part of the proceedings against Fall, saying the Justice Department was never asked for a formal opinion on the corrupt oil leases. At the next trial in February of 1927, the amount of Daugherty's alleged kickback increased to $140,000, while witnesses suggested that Miller got $40,000. The next month, this jury debated the question for even longer, about 70 hours, before convicting Miller. Only one person was against conviction of Daugherty, but it was enough to hang the jury. The federal prosecutor, Emory R. Buckner, asked for the indictment against Daugherty to be quashed. Teary-eyed, Daugherty said he would be returning home to practice law.

Though Harry Daugherty never served any jail time, Mal Daugherty was found guilty of defrauding his bank in March of 1931 and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Daugherty died in Columbus, Ohio in October of 1941 of congestive heart failure following his recovery from two heart attacks and pneumonia. He left an unfinished book defending his reputation, and a rather paltry estate worth only about $175,000.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, "Ohio: Election Of Republican Candidate For Governor Probably By About 30,000" in the New York Times on Nov. 8 1899, "Wade Ellis To Lead Fight On Harmon" in the New York Times on Feb. 8 1910, "Prophesied How Harding Would Win" in the New York Times on Jun. 13 1920, "Harding Abandons Vacation To Hold Party Conferences" in the New York Times on Jun. 20 1920, "Cox Ridicules Assertions By Rival Nominee" in the Deseret News on Oct. 30 1920, "Democrats Concede The Election Of Sen. Harding" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on Nov. 3 1920, "Harding Picks Cabinet" in the Reading Eagle on Feb. 22 1921, "Daugherty A Storm Centre" in the New York Times on Feb. 22 1921, "Daugherty Report On Release Of Debs" in the New York Times on Dec. 31 1921, "Daugherty Charged Again With Getting Big Fee From Morse" in the Miami News on May 3 1922, "Caraway Asks That Daugherty Resign" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on May 22 1922, "Daugherty To Lead War Prosecutions" in the New York Times on May 26 1922, "Gives Out Data On Morse's Pardon To Aid Daugherty" in the New York Times on May 28 1922, "Harding Shields Daugherty, Is Senate Charge" in the Pittsburgh Press on Jun. 4 1922, "Ohio Bar Upholds Daugherty" in the New York Times on Jul. 8 1922, "Asks House To Impeach Daugherty" in the Southeast Missourian on Sep. 11 1922, "Asks Impeachment Against Daugherty" in the New York Times on Sep. 12 1922, "Daugherty Seeks Firmer Injunction" in the New York Times on Sep. 22 1922, "Keller Quits Probe Alleging Whitewash" in the Evening Independent on Dec. 15 1922, "Wheeler Again Plans Ousting Of Daugherty" in the Miami News on Feb. 15 1922, "Daugherty Remains Under Fire In Senate Oil Inquiry" in the Lewiston Evening Journal on Feb. 20 1924, "daugherty Threatens To Carry To People Battle To Retain Cabinet Seat" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on Feb. 22 1924, "Tells Of Deal With Daugherty" in the Gettysburg Times on Mar. 13 1924, "Oil Probers Get Setback" in the Evening Independent on Mar. 20 1924, "Thinks Smith Suicide And Harry Daugherty Morally Responsible" in the Lewiston Evening Journal on Mar. 27 1924, "Daugherty Is Not 'At Outs' With Coolidge" in the Southeastern Missourian on Mar. 31 1924, "News Review Of Current Events" in the Polk County News on Apr. 10 1924, "Daugherty Refuses Call Of Committee" in the New York Times on Jun. 5 1924, "Senate Votes 70-2 To Fight Daugherty" in the New York Times on Jun. 6 1924, "Asked To Grant Appeal" in the Herald-Journal on Jan. 24 1926, "Jury Indicts Daugherty In Alien Scandal" in the Milwaukee Sentinel on May 8 1926, "Mal Daugherty Admits Record Was Destroyed" in the Times Daily on Sept. 24 1926, "German Magnate Helps Daugherty" in the Ellensburg Daily Record on Sept. 14 1926, "Paper Burned By Daugherty When Hounded" in the Schenectady Gazette on Oct. 8 1926, "Daugherty Will Face New Trial" in the Sarasota Herald on Nov. 4 1926, "Fall Blamed For Leasing Of Oil Lands" in the Berkeley Daily Gazette on Nov. 30 1926, "Daugherty And Miller Again Facing Trial" in the Sarasota Herald on Feb. 9 1927, "Daugherty Man 'Friday' Figures In Court Trial" in the Lewiston Evening Journal on Feb. 9 1927, "Brother Deals Daugherty Rap" in the Prescott Evening Courier on Feb. 15 1927, "Ex-Alien Property Chief Convicted Of Conspiracy" in the Berkeley Daily Gazette on Mar. 3 1927, "Corruption: One Blind, One Coated" in Time on Mar. 14 1927, "Daugherty Is Found Guilty" in the Gettysburg Times on Mar. 5 1931, "Mal Daugherty Gets 10 Years In Prison" in the New York Times on Mar. 19 1931, "Harry Daugherty Succumbs At 81" in the Evening Independent on Oct. 13 1941, King of the Bootleggers: A Biography of George Remus by William A. Cook, The New Encyclopedia of American Scandal by George C. Kohn, New World Coming: The 1920s and the Making of Modern America by Nathan Miller

Thomas H. Benton: the fury of Missouri

2010-08-26T14:19:00.006-04:00

Image from bioguide.congress.gov

Charles Lucas, a U.S. attorney for the territory of Missouri, should have taken a cue from his first major confrontation with Thomas Hart Benton. Lucas and Benton, a rival lawyer, had sparred bitterly in the courtroom but things had not reached a head until Benton insulted Lucas by quipping to a panel of judges that he did not "propose to answer any charges made by any puppy who may happen to run across my path." Lucas was angered enough that he demanded satisfaction, and met Benton at the popular "Bloody Island" dueling spot in August of 1817. The two men exchanged shots from 30 feet, resulting in a slight wound to Benton and Lucas nearly bleeding out through a shot to the neck. This was a rather telling example of Benton's skill with a firearm, and friends of Lucas grumbled that Benton had specifically demanded such a distance to increase his advantage over Lucas. Though Lucas himself never accused Benton of being unjust, he agreed to Benton's proposal that the two duel at nine feet to settle the rumors. At this second contest in September, Benton fatally shot Lucas in the heart. Lucas allegedly had harsh words that Benton persecuted and murdered him, but ultimately proclaimed his forgiveness of the man before he died.

It was not the first run-in with firearms Benton had in his life, and it would not be the last. The duel with Lucas soured him on the idea of ever killing another man, however, and he never took up another duel challenge in his life.

Benton was born near Hillsborough, North Carolina in March of 1782. He attended Chapel Hill College (later the University of North Carolina) as well as the College of William and Mary. He didn't finish his studies at either institution, since his father left behind a 40,000-acre estate in Tennessee when he died and Benton moved there with his family to help manage it. He was admitted to the bar at Nashville in 1806, and started practicing in Franklin. From 1809 to 1811, he served in the state senate and helped pass one law reforming the judicial system and another giving slaves the right to a jury trial in criminal matters.

Later, Benton served in the military as an aide-de-camp to General Andrew Jackson. He was a colonel of a regiment of Tennessee volunteers during the War of 1812, and appointed lieutenant colonel of the Thirty-ninth United States Infantry in 1813. It was in this same year that Benton's relationship with Jackson began to deteriorate. Benton's brother, Jesse, and a man named William Carroll were both slightly injured in a duel where Jackson acted as a second to Carroll. The incident led to a series of sniping verbal attacks between Benton and Jackson, culminating when Benton commented that he considered another man a superior officer to the general. Jackson threatened to publicly horsewhip Benton at their next meeting, but the encounter was not to go in his favor. In a brawl in Nashville in September of 1813 between Benton, Jesse, Jackson, and a handful of other people, Jackson was shot and wounded seriously enough that he had to be taken away from the scene. He left his small sword behind, and Benton reportedly broke it in the public square while continuing to denounce the general.

The incident did nothing to improve Benton's standing in Tennessee, as he found that Jackson's friends would make sure that he never had a political future in the state. Benton's solution was to move, and he relocated to St. Louis, Missouri in 1815. He continued to practice law, but also became an editor with the Missouri Enquirer. He equated the modern newspaper with the forums in ancient Greece and Rome, and became an outspoken author in a number of different political debates. In 1819, he voiced opposition to a treaty between the United States and Spain assuring the latter country that the U.S. would relinquish any claims to Texas the Louisiana Purchase had stirred up; he even went so far as to say that war with Spain over the issue would be "the most happy event for ourselves and the human race." Benton also supported the U.S. possession of Cuba, Mexican independence, trade with India via the Pacific Northwest, and the admission of Missouri as a state.

Benton got his wish in the last matter with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which admitted the state alongside Maine to balance the free and slave states in Congress. In 1821, the newly formed legislature unanimously chose David Barton, speaker of the state house of representatives and president of the state's constitutional convention, to serve in the Senate. Members deadlocked on their second choice in the crowded field of candidates, which included Benton as well as Lucas' father. They turned to Barton for help, and he recommended Benton. The legislature approved Benton with 27 votes, seven short of a unanimous consensus, and Benton received the six-year term instead of the four-year term after drawing straws with Barton.

Benton spent the next 30 years in the Senate, first as a Democratic-Republican and later as a Democrat. During his time in the chamber, he chaired the committees on Indian affairs, military affairs, and foreign relations. In the first position, Benton was an advocate of Indian removal. He figured that such relocation would open the way for white settlement and the collection of natural resources, along with the strange justification that prohibiting Indians from having contact with whites would prevent them from becoming depraved. He said such policies were designed "to cherish and protect the Indians, to improve their condition, and turn them to the habits of civilized life," yet he also commented at another point that it freed the land of a "useless and dangerous population."

Land issues were especially close to Benton's heart. He supported land reform, namely a preemptive right to settlers, periodic price reductions of homesteads to allow prices to conform to the quality of the land, and donations of land to poor settlers to allow them to work it for a period of time as a way of payment. He also favored western exploration, especially the Pacific Northwest, but not so much that he joined the "fifty four-forty or fight" crowd who demanded a larger chunk of land during negotiations with Britain. In this regard, he helped to establish the present day 49th Parallel border with Canada.

The rift between Benton and Jackson healed with time. Benton lent his support to Democratic-Republican Representative Henry Clay of Kentucky in the 1824 presidential election, but later defected to Old Hickory. Jackson won the popular vote with 152,901 votes as well as the electoral vote, but none of the four candidates received a plurality. The matter had to be resolved in the House of Representatives, which awarded the White House to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams (who received 114,023 votes). As a further show of support, Benton backed a proposal to amend the Constitution to allow the popular vote to decide presidential contests.

Benton also sided with Jackson in his ongoing disagreements with Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. The chief issue between them was the question of nullification, or whether states had the right to overturn unpopular federal laws. Calhoun was specifically interested in disabling tariffs that were harmful his state, but Jackson and Benton both opposed nullification. Benton shared Jackson's distaste of the Bank of the United States, and launched several resolutions on the issue; these included one questioning whether the Bank's accounts were properly balanced and another requiring the Bank to compensate citizens for its use of public money. He became such a supporter of having gold back up accounts to avoid inflation through paper money that he was nicknamed "The Gold Humbug" by opponents, who began calling gold coins "Benton's mint drops." Supporters of the gold standard adopted the more complimentary nickname "Old Bullion" for the senator

Undoubtedly, Benton's most visible act of support for Jackson was also related to the Bank and financial matters. Jackson was elected President in 1828, and in 1832 he vetoed a congressional approval of the Bank's recharter and withdrew federal funds from the institution. Two years later, Congress censured him on the accusation of exceeding his authority. Benton immediately tried to get the resolution expunged, but it was shot down. He tried two other unsuccessful versions before a fourth one to expunge the censure resolution from the Senate Journal finally passed in January of 1837, with Jackson not far from retiring from his second term as President. The measure was controversial enough that Benton's friends tried (and failed) to persuade the senator to take up arms for his own personal protection, and Benton launched a few salvos at anti-Jackson "ruffians" in the galleries as the measure was going through.

Opposition to Benton at home grew strong enough at times to threaten his seat, but he was able to survive in Washington. Despite his earlier support of war to retain claims to Texas, he was nearly turned out of the Senate by voters for opposing the annexation of the territory. The criticism, he explained, was over where the territory's borders lay and the process of the land's acquisition rather than the annexation itself. He opposed the Mexican War, but supported a speedy end to the conflict once the first shots were fired. In Benton's mind, however, part of this process involved a leadership position for himself. He was able to pressure President James K. Polk into nominating him for as a commanding lieutenant general of all U.S. troops in the war, but he was never confirmed. Polk also considered him for a major-general position, but Benton declined to accept.

It was as a result of these machinations that Benton ran afoul of Henry S. Foote, a lawyer who became a Democratic senator and began serving in 1847. Foote first met Benton in 1837, and later wrote that while he and Benton agreed on several matters he considered the Missouri senator imperious and pompous. "On meeting him face to face my first unfavorable impressions of him were greatly strengthened," Foote said, "and the excessive vanity and egotism constantly displayed by him, both in conversational scenes and in the Senate, inspired me with feelings of disgust and aversion which I have seldom experienced." Foote criticized Benton's attempt for a command position as an "unjust and ungenerous" effort to suppress the leadership of General Winfield Scott. He raised a more serious accusation after the war ended in 1848, accusing Benton of procuring a meeting with the Mexican minister to try to rescind the treaty ceding the empire's northern lands to the United States. Foote's accusation was enough to get Benton voted out as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs at the Democratic caucus, though Benton resigned the position once he got the news.

Benton had a rather curious opinion about slavery. He was certainly no abolitionist (he was, in fact, a slaveowner), but he described the practice as evil, saying during one debate, "The incurability of this evil is the greatest objection to the extension of it." The Missouri Compromise had banned slavery in the Louisiana Purchase territory north of Missouri's southern border, and Benton generally agreed that the practice should not be tampered with in areas where it existed, but also not expanded to new territories. One notable exception to this was the Wilmot Proviso of 1847, an ultimately unsuccessful proposal by Democratic Representative Daniel Wilmot of Pennsylvania to forbid slavery in the California and New Mexico territories seized in the Mexican War. Benton may have agreed with the sentiment, but felt it was a non-issue and "firebrand" resolution since slavery was already banned there under the laws of the former Mexican government. "The proviso was nugatory, and could answer no purpose but that of bringing on a slavery agitation in the United States; for which purpose it was immediately seized upon by Mr. Calhoun and his friends, and treated as the greatest possible outrage and injury to the slave states," Benton declared in his memoir, Thirty Years' View. Benton was strongly committed to preventing secession, to the point that a 1909 book, The South in the Building of a Nation, bluntly declared, "The reason Missouri did not secede was Col. Thomas Hart Benton."

A few years later, debates over the imminent admission of California as a free state led to heated debates over how best to handle the resulting slave vs. free state imbalance in Congress. Benton was opposed to the idea of taking on several proposals in a single bill, suggesting during the debates that the Fugitive Slave Law to return escaped slaves to the South was defective and proposing a bill to eventually divide Texas into two slave states. Foote continued to goad Benton, positing that Clay's support of a speedy California admission was a result of conversations with his son-in-law, John C. Fremont, who had taken on a few government posts in the territory and would be appointed a senator upon California's admission.

Foote had tried to get a rise out of Benton on plenty of occasions, possibly in an attempt to force the senator to pick up his dueling pistols once again. Though the compromise debates were raising plenty of tempers, the circumstances leading to confrontation between the two senators may have been a result of different issues. There are several different accounts as to what sparked the incident. Benton and Foote may have traded barbs over who was more cowardly, or Foote may have named Benton as lead "calumniator" of a lower class than those who signed Calhoun's "Southern Address." Foote recalls that it had to do with remarks over Calhoun, who died at the end of March of 1850. Benton certainly wasn't kind to the former Vice President on his passing, giving the opinion that he had been a key proponent of disunion. "There may be no vitality in his body, but there is in his doctrines," Benton opined. "The last thing I did before leaving home was to denounce him and his treasonable sentiments and I shall do the same thing when I return home...Calhoun died with treason in his heart and on his lips...Whilst I am discharging my duty here, his disciples are disseminating his poison all over my state." Foote said that Benton made further derogatory remarks in April, as Calhoun's body was being taken back to South Carolina. He said he tried to get Democratic Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina to denounce Benton on behalf of his state, but that Butler wasn't sure what the issue was about when he did so. Foote said Benton's action came after he added his own words to strengthen the criticism.

Whatever the cause, the Senate remembered what came next fairly clearly. Benton was incensed enough that he shot up from his chair and began to rush toward Foote. The Missouri senator was a large, powerful man and that made any efforts to try to stop him all the more difficult. Foote retreated into the aisle, fearing that Benton would try to attack him as he'd threatened to do after earlier insinuations. He took out a pistol he had with him and kept the barrel pointed at the floor, but he later admitted that he would have shot Benton if he had advanced much farther than he did. The weapon only seemed to strengthen Benton's resolve, but he opted to keep his distance once it was out. He shouted that he did not carry any weapon, and dared Foote to carry out the deed, even opening up his vest to help his fellow senator find a target. "Let him fire!" he boomed. "Let the assassin fire!"

The matter resolved itself peacefully. Foote gave up the gun to fellow Democratic Senator Daniel S. Dickinson of New York, and it was locked away. Benton returned to his desk, shouting some more abuse at Foote before taking his seat. The matter was referred to a seven-man committee, which had to be appointed since no one wanted to volunteer and suffered from several members trying to withdraw. The lukewarm final report criticized the disorder and the presence of firearms in the Senate, but also found Foote innocent of any assassination attempt against Benton. The committee said it was the first incident of its kind in the Senate and announced the hope that it would be the last, recommending no further action on the idea that it would serve as "a sufficient rebuke and warning not unheeded in the future." Benton and Foote continued to snipe at each other, but never got into so severe an incident again. A retrospective by Joseph Morgan Rogers, friendly to Benton, declared Foote's behavior "the greatest indignity the Senate had ever known."

Benton's enemies finally ousted him in the election in 1850, and Whig candidate Henry S. Geyer took his spot. He wasn't out of Congress long, winning an 1852 election for a place in the House of Representatives. The New York Times gave the opinion that while they disagreed with Benton on most issues, they could still appreciate him as a politician. On one hand, he was "assuming, domineering, and even insolent to a most extraordinary degree, and generally contrives to make himself thoroughly uncomfortable to the party which he has always opposed, and which he will undoubtedly continue to oppose to the end of his life." At the same time, he was in favor of a federal democracy rather than states' rights, and therefore a "real Democrat. He is not shamming, or seeking simply selfish ends, as many of his party leaders are, in professing a belief in Human Rights." In addition to returning as chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs, he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Bill to repeal the Missouri Compromise, criticizing it as another threat of disunion and a "bungling attempt to smuggle slavery" into the territories. He colorfully described the bill as a "shilly-shally, willy-won'ty, don'ty-can'ty style of legislation."

Benton lost the 1854 election to Opposition Party candidate Luther M. Kennett. He stayed in Washington, D.C. and turned to literary matters, completing an account of his 30 years in the Senate and working on a collection of abridged debates in Congress from 1789 to 1856. Unfortunately, a good portion of his manuscript papers were destroyed when his house burned down in March of 1855. He made an unsuccessful bid in Missouri's 1856 gubernatorial election, and was so committed to Jacksonian politics that he backed Democratic presidential candidate James Buchanan over Fremont, his son-in-law and the Republican candidate. Though he felt Fremont's election would inflame sectional differences, he ultimately became a critic of the Buchanan Administration and lent his support to the Republican Party in his waning days.

Benton died of cancer in April of 1858. The New York Leader eulogized him, saying, "He was an affectionate husband, a devoted father, a true friend, and a sincere Christian. In this respect his example is worthy the attention of all; and his memory will long be held in respect by a grateful country."

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Benton And Clay" in the National Era on Aug. 2 1849, "Benton In Congress" in the New York Times on Aug. 16 1852, "The Destruction Of Colonel Benton's House" in the New York Times on Mar. 1 1855, "Thomas H. Benton: Sketch Of His Life And Public Services" in the New York Times on Apr. 10 1858, Thirty Years' View by Thomas Hart Benton, Munsey's Magazine Vol. 58, The Life of Thomas Hart Benton by William Montgomery Meigs, Thomas H. Benton by Joseph Morgan Rogers, The United States Democratic Review Vol. 42 Issue 1, A History of Missouri by Eugene Morrow Violette, A History of Missouri: 1820 to 1860 by William Earl Parrish and Perry McCandless, The South in the Building of the Nation edited by Julian Alvin Carroll Chandler et. al., President Zachary Taylor: The Hero President by Elbert B. Smith, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union by Robert Vincent Remini, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Casket of Reminiscences by Henry Stuart Foote, My Quarter-Century of American Politics, Vol. 2 by Champ Clark, On the Brink of Civil War: The Compromise of 1850 and How it Changed the Course of American History by John C. Waugh

Frank D. McKay: the Teflon boss

2010-08-07T10:57:00.006-04:00

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Frank Donald McKay made plenty of enemies in his time as a political boss, but perhaps the most bizarre action by one of his foes came in October of 1935. McKay's maid called police after noticing that two men were peering at his house in Grand Rapids, Michigan, from a concealed position. When officers arrived, they found former police commissioner John Gillespie and a gas station employee spying on the residence. Both men were arrested, and police discovered that they had been armed with a rifle and pistol. Gillespie insisted that the weapons were for his own protection, saying McKay was a dangerous man. He blamed McKay and Republican Governor Frank Fitzgerald for his downfall after Fitzgerald repudiated him.

McKay had gradually built his empire to the point where he was capable of controlling much of the Republican politics in Michigan. He was born in Grand Rapids in 1883 and got his start working in furniture factories. He then built up his personal fortune by becoming a financier, extending into real estate, insurance, and banking interests. He also owned the Michigan Times and had holdings in lumber, tires, food, and numerous other areas. In addition to making him a millionaire, this extensive network helped him gain control over patronage jobs and public contracts in the Grand Rapids district. Though one retrospective said he spoke in "short, explosive phrases, usually profane," McKay was still able to form alliances on the local level and with other party bosses in the state. He once said he dedicated 95 percent of his time to business and only five percent to politics, but McKay's grip tightened to the point where he could sway the delegates to any candidate of his choice at the GOP state primaries.

McKay had not truly consolidated his power until the 1930s, but his first brush with the law came in November of 1919. He was one of 134 people indicted on corruption, fraud, and conspiracy charges. The focal point of these crimes was Republican Senator Truman H. Newberry, the biggest name of the defendants, and the charge that $500,000 to $1 million was improperly used to influence Newberry's re-election over Democratic candidate and automobile magnate Henry Ford in 1918. McKay was then serving as an assignment clerk in the Detroit courts, and charged with twice giving $10 to residents in "overt acts" of corruption. He was not convicted of the crime.

McKay's only real political office was state treasurer, which he held from 1925 to 1930. One year after he left, he was investigated by a grand jury over his handling of state funds, but never charged with a crime. He was still suspected of wielding excessive control over the governor's office, however. In 1935, Fitzgerald defended his relationship with McKay after Republican Representative Albert J. Engel warned that the GOP's chances of success in 1936 would be endangered if the party did not distance itself from McKay. Fitzgerald accused Engel of acting out of self-interest or making an attempt to discredit the current administration. "McKay is my friend," he said. "I don't say this is true of Congressman Engel, but I find that most of those who criticize him ask me to do things that Frank McKay would never dream of asking...The charge that this administration is hooked up with Frank McKay has been whispered constantly, but no one has ever produced definitive evidence of it."

Engel responded by demanding a full probe of Fitzgerald's activities. Though this apparently did not happen, Engel proved correct in his warning, at least as it related to the governor's office. In the 1936 race, Democratic candidate Frank Murphy made "McKayism" an issue and vowed to end it in state government; voters turned Fitzgerald out in November. McKay was investigated by the state legislature to see if his personal wealth correlated with his political activities, but once again no charges were forthcoming.

The year 1940 was a mixed bag for McKay. He retained enough power that he was able to convince Republican presidential candidate Wendell Willkie to grant him control of statewide patronage jobs if he were sent to the White House. At the same convention, however, anti-boss factions were successful in blocking him from getting a vote and preventing his re-election as Republican national committeeman. He was also subject to three grand jury investigations throughout the year related to fraud, extortion, and kickbacks. In November, Franklin D. Roosevelt bested Willkie for an unprecedented third term as President; the same month, McKay was indicted on charges of fraud and mail fraud. In one incident, he was accused of defrauding Edsel Ford of $9,918 to reimburse himself for contributions made to Fitzgerald's 1938 gubernatorial campaign. Two mail fraud counts said he collected money under false pretenses to finance the state Republican Party's debt. Another charge alleged that he tried to bilk Grand Rapids out of $300,000 in an approximately $2.2 million bond issue to finance a pipeline in 1938. And liquor issues resurfaced again, with prosecutors saying McKay collected $500,000 in tribute from 16 national distillers over five years.

The state's Liquor Control Commission had taken over bulk liquor purchases and retail licenses following the repeal of Prohibition. Not surprisingly, the three men on the board were McKay stooges, and distillers seeking business from the state had to go through the boss. McKay ensured that those friendly to the GOP got first consideration, while distillers considered more Democratic were bumped to the back of the line. It seemed likely that McKay collected a bit of cash in exchange for granting applicants access to the commission. After five days of deliberation in July of 1941, however, the jury had failed to reach a verdict. The jury was dismissed and subjected to a tampering investigation, but in May of 1942 McKay was acquitted along with seven co-defendants. The Edsel Ford charge was dismissed in July, and in October the pipeline count was dropped after the prosecutor determined that the chance of success at trial was too remote.

The result was a common one in McKay's repeated visits to the courtroom. The state could only prove McKay told state employees related to the liquor commission that their jobs depended on continued GOP success. Proving corruption was more difficult, but it didn't stop prosecutors from trying. In December of 1944, McKay was indicted alongside sports promoter Floyd Fitzsimmons and state representative William Green for bribery conspiracy. This time, McKay was charged with influencing the state legislature on an issue related to horse racing and parimutuel betting. The legislature defeated a bill aiming to boost state revenues from the activities, something which would have hurt the mob's stake in the sport. McKay was known to have connections to such gangsters, including the infamous Purple Gang, through their transition from illegal to sanctioned liquor sales.

The case had a dramatic ending. The state had targeted several people on corruption charges, charging some 50 people with crimes. State senator Warren G. Hooper, a legislator who had confessed to state corruption and agreed to turn state's evidence, was set to be the star witness in the trial of McKay and his cohorts. The state's case rested heavily on this man, and in January of 1945 he was found shot to death inside his burning car outside Springport. It was an indisputable gangland murder, and it received a bizarre twist when state attorney general John R. Dethmers charged widespread malfeasance at the Jackson State Penitentiary. Dethmers alleged that the inmates had essentially taken over control of the prison, with officials allowing them to pay for prostitutes to be brought in and accepting bribes to sanction escapes. In such an atmosphere, Dethmers said, it was entirely possible that imprisoned gangsters could have been granted a temporary release to murder Hooper, then return to the prison for a perfect alibi.

Four Detroit youths were charged with conspiracy in such a scheme. Prosecutors argued that one of the defendants was allowed to confer with members of the Purple Gang prior to the murder, and that the men conspired to arrange Hooper's death for a $15,000 payoff. The state made several thinly veiled accusations of McKay's involvement in the plot, though McKay himself was never directly charged. Dethmers said the murder was specifically meant to silence testimony against McKay, and special prosecutor Kim Sigler identified McKay as "the one man most interested in the death of the death of the Albion senator." The four men were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in August of 1945 and sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison each. No one was ever charged with the actual murder of Hooper.

The state launched one more salvo at McKay, once again charging malfeasance related to the liquor trade. In June of 1945, he and former Flint mayor William McKeighan, along with three other men, were indicted on a charge of conspiracy to violate state liquor laws. The group was accused of receiving a dollar a case from distillers for liquor sold in Michigan between 1938 and 1940. Distillers who wanted larger liquor orders from the state had forked over some $400,000, the state charged, and McKay and his co-defendants helped move things along by threatening and intimidating the commission.

The trial had to be moved after allegations of jury tampering. The state called 32 witnesses to the stand at the trial in 1946. The defense didn't call anyone, and the gambit worked. In February, the judge directed a verdict of not guilty after determining that the state failed to prove any criminal acts. Charges of bribery had been thrown out at the beginning of the trial, and that seriously undermined the conspiracy allegations. Moreover, the judge said it appeared to be a case of McKay and the other men trying to get increased sales and listings for the state liquor commission. Sigler argued that the outcome demonstrated a need for a law making it illegal to sell political influence, though enacting and enforcing such a law would be quite difficult.

McKay had also made an enemy in future president Gerald Ford. When Ford's stepfather advised him that he would have to earn McKay's favor if he wanted to get anywhere in Michigan politics, Ford went to meet with the boss. After waiting for several hours, McKay brushed him off after only three minutes. Angered, Ford joined the anti-boss advocates. He eased on these activities during World War II to join the military, but used this to his advantage when he returned to the state. As part of his campaign for the 1948 Republican nomination for the House of Representatives, he set up a red, white, and blue Navy surplus Quonset hut right outside McKay's office tower in Grand Rapids. In a sign of McKay's diminished power, he wasn't even able to kick the upstart candidate off his property. At the Republican primary, Ford ousted McKay's pick, 10-year incumbent Bartel Jonkman, Jr. and went on to win the general election.

McKay quietly disappeared from the political scene, and at some point he moved to Florida to continue business activities there. He died in Miami Beach in January of 1965.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, "Newberry And 133 Others Indicted For Election Plot" in the New York Times on Nov. 30 1919, "Gillespie Is Freed After Short Arrest" in the Ludington Daily News on Oct. 15 1935, "Engel's Talk Challenged By Governor" in the Ludington Daily News on Nov. 2 1935, "Engel Asks Probe Of McKay's Power" in the Ludington Daily News on Nov. 5 1935, "Business & Finance: Grand Rapids Heroism" in Time on May 25 1936, "House To Continue McKay Investigation" in the Ludington Daily News on Apr. 25 1939, "Michigan GOP Chief Indicted" in the Miami News on Nov. 27 1940, "Study Further Action Against McKay" in the Ludington Daily News on Nov. 28 1940, "Grand Jury Resumes Investigation Into Jury" in the Ludington Daily News on Jul. 23 1941, "GOP Committeeman Acquitted Of Fraud" in the Reading Eagle on May 26 1942, "Dismiss McKay Mail Fraud Charge" in the Milwaukee Journal on Jul. 18 1942, "McKay Freed Of Last Count" in the Milwaukee Journal on Oct. 15 1942, "Jury Accuses Politics Figure" in the Milwaukee Journal on Dec. 3 1944, "Michigan State Senator, Witness In Probe, Slain" in the Evening Independent on Jan. 12 1945, "Politician Held In Bribe Plot" in the St. Petersburg Times on Jun. 17 1945, "Blow Lid On Orgies In World's Largest Prison" in the Lodi News-Sentinel on Jul. 25 1945, "Four Detroit Hoodlums Convicted In Murder Plot" in the St. Petersburg Times on Aug. 1 1945, "Judge Orders Frank McKay Freed Of Conspiracy Charge" in the Ludington Daily News on Feb. 14 1946, "Sale Of Political Influence Leads To Drive For Curbs" in the Milwaukee Sentinel on Dec. 8 1947, "The Shaping Of The President: Ford's Early Years" in New York Magazine on Aug. 26 1974, Gerald R. Ford by Douglas Brinkley, Time and Chance: Gerald Ford's Appointment with History by James M. Cannon, The Powers That Punish: Prisons and Politics in the Era of the "Big House," 1920-1955 by Charles Bright

William W. Rose: beer bandit

2010-07-22T21:29:00.006-04:00

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History has been kind to William Warren Rose. Though his decision to flaunt a court order may not have put him in the best light, his expulsion from office was a politically-tinged affair resulting in his refusal to uphold an unenforceable law.

Rose was born in Oyster Bay, New York in March of 1864. As a child, he moved to Ogdensburg and later spent time in New York City apprenticing in architecture with G.A. Schellinger. Rose left to start an independent practice in Birmingham, Alabama and partnered with Charles E. Reid. The business was a successful one, and received contracts for several public buildings including a hospital, college, and church. Rose then moved again, settling down in Kansas City, Missouri in 1886 to partner with James Oliver Hogg. Their business extended to the city of the same name in Kansas, and Rose relocated there in 1896. He ran for mayor almost immediately, appearing in the 1897 contest as a fusion candidate.

Rose did not win in that year, but succeeded in the race almost a decade later; it was the first of several times in a two-year span when he appeared as a candidate. In April of 1905, he was elected on a Democratic ticket after establishing a platform urging public rather than private ownership of municipal infrastructure such as the water company and the electric grid. After the election, Rose found that buying out the Metropolitan Water Company was more complicated than he expected due to tax methods and limited debt allowed for the city. He settled for an ordinance allowing a buyout for cost of construction with franchise value excluded. The measure was debated for 10 months, but the city finally purchased the company. William Elsey Connelley wrote in his history of Kansas that Rose had "shown a practical energy and a common sense attitude towards public affairs which have won him a large and loyal following and has made him a leader properly credited with much of the material advancement of Kansas City." However, Rose also got on the bad side of businesses such as packing houses and railroads controlled by Republican political bosses who had managed to avoid their fair share of taxes, by firing the tax assessor. Rose's allies blamed these foes when the mayor was targeted for his involvement in a rather common practice.

A nationwide prohibition on the consumption of alcohol was still several years away, but Kansas already had a law on the books making it a dry state. The prohibition wasn't very strictly enforced, however, and Rose even announced during his campaign that he had no intention of upholding this particular law. In Kansas City alone, some 150 saloons kept the liquor flowing. Varying practices existed in the state to ensure that the saloons paid de facto liquor licenses in exchange for continued operation, such as arresting a barkeep, collecting bail, and keeping it when the person didn't bother to show up in court. Such bartering could easily lead to money going into private hands, but Rose tried to ensure that it would go to the municipal coffers.

When Kansas City was targeted for stricter enforcement, Rose was one of the louder protesters. He argued that prohibition would have little effect on actually stopping the liquor traffic, and that those who fancied a drink would simply take their money to Missouri. By his calculations, the city would lose lose over $100,000 a year in indirect liquor license fees with stricter enforcement. As saloon crackdowns made this financial squeeze a reality, diminished property values and the city's inability to push the tax rate past an established limit forced Rose to slash the budget. He cut about half the police budget and two engine crews in fire department, suspended street cleaning operations, laid off several city engineers, and asked higher-paid city employees to accept voluntary salary reductions.

Worse still for the mayor, the Kansas Supreme Court took him to task for his failure to enforce the prohibition. The court accused him of collecting $50 monthly contributions from the violators without every informing the county attorney of the infractions. The justices said he had failed to enforce anti-gambling laws as well. A lawsuit seeking his ouster was filed against Rose in September of 1905, and in January of 1906 the court approved such an ouster. In April of 1906, liquor issues proved a major point in the aldermen elections and the officials brought in were opposed to Rose's stance. Three days before the court injunction was to go into effect, Rose and police chief Vernon J. Rose resigned.

With a special election set for May, Rose once again ran for mayor to fill the vacancy caused by his own resignation. Republican councilman Edward E. Venard was named acting mayor and served about a month before becoming his party's mayoral candidate. Council president Joseph C. Laughlin became acting mayor for all of four days before the election. Rose's name wasn't even on the ballot due to the court's ouster decision. Nonetheless, he earned a plurality of 1,600 votes over Venard and Socialist candidate David Harris. In the midst of the year, which was quite a tumultuous one for Rose, the Democratic state convention nominated him for a House of Representatives seat by one vote; Rose opted not to accept.

The Kansas Supreme Court was none too pleased with Rose's victory. The mayor said that his resignation nullified the ouster, and that even if it remained in effect he was serving in the capacity of his latest election rather than the 1905 one. He had been duly elected, Rose argued, and the court had no right to take him out of office. The court did not agree, and in July it fined him $1,000 for contempt for holding office despite the ouster. Rose needed to pay the fine within 20 days or else face jail. However, his defense attorneys successfully filed a writ of error, staying the judgment and allowing him to continue his duties as mayor. In September, however, both Mayor Rose and Police Chief Rose resigned, along with police captain John F. Kelly, in exchange for the court dropping its contempt investigations against the trio. One month later, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the matter, leaving the Kansas Supreme Court's ruling in effect.

Laughlin once again took over the office, this time holding it from September until a special election in December. Rose was debarred from holding the mayor's office until after the term he was elected to expired. Instead, he backed Democratic candidate M.J. Phelan. Victory in the December election went to Dr. George M. Gray.

Rose returned to architectural work after his time in office, starting work with David P. Peterson in 1909. The partners won contracts for several more public buildings, including schools, libraries, and hospitals. He remained involved in politics to some degree, serving as a member of the Government War Labor Board during World War I. He made an unsuccessful bid for the state senate in 1916, and was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 1920.

Rose died in May of 1931. Writing in the Kansas City Kansan, A.E. Neal declared, "W. W. Rose was perhaps the boldest and most original political thinker that has attracted attention in Wyandotte County."

Sources: The Political Graveyard, The Kansas Collection at the Kansas City Public Library, "Results Of Prohibition" in the Feilding Star on Jan. 27 1906, "A Temperance Defeat" in the New York Times on Apr. 4 1906, "Ex-Mayor Rose Of Kansas City Re-Elected" in the Deseret News on May 9 1906, "Jail Threat For A Mayor" in the New York Times on Jul. 6 1906, "Rose Gets A Writ" in the Deseret News on Jul. 12 1906, "Mayor Rose To Quit" in the New York Times on Sep. 7 1906, "Mayor Must Pay $1,000 Fine" in the New York Times on Oct. 23 1906, A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, Volume 4 by William Elsey Connelley, The Public Vol. 9 edited by Louis Freeland Post and Alice Thatcher Post and Stoughton Cooley, The Lawyers Report Annotated Book 6 edited by Burdett A. Rich and Henry P. Farnham

Harry S. Dent: the bad footnote

2010-07-09T11:14:00.011-04:00

Image from washingtonpost.com

Were it not for a driver who accidentally struck and killed the beloved family dog of Harry Shuler Dent, Richard Nixon may not have become President. To be sure, Nixon was already trying to think of a way to court Southern votes as the 1968 election approached. The death of the dog provided an opportunity for him to get his foot in the door and make a gesture to Dent, then serving as a top assistant to ultraconservative and segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond, a Republican from South Carolina. Nixon sent the Dent family a new dog, and it won him a meeting. Dent told Nixon that the way to prevent a segregationist third party bid from siphoning off Republican votes was to win Thurmond's loyalty. The very next day, he had the opportunity to do so. When a reporter asked him if he was embarrassed to share a party with Thurmond, Nixon replied, "Strom is no racist. Strom is a man of courage and integrity."

It paid off for Nixon. During the 1968 primaries, Dent was initially supportive of then Governor Ronald Reagan of California, but swung his support to Nixon at Thurmond's urging. Thurmond himself led Nixon's campaign in the South, covering quite a bit of ground in the final months of the campaign to stump for him. Dent stayed in the background to some degree. In 1967, South Carolina Democratic executive director Donald Fowler accused Dent of "impugning the honesty of the Democratic Party" and demanded an apology. Dent responded by saying Fowler "should develop a tougher hide if he wants to survive in politics." Yet in the next year, Dent was himself demanding an apology from Democrats after black baseball legend Jackie Robinson accused Thurmond and Nixon of being racist and commented, "We might as well die in the streets fighting for our dignity as men as fight in Vietnam for freedoms we don't have for everybody at home." Dent responded, "The Democratic Party owes the people an apology. They are responsible for what Robinson said." However, Dent did have some role in organizing support for Nixon's nomination. Nixon won support easily in the South, as Reagan was ambivalent about running for the nomination and Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller of New York was seen as a more liberal supporter of civil rights.

Dent was born in St. Matthews, South Carolina, in February of 1930. He graduated from Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, in 1951 and went on to serve in the Army during the Korean War. For a time following his service, he worked as the Washington correspondent for several Southern newspapers and radio stations. He attended school at night, earning degrees from both George Washington University and Georgetown University Law School in 1959.

Dent spent a decade with Thurmond, starting a few years after Thurmond's 1948 bid for President on a segregation plank. He played a major role in getting Thurmond to switch parties from Democratic to Republican, and also helped the senator in his record-breaking filibuster against a civil rights bill in 1957. Dent's actions then included keeping a pitcher of orange juice offered by a senator away from Thurmond so he wouldn't have to use the bathroom, and waiting outside the Senate chamber with a pail just in case Thurmond couldn't make it to a toilet following the day-long harangue.

Dent's political strategy for the South had its roots in 1964, when he campaigned for Republican candidate Barry Goldwater. The election marked a shift away from traditional Republican stances, as Goldwater opposed civil rights and spoke out in favor of states' rights. Goldwater lost the election, but carried five states in the Deep South. The next year, Dent became the chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party and remained there until 1968. One notable action during his chairmanship was his opposition to a legislative bill which would allow a stock car race to take place in Darlington on a Sunday. Dent argued that the bill "violates our traditional observance for the Sabbath day at a time when too many other important American traditions are being extinguished for the purpose of expediency and obvious personal gain."

After Nixon was elected in 1968, he appointed Dent was a special counsel and political adviser. He and Nixon immediately had to deny that the appointment was a reward for Thurmond's help in getting Nixon elected, and moderate Republicans worried that Dent would prove as much of a right-wing ideologue as Thurmond. Dent sought to assuage such fears, insisting that he answered to Nixon and not Thurmond. "I recognize that this country is bigger than the South and that the President has to have a stance that's national," he said in a 1969 interview with Time. "The thing that would do me the most harm would be if I took up the South's cause, waved the Confederate flag, and ran all through the White House yelling and being parochial." Contemporary accounts suggested that Dent was proving true to his word, and that he was able to mesh well with Nixon without going too far to the right. In 1971, he even tried unsuccessfully to get the South Carolina Republican executive committee to name a party chairman who would be more moderate on racial politics.

However, the stances masked a more racially charged "Southern strategy" concocted by Dent. Nixon's take was that "this Administration has no Southern strategy but rather a national strategy which, for the first time in modern times, includes the South rather than excludes the South." Dent worked as a liaison between the White House and various Republican groups around the country. He blamed Democrats for creating social programs that put a drain on middle class, and said that under the party's leadership the country was "filled with radical dissenters, cities were literally burning down, crime seemed uncontrollable."

Though the "Southern strategy" never overtly identified itself with racial politics, it essentially sought to capitalize on Southern disillusionment with the Democratic Party. The Democrats traditionally attracted Southerners, but support waned following President Lyndon B. Johnson's civil rights efforts such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. A key component in winning over the South was an effort to assure Southerners that the White House would not overtly pursue civil rights issues, that it would appear to be supportive but not follow through on such matters. Edward Morgan, an assistant to Dent, summed it up in a memo to Nixon: "If we can keep the liberal writers convinced that we are doing what the Court requires, and our conservative Southern friends convinced that we are not doing any more than the Court requires, I think we can walk this tightrope until November, 1972."

Dent urged Nixon to make conservative, pro-segregation appointments to the Supreme Court, including Clement F. Haynsworth, Jr. and G. Harrold Carswell. He also suggested to White House department heads that appointing white Southerners should be a top priority. The racial component of the strategy did not exactly go unnoticed at the time. Clarence Mitchell, a lobbyist with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, complained in late 1969 that Dent and other Nixon aides were hostile to the organization. Dent was not well-liked by liberals and moderates, and a 1969 Time article said people of those political persuasions considered him a "Southern-fried Rasputin in the White House."

Dent's official title went through a few changes over the years, as he went from a special counsel to a deputy counsel and received a promotion to "chief political troubleshooter" in May of 1969. In 1970, he had to handle a minor flap involving his own actions when it was found that he wrote letters on White House stationary to blacks approached by his brother's home construction business. Dent denied that the letters were meant to help his brother's business, but rather to show that the Nixon Administration was fully supportive of federal programs for low-cost housing. Most of his brother's homes were financed through such programs, and though Dent denied that his brother requested that he send the letters he did say that his sibling complained that Democrats were getting most of the credit for such programs. Dent said he sent the letters because he "was interested in laying to rest any question as to where Richard Nixon stood on this program."

At the close of 1972, following Nixon's re-election, Dent left his post to return to his law practice in Columbia, South Carolina, despite a request by Nixon to stay on in a promoted capacity. He announced that he was doing so because his key goal had been to help Nixon into a second term, he wanted to be closer to his family, and he wanted to distance himself from politics. Despite this last point, he said he would help Nixon or South Carolina Republican candidates if asked and often had to deny rumors that he would fill one of the numerous posts vacated in the wake of the Watergate scandal, or that he would run for governor of the Senate. In one odd advocacy move, Dent urged Fred B. Dent, who was no relation to Harry but had been named Secretary of Commerce after Nixon's re-election, to run for governor of South Carolina. Before long, Dent was serving as general counsel for the Republican National Committee.

In 1974, the year rumors had him aiming for political office, Dent was caught in the expanding Watergate imbroglio. One of the practices uncovered in the investigation was Operation Townhouse, an illegal effort that raised $3 million for GOP candidates in 1970. The operation, so named because it ran from the basement of a private townhouse, essentially provided a slush fund with the goal of blackmailing recipient politicians if it ever came to it. The scheme was a violation of the Corrupt Practices Act, which forbid unregistered campaign groups from providing money in two or more states without first filing financial reports.

Operation Townhouse was established by Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman, with Nixon calling the shots on who would receive funding. Dent admitted that he helped select which candidates would receive money, but did not know where the money was coming from. Dent was given the choice of going to trial on a felony charge of pleading guilty to a misdemeanor. He chose the latter in December of 1974, admitting to a violation of federal campaign finance laws. He was sentenced to one month of unsupervised probation. Dent resigned from his post in the Republican National Committee as a result of the conviction. The court also netted Nixon's personal attorney, Herbert W. Kalbach, and another aide, Jack A. Gleason.

Contemporaries were rather sympathetic to Dent. Political columnist Jack Anderson said Dent's role in the scandal was minimal and "like his mentor [Thurmond], is personally regarded as honest, even by his enemies." Anderson alleged that Dent had even privately denounced the "dirty tricks" in the White House and that such corruption spurred his departure from his post there. Judge George L. Hart, Jr. commented, "It does appear to be as if Mr. Dent were more of an innocent victim than a perpetrator." Dent thanked Hart for the light sentence, but also bemoaned that he would be associated with Watergate and said, "I'm destined for the history books as a bad footnote." Dent said he initially wanted to fight the charge, but was advised against it by his attorneys. "I realized that if I went to trial in Washington, D.C., this old boy with the Southern accent wouldn't have a chance before an all-black jury," he said.

Dent's guilty plea was followed by a probe to see if he would be disbarred, but nothing came of it. He worked for the presidential campaigns of Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush. Dent also helped cripple John B. Connally's bid for the 1980 Republican nomination by associating him with blacks and gays; Connally grumbled that Dent was the "original dirty trickster." Dent turned his focus to religion, closing his law practice in 1981 and going into the Southern Baptist ministry. Following the fall of Nicole Ceausescu, Communist leader of Romania, Dent made several mission trips there to establish churches and orphanages. He helped to organize the first Senate prayer breakfast in 1989. Dent ultimately wrote five books. In one, he claimed the Southern strategy was meant to fight bias against the South, but when he started his ministry he admitted that he helped exploit racism to benefit Nixon. "When I look back, my biggest regret now is anything that stood in the rights of black people," he said. "Or any people"

Dent died in Columbia in September of 2007 due to complications from Alzheimer's disease.

Sources: "Dent: Kill Raceway Bill" in the Sumter Daily Item on Feb. 15 1966, "Apology Asked Of Harry Dent" in the Herald-Tribune on Sep. 7 1967, "Thurmond To Head Nixon Campaign" in the Rock Hill Herald on Sep. 10 1968, "Dent Asking An Apology For Robinson" in the Rock Hill Herald on Oct. 23 1968, "Dent Says New Post No Reward To Strom" in the Sumter Daily Item on Dec. 4 1968, "Thurmond Aid Is Nixon Troubleshooter" in the Toledo Blade on Jun. 14 1969, "Nation: Up At Harry's Place" in Time on Jul. 11 1969 "Black Leader Calls Nixon Aides Hostile" in the Milwaukee Journal on Dec. 28 1969, "Dent Sends Double-Barreled Letters" in the St. Petersburg Times on Jun. 27 1970, "New Moderates Seem To Be Raising Their 'Ugly' Heads" in the Tuscaloosa News on Jan. 24 1971, "A Who's Who Of Prominent Republicans" in the Miami News on Aug. 21 1972, "Harry Dent Says He's Returning To S.C. Law Firm" in the Herald-Journal on Dec. 3 1972, "Harry Dent: President Won't Name Candidate" in the Herald-Journal on Dec. 3 1972, "Dent Says He's Leaving Post In Administration" in the Rock Hill Herald on Dec. 4 1972, "Dent Mentioned For Governor" in the Herald-Journal on Feb. 11 1973, "Harry Dent Thinks He's Not Considered" in the Herald-Journal on May 2 1973, "Washington Merry Go Round" in the Bangor Daily News on Nov. 22 1974, "Former Nixon Aide, Dent, Gets One Month Probation" in the Lewiston Daily Sun on Dec. 12 1974, "Ex-Nixon Aide Pleads Guilty" in the Reading Eagle on Dec. 12 1974, "Dent Faces Probe" in the Times-News on Jan. 10 1975, "Nixon Strategist To Seek Ford Votes" in the Sumter Daily Item on Jun. 12 1976, "Harry Dent" in the Herald-Journal on Nov. 8 1988, "Dent Set Stage For Political Upheaval" in The State on Jan. 21 2005, "Harry Dent, An Architect Of Nixon 'Southern Strategy,' Dies At 77" in the New York Times on Oct. 2 2007, "Harry Dent; Advised Key Republicans" in the Washington Post on Oct. 3 2007, "The Lives They Lived" in the New York Times on Dec. 30 2007, Nixon's Civil Rights: Politics, Principle, and Policy by Dean J. Kotlowski, From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution 1963-1994 by Dan T. Carter, President Nixon: Alone in the White House by Richard Reeves, Nixonland: The Rise of a President by Rick Perlstein

Benjamin G. Harris: two dollar treason

2010-06-22T11:30:00.011-04:00

Image from findagrave.com

When several Southern states broke off from the Union following Abraham Lincoln's election as President, a sizable portion of people in the North were fine with letting them go. Their demands for peace grew louder as the war to preserve the Union grew longer and deadlier. Though government officials were largely behind the war effort, some demanded peace on the floor of Congress. One such representative, Democrat Alexander Long of Ohio, made such a speech on April 8, 1864, advocating recognition of the Confederacy. He accused Lincoln of scheming to start the war by provisioning Fort Sumter in South Carolina, leading to a Southern attack on the outpost and the subsequent start of the war. Long also opined that after three years of conflict, the only options left for the country were complete subjugation and extermination of the South or recognition of the Confederate States of America as an independent nation. Such talk was not well-received, and the House of Representatives took up discussion the next day on whether to expel Long for treasonable utterances.

Benjamin Gwinn Harris, a Democratic representative from Maryland, came to Long's defense during discussions the next day. He declared that he had long been the only member of the House favoring peace with the South via recognition, and welcomed Long as "another soul saved." Harris also announced his support for slavery and said he had owned slaves until Union general Benjamin Butler seized them. He said the Bible sanctioned slavery, and that the argument of abolitionists that slavery was an odious practice transferred the label onto "honest and upright men" who owned slaves, such as himself and his deceased father. "You may consider it a sin as between you and your God," he said, "but you shall not use insulting language upon such a subject as that without being called to account."

The congressional record shows that Harris's speech was met with quite a bit of derisive laughter, particularly when he said his peace stance made him more pro-Union than the other men in the chamber. "I am not here for war, and will not be here for war, so long as I have a heart humane and Christian, when war is carried on upon such principles. No, sir, war never did and never will bring your Union together in such a manner as to be worth one cent," he said. "I am for peace, and I am for Union too. I am as good a Union man as any of you. I am a better Union man than any of you." What truly got Harris in trouble, though, was his remark that the Confederacy "asked you to let them go in peace. But no; you said you would bring them into subjection. That is not done yet, and God Almighty grant that it never may be. I hope that you will never subjugate the South."

While the rest of his speech only earned him contempt, this portion led to a call for Harris to be expelled as well. Democrat Fernando Wood of New York declared during the ensuing tumult that the House should throw him out as well, since he fully endorsed Long. Though Elihu Washburne, a Republican from Illinois who supported the expulsion measures, promised to put Wood out as well, no vote was ever taken on that representative.

The vote to expel Harris narrowly missed the two-thirds majority needed to do so. Eighty-four were in favor of the action, while 58 were opposed. The House then took up a particularly strongly worded resolution to expel him. Declaring that he had made treasonable statements and committed a "gross disrespect to this House," the action sought to have him "very severely censured" and declared "an unworthy member of this House." The action carried 98 to 20, after an unsuccessful attempt to table the resolution and two failed efforts to adjourn. Long was also censured in a resolution declaring him an "unworthy member of this House" in an 80-70 vote on April 14.

The incident was the first time that Harris, an unabashed secessionist, got in trouble in the House for his actions. Born in Leonardtown, Maryland in December of 1805, he attended Yale University in Connecticut and the Cambridge Law School in Massachusetts. He wasn't admitted to the bar until 1840, and by that time he had already been a member of the Maryland house of delegates in 1833 and 1836. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1862, and the censure didn't stop him from returning at the 1864 election.

Harris got in even more hot water when the war ended in Confederate defeat exactly one year after his censure. On April 26, 1865, former Confederate soldiers Richard Chapman and William Read visited Harris at his home. The two paroled soldiers asked Harris to stay at his residence, since they were going to another location on a pass but had grown tired. Harris was reluctant to accept the soldiers, given his position in the government and the Union suspicions his sympathies to the Confederacy had earned him. Instead, Harris gave the men a dollar each for lodging. They stayed at a place about a mile and a half away from him, using the money for the evening's shelter and a meal.

Harris was surprised when in May he was arrested on a charge of harboring the Confederate soldiers. The real motivation for the arrest, however, lay in the discussion he had with the soldiers at his doorstep. He was charged with not just giving the soldiers money for a roof over their head, but advising them to keep up the fight for the Confederacy. The penalty for such disloyalty could be as severe as death.

Harris was quickly court-martialed by the War Department and tried in a military court in Washington, D.C. In addition to relieving the two Confederate soldiers with money, the court charged, Harris was charged with "advising and inciting them to continue in said army, and to make war against the United States, and emphatically declaring his sympathy with the enemy, and his opposition to the Government of the United States in its efforts to suppress the rebellion." Harris protested that a court-martial was not appropriate, since he was in no way connected with the U.S. armed forces. He admitted that he gave the soldiers the money to pay for lodging so he wouldn't get into trouble with the authorities. He also said it had already been proven that the soldiers were not lodged where they said they had bunked down for the evening.

Chapman confirmed that Harris had been reluctant to lodge them due to scrutiny by federal authorities. A native of Baltimore, Chapman left the loyal state of Maryland to join the Confederate Army. As per the surrender arrangements, soldiers who had deserted the United States to fight for the South needed to take an oath of allegiance to the United States before they were allowed to go home. Chapman, who lost five brothers to the war, said he would go home to Baltimore if he could take the oath. Harris said that Chapman could go home anyway, since he was on parole, and Chapman replied that he'd seen a notice saying the oath was a requirement. Harris bitterly responded that paroled soldiers ought to be able to go home anyway and that Union general Ulysses S. Grant was a "damned rascal" if he didn't allow it.

Chapman said Harris got much more expressive on the state of affairs in the nation, praising the cause of the Confederacy as just and Confederate president Jefferson Davis as a great man and true Southern gentleman. He suggested that Chapman not take the oath, since he was sure many other soldiers would refuse it, but instead be exchanged to keep up the fight for the South. Perhaps worst of all, during a discussion of Republican President Abraham Lincoln's assassination Harris commented that the death had come too late to do the rebels any good. Read also recalled that Harris was reluctant to lodge the men but urged them to keep fighting for the Confederacy. A Union sergeant who arrested Harris said that the congressman had admitted to giving the soldiers money and though he didn't admit to urging the men to keep fighting, he did complain that the abolitionists were interfering too much with post-war affairs.

Harris was swiftly found guilty of violating the 56th article of war and sentenced to three years in prison. He was also forever disqualified from holding any office in the United States government. A reprieve came within weeks. President Andrew Johnson, Lincoln's Republican successor, issued an executive order on May 31 approving, confirming, and then remitting the sentence. Johnson said the order to remit was due to "additional evidence and affidavits...bearing upon this case and favorable to the accused, having been presented to and considered by me, since the sentence aforesaid." Harris was released and allowed to return to Congress. At the commencement of a session in December, Republican Representative John F. Farnsworth asked the Committee on Elections to look into Harris's qualifications for the seat. He cited the court-martial, sentence disqualifying him from office (which he argued had been confirmed and not remitted by Johnson), and the statements about Lincoln's assassination as being inconsistent with the oath of office. The committee never reported back, and the House never took a vote.

Harris left Congress for private life at the expiration of his term in March of 1867, but periodically showed up to sound off on the dead cause of slavery. In September of that year, he strongly opposed a new state constitution for Maryland on the argument that it conceded too much to liberal Republicans by abolishing slavery and conforming to the Civil Rights Bill, which declared "that no person shall be incompetent as a witness on account of race or color, unless hereafter so declared by act of the General Assembly." The constitution, he said, was an "abomination" and would "place us on an inclined plane which leads directly and irresistibly to the foul slough of radicalism." That same year, the New York Times described him as "the representative man of the old pro-slavery Democrats yet alive in the state."

In 1874, Harris unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for his district's House race. Here, he focused on the Fourteenth Amendment (which included citizenship for any person born in the United States, enforcement of civil rights, and prohibitions against elected officials who took an oath of office and joined the Confederacy) and the Fifteenth Amendment, which gave voting rights to former slaves. Both amendments, Harris said, were "utterly void." In 1892, at the age of 86, he was still beating the same drum. In that year, he petitioned Congress on behalf of himself and other residents in Maryland for compensation for slaves freed by state or federal law.

Harris died on his Leonardtown estate in April of 1895.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "A Member Of Congress In Trouble" in the London Evening Advertiser on May 3 1865, "Treason At Home" in the New York Times on May 5 1865, "Treason At Home" in the New York Times on May 7 1865, "Treason At Home" in the New York Times on May 13 1865, "The Case Of Benj. G. Harris" in the New York Times on Jun. 5 1865, "Hon. Benjamin Harris On The New Maryland Constitution" in the New York Times on Sep. 12 1867, "Maryland" in the New York Times on Oct. 26 1867, "General Notes" in the New York Times on Jun. 14 1874, "Contested Election" in the Deseret News on Jun. 27 1874, "Wednesday In Washington" in the New York Times on Mar. 24 1892, Reports of the Committees for the House of Representatives for the First Session of the Forty-Third Congress, On the Resolution to Expel Mr. Long speech by Benjamin G. Harris, The Dark Intrigue: The True Story of a Civil War Conspiracy by Frank Van Der Linden, The Great Conspiracy: Its Origin and History by John Alexander Logan, The House: The History of the House of Representatives by Robert Vincent Remini, The Political History of the United States During the Great Rebellion by Edward McPherson

Jim West: surfing wipeout

2010-06-11T19:25:00.008-04:00

Image from nytimes.com

Some eight years before voters kicked him out of office for ethical issues, James West weathered a criminal charge to keep serving in the Washington state senate. In 1998, the Building Industry Association of Washington ran in ad in a local newspaper suggesting that West wasn't supportive of education. In response, West phoned up the lobbying group's leader, Tom McCabe, and left a message seething, "McCabe, you son of a bitch, you better get me 'cause if you don't you're dead."

When the message was made public, West tried to argue that he meant McCabe would be politically deceased, not physically killed. McCabe brought a criminal harassment complaint against the legislator, and West ended up paying $500 to an Olympia charity. He also paid $250 in court costs, served nine months of probation, and apologized to McCabe and the Spokane community in general. It wasn't the first time West's temper got the better of him. In 1995, he swore at fellow senator John Moyer and his staff after Moyer implied that West didn't support a $2 million appropriation for Spokane's Cheney Cowles Museum. West kicked Moyer's office door during the outburst, and apologized for that incident as well.

West was born in March of 1951 in Salem, Oregon, and attended school in Spokane. After going to the University of Nevada and its Reserve Officer Training Corps, he served in the Army as a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division. He moved to North Carolina to work as an assistant manager in a retail scuba diving store, returning to Spokane in 1974 to pursue a career in law enforcement. He joined the Medical Lake Police Department as a patrolman in 1975, transferring to the Spokane County Sheriff's Office at the end of the year. He opened his own scuba shop in 1977, graduating from Gonzaga University the next year with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. He was later sued for wrongful death when a student on a dive he was supervising died, but the case was thrown out since the student had signed a consent form.

In 1979, West became the sergeant-at-arms for the Washington house of representatives. The next year, he went into politics himself, becoming the youngest member of the Spokane City Council at age 28. He won an election to fill a vacancy in the house of representatives in 1982, and four years later he moved over to the senate. He spent 20 years in the state legislature, but made a few efforts to get out. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1996 and mayor of Spokane in 2000. West gained a good deal of influence in the legislature. He successfully proposed extending the state's motorcycle helmet law to all riders, not just juveniles, and helped to create the state's Department of Health. Earning more mockery was a 1990 suggestion that teenage sex be criminalized. One prosecutor jokingly suggested that a bill preventing legislators from procreating with each other would be more beneficial.

In 2003, West was elected mayor of Spokane over Democratic candidate and journalist Tom Grant. In April, West had announced that he had colon cancer. After his victory, he was frequently absent due to surgical procedures. While in office, he managed to pull together support for a $117 million bond issue to repair the city's streets, despite a recent defeat of a similar measure. He also helped get the city out of a failed venture to create a parking garage, advocated a downtown wireless network, worked to prevent the closure of Fairchild Air Force Base, and cut down on city jobs to trim the budget.

Two years after his election, the Spokane Spokesman-Review assessed the mayor as having a fairly successful political record; it also had him on the ropes, fighting calls to resign. An 18-year-old man told the paper that he met the mayor through Gay.com, a homosexual online dating site. His date confided that he was the mayor of Spokane and, after a dinner date, the two had consensual sex. To test the claim, the Spokesman-Review hired a forensic computer expert to set up a sting. Using a profile to pose as an 18-year-old man, reporters chatted with the mayor online, where he identified himself as Cobra82nd and RightBi-Guy. “Remember, I’m very closeted. No one knows I like guys. Except the few guys I’ve been with and highly trusted,” West said in recorded instant message conversations. He offered the nonexistent teen a few perks to try to get him to city hall, including an internship, trips to sporting events, and autographed sports memorabilia.

On May 5, 2005, the newspaper published a major report detailing their findings. Prominently featured were accusations by two men who said West molested them when he was a sheriff's deputy and they were boys. They accused another man, David Hahn, of the same conduct. Hahn also served as a deputy, but didn't have anything to say for himself; similar accusations had already come up over two decades before the scandal, and Hahn had committed suicide with his service weapon in 1981. West knew he was caught, and admitted to reporters that he had been looking for men on Gay.com for a year. "I can't tell you why I go there, to tell you the truth...curiosity, confused, whatever, I don't know," he said of his online dating. Though he did not admit that he was gay, West didn't shy away from a suggestion that he was bisexual. He firmly denied that he ever abused any children, and the accusers' claims were compromised somewhat by the fact that they were both convicted felons and drug addicts.

Within a couple of days, two more men came forward with allegations that West sexually abused or made passes at them in 1980 and 2001. Some politicians said that West's sexuality was something of an open secret, with his proposal to a woman on the floor of the legislature and subsequent five-year marriage working as a ruse to combat such allegations. Past opponents had never used the issue for political fodder, feeling it didn't relate to the political issues at hand. The publicized charges crossed into ethical territory, however; a city councilwoman said that West had admitted to her that he used city computers for the chat rooms and masturbated to them in his City Hall office. When the Spokesman-Review printed this charge, West called them up to deny her account. "I'm being destroyed because I am a gay man, which is fine. I've been in public life, I can accept that. Because I am a gay man, because of this double life, it has been hell," he said. "It's OK to destroy me, but stop destroying this city." The mayor also complained that the newspaper had "brutally outed" him.

West's plight didn't earn him much sympathy in the gay community, as the scandal also exposed him as something of a hypocrite. While in the legislature, he was a conservative Republican well-known for his focus on moral issues. Besides his proposal to criminalize teen sex, he was also opposed to the distribution of information packets on AIDS and was strongly against any measure related to gay rights. He co-sponsored an unsuccessful bill in 1986 to bar homosexuals from employment in schools, day care centers, and some state agencies; the bill was a retaliatory measure against a gubernatorial Christmas order in 1985 prohibiting such discriminatory practices in state hiring. He supported the Defense of Marriage Act to ban gay marriage, and in 1998 Washington became the 27th state to adopt the measure. West explained that he wasn't necessarily opposed to gay rights, but didn't want to create "special classes" for any minority.

One of the more immediate effects of the scandal was West's removal from affiliation with the Boy Scouts of America. He had been volunteering for the organization for over 30 years, but chose to resign from the Inland Northwest Council of the Boy Scouts and the board of directors for Morning Star Boys Ranch, which serves 18-year-olds from troubled backgrounds. One official with the Boy Scouts bluntly said that West would have been kicked off the council if he hadn't resigned, due to the organization's stance against homosexuality and immediate revocation of such offices if there are allegations of sexual abuse. West announced that he would take a leave of absence to prepare a defense, and left deputy mayor Jack Lynch in charge. "Finally, I hope that you and the people will reserve judgment on me until the newspaper is done persecuting me and allow me to have the fair opportunity to respond to each of the allegations in due time," he concluded as he left office. By the end of the month, however, West was back in City Hall. Meanwhile, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began looking into his computer records.

West's colleagues weren't exactly happy to see him return, and the calls for his resignation increased. Business leaders said such an action would limit any potential damage to tourism and the city's image. The city council tied 3-3 in a vote to ask him to take administrative leave, failing only because the members opposed wanted a stronger motion. Not long after, in June, the council voted unanimously to recommend his resignation, a first step toward possible impeachment. A few days later, West made an apology but vowed to stay in office. He said former Democratic President Bill Clinton and former Democratic Washington Governor Mike Lowry both survived sex scandals. "I did things in my private life that I should have known if they became public would cause embarrassment…everyone makes mistakes. I do, too," he said, adding that the ordeal "has been an embarrassing, humiliating and painful experience. But it doesn't need to distract this city." The Lowry example only gave more ammunition to those who saw West as a hypocrite. Investigators found insufficient evidence to prosecute Lowry after a female aide accused him of sexual harassment, but the governor chose not to run for re-election in 1996; at the time, West sent a letter to the speaker of the state house of representatives demanding a swift impeachment process. There was some speculation that West was reluctant to give up the office due to its lucrative $136,000-a-year salary, and even more so for the health benefits covering his cancer treatments.

West also fought an ongoing recall effort against him, which charged that the offers made to the phony 18-year-old represented "an improper exercise of an official duty." His lawyers argued that the recall lacked legal justification and that the judge who first heard the case got personally involved by rewriting the recall proposition. The state supreme court upheld the recall effort, saying the recall process could proceed if it gathered enough signatures. It eventually collected 17,121, a healthy margin greater than the minimum amount at 12,567. A recall election was scheduled for December.

Two months prior to the election, it was determined that West used city computers to browse gay profiles for men in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., when he went to the cities on business. Ironically, one of the people he met in D.C. was Larry Craig, the Idaho senator who would get caught up in his own gay sex scandal in 2007. Around the same month, West said he was contemplating filing suit against the Spokesman-Review based on allegations that they broke federal and state laws regarding privacy issues and computer trespass. "Basically, the reason I'm bringing a lawsuit is, nobody, public or private, should go through what the Spokesman-Review has done to me as far as invading my privacy," he said. The suit never materialized.

In late November, a private investigator hired by the city council reported that West broke the law by hiring a man for the city's Human Rights Commission and then pursuing him sexually, and broke city policy as well by browsing online for gay men. As the countdown to the recall proceeded, West fought to keep his computer records private. He argued that some of the images from Gay.com were automatically downloaded to his computer's browser cache. Only a few days before the recall election, the findings were publicized. They showed that in three months, West spent hours on the site; 6,626 images were downloaded from Gay.com, and some of them were explicit.

Sixty-five percent of the voters agreed to kick West out of office. Dennis Hession, the city council president, took over the mayor's duties. "There have been a lot of lessons out of this, to tell you the truth," West said. "It's helped me straighten out my personal life." Curiously, West said that he stood by his previous anti-homosexual stances, with the exception of the one to prevent homosexuals from working in schools and other institutions involving children. Gay and lesbian groups saw the scandal a different way, saying it had the effect of encouraging openness rather than closeted lives. West said he was resigned to the vote, but the next day he sniped, "I think there are people in this community that could do a better job [as mayor] than anyone on the city council."

In February of 2006, the FBI wrapped up their probe and concluded that there was insufficient evidence to file any charges against West. Their investigation looked only into fraud related to whether he offered jobs or internships in exchange for sex. State charges remained an option, with the city's investigation alleging a violation of a state law that officials could not use municipal computers for personal use. Local prosecution got bogged down, with the county prosecutor having a conflict of interest due to a past $50 contribution to West's campaign, the local police unwilling to proceed, and the city officials not keen on pressing the issue. West ultimately ended up getting a job selling advertisements for a Seattle magazine, and chatted with a radio station about a possible talk show.

West said he wasn't ruling out another bid for office, but his recall came when he had less than a year to live. His cancer spread to his liver while in office, and he died in July of 2006 after complications from surgery.

Sources: "Senator Settles Charge Filed By Lobbyist" in the Moscow-Pullman Daily News on Nov. 10 1998, "Race To Lead Spokane" in the Spokesman-Review on Oct. 19 2003, "West Tied To Sex Abuse In '70s, Using Office To Lure Young Men" in the Spokesman-Review on May 5 2005, "West's Public Policy Conflicts With Private Life" in the Spokesman-Review on May 5 2005, "Online Relationships" in the Spokesman-Review on May 5 2005, "West Has Brought New Tone, New Success To City Hall" in the Spokesman-Review on May 5 2005, "After Spokane Childhood, West Leads Life Of Service" in the Spokesman-Review on May 5 2005, "Spokane Mayor's Accusers Are Felons" in the Ellensburg Daily Record on May 6 2005, "West Resigns From Scout Post, Boys Ranch Board" in the Spokesman-Review on May 6 2005, "West Faces New Allegations" in the Spokesman-Review on May 7 2005, "Rodgers: West Used City Office" in the Spokesman-Review on May 8 2005, "West Denies Having Online Sex In Office" in the Spokesman-Review on May 8 2005, "Mayor Says Sex Act Happened At Home" in the Spokesman-Review on May 9 2005, "Mayor To Take Leave" in the Spokesman-Review on May 10 2005, "Spokane Mayor Urged To Resign" in the Eugene Register-Guard on May 15 2005, "Council Split On West" in the Spokesman-Review on May 16 2005, "It's 'Awkward' With Mayor Back At City Hall" in the Spokesman-Review on May 20 2005, "Spokane Finds It Tough To Get Rid Of Mayor" in the Ellensburg Daily Record on May 28 2005, "Council Wants West Out" in the Spokesman-Review on Jun. 1 2005, "'Everyone Makes Mistakes'" in the Spokesman-Review on Jun. 4 2005, "West Urged Quick Justice In Lowry Sex Scandal" in the Spokesman-Review on Jul. 14 2005, "West Recall Advances" in the Spokesman-Review on Aug. 25 2005, "17,121 Urge West Recall Vote" in the Spokesman-Review on Sep. 22 2005, "West Accessed Sex Sites On Trips" in the Spokesman-Review on Oct. 15 2005, "Spokane Mayor May Sue Paper For Privacy Invasion" in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Oct. 22 2005, "West Says Downloads Automatic" in the Spokesman-Review on Nov. 16 2005, "Spokane Mayor's Offer Broke Law, Report Says" in the Seattle Times on Nov. 21 2005, "West Spent Hours Online At Gay.com" in the Spokesman-Review on Dec. 3 2005, "Voters Recall West" in the Spokesman-Review on Dec. 7 2005, "Spokane Mayor, Caught In Gay Sex Sting, Is Ousted In Vote That May Advance Gay Rights" in the New York Times on Dec. 8 2005, "West Challenges Successor" in the Spokesman-Review on Dec. 8 2005, "No Federal Charges" in the Spokesman-Review on Feb. 17 2006, "No Charges After Investigation Of Ex-Mayor's Online Scandal" in the New York Times on Feb. 17 2006, "Prosecution Of Former Spokane Mayor Appears Unlikely" in the Seattle Times on Mar. 22 2006, "Former Spokane Mayor Jim West Dies" in the Seattle Times on Jul. 22 2006

Charles A. Hayes: bounced out

2010-05-31T09:09:00.012-04:00

Image from bioguide.congress.gov

Before he came to the House of Representatives as an elected member, Charles Arthur Hayes appeared in Congress to defend himself against accusations of Communism. In 1959, 57-year-old Joseph Poskonka told the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had endured insults and beatings for 16 years as a member of the Communist Party. The reason he did so was not out of a strong devotion to the party's ideals, he testified, but because he was an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation assigned to infiltrate the United Packinghouse Workers of America union and report on any Communist activities there. He told the committee that the union was rife with such subversion, and that Communists were trying to take over areas of American industry related to food production in order to tamper with it should the country go to war with the Soviet Union.

Poskonka identified Hayes as one of several union leaders in the Communists' pocket. Hayes, then serving as district director of the United Packinghouse Workers of America and vice president of the Illinois state AFL-CIO, was summoned to Washington to testify before the committee as part of a three-day hearing focusing on the UPWA. He invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination eight times when questioned on any past involvement with the Communists. He did choose to denounce the movement and say he was not a Communist at that time. The Fifth Amendment declaration unnerved AFL-CIO officials enough that they asked Hayes to step down from his state position, but he refused. Congress did not press Hayes on his activities, and the matter faded away.

Hayes was involved with union activities for most of his life. Born in Cairo, Illinois in February of 1918, he graduated from high school in 1935 and went to work as a railroad section hand. From there, he went to work with a flooring company and organized a successful strike in 1938. Following this victory, he formed a union of black carpenters and joiners and served as its president from 1940 to 1942. The union later opened up to white workers as well.

Hayes transferred his union activities to the meatpacking industry after leaving the flooring company to become a fresh pork worker. He joined the grievance committee of the United Packinghouse Workers of America union in 1943, became a field representative for it in 1949, and served as district director from 1954 to 1968. He later served as vice president of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America union, and held the same post in the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. This latter organization was the largest one included in the AFL-CIO, and he remained there from 1979 until his retirement in 1983.

Though Hayes pushed for the traditional goals such as improved working conditions and better wages and benefits, he was also active in civil rights. He fought for desegregation in the dressing rooms and cafeterias of the meatpacking industry, as well as improved advancement opportunities for black workers. He sought to get women and blacks to serve as leaders in labor unions, and in 1972 he joined other black labor leaders in a Miami Beach conference to form a coalition in support of Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern to counter opposition by some white labor leaders. He organized rallies in support of the Montgomery bus boycott and provided financial support and manpower for events organized by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.

In April of 1983, two-term congressman Harold Washington was elected the first black mayor of Chicago. He resigned his seat in the House of Representatives, and a special election was scheduled for August to fill the vacancy. Thirteen candidates threw their hats in the ring for the Democratic nomination in July, but Hayes had a special advantage. He supported Washington in his 1977 attempt at the mayor's office, as well as the successful 1983 campaign. In return, Washington threw his support behind Hayes. This angered many of the other candidates, who charged Washington with using machine tactics such as intimidation to ensure a Hayes victory, but they conceded that they would support Hayes if he won the nomination. Hayes came away with the Democratic nod after securing 45 percent of the vote. This election essentially guaranteed his entry into the House; the district was mostly black and strongly Democratic, and in August he got 94 percent of the vote after running against Republican candidate and newspaper columnist Diane Preacely.

It was the first of five consecutive victories in the House elections. After the 1983 election, Hayes announced that he was serving notice on Republican President Ronald Reagan. Saying that Reagan's cuts to anti-poverty programs had left one-third of the nation's blacks under the poverty line, he declared, "We must replace him with a chief executive who is committed to solving the problems of poor people. We've got to put America back on the track of greatness." His other goals upon entering office included a reduction in unemployment, which was especially burdensome in his district; a bilateral freeze on nuclear weapons; a national health service; and shifting funds from military budget to aid domestic programs. He authored the Dropout Prevention and Reentry Act to provide $500 million in federal funds to state and local governments to cut down on the dropout rate, which was also especially high in Chicago. He got in another jab at Reagan along the way, saying the President's cuts to education were “a callous disregard for the dreams and aspirations of millions of poor and disadvantaged children and young adults.” Hayes also sponsored numerous bills to try to decrease unemployment rates and provide relief for workers laid off in massive plant closings in Chicago. One of these bills, the Income and Jobs Action Act of 1985, sought to boost the provisions of 1978 Humphrey Hawkins Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act to increase employment opportunities with the growth of productivity.

In his continuing advocacy of civil rights, Hayes ran up against the law soon after his re-election in November of 1984. He had introduced legislation to impose economic and diplomatic sanctions against South Africa to get that country to end the discriminatory practice of apartheid. The Reagan Administration disagreed with taking a harsher stance, feeling that change could be achieved through diplomatic efforts. As a result, Hayes and several others took part in large-scale protests at the South African Embassy at the end of the month to protest apartheid, seek the release of several black labor unionists jailed in that country, and pressure the White House into changing the diplomatic stance and putting sanctions into place. Numerous people were arrested due to violations of a city code forbidding protesters from being within 500 feet of an embassy. Secret Service agents arrested Hayes inside the embassy itself after he entered along with Reverend Joseph Lowery, the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Immediately before the arrest, Hayes told reporters that he could not sit idly by while racist policies stood and that he was hoping to end "the atrocious situation in South Africa." He was released immediately after the police booked him on a charge of misdemeanor unlawful entry. Numerous other high-profile people were arrested in the protests, including several Democratic congressmen and Yolanda King, the daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr. Within days of his arrest, the charges against Hayes and 10 others were dropped.

Shortly before Hayes' bid for the Democratic nomination in 1992, he was named in a wide-ranging scandal in the House. The Sergeant at Arms provided an informal banking service, and dozens of representatives had written bad checks on insufficient funds in the bank; the New York Times said the practice "effectively resulted in interest-free loans." Some representatives had only written a few checks in this way, but others had overdrawn hundreds. Hayes was among the worst offenders, with the House Ethics Committee reporting that he wrote 716 bad checks in a 39-month period. The news broke in March, in the last week of the primary campaign. Hayes said it wasn't much of an issue, since he had not broken the law or cost the taxpayers any money. "I want it clearly understood: I'm not a criminal, and I don't want to be treated like this," he said. Hayes' main opponent, Chicago alderman and former Black Panther Bobby Rush, had been arguing that Hayes had not achieved any significant legislative victories while in Congress and used the banking scandal to further support the argument. "Charlie Hayes' record in Congress is like his record of 700 overdrawn checks: insufficient ideas, insufficient commitment, insufficient action, insufficient funds," he said.

Other factors put Hayes' chances for re-nomination in jeopardy, namely a redrawing of congressional lines to change his constituency. However, the bounced checks received the bulk of the blame for his defeat. Even then, it was a fairly close contest. Rush received 42 percent of the vote, or 51,145 ballots, while Hayes came away with 39 percent, a total of 47,151 votes. Rush went on to win the general election, and has won every House contest in his district between 1992 and 2008. In 1993, the Justice Department cleared Hayes of any criminal wrongdoing in the banking scandal.

Hayes returned to work in labor and community matters in Chicago. He died of lung cancer in April of 1997. Two years later, the Charles A. Hayes Investment Center, a nonprofit technology center for underprivileged Chicago residents, opened in a building formerly used by the United Packinghouse Workers of America.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Black Americans in Congress at baic.house.gov, "Packer Union Leader Uses Fifth Eight Times" in the Chicago Tribune on May 7 1959, "Reds Run Union" in the Miami News on May 8 1959, "Hayes Asked To Quit AFL Post; Refuses" in the Chicago Tribune on May 20 1959, "Black Labor Group To Aid McGovern" in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune on Aug. 8 1972, "Union Urges Labor Dept. Rights Probe" in the Washington Afro-American on Feb. 13 1973, "Hayes Wins In Chicago" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Jul. 27 1983, "Chicago Primary Winner Tries To Ease Bitterness" in the Palm Beach Post on Jul. 28 1983, "Hayes Wins Special Election" in the Free Lance-Star on Aug. 24 1983, "Hayes Goes To Congress" in the Afro-American on Oct. 1 1983, "SCLC Head Arrested In Embassy Protest" in the Tuscaloosa News on Nov. 27 1984, "Two Congressmen Arrested In Protest Against South Africa" in the Ocala Star-Banner on Dec. 1 1984, "Arrests Continue In South African Protest" in The Telegraph on Dec. 1 1984, "Congressman Who Wrote Bad Checks Faces Voters Today" in The Dispatch on Mar. 16 1992, "Illinois Democrats Boot 5 Congress Incumbents" in the Pittsburgh Press on May. 18 1992, "Charles Hayes, 79, Former Chicago Lawmaker" in the New York Times on Apr. 13 1997, "Former U.S. Congressman Charles Hayes Dies at 79" in Jet on Apr. 28 1997

Warren T. McCray: signing off

2010-05-22T10:00:00.011-04:00

Image from in.gov

Before he entered state government, Warren Terry McCray was known by a royal nickname: the "Hereford Cattle King." A Standard History of Jasper and Newton Counties, Indiana deemed him "the greatest breeder of Hereford cattle in the world." In 1919, news of his exploits made it as far as New Zealand, where the Poverty Bay Herald said that the sale of a five-pound bull raised by McCray earned him the equivalent of 10,000 pounds. It shattered the previous world record for the highest bull sale, which formerly stood at 6,200 pounds. Even after he was elected to office, McCray continued to breed cattle on his 1,600-acre farm in Newton County and win prizes for them. The animals sometimes sold for up to $10,000 apiece.

The farm, coupled with other ventures, made McCray a very successful man. Born in Kentland, Indiana in February of 1865, he finished school at age 15. He went into business for himself after spending some time as a clerk in the Discount and Deposit Bank, which was run by his father. He expanded his interests to include grocery stores and grain elevators, and began community pursuits as well. He joined the board of trustees for the Northern Indiana Hospital for the Insane in 1904 and stayed there until 1912. In that year, he joined the Indiana Board of Agriculture and stayed there for four years. During World War I, he chaired the Food Conservation Committee of Indiana and for two years he served as a trustee of Purdue University.

In 1920, McCray won the Republican nomination for governor. He went on to win the general election, and was sworn into office in January of 1921. According to his National Governor's Association profile, 87 public buildings were launched during his term, along with a budget law affecting state and local finances, a reformatory at Pendleton, a budget law affecting state and local governments, and a two-cent gasoline tax to benefit road maintenance and highway construction.

Early in his term, McCray took an action that may well have placated the labor unions in the state. In October of 1921, he refused a requisition by Republican Governor Ephriam Franklin Morgan of West Virginia to send David Robb of Terre Haute to the state. Robb, an organizer for the United Mine Workers came to Indiana after he and several other union men were given the choice of leaving the state or going to jail due to their violation of Morgan's martial law proclamation. He was also indicted in West Virginia's Mingo County for conspiracy to commit a felonious assault in relation to the murder of a man that May. McCray refused the request on the basis of "disturbed conditions" in West Virginia and his belief that Robb wouldn't get a fair trial there; the United Mine Workers agreed, saying Robb's safety would be in jeopardy.

His reluctance to send a union man into hostile territory did not extend to support from the miners, however. He condemned United Mine Workers leader John L. Lewis as "disloyal," and denounced Socialist head Eugene V. Debs as traitor several times. In July of 1922, he publicly supported the idea of a government takeover of Indiana mines to break a strike and produce enough coal to meet the state's needs. After he followed through on the threat to declare martial law to guard the mines, 4,000 striking miners called a public meeting to demand his impeachment.

McCray's real woes began in 1923. In August, the Discount and Deposit State Bank threw him out as president of the institution. A month later, he admitted at a meeting of creditors that he owed them $2,652,000. They agreed to put his property into trust until he could meet his obligations, and took over holdings valued at $3,323,417.90. Former Republican Governor James P. Goodrich, who contested McCray in 1920, tried to help minimize the meltdown to mitigate any embarrassment to the party. He grew quite upset when McCray's chief political adviser, John Moorman, suggested that Goodrich and Republican President Calvin Coolidge were conspiring to ruin McCray."I spent nearly three months in trying to untangle the governor's affairs and finally raised $350,000 to save him and some of his associates from the most serious personal consequences as a result of his own acts," said Goodrich, "and I deeply resent the efforts of Mr. Moorman or the governor, or anyone else, to reflect upon the good faith of the men responsible for the conduct of the affairs of the party in this state." McCray said the matter was less serious than it seemed. "Boiled down to one fact, you find a farmer, a landowner, who is caught after three disastrous years in the farming business. I could not collect my bills and found myself unable to meet some of my obligations," he said. "I happen to be governor of Indiana, but this is a private matter that has happened to other farmers. The state has not suffered. I do not see that the public should be greatly interested."

In October, the bank collapsed after he was unable to take up $290,000 in notes with his signature. That same month, a grand jury began a probe into his financial transactions at the request of the First National Bank of Marion, which held $22,000 in McCray's notes and was one of 200 creditors backing him up. Three Fort Wayne banks initiated a bankruptcy hearing against him, and in November he admitted that some of the notes he pledged as collateral to the state board of agriculture had no value besides his endorsement. McCray had taken out the notes on the misguided belief that his signature would make the notes good enough for distribution. In the midst of these financial difficulties, the Republican State Committee indicated that he should resign, but he refused. Impeachment was also impossible, since the state legislature was not scheduled to meet again until January of 1925. By that time, McCray would be out of office, and he alone could call an emergency session of the legislature.

On the last day of November, the court walloped McCray with an indictment charging embezzlement, grand larceny, forgery, obtaining money under false pretenses, and issuing false checks. The charges accused him of involving $155,000 of misappropriated state funds in his own financial shortcomings. He refused to resign. "I feel sure that if I had been permitted to appear and present the facts I could have helped the jurors reach a just and correct conclusion," he said. "I ask the public to suspend judgment until I have been given an opportunity to tell my side of the story." A Marion County jury couldn't agree on a conviction in a trial in April of 1924, but two months before he had been federally indicted on 28 counts of mail fraud and violation of banking laws. He tried without success to get an abatement because women were not permitted to serve on the grand jury.

McCray's trial lasted for seven days. The prosecution showed that the governor passed some some $1 million in worthless notes on the banks in Indiana and other nearby states in an attempt to regain his standing. McCray denied any intent to defraud the government, but also testified that he used his political standing to get money from the state board of agriculture and designate banks as state depositories to get loans. It took the jury only 13 minutes to return a guilty verdict on 13 counts of mail fraud. McCray resigned from office on April 29, and Lieutenant Governor Emmett F. Branch took over. The judge told him that McCray was guilty of more felonies than anyone he'd seen in his experience on the bench, saying, "The circumstances are enormously bad and wicked. He has shown an utter disregard for the right. It is my duty to show this man that, no matter if he is governor of Indiana and no matter if he has broad acres, he cannot escape the penalty that is customarily given to every criminal of low estate in this court."

Twenty minutes after leaving office, McCray was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He opted not to appeal, and began his time behind bars in an Atlanta penitentiary. Friends of the disgraced governor began looking for a pardon soon after, basing their effort on McCray's poor health, but they did not meet much support. President Coolidge said he would abide by the rule requiring a prisoner to serve at least a third of their sentence before they were eligible for commutation; the prosecutor and judge had to sign off on such a deal as well. In one curious offer, McCray's friend and former Republican Governor Chase Osborn of Michigan said in January of 1926 that he would be willing to serve the remainder of McCray's sentence in his stead. He offered his skills as a plate printer and remarked, "I have no dependents and I am used to more hardships than a prisoner entails."

McCray left prison in August of 1927 after meeting the one-third mark, having served three years in prison. The release didn't come with a pardon. His friends came to his aid once more, financing the repurchase of his Orchard Lake Farm, which he'd lost after his bankruptcy. He devoted his time to re-establishing his reputation as a famous Hereford breeder.

At about the same time he was freed, the state was conducting another probe due to the accusations of D.C. Stephenson. The Grand Dragon of the state's Ku Klux Klan had been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a woman, and chose to take down as much of the Indiana government as he could with revelations of just how deep the state's politicians were in the Klan's pockets. The largest target was Republican Governor Ed Jackson, who succeeded Branch and served as secretary of state under McCray. Stephenson charged that Jackson offered McCray $10,000 while he was in office to appoint James E. McDonald, a Klansman, as Marion County prosecutor. When McCray came under investigation for his own malfeasance, Jackson said he could sweeten the deal by offering him immunity from prosecution. McCray refused, instead appointing William H. Remy. "The whole affair teems with the vilest corruption that has come to light in years and will remain forever as a blot on the history of Indiana" the Sanford Herald opined in an editorial.

It wasn't the first time McCray had clashed with the Klan. The mine unions sought to ban participation in the Klan, but several members were still interested. After the Klan started up a membership drive, McCray wrote a letter to the editor of the organization's paper condemning their efforts to control the union. The Klan was unfazed, and Stephenson even made personal appearances at the mines to denounce "new immigrants" as inferior workers and call for immigration restriction.

McCray told reporters that he wanted to simply go back to his family and stay as far away from the Jackson scandal as possible. "I am out of politics for good and all," he declared. By that point, McCray's testimony wasn't really needed since the grand jury had concluded that portion of their proceedings. In September of 1927, Jackson and two associates (former law partner Robert I. Marsh and Marion County Republican boss George V. Coffin) were indicted on charges of bribery conspiracy. At trial, Stephenson confirmed the plot and said that he'd put aside $10,000 from one of his strongboxes if McCray agreed to the bribe. McCray was the star witness, testifying that Jackson had told him he would leave the money in the governor's office desk. As McCray had it, he replied, "Ed, I am amazed that you should make that kind of an offer to me. You evidently don't know me. It begins to look like I've lost my fortune that I've striven for for 35 years. My office is threatened, it looks as if they are threatening my liberty, but I'm not going to lose my self-respect."

Prosecutors also charged that McCray rebuffed a second attempt at a bribe, and that Jackson and Stephenson threatened to obstruct his parole if he gave them away. Jackson claimed that he had made the offer, but without bribery or coercion. In the end, judge Charles M. McCabe determined that since the state did not prove willful concealment of the bribe, there was no way to nullify the statute of limitations which expired two years before the indictment. McCabe was clearly disappointed that the case couldn't proceed, as he dismissed the matter by blasting the "slime and disgrace" of the KKK. Noting that the Klan used their power to threaten McCray in 1923, he said, "There is no more regrettable bit of history in Indiana than the organization and participation in politics of the Ku Klux Klan." Jackson refused widespread calls for his resignation, saying he wouldn't let the "malicious propaganda" affect his administration. He left office in disgrace in January of 1929.

The revelations significantly increased the sympathy for McCray. By appointing Remy, he had put a man in office who would take him to court on the embezzlement charges. Remy would also take on Jackson when those charges came up. In May of 1930, an odd case arose when McCray's former partner, grain broker William Simons, was found dead of a gunshot wound just below the heart and two more to the back of the head. The coroner ruled it a suicide, but family members demanded an investigation into the possibility of a homicide. Later in the year, just shy of Christmas, Republican President Herbert Hoover granted McCray a pardon.

In December of 1938, after about a year of poor health, McCray died of a heart attack at his Kentland home.

Sources: The National Governors Association, "Price For Bull Sets World Record" in the Poverty Bay Herald on May 3 1919, "Refuses Requisition For Mingo Mine Leader" in the New York Times on Oct. 6 1921, "Grand Prize To Missouri-Bred Hereford Bull" in the Nevada Daily Mail on Nov. 16 1921, "Indiana Threatens To Operate Mines" in the New York Times on Jul. 27 1922, "Unions Demand Impeachment Of Gov. McCray For Guarding Indiana Mine With Troops" in the New York Times on Aug. 10 1922, "McCray Estimates Debts At $2,652,000" in the New York Times on Sep. 1 1923, "Political Notes" in Time on Sep. 10 1923, "McCray's Creditors Accept Trust Plan" in the New York Times on Oct. 8 1923,"McCray Probe Still Secret" in the Southeast Missourian on Oct. 12 1923, "McCray Bank Shuts; Asserts Solvency" in the New York Times on Oct. 14 1923, "McCray's Name His Security To State, He Admits" in the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 21 1923, "Governor McCray Will Not Quit Office" in the Nevada Daily Mail on Dec. 1 1923, "Gov. McCray Is To Stay On The Job" in the Southeast Missourian on Dec. 1 1923, "Governor McCray Files Plea" in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 6 1924, "U.S. Grand Jury Indicts McCray on 28 Counts" in the Chicago Tribune on Feb. 26 1924, "McCray Must Face Other Indictments" in the Christian Science Monitor on Apr. 12 1924, "Governor Of Indiana Put Behind Bars" in the Southeast Missourian on Apr. 29 1924, "10 Years For McCray" in the New York Times on May 1 1924, "McCray Pardon Movement Not Meeting Favor" in the Crawfordsville Review on Feb. 24 1925, "Offers To Serve Friend's Sentence" in the Times Daily on Jan. 5 1926, "McCray To Be Paroled From Penitentiary" in the Sarasota Herald on Aug. 31 1927, "McCray Out of Political Life" in the Sarasota Herald on Sep. 2 1927, "Political Notes: McCray Out" in Time on Sep. 12 1927, "Indiana Ex-Governor Permitted To Testify" in the Pittsburgh Press on Sep. 16 1927, "Problem Of Cleaning Politics" in the Miami News on Sep. 19 1927, "National Affairs: Indiana Scandals" in Time on Sep. 19 1927, "Trial Date Set" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Dec. 6 1927, "Jackson Trial Planned Feb. 7" in the Miami News on Dec. 6 1927, "Stevenson On Witness Stand" in the Southeast Missourian on Feb. 15 1928, "McCray Says $10,000 Was Jackson's Bait" in the New York Times on Feb. 16 1928, "Governor Jackson Acquitted" in the Sarasota Herald on Feb. 17 1928, "Corruption: In Indiana" in Time on Feb. 28 1928, "Ex-Governor Staging Comeback" in the Berkeley Daily Gazette on May 7 1929, "Gun Death Is Puzzle To Police" in the Times Daily on May 20 1930, "President Grants Pardon To McCray" in the Owosso Argus-Press on Dec. 24 1930, "Dies" in the St. Petersburg Times on Dec. 20 1938, Fragile Alliances: Labor and Politics in Evansville Indiana 1919-1955 by Samuel William White, James P. Goodrich: Indiana's "Governor Strangelove" by Benjamin D. Rhodes, A Standard History of Jasper and Newton Counties Indiana by Lewis H. Hamilton and William Darroch

John W. Hunter: giving the lie

2010-04-25T16:49:00.006-04:00

Image from National Magazine

The first scandal to put John Ward Hunter's name down in newsprint involved a much more serious charge than the blemish his brief congressional career would later receive. In 1864, he was charged with forging checks during his duties at the United States Custom House in New York City, where he had been employed for over 30 years. Upon looking through a bundle of checks received by the Custom House, an assistant auditor had caught a couple of suspicious ones, one for $4,200 and another for $5,600. Both checks had been presented to assistant treasurer John J. Cisco but not paid over; the checks also bore the signature of Hunter, then serving as assistant auditor.

The case went to trial in April. Cisco was the star witness for the prosecution, saying the handwriting on the checks was a perfect match for Hunter; he testified that the assistant auditor wrote with certain peculiarities that he had not seen replicated anywhere else. Hunter's bank accounts had also shown a recent increase through large cash deposits. "The defense might bring all the world here with speaking trumpets to swear that Hunter was an angel, but it would all turn finally upon the question of his signature," the New York Times summarized in an account of a cross-examination where Cisco was essentially asked if Hunter was a decent person. "It was agreed that the prosecution should concede that Mr. Hunter had always borne a good character."

The defense lawyer proved masterful enough that Hunter's character was not his primary argument in the case. Instead, he focused on Cisco's steadfast testimony that the signatures on the checks belonged to Hunter. A stockbroker and photography analyst both testified that the signatures themselves were forged. The latter witness was especially compelling, as he compared prints of a genuine signature and the ones on the checks. Under magnification, the characteristics on the check suggested that the signature had been constructed from multiple pen strokes rather than a natural flow. A bookkeeper in the Custom House was also able to forge an impressive copy of Cisco's signature; the imitation put the assistant treasurer's recognition skills into question, as he was forced to admit that the forgery looked identical to his own.

The prosecution's case crumbled under further arguments by the defense. The defense explained the cash deposits as a result of many years of savings on his wife's part, combined with Hunter's duties as the executor of an estate. They also questioned why investigators had not taken a serious look at other men in the Customs House who would have had access to Hunter's signature. Cisco was accused of putting pressure on District Attorney E.D. Smith to issue a warrant of arrest for Hunter, and Smith took the stand himself to confirm that he acted on urgent requests from Cisco. Hunter himself testified very briefly. When asked if he wrote the two signatures, he replied, "I never did, nor did I ever see them before the day of the discovery." He answered only one other question, saying he did not know who wrote the signatures.

Immediately after Hunter's testimony, Smith asked for Hunter to be found innocent. He asked for reparations to be paid to him "for the wrong that has been done to him." Cisco also softened in his opinion on the matter. Three months after the trial, he wrote an apology to Hunter and included a check covering the assistant auditor's legal expenses. "Not a doubt rests on my mind of your entire innocence, and I deeply regret the erroneous theory on which I acted," said Cisco. "It was a serious mistake, which I regret should have been made."

Hunter was born in Bedford (now part of Brooklyn) in New York in October of 1807. After his school days, he began working as a clerk in a wholesale grocery store in 1824. From there, he made the switch to banking work and his long career with the U.S. Custom House. He started out as a clerk in 1831, and five years later he was appointed assistant auditor. He only stayed on for about a year after his success in the trial, then resigned to take a position as treasurer of the Dime Savings Bank in Brooklyn.

By some accounts, Hunter first entered the House of Representatives in 1864. However, these seem to be mistaken, as contemporary newspapers fail to mention such an election result. More likely, he first came to Congress following the death of Republican Representative James Humphrey in June of 1866. Successfully running as a Democrat to fill the vacancy, Hunter did not try to keep the seat in that year's regular election. He only served for a matter of months, from December of 1866 to March of 1867.

Hunter did not make much of a lasting impression during this service, but he did manage to earn a rebuke during a heated debate. On January 26 of 1867, Republican Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania said that he intended to press his Reconstruction bill to a vote on the 28th. By the New York Times account, Stevens didn't sound so enthusiastic about it, since he didn't think the proposition was ready and didn't expect to get much done; he also said only five minutes would be allowed for each congressman to speak on the matter. Other Republican congressmen also suggested that the bill was somewhat unsound, but that they would get behind it. Roscoe Conkling of New York criticized Stevens, claiming he was responsible for delays on the vote because the committee on Reconstruction that Stevens chaired had failed to assemble in time to be productive. James Mitchell Ashley of Ohio supported a final vote on the measure, but admitted that the GOP had not arrived at a conclusive policy. Ashley chaired the Committee on the Territories, and had previously backed a substitute plan they were working on as advocated by the Southern Republican Association; however, he said he figured recommitting the bill to committee would kill it. Stevens added that his measure had passed muster with his committee on Reconstruction, and that the House could vote it down if they so desired.

The discussion on the issue ended up devolving into a racially-charged war of words over the Civil War and the proposed reform measures for the South. Elijah Hise, a Kentucky Democrat, suggested that the Republican Party was in favor of disenfranchising the majority and only favored suffrage for those they deemed loyal, including "Negros and interlopers in the Southern states." John Winthrop Chanler, a Democrat from New York, asked Ashley whether he would recognize a state government if it were based solely on the black vote. After a back-and-forth exchange, in which Chanler suggested that Ashley was reluctant to answer, the Ohio congressman finally proclaimed, "If there is a single state of the American Union in which there is not a loyal man except black men, I would clothe them with the right of franchise and every other right under this government."

Under these provocations, Ashley launched an attack on the more conservative elements of the Republican Party as well as the Democrats in general. He raised the question of whether deposed Confederate president Jefferson Davis and other such rebels would be worthy of sitting in Congress, and accused Republican President Andrew Johnson of being a leader of a negative campaign that was just as injurious as the war. "The assumption, the brazen-faced assumption, of men here, who, during the entire war, were in secret alliance with the rebels, coming here now and joining hands with the apostate at the other end of the avenue [Johnson], who is their leader, the recognized leader of a counter-revolution or negative rebellion, as I said awhile ago, passes comprehension."

Charles Winfield, an outgoing Democratic representative from New York, demanded an explanation for the remark. Ashley clarified that it was something of a blanket denunciation, encompassing draft dodgers, conspirators against the North, and people who had been opposed to further funding or manpower for the war. When further pressed by Winfield, Ashley admitted that he could not indict specific members of the House with these accusations, but supposed by their votes that such people might be sitting in the chamber. "I do not propose to be tried on general reputation," Winfield shot back. "I desire to say for myself, and so far as I know for my associates on this floor of my own school of politics, that the insinuation that we are or ever have been in alliance with the rebels is utterly untrue, and if intended to apply to us it is a base and unfounded slander."

At that point, Hunter chimed in, "And I say that, so far as I am concerned, it is a base lie."

Schuyler Colfax, an Indiana Republican and Speaker of the House, chided Hunter for speaking out of order. Hunter was backed up by Samuel Jackson Randall, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, who also spoke out of turn to say that Hunter's statement was truthful even if it didn't abide by the House rules. Ralph Hill, an outgoing Indiana Republican, took a different opinion. He immediately made a motion to censure Hunter because he "transgressed the order of this body."

Most of the representatives didn't care about the squabble. A vote to table Hill's resolution failed with 75 opposed and 32 in favor, but 84 congressmen didn't even participate. The discussion on the censure resolution dissolved into another scene of bedlam. Francis Celeste Le Blond, an Ohio Democrat, suggested that Ashley's statements were far worse than Hunter's passing remark. "When you come down to the debate today in which my colleague participated, using the language which has been just read from the Speaker's desk, I ask the gentlemen what more offensive language could be used to any man who was an American citizen and willing to abide by the laws and the Constitution of his government," Le Blond concluded. The argument brought applause from the galleries, and Schuyler promptly scolded the spectators. When William Elias Niblack, an Indiana Democrat, muttered that the applause was on the Democratic side, Schuyler took offense. Apparently thinking that Niblack was hinting that he only tried to quell the applause supporting the Democrats, Schuyler said he had always asked the galleries to be decorous and threatened to have the spectators removed if they did not quiet down. Niblack apologized, saying the remark was meant to be private and that he did not mean to offend.

In response to Le Blond's suggestion, Hill said the House had allowed similar language to slide in recent debates and that he was getting tired of it. "I thought they had gone far enough; that when we had reached such a point that every day or two we must hear the epithets 'lie' and 'liar' bandied in this House it was time someone should interpose," he said. When Niblack asked if being labeled a traitor was also an example of offensive language, Hill replied that the term could be seen as a compliment depending on the circumstances. Being called a liar, by contrast, was offensive under any circumstances and he wanted the House to make an example to prevent further incidents.

The censure carried 84-34, with 81 congressmen not voting. The tally took place after one representative tried unsuccessfully to be excused, reasoning that he could support neither Hunter's outburst nor Ashley's insinuations. Schuyler delivered the brief punishment: "No deliberative body can preserve its self-respect, or command the respect of its constituents, which tolerates the use of offensive language, condemned by gentlemen everywhere, as well as by parliamentary law. For having transgressed the rules of the House it is resolved that you shall be censured by the Speaker. Having thus declared the censure of the House, you will resume your seat."

Hunter gave a similarly brief address, explaining that he meant no disrespect to the House and spoke in a "moment of irritation at a false charge." Hill was satisfied enough with his contrition that he asked for the censure proceedings to be stricken from the record, but other representatives objected. One was Ashley, who got in the last word by essentially reiterating his earlier argument and delivering his own rebuke to Hunter. He said that men often speak on the spur of the moment in a heated debate, but that he had not been called to order himself during any of his eight years in the House; Ashley added that he had not meant any offense either, but in clarifying his list of Union enemies he gave the same categories, complete with the Congress-encompassing qualifier "here or elsewhere."

The New York Times reported that Republicans "generally voted for the resolution, yet Hunter had the sympathy of many of them who considered the language of Mr. Ashley totally uncalled for, and though, according to the ruling of the chair heretofore, not strictly out of order, yet as great a violation of the dignity and the decency of the debate as was Mr. Hunter's impulsive remark." The newspaper added that the debate "furnished an unusual amount of interest to the galleries, which were well filled in anticipation of a debate on the Reconstruction question."

After leaving Congress, Hunter made an unsuccessful bid for state assembly and served on the Board of Education. He was nominated for the postmaster's position in Brooklyn, but not confirmed by the Senate. Then in 1873, Hunter won the race for Brooklyn mayor, serving from 1874 to 1875. He apparently lost this job after crossing Democratic party boss Hugh McLaughlin by refusing to appoint a certain water commissioner. The Bankers' Magazine reported that he was instrumental in supporting the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge while in office, and he became a stockholder in the endeavor. In 1886, former commissioner of the Brooklyn public works Thomas W. Adams sued Hunter for $10,000, saying Hunter had publicly accused him while mayor of allowing fraud and corrupt contracts; the outcome of the suit was not reported.

Hunter left politics in favor of a return to his work as treasurer of the Dime Savings Bank. National Magazine claimed that it is "to his financial skill and his reputation for unswerving integrity, much of the success of that bank is due." He became the bank's director as well as the director of a trust company and two insurance firms. In his spare time, Hunter was active in the Old Brooklynites and the Tree Planting and Fountain Society. He suffered a series of personal tragedies in 1881. Three of his children died over the course of a four-month period, including a naval lieutenant who died of poor health and a commission merchant who killed himself in a park in Fall River, Massachusetts. When Hunter died in Brooklyn in April of 1900, he was survived by only one child (a daughter) as well as five granddaughters.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "The Custom-House Forgeries Cross-Examination of John J. Cisco" in the New York Times on Apr. 12 1864, "The Custom-House Forgeries" in the New York Times on Apr. 14 1864, "The Sub-Treasury Forgeries" in the New York Times on Apr. 21 1864, "Conclusion Of The Hunter Case" in the New York Times on Apr. 24 1864, "Close Of The Hunter Case" in the New York Times on Apr. 25 1864, "Vindication Of Assistant Auditor J.W. Hunter" in the New York Times on Sep. 24 1864, "Excitement In The House" in the New York Times on Jan. 27 1867, "Thirty-Ninth Congress, Second Session" in the New York Times on Jan. 27 1867, "Review Of The Week" in the Lewiston Evening Journal on Jan. 30 1867, "Brooklyn City Government For 1874" in the New York Timeson Jan. 1 1874, "Suicide Of Mr. W.A. Hunter" in the New York Times on Mar. 25 1881, "Death Of Lieut. Hunter, U.S.N." in the New York Times on Jul. 19 1881, "Thinks His Character Defamed" in the New York Times on Mar. 4 1886, "John W. Hunter Dead" in the New York Times on Apr. 18 1900, National Magazine: A Monthly Journal of American History Volume 19, Bankers' Magazine Volume 60, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge by David G. McCullough, Record of an Examination Under a Warrant by Kenneth G. White, Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States Being the Session of the Thirty-Ninth Congress, Record of an Examination Under a Warrant by Kenneth G. White, The Congressional Globe Volume 58 Part 2

Marshall Tate Polk: almost south of the border

2010-04-03T11:29:00.004-04:00

Image from findagrave.com

The conclusion of the attempted flight of Marshall Tate Polk Jr. from the country sounds like it could have inspired a Wild West movie. Running from charges that he'd stolen funds from Tennessee while acting as the state's treasurer, Polk wound up on a train making its way through Texas. The conductor of his sleeping coach happened to recognize him from the notices posted along his likely route. Once Polk got off at a station, the conductor disembarked as well, gathered a companion, and told another person to contact the authorities. The conductor then took off after Polk, who had left with his servant on horseback.

The conductor and his friend gave chase. Somewhere in the Texas scrub, the conductor managed to get the drop on Polk, stepping out from behind a bush to confront him. Both Polk and his servant pulled their revolvers on the intruder, but the conductor remained steadfast. He warned that the surrounding countryside was crawling with rangers. "Put up your guns, or I'll have your heads blown over into Mexico," the man warned. Sufficiently intimidated, both Polk and his servant handed over their weapons. It was a bold maneuver, and one that paid off well. The conductor had been unarmed until the two men surrendered their guns, and he and his companion promptly used the revolvers to hold the two men until the rangers actually arrived.

Most of these details come from a New York Times article featuring the conductor's story, so it is quite possible that the trainman chose to embellish the details. The underlying facts are sound, however. Suspected of embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars in state funds, Polk had been riding the rails through Texas. And he was indeed captured not far from the Rio Grande while fleeing with his servant on horseback.

Marshall Polk, who sometimes went by the abbreviated name M.T. Polk, was also somewhat notable due to his relationship to a former President. Polk's father died about a month before he was born in Morgantown, North Carolina, in May of 1831. His uncle, James Knox Polk, was a U.S. Representative from Tennessee at the time, and he took his nephew under his wing; this elder Polk would go on to be the Governor of Tennessee and eleventh President of the United States.

Marshall Polk attended Georgetown University, and graduated from West Point in 1852. He joined the Confederate army during the Civil War as a captain of artillery, and was seriously wounded at Shiloh. The injuries were bad enough that he had to have a leg amputated, but he remained in the service and was promoted to colonel, serving on the staff of General Leonidas Polk (presumably another relative). After the war, Marshall Polk lived on a farm near Bolivar, Tennessee and published the Bolivar Bulletin. He first entered the political field in 1876 by attending the Democratic National Convention as a delegate, and the next year he began serving the first of three terms as Tennessee state treasurer.

It was later determined that Polk had been embezzling for five of his six years in office. The action most cited after the discovery of this crime was the One Hundred and Three Funding Bill to settle the state debt. Polk was given $600,000 to pay interest on the bill, but left in possession of the money after an injunction was started and the bill declared unconstitutional. It was also mentioned that Polk had another $400,000 under his control when the actions regarding the bill took place. As a customary inspection was about to take place in January of 1883, Polk quietly disappeared from the state. The study found that hundreds of thousands of dollars were missing, mostly due to the lack of caution in the banks where the state funds were deposited. Polk had managed to deposit several checks, despite the fact that they lacked the signature of the state controller. With this lack of oversight, it wasn't difficult for the treasurer to withdraw the funds for his own personal use.

When it became clear that Polk had absconded from the state, the Tennessee house of representatives considered offering a $20,000 reward for his capture. That idea fell through after one legislator said the treasurer had nothing with which to repay the state, and so the reward would only add to the financial burden caused by the embezzlement. Polk's bond was good for $100,000, something of a small amount considering the amount of money he had control over. There had been a proposal in the legislature to increase the bond, but the bill had been stolen from the desk of the state senate clerk the day before it was supposed to go to a final vote. In the wake of the embezzlement, the legislature resolved to seize Polk's assets and thoroughly examine the state's books to find if anyone else was involved in the theft. In the midst of the upheaval, reform proposals come fast and heavy in the legislature. They included suggestions to increase treasurer's bond to $500,000 and have the treasurer make a monthly report to the Governor, controller, and secretary. Another proposal would have the treasurer deposit funds in banks with sufficient bond coverage within three days of receiving them, with the checks countersigned by the Governor and controller and marked to show what they would be used for.

Captain James Fleming, Polk's clerk and bookkeeper, helped investigators determine how the money went missing. One popular suggestion was that Polk had diverted considerable funds to political allies, and newspaper reports anticipated further criminal charges. Despite his cooperation, Fleming was arrested the next year as he was tried to leave the state. He was accused of making false entries totaling $40,000 on behalf of Polk, but the case faded from the public eye soon after. It seems no other potential co-conspirators, estimated to number about half a dozen when the scandal first broke, were charged. "Throughout the city in circles where Mr. Polk was known and liked for his generosity, there is universal regret at his disgrace which has come upon him, and perhaps no man's fall was ever more generally regretted," the New York Times declared.

Polk's point of destination was more obvious than that of the Kentucky treasurer who shared one of his names and would take flight five years later. Mexico not only contained a silver mine owned by the treasurer, but also had no extradition policy with the United States. Warrants of arrest were sent to cities along his probable escape route. Polk's wooden leg would provide a ready clue for law enforcement authorities. Five days after his departure on January 2, it was announced that he had been arrested in San Antonio, Texas by a Pinkerton detective.

Much to the horror of authorities and citizens in Tennessee, Polk got away again. The one-legged man claimed he was not Polk, but his cover story wasn't exactly convincing. He gave his name as "Tate" and said he was simply a wealthy man going to look over his mining interests. Outgoing Democratic Texas Governor said he had no authority to hold Polk unless someone made a charge against him while under oath, and the detective said he had no authority to hold the man. When Polk was finally arrested again, about 18 miles shy of the Rio Grande, the detaining marshal suggested that the treasurer had paid off the Pinkerton detective. At the time of his arrest, Polk had several state checks with him.

As Polk was being returned to Nashville, the legislature appointed attorney Atha Thomas as a replacement on the 22nd ballot. Polk told reporters on his arrival that several reports about his journey were false, including allegations that he had been drinking heavily the entire time. He also seems to have tripped over his words, saying both that he was taking a routine trip to Mexico to check up on the mine and that he intended to raise the defaulted money in order to repay the state in full. The same month that saw Polk's defalcation revealed and his subsequent dash for the border also brought his indictment, which charged that he acquired $484,000 from the state treasury through embezzlement and larceny.

An investigation determined that by 1878, about a year into his job, Polk was defaulting $20,000 to $40,000. By April of 1882, the amount was up to $216,520. The probe blasted the banks involved in the case, since they had extended false credit to Polk. In doing so, committee members determined, the banks had failed to stop the embezzlement when they could have staunched the loss at only $200,000. The banks had honored several checks not countersigned by the state controller, and Polk had distributed the money in several ventures. These included $50,000 for the silver mine, $10,000 to the Nashville American publishing company, and investments in North Carolina lumber and Alabama iron. He also loaned money to Democratic politicians.

Fortunately, Polk's theft was softened by both the attachments against his property and $150,000 which was legitimately owed to him by various people. In February of 1883, his friends proposed a payment schedule to free Polk and the state from debt, but it came to naught. The next month, however, the legislature passed an act allowing settlement. It said Polk could pay $100,000 on genuine bonds and another $150,000 on internal improvement bonds. When paid, the sureties against his property would be relieved. The act specifically stated that the settlement would not absolve him from criminal prosecution. By late June, Polk's friends had paid $75,000 toward the settlement, and there were rumors that the prosecution could be dropped. However, Polk had been arrested again only the month before. He had been granted release due to health reasons, but a $20,000 bond he had given was found to be insufficient and he was suspected of making another run for it.

Polk's trial began in June of 1883. The case was well-known enough that over a thousand people were rejected for jury duty, since they knew all about the matter. A panel was finally assembled from 12 illiterate country bumpkins. An Iowa newspaper, the Carroll Herald, clearly clearly took exception to the claim that an intelligent body had been chosen. "Tennessee has about as much reason to be proud of this phenomenal jury as of the criminal it is to try," the article sniffed. It didn't matter much in the end, as the entire jury was dismissed and a new one assembled before the trial was through. There were lingering concerns about the ability of the jurors to fairly hear the case, with one member in particular having been employed by the widow of former President Polk.

Defense attorneys argued that Polk was only guilty of "default of pay." They said large deficits against the treasurer were common enough, and could be explained through legal reasons consistent with the treasurer's duties. They added that $50,000 had already been put into the state via sureties, with another $10,000 on the way and significant sums available through the sale of the silver mine and lumber interests. The lawyers said the jurors needed to give the ex-treasurer a chance to make good the defalcation. "If he has got that money in his pocket, you can't send him to prison without first giving him a chance to pay it," they said. "He cannot be accused of refusing to pay when no one has demanded of him to pay." The jury agreed with the prosecution's assessment that Polk's actions were embezzlement through and through. He was found guilty in July, and sentenced to serve 20 years in prison with a fine equal to the amount stolen.

In February of 1884, the New York Times reported that his sentence was only 13 years; this may have been a result of an appeal or an error on the paper's part. It added that his mining interests in Mexico had been sold for $2 million, and that his health was very poor. Two days after the article was published, with an appeal set to go before the Supreme Court, Polk died of heart disease in Bolivar, Tennessee. Even this was latest development was in doubt, at least in some circles. In 1887, a report claimed that Polk may have faked his death. An Alabama citizen returned from Mexico, saying he had met Polk there. The item apparently did not gain much credibility, and it was not considered any further.

Sources: The Political Graveyard, "A Deficit In Tennessee" in the New York Times on Jan. 6 1883, "Empty Vaults" in the Aurora Daily News on Jan. 6 1883, "Polk Still A Fugitive" in the New York Times on Jan. 7 1883, "Treasurer Polk Arrested" in the New York Times on Jan. 8 1883, "Treasurer Polk Escapes" in the New York Times on Jan. 9 1883, "Treasurer Polk Recaptured" in the New York Times on Jan. 10 1883, "Treasurer Polk's Recapture" in the New York Times on Jan. 13 1883, "Some Of Polk's Methods" in the New York Times on Jan. 13 1883, "Ex-Treasurer Polk Indicted" in the Reading Eagle on Jan. 14 1883, "How The Conductor Captured Polk" in the New York Times on Jan. 15 1883, "Ex-Treasurer Polk's Friends" in the New York Times on Feb. 22 1883, "Settling With Polk" in the New York Times on Mar. 24 1883, "M.T. Polk Again In Jail" in the New York Times on May 4 1883, "Polk's Case To Be Called" in the New York Times on Jun. 25 1883, "Marsh T. Polk On Trial" in the New York Times on Jun. 27 1883, "A New Jury To Try Polk" in the New York Times on Jul. 4 1883, "Polk On Trial" in the New York Times on Jul. 16 1883, "The Polk Trial" in the New York Times on Jul. 22 1883, "Was It A Farce?" in the New York Times on Jul. 23 1883, untitled brief in the Carroll Herald on Jul. 25 1883, "Ex-Treasurer Polk, Of Tennessee" in the New York Times on Feb. 27 1884, "Death of Ex-Treasurer Polk" in the New York Times on Mar. 1 1884, "Mr. Polk Is Living" in the Meriden Daily Republican on Sep. 6 1887, The Banker's Magazine and Statistical Register Volume 37, James K. Polk: A Biographical Companion by Mark Eaton Byrnes

Jefferson Smith: freed by filibuster

2010-04-01T10:43:00.003-04:00

Image from suntimes.com

Americans accused of a crime or malfeasance are innocent until proven guilty, but inevitably the very fact that a person is being accused leaves a stain on their image. When Jefferson Smith, an independent Senator from the state of Capra, was charged with misusing his office for personal gain after only a matter of months in the position, the case against him seemed open and shut. It was only after a grueling test of endurance that Smith was vindicated, proving that he was not only innocent but a model for good government.

Smith was born in May of 1908 in Jackson City, Capra. After his graduation from high school, he worked in a printing office for some time before joining the Civilian Conservation Corps. The service was a perfect match for a man who grew up loving the outdoors, and he concluded his long days of planting trees and fish stocking to read books on nature and conservation. With the support of friends and investors, Smith launched two ventures. One, an organization called The Boy Rangers, provided nature workshops, camping outings, and other activities to introduce young men to the outdoors. The other, a magazine entitled Boy's Stuff, featured articles by Smith and contributions from his fast-growing group of readers. He became a hero to boys across the state, and his status was further solidified when he and a group of Boy Rangers fought tirelessly to snuff a wildfire around the town of Sweetwater. Smith and the group were camping nearby when the fire broke out, and they were honored for saving lives and property from the blaze. Smith was also a student of history, and enlightened his proteges with the inspiring speeches of the Founding Fathers and other renowned American figures.

Smith was perfectly happy with his lot in life when Republican Senator Sam Foley died in October of 1939. The decision of who would replace Foley fell to Republican Governor Hubert "Happy" Hopper. The Governor was so nicknamed for his enthusiastic demeanor, and it was with a wide grin that he announced his choice for a replacement: Horace Miller. The crowd assembled for the press conference dissolved into an uproar. Miller was decried as a stooge of real estate tycoon and party boss Jim Taylor. Foley had always voted in line with Taylor's interests, and there was no reason to believe that Miller, a land speculator firmly in Taylor's pocket, would perform any differently. Abashed, and concerned for his own approval ratings, Hopper put the nomination on hold. Democrats promptly offered up their candidate, a former Progressive congressman named Henry Hill.

Hopper was used to falling in line with Taylor's wants, but the upheaval at the press conference made him terrified that putting Miller into office would send him out of office at the next election. By contrast, naming Hill would surely lose him Taylor's backing. At the urging of his children, Hopper chose a third path and surprised the state by choosing Smith. Both Democrats and Republicans shied away from criticizing Smith due to his popular status in Capra. Taylor, at first outraged that Hopper had defied him by naming a "squirrel chaser" to the seat, was mollified when he decided he could mold Smith into another cog in his machine. The state's other Senator, a Republican named Joseph Paine, happened to be Smith's deceased father's best friend. He was also firmly in Taylor's pocket. He promised Taylor that he would be able to manipulate Smith with ease.

Unaware of Paine's machinations, Smith caused the Senator a bit of discomfort at a dinner held following the nomination by recalling his father saying, "Joe Paine was the finest man he ever knew." It so happened that Smith's father, the publisher of a small newspaper, was murdered after his publication vociferously supported the rights of a single miner over a powerful syndicate. In his speech, Smith went on to declare, "I don't think I'm going to be much help to you down there in Washington, Senator. I'll do my best. And with all my might, I can promise you one thing: I'll do nothing to disgrace the office of United States Senator."

Upon his arrival in Washington, D.C., he was so awed by the monuments to the nation's leaders and government that he briefly went missing on a self-guided tour. The incident did nothing to improve his image in the minds of reporters. The capital's newspapers took the opportunity to mock Smith as a bumpkin unfit for the job, often printing little of the introductory interview aside from photos of him demonstrating his nature know-how with mocking headlines. The coverage was enough that Senator Pierre Barnes, a Louisiana Democrat, questioned whether Smith was fit for the job since his "astounding and shameless performance for the newspapers" brought his rank "down to the level of a sideshow entertainer."

The barb was the only one directed against Smith that day, and he was swiftly sworn in after a curt defense by Paine. Smith recalls that he confronted the members of the National Press Club (and took swings at quite a few of them), but that they also let him in on the unsettling fact that he would be perceived as little more than a second vote to whatever Paine decided. When he told Paine of this concern, his colleague encouraged him to propose a bill in support of his novel idea: a National Boys' Camp, basically an extension of the Rangers to allow young men to experience nature and learn about the nation's history. Smith followed through on the recommendation, to the laughter of Senators amused by Smith's nervousness but the terrific applause of Boy Rangers who had made it to appear in the galleries. He proposed that the government could make a loan for the project, to be repaid by the contributions of boys across the country who would donate whatever nickels or dimes they could. The bill also stipulated that the camp would be situated on the headwaters of Willet Creek.

Smith happened to be out of the Senate, being wooed by Paine's daughter, when the Senate took up discussion on a deficiency bill. A wide-ranging act to provide funding for public works projects, it also called for the creation of a dam at the exact spot where Smith hoped to build his camp. The bill itself had been heavily influenced by Taylor, who was hoping to award the construction bids to some of his closest political allies. Paine, who supported the bill, had reluctantly sent his daughter to seduce the greenhorn Senator away from his duties. It was only by the intervention of Clarissa Saunders, Smith's chief of staff, that Smith found out about the dupe.

Smith questioned Paine on why the dam wasn't going up in a place where the water would do more good. He also became more suspicious of Taylor, realizing that the appropriation for the dam may have been specifically to benefit the man. Thinking Paine could not be trusted to control Smith, Taylor came to Washington to meet with Smith one-on-one. Taylor bluntly told Smith that he could ensure his political destiny if he agreed with his agenda. It was a rather foolish move in light of the fact that Smith was in Washington for moral reasons.

Determined to expose the corruption, Smith asked to be heard on the $45 million appropriation for the Willet Creek dam in the deficiency bill. He yielded the floor after he was interrupted by Paine, who stunned the Senate by declaring that Smith was not worthy to hold office. Smith, Paine charged, had proposed to build the National Boys' Camp on land he had owned all along. Expecting to expose Taylor's graft, Smith suddenly found himself on the defensive, with Paine openly charging that he was using his office to "legalize an outrageous profit for himself out of the purchase of that land through the nickels and dimes scraped together by the boys of this country."

The matter went before the Committee on Privileges and Elections, where the evidence against Smith was compelling. Kenneth Allen, the owner of the land at Willet Creek, told members that Smith had held camping outings there for many years. He also said he had agreed to deed the land to Smith after the Senator promised he could flip it for a substantial profit and split the money with him. The committee also heard from Governor Hopper, the Register of Deeds of Jackson County, and Senator Paine. All testified that the purchase had taken place, or that Smith had some interest in the land. Paine even said that the placid Senator had raged at him to move the dam when told about the deficiency bill, and that he had found out about the land transfer afterward. A handwriting expert testified that the signatures on documents recording the transfer belonged to Smith. Irked, Smith simply walked out of the committee hearing without saying a word.

The committee promptly recommended the expulsion of Smith, and the next time the Senator spoke in the Senate chamber it was to defend himself against the charges. He managed to gain the floor by becoming the first Senator to speak on the motion, and didn't stop speaking on the issue until over a day later.

Encouraged by Saunders, both before the discussions and from the Senate galleries, Smith showed that he had become quite familiar with the rules of the chamber. He rebuffed attempts by Paine to regain the floor, and assailed the deficiency bill as a graft-riddled fraud. When Paine questioned why he could not have given a defense before the committee, Smith roared back, "I have no defense against forged papers!" He also related his account of Taylor making an offer to keep him in office, which Paine disputed by saying he and Taylor had simply urged Smith to resign in light of the evidence against him. Paine said he felt Smith was insinuating that he was involved in corrupt practices, and declared himself so offended of his "contemptible" counterpart that he walked out of the chamber. After Smith said he would not yield the floor unless both the deficiency bill and expulsion resolution were stayed to give him a week to return to Capra and work things out.

The other Senators showed their scorn by walking out as one body, but Smith promised he would keep up a filibuster. He also managed to get the Senators back into the chamber by calling for the sergeant-at-arms to compel a quorum. As Smith began his long monologue, he alternated between a defense against the corruption charges, criticism of the deficiency bill, and patriotic discussions of the nation's ideals.

The press in Jackson City and other areas of Capra was merciless. Backed by the Taylor machine, they accused Smith of holding up funding for numerous essential public works projects and other essential services to defend his own selfish interests. A spirited defense of Smith came from an unexpected source. The small printing press which produced Boys' Stuff was swiftly converted to a political organ, and it proclaimed Smith innocent. The periodical saw some distribution, but the Taylor forces resorted to reprehensible means to silence them. Public rallies in support of Smith were broken up by the police, and Boy Rangers holding shows of support for Smith were violently attacked. The outbursts, coupled with the later events in the Senate, ultimately led the Taylor machine to collapse in a hailstorm of public contempt.

In Washington, Smith's filibuster ground on past 23 hours. The other Senators, initially ignoring Smith and doing their best to whittle away the time, seemed to become more uncertain of his guilt as the exhausted Senator refused to give up the fight. "There's no place out there for graft, or greed, or lies, or compromise with human liberties. And if that's what the grown-ups have done with this world that was given to them, then we'd better get those boys' camps started fast and see what the kids can do," he said. "And it's not too late, because this country is bigger than the Taylors, or you, or me, or anything else. Great principles don't get lost once they come to light. They're right here; you just have to see them again!"

However, Smith's faith in his home state seemed misplaced when Paine delivered thousands of telegrams to the Senate floor demanding that Smith yield. Visibly distraught as he took up and perused the papers, Smith nevertheless vowed to continue even in the face of the opposition, which he denounced as "lies." Instead, he collapsed soon after of exhaustion.

That may have marked the end of Smith's effort for good government but for what happened next. Several gunshots rang out in the hall outside the Senate. Soon after, Paine ran back into the chamber, shouting that Smith's accusations were true and demanding that he be expelled instead. Consumed with guilt over his complicity in the frame-up, Paine had tried to commit suicide but was restrained by other Senators in the hall. The Senate retired for the day, and the deficiency bill was promptly returned to committee for extensive revisions. The expulsion resolution was also taken up, and unanimously defeated. Paine, hospitalized for exhaustion, resigned the same day. He died in 1967.

Hopper promptly took credit for appointing a man as exemplary as Smith; he vowed to support other such men in Congress and rid the state of its Taylor machine. Though the declaration was clearly another example of Hopper swaying to whichever end public opinion favored, he made good on his promise and remained a steadfast Smith supporter. Smith pondered leaving the Senate to return to his work with the Rangers, but bowed to the Capra chorus for him to keep up the good work in Washington. It wasn't long before he married Saunders, the woman who had helped him carry out his famous feat. He easily won election to a six-year term when the seat was opened again in 1942, and remained in office until resigning in 1960 to take up the reigns at the National Boys' Camp he had helped to establish. While in office, he became an outspoken proponent for clean government and conservation. Smith died in Jackson City in July of 1997.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "The Boy Rangers" in the Jackson City Star on May 3 1939, "Smith Shuns Spotlight" in the Jackson City Star on Aug. 6 1939, "Happy Pick Assailed" in the Jackson City Star on Oct. 14 1939, "Democrats Propose Hill For Foley Seat" in the Washington Herald on Oct. 16 1939, "Ranger Named To Senate In Surprise Pick" in the Jackson City Star on Oct. 18 1939, "First 'Whiff' Of Washington" in the Washington Herald on Oct. 23 1939, "Smith Proposes National Boys' Camp" in the Jackson City Star on Nov. 5 1939, "Paine Accuses Smith Of Land Fraud" in the Washington Herald on Nov. 12 1939, "Smith Walks Out Of Committee Hearing" in the Jackson City Star on Nov. 14 1939, "Witnesses Testify Against Smith" in the New York Times on Nov. 14 1939, "Filibusters In The Senate" in the New York Times on Nov. 17 1939, "Smith Charges Graft, Seizes Floor" in the Pittsburgh Press on Nov. 17 1939, "Stubborn Smith Stalls Bill" in the Jackson City Star on Nov. 17 1939, "Dramatic End To Smith Filibuster" in the New York Times on Nov. 18 1939, "Smith Charges Thrown Out" in the Washington Herald on Nov. 19 1939, "Paine Resigns" in the Jackson City Star on Nov. 19 1939, "Smith Elected In Landslide" in the New York Times on Nov. 8 1942, "Smith To Leave Senate, Lead Camp" in the Jackson City Star on Jun. 20 1960, "Jefferson Smith, Champion Of Clean Government, Dead at 89" in the New York Times on Jul. 3 1997, One Man by Jefferson Smith, The Lady on the Capitol Dome by Doris Kearns Goodwin, Senator Smith by David McCullough, Ethics in the Senate by Michael Clifford, Jackson City Notables by John Herbert

Arthur Brown: second time unlucky

2010-03-18T14:34:00.011-04:00

Image from historytogo.utah.gov

By some reports, the dissolution of Arthur Brown's first marriage was punctuated by a gunshot. Unlike his later brides, not much is known about his first wife. Even her name is only recorded as L.C. Brown. Eventually, Arthur Brown took a shine to another woman: Isabel Cameron, the daughter of a state senator. It wasn't long before he deserted his family in favor of this new flame. In some versions, the move so enraged his first wife that she tried to shoot Cameron; in others, she confronted Brown in his law office and actually managed to fire a bullet, though it missed and Brown was able to take the gun away from her.

These alleged confrontations came to light in the wake of an incident that occurred a few decades after Brown's first breakup. Once again, a member of the fairer sex was upset with him because he was canoodling with someone else. But this time, the scorned woman had a better aim.

Brown's first relationship troubles took place in his home state of Michigan. Born in March of 1843 in Schoolcraft, he left for Ohio to attend Antioch College. He graduated in 1862, and went on to earn a legal degree from the University of Michigan. After his admission to the bar, he began practicing in Kalamazoo with a focus on mining and criminal law. When he walked out on his first wife, Brown was denounced by hundreds of his friends and associates. He married Cameron after his first wife divorced him, but with his reputation in Michigan broken he left the state in 1879 and relocated to Salt Lake City in Utah. He was later described as a "Gentile in faith, but a Mormon in practice."

Brown had some ambitions to be a U.S. District Attorney, but he settled for a private practice after that appointment failed to materialize. He eventually became a millionaire and well-known enough that he was chosen to represent Utah in the Senate after the territory became a state in 1896. The other Senator chosen, Frank J. Cannon, was picked for a term running through 1899. Brown's term was shorter; he was to begin in January of 1896 for a term ending in March of the next year. He didn't make much of an impact in Washington in this short time. Brown's profile in contemporary newspapers mostly focused on his steadfast opposition to the free silver movement despite its popularity in the West. "He has no consideration for anything that stands in his way, and the Senatorial courtesy is likely to receive many rude shocks," the New York Times said in their unflattering assessment. "He is an intense, bitter partisan with no sympathy for any one who does not share his view on general politics or on silver. Always pugnacious, he would be willing to take up any gauntlet." The Times also reported that there were irregularities in the Republican caucus that chose Brown, but the appointment was never seriously challenged.

Brown opted not to run for re-nomination at the end of his term and resumed practicing law. However, his foray into politics resulted in consequences that rippled through the rest of his life. At the 1896 Republican National Convention in St. Louis, he met Annie Maddison Bradley, a woman 30 years younger than him. Bradley worked as a clerk at the Salt Lake Water Works Department, and from 1900 to 1902 she was a secretary of Republican State Committee in Utah. Brown and Bradley began an affair, which seemed to have more downs than ups. Bradley was fairly open about her dalliances, telling her husband Clarence that the son she had borne in 1900 did not belong to him. Clarence responded by turning to the bottle and then leaving to work for a railroad in Nevada; there, he developed a gambling problem, embezzled from the company to compensate, and ultimately served 18 months of a two-year prison sentence. In September of 1902, Brown filed for divorce from his second wife. Isabel said that Brown abandoned her on the first of that month, and she hired a private investigator to find out what he was up to. For a time, he and Bradley had lived in Grand Junction, Colorado, but they had returned to Salt Lake City to take up rooms in a boarding house. Isabel was not keen on divorce, since she intended to be presented at court in England and divorced women were forbidden to enter there. Instead, she gladly accompanied police to the house to watch them arrest Brown and Bradley for adultery.

This action caused the love triangle to become a sensational public matter. Brown paid his own $500 bond as well as the bond for Bradley. There was a bit of a mix-up in her release, as she was sent out before a judge had officially approved the bond. She wasn't much of a fugitive; she wound up in jail four months later on the same adultery charge, and was ultimately arrested at least four times for the crime. At one point, Brown angrily confronted the police, accusing them of harassing Bradley and acting like cowards by sending out sizable forces to detain her. Brown himself racked up a similar record. In February of 1903, he was jailed after failing to pay a temporary $150 a month alimony to Isabel; he vowed to fight the order until it wound up in the Supreme Court. By October, he was under bond again for improper relations with Bradley, and the next month he was again bonded for $500 for adultery.

Isabel said the affair began about one year after the 1896 Republican National Convention, and details of fiery confrontations between the two women in Brown's life began to emerge. It was suggested that Isabel and Bradley had brawled at one point, with Isabel striking Bradley with a horsewhip. At another point, Isabel interrupted Brown and Bradley's attempt to get away to a hotel in Pontacello, Idaho. There, Isabel grabbed Bradley by the throat and threatened to kill her. In response, Brown gave Bradley a revolver to defend herself against his wife. It was also said that Bradley had accompanied Brown to court every day during a murder trial.

It soon became clear that Bradley was intent on getting Brown to marry her. Isabel blamed Bradley's "hypnotic influence" over her husband for his actions, saying she had repeatedly urged him to divorce her. "Tear up your Brigham Street home," Bradley demanded in one letter produced by Isabel. "I am sick and tired of your dallying. The longer madame stays there the more strongly entrenched is the enemy. You haven't the courage to strike the blow you promised me to strike." Isabel also produced a written statement she had taken from her husband after an incident in which he called her "my bitterest enemy" and vowed to get a divorce. She said he had sent her a letter giving over their house to her and asking that the possessions by divided up according to ownership.

Brown disputed the claims when Isabel tried to get a settlement. Isabel said that Brown owned property in Utah, Idaho, Michigan, and Missouri valued at $291,248, that he had already named Bradley as a beneficiary in his will, and that he would try to hide his assets. She said he made a respectable $1,000 a month from his legal practice, while she earned a mere five dollars a month renting property. She asked that she be given ownership of the house, as Brown had apparently done with his letter, as well as a monthly stipend of $370 for the rest of her life. She won the temporary alimony which Brown refused to pay. Meanwhile, Bradley threatened in October of 1903 to plead guilty to two adultery charges against her and thus take Brown with her to jail unless he finalized the divorce and married her. By this point, she felt Brown had made peace with his wife, but also claimed that Brown had begged her not to enter the plea and promised he would get a divorce. Bradley pleaded anyway, but Brown managed to argue that the charges against him should be quashed because his wife should not be able to testify. The court agreed, and Bradley went to jail as Brown went free.

The scandal gradually faded away, but the relationship between Brown and Bradley resurfaced dramatically on December 8, 1908 at the Raleigh Hotel in Washington, D.C. Brown had traveled to the city to represent the St. Louis Mining Company in a lawsuit against the Montana Mining Company. A maid heard two gunshots and rushed to get the manager, who found Brown sprawled out on the floor and Bradley standing nearby. "She shot me," Brown proclaimed simply. The manager performed initial treatment, namely giving Brown a stiff drink of brandy, and ordered Bradley to leave. "I will remain here," Bradley replied. "I am the mother of his two children."

Bradley was arrested as Brown was rushed to a hospital. He had been shot twice with a .38-caliber handgun, which the manager found in the room. One bullet had grazed his hand, and the other one ended up in his abdomen. The New York Times was optimistic, writing that the former Senator was in critical condition but recovering. The Pittsburgh Press immediately headlined their article by saying Brown had been shot "fatally." The assessment was premature, but turned out to be correct. Four days later, Brown died of kidney damage aggravated by the shooting. He was returned to Salt Lake City for burial.

Bradley proved surprisingly chatty in the days after the shooting, and spoke with the press on a few other occasions in the lead-up to her trial on a charge of murder. She caused a bit of a stir by calling up George Sutherland, a Republican Senator from Utah, after the shooting but said she simply knew him from her days in the newspaper business. She said two of her four children had been fathered by Brown, and that she wanted him to marry her to make them legitimate.

When Brown went to Washington, Bradley thought the nation's capital would provide a nice place for a quiet wedding away from Utah. Brown had thought to send Bradley to the other half of the country; before he left, he bought her a railroad ticket to California. She exchanged it in order to go to Washington, found out where Brown was staying, and took a room. She later confronted Brown in his quarters, and found that he had several letters in his room from Annie C. Adams, the mother of a famous Utah actress. Bradley said she she demanded a marriage, and that Brown had started to walk out. Enraged, she had opened fire.

Bradley was met with a fair amount of sympathy. Brown refused to speak to prosecutors before he died, and the hospital superintendent said he had promised not to press charges if he recovered; one of Brown's sons insisted that a a criminal trial take place, saying it was what his father would have wanted. Adams confirmed that she and Brown had gotten engaged, and that he hoped to make an amicable break with his mistress. Despite the fact that Bradley had taken the life of her future husband, Adams harbored no hatred toward her. "If I could have seen her I am sure I could have prevented this terrible thing from happening," said Adams. "I never met her in my life, but I have a good deal of sympathy with her. I am sure now that she realizes what a terrible mistake she has made." Public opinion of Brown took another dive when it was found that he had explicitly excluded Bradley and the two children she claimed were his from his will. "That man heaped such indignities upon me that, disgraced, robbed of everything a woman holds dear in this world, and refused amends, there was nothing left for me to do but kill him, to wipe out the stain of shame and disgrace he had placed on my life," Bradley said a few weeks before her trial began in November of 1907.

With such open admissions, Bradley's lawyers could only hope for acquittal on a technicality. At first, they said they would argue that the killing was justified under "unwritten law." They settled on the argument that Brown's persistent mistreatment of Bradley had led to pent-up emotions and finally an outburst of homicidal insanity after the snub at the hotel. Brown, they said, was essentially responsible for his own death by triggering these emotions.

Prosecutors contended that Brown's death had been premeditated, and that Bradley had made the trip to Washington with the intent of committing murder. The trial ended up turning into an indictment of Brown's character. Bradley said Brown had been a heavy drinker, and their relationship had suffered for it. They argued frequently, and on one occasion she knocked several of his teeth out with an umbrella. She testified that Brown had strung her along with empty promises of marriage. Isabel died in August of 1905, and Bradley had divorced her husband and pushed hard for matrimony since her passing. She said Brown promised in June of 1906 to marry her, and had made another reassurance as late as October of that year. Some jurors teared up at her words. A doctor who took the stand expressed such contempt for Brown that the judge rebuked him.

The trial also introduced letters exchanged between Brown and Bradley, wherein Brown referred to her with terms of endearment such as "little mint julep." In the correspondence, Bradley berated Brown for seeing "that actress" and frequently insisted on seeing him, points which prosecutors said bolstered their argument for premeditation. The judge instructed the jury to find Bradley not guilty by reason of insanity if they determined that she was not capable of understanding her actions or distinguishing between right and wrong. He gave the caveat that if the shooting was "inflamed by rage, jealousy, revenge, or any other passion," it would reduce the severity of the crime but not fulfill the requirements of an insanity defense.

A single juror held out for a guilty verdict for some time, but eventually gave in. Thus acquitted, Bradley returned to the West to live with her sister in Nevada. In an unfortunate epilogue, the son whom Bradley claimed was Brown's and carried his name also inherited his mother's homicidal tendencies. In 1915, he stabbed Bradley's other son to death during a trip in Nevada. The dispute started over the question of who would cook and who would wash the dishes. Bradley herself held a variety of jobs before opening an antique store. She died in November of 1950.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, Utah History To Go, "Utah's Senators Named" in the New York Times on Jan. 16 1896, "Brown May Lose Senatorship" in the New York Times on Jan. 17 1896, "Utah Ex-Senator Sues For Divorce" in the New York Times on Sep. 29 1902, "Lawyer Brown Under Arrest" in the Deseret News on Sep. 29 1902, "Suit Against Arthur Brown" in the Deseret News in Nov. 20 1902, "Ex-Senator Sent To Jail" in the New York Times on Feb. 6 1903, "Brown Will Appeal The Case" in the Deseret News on Feb. 28 1903, "Mrs. Bradley Makes Threat" in the Quebec Daily Mercury on Oct. 1 1903, "Local Briefs" in the Deseret News on Nov. 12 1903, "Ex-Senator Shot By A Woman At Capital" in the New York Times on Dec. 9 1906, "First Wife Shot At Brown" in the New York Times on Dec. 9 1906, "Woman Fatally Shoots Former Utah Senator" in the Pittsburgh Press on Dec. 9 1906, "Senator Brown Dead" in the Lewiston Saturday Journal on Dec. 13 1906, "Arthur Brown Claimed By Death" in the Deseret News on Dec. 13 1906, "Mrs. Adams Was Engaged" in the New York Times on Dec. 16 1906, "Mrs. Bradley Is Not Surprised" in the Pittsburgh Press on Dec. 23 1906, "Mrs. Bradley Tells Why She Shot Brown" in the Arizona Journal-Miner on Nov. 7 1907, "Mrs. Bradley's Tale Makes Jury Weep" in the New York Times on Nov. 20 1907, "Knocked Out Teeth" in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on Nov. 21 1907, "Bradley Defense Rests" in the New York Times on Nov. 27 1907, "Emotional Appeals To Bradley Jurors" in the New York Times on Dec. 1 1907, "Mrs. Bradley Not Guilty" in the Reading Eagle on Dec. 3 1907, Maude Adams: Idol of American Theater 1872-1953 by Armond Fields

Nehemiah G. Ordway: doubling Dakota

2010-02-23T19:31:00.001-05:00

Image from history.nd.gov

The town of Yankton, South Dakota, is one of the southernmost communities in the state. Tucked away near the borders with Nebraska and Iowa, Yankton was also the capital of the Dakota Territory when it existed as one large entity. It was thanks in part to the actions of Nehemiah G. Ordway, a Governor of the territory, that the country has two Dakota states and Yankton has been left not as a state capital but only as the seat of a county bearing its name.

Under Ordway's administration, the territory was swollen with thousands of settlers. Between 1879 and 1884, the population more than doubled. The question wasn't if Dakota would be admitted into the Union, it was whether it would be admitted as a single state or two. The consensus seemed to be that Yankton was located too far south to adequately cater to the vast territory, especially with settlement occurring throughout. But it was also thought that the question of whether the capital should be moved would wait until it was decided how many states would be made out of Dakota.

So it was quite a surprise when Ordway, a single-state advocate, initiated the process for a capital move before the statehood question had been resolved. In 1883, he created a nine-member commission to study the feasibility of moving the government offices elsewhere. Even creating the commission was something of a task. There was enough opposition that Ordway only secured passage in the legislature by threatening to veto consideration of communities whose members did not support the study. Eventually, it came to pass that the requirements for the new capital were pretty basic: a parcel of land, $100,000, and a location more central to Dakota.

As in Idaho, the prospect of the capital leaving its original location was met with a great deal of hostility. In the Dakota case, however, the anger arose from the seemingly transparent graft involved in the effort. Three of the commission members were affiliated with the Northern Pacific Railroad, including Alexander McKenzie, a political agent of the railroad and sheriff of Bismarck. Ordway was further influenced by Henry Villard, the president of the railroad. As the removal process went forward, Bismarck was considered for the new capital, and it just so happened that the town was located right on the Northern Pacific line. Across the territory, newspapers and "indignation meetings" denounced the proceedings as corrupt, with one meeting in Sioux Falls vowing to ask the President or House of Representatives to get rid of Ordway. "Individually, we were in favor of removal of the capital," one newspaper said, "but wanted to see it done honestly and in the interest of the territory."

Twelve different towns made a bid for the capital, but the circumstances (and perhaps some bribery) had essentially determined that the capital would go to Bismarck. The town received the honor after offering $100,000 and 320 acres of land, a cash bid equal to the other towns but a land bid twice as large as most of them. At one point, a meeting had to take place in Yankton as part of the removal process, but citizens there managed to get a court order to prevent it. Ordway and the others involved in the process managed to subvert it by holding the meeting on a rail car passing through the town, achieving the necessary requirements while at the same time not quite violating the order. Ordway established the Capital National Bank in Bismarck and began overseeing the construction of a capitol building in Bismarck, as well as public buildings such as an insane asylum, universities, and schools. The territory's split was foreshadowed by the flat out refusal of some of the government offices to leave Yankton. The treasury and supreme court were among those that stayed, essentially dividing the duties of the territory between two different capitals.

Dakotans in the southern portion of the territory were so disgusted by the removal efforts that they created the Dakota Citizens League, and in September of 1883 they held a constitutional convention in Sioux Falls to create a document exclusively for a South Dakota. The constitution was approved, but only 40 percent of the territory's voters bothered to show up to do so. Congress was not impressed, and didn't approve it. Another attempt in 1885 was made, along with an unsuccessful effort to get the capital moved from Bismarck to the present day South Dakota capital of Pierre. The turnout was similarly light, but the House of Representatives passed the constitution. Afraid that two states would upset the congressional balance by inflating the Republican count, however, the Senate turned it down. Finally, in the 1888 elections, the Republican Party turned the Dakota statehood into a campaign issue. In February of 1889, Congress passed an enabling act and, after further revisions to the constitution, North and South Dakota were admitted into the Union in December. So in his questionable actions regarding the capital removal, Ordway had brought about a result he personally disfavored but his party supported.

As was the case in numerous western territories, the residents also took something of a dislike to Ordway because he'd been brought in from out of the area. Born in Warner, New Hampshire in November of 1828, he was elected sergeant of arms of the New Hampshire house of representatives in 1855. The next year, Ordway was returned to the position and earned another two appointments: assistant clerk to the house and high sheriff of Merrimac County, a position he held for five years. In 1857, he was named marshal and tax collector of Concord. He resigned the office in 1861 after he was appointed postal agent for the New England states. Ordway also pursued financial interests, establishing the Kearsage National and Savings Banks in his hometown.

He was commissioned as a colonel in 1862, and the next year he was elected sergeant of arms for the House of Representatives for the first time. He spent 12 years there, and served several terms in the New Hampshire legislature between 1875 and 1880. Finally, Ordway took part in a constitutional convention that established major changes to the state's tax system.

Ordway was appointed Governor of the Dakota Territory in 1880 by Republican President Rutherford B. Hayes. Recognizing that Dakota soil was well-suited for growing a diverse variety of crops, Ordway arranged for a rail car of the territory's agricultural products to tour the fairs and locales of the eastern states. He was also faced almost immediately with a crisis, as heavy snows during the winter of 1880 to 1881 led to a massive spring melt and devastating floods. Though he was out of the territory at the time, he sought to raise $100,000 to go toward the ongoing relief efforts. A hefty study entitled History of Dakota Territory was hardly charitable to Ordway, but conceded that he had done well in the appointment of W.H.H. Beadle as territorial superintendent of public instruction. In fact, the authors claimed they could find not one thing amiss with the administration of education in Dakota. They said that in 1884-1885 the territory was spending more on education than 22 states and had a schoolhouse for every 151 residents, a better proportion than 21 states.

The general consensus, unfortunately, was that Ordway was an easily corruptible Governor. He had gotten into office with the support of New Hampshire land speculators, and later gave one of his associates from that state the lucrative contract for a Sioux Falls penitentiary. He gave his son the well-paying position of territorial auditor. He spent a great deal of time outside of Dakota, acting as something of a representative to Washington even though that role was already taken by the territorial delegate to Congress. This delegate, John B. Raymond, refused to introduce a bill for single statehood because he had come to office promising division. In retaliation, Ordway and his supporters managed to get Raymond's nomination overturned at the Republican Territorial Convention. He was also criticized for vetoing dozens of bills for the construction of public buildings during the 1881 legislative session, but letting thousands of bills of questionable importance through in 1883.

By the time Ordway's appointment was coming to a close in May of 1884, petitions had started to pour into the White House begging Republican President Chester A. Arthur to give them a different Governor. Their wishes were soon met by a new, more solid controversy that erupted not long before Arthur had to make up his mind on the appointment. Under territorial law, counties could petition for organization after sending the signatures of fifty residents to the Governor; the Governor could then appoint commissioners. After that point, the commissioners would assume the appointment of county officials and other matters, including where to locate the county seat (a process the Governor was not supposed to have a role in).

Several accusations about shoddy practices in the process came to light. It became apparent that the organization of counties was largely corrupt, with people forced to give cash or land to influence the appointment of commissioners who would favor their town for the county seat. Ordway was said to have rescinded the appointment of a commissioner in Hyde County upon realizing that the man wouldn't fall in line in a vote on where to place the county seat. In another incident in Potter County in 1883, the commissioners for Potter County held a meeting about where the county seat would be located. One of the commissioners was shut out, and by the time he arrived he discovered that the seat and county officers had already been chosen. He immediately wrote to a judge, accusing one of the other commissioners of bribing Ordway to receive his appointment.

A federal investigation began, and Ordway was indicted for taking bribes to influence the appointment of commissioners in Faulk County. During the criminal proceedings, Ordway ceased to be Governor and Arthur removed him from office, naming Chicago writer Gilbert A. Pierce as the next Governor. United States Attorney Hugh Campbell sought to capture Ordway in a wide net of corrupt practices. He said the Governor had delayed the organization in Faulk County for about a year despite receiving petitions. At that point, an acquaintance of Ordway's had come to Dakota and approached the authorities in two towns hoping to receive the county seat. Both towns were told they could receive the seat if they were found to be favorable, and so they each raised land and funds for that goal. Eventually, LaFoon Townsite Company was chosen after giving half of their 440 acres and some cash to help Ordway make up his mind.

The defense employed a loophole, arguing that Ordway couldn't be punished in a criminal court because of his authority. The only punishment he could receive would be removal from office by the President, something that had already happened. The prosecution fired back that Ordway was the subject to the same criminal laws as everyone else and removal alone was insufficient. The judge agreed with Ordway's defenders, and the indictment was quashed. The acquittal did nothing to save Ordway's reputation. History of Dakota said it was unfortunate that a Governor such as Ordway was in office when such strides were being made by the territory's inhabitants. "He did little for Dakota except to stir up strife and spread abroad scandalous reports regarding the integrity of the people," the publication said.

Ordway returned east to take up business pursuits and agriculture, establishing an estate of 400 to 500 acres. He also joined his friends at the Northern Pacific Railroad, becoming a special agent with the company and leading their Washington lobby. Though it was reported that Ordway's health had been seriously impaired by his efforts in Dakota, the reports were exaggerated or he managed to recover. He survived until July of 1907, when he passed away in Boston.

Sources: The State Historical Society of North Dakota, "A Dakota Bribery Case" in the New York Times on Dec. 30 1883, History of Dakota Territory Vol. 2 by George Washington Kingsbury and George Martin Smith, North Dakota Magazine Vol. 2 Issue 2, The United States: Louisiana to Ohio by Benjamin F. Shearer, South Dakota: A Bicentennial History by John R. Milton, The WPA Guide to South Dakota, A Shovel of Stars: The Making of the American West 1800 to Present by Ted Morgan, Men of Progress by Richard Herndon

James Brooks: out of stock

2010-01-09T11:08:00.012-05:00

Image from civil-war.net

With the half of the country still missing at the time of the 1864 elections, the question of how to proceed with the ongoing Civil War raised the passions of the candidates and voters. The Democratic Party had split between "Peace" faction, which favored a truce with the Confederacy, and the "War" faction, who supported the effort to reunify the nation. James Brooks, a New York City candidate for re-election to the House of Representatives, fell into the former camp. During his time in Congress, he had become a proponent of peace negotiations with the seceded states. This position did not necessarily translate into support of slavery. Brooks had asked his wife to emancipate her slaves before their marriage, and he later publicly declared slavery a dead or dying institution that could not be defended.

Old-fashioned politicking played a role in the New York election as well. Tammany Hall, the Democratic machine, had nominated former congressman Thomas J. Barr to contest Brooks in the general election. The Brooks campaign offered him $5,000 if he would withdraw from the race. Barr, a War Democrat, in turn sought to get the Republican candidate, William E. Dodge, to drop out. When he was not successful, he asked for $5,000 from the Dodge campaign to stay in the race and split the Democratic vote and received $2,000. It almost worked. When the ballots were counted, Barr came in a distant third with 4,544 votes; Dodge earned 8,435, and Brooks squeaked past with 8,583. One month after his election, Brooks and his brother, Erastus, were arrested after Peter Sweeney of Tammany Hall accused them of libel in printing accusations of about Tammany interference in the election through payouts and having inspectors ignore Brooks' votes.

Brooks' new term began in March of 1865, but the election was close enough that Dodge contested it to the House Committee on Elections. His appeal charged widespread ineptitude or corruption on the part of the election inspectors. Dodge said thousands of votes from people who weren't residents of the district had been counted, soldiers' votes had been forged, Dodge's votes had been improperly rejected, public notice had not been given of registration areas or voting places, and bribery and coercion had been used throughout. Brooks said Dodge was simply using his personal wealth to try to sway the election and the district to his side. The question dragged on into 1866, when the majority report of the committee declared that Brooks was not entitled to his seat and Dodge was. In April, the matter went to the House. After unsuccessful attempts to declare the seat vacant and refer the issue back to the people or send the question back to committee, the members agreed that Brooks should no longer be seated in an 84-45 vote, with 54 abstaining; soon after, they voted 72-52, with 59 abstaining, to put Dodge in his place. Brooks' absence was short-lived, however. Dodge, a reluctant nominee, did not seek re-election after his truncated term and Brooks won the seat back in the November election.

The hiccup in his political career and almost immediate recovery give an example of the relative success Brooks enjoyed in his life. Born in Portland, Maine in November of 1810, he earned money to attend college by working as a store clerk in Lewiston. After graduating from Waterville College in 1831, he briefly studied law and taught school while frequently writing letters to the Portland Advertiser. This last activity led to his career in editing the newspaper and serving as a political correspondent in Washington, D.C. Brooks served one term in the Maine house of representatives in 1835, and, after an unsuccessful attempt at re-election, traveled through Europe and the South, continually writing back to the Advertiser to document his adventures.

Upon his return to the United States, Brooks moved to New York City and established the New York Daily Express. He served in the New York state assembly in 1847, and in the next year was elected as a Whig to the House of Representatives, winning one more term there before he was turned out in the 1852 election. During the gaps in his political career, Brooks continued with his editorial duties, and continued working on the Express for the rest of his life.

When the war was concluded, one of the most important projects in the United States was the construction of a transcontinental railroad. Unfortunately, this undertaking was fraught with corruption and greed. The Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads, swollen with land grants, federal bonds, and state and local purchases of their stock, soon became the largest corporations in the country. In part, the project got off the ground because Thomas Durant and seven other directors of the Union Pacific bought up a defunct Philadelphia holding company and dubbed it Credit Mobilier after a prestigious French credit company. By having Credit Mobilier buy Union Pacific stock and sell it below face value, the railroad raised enough money to begin construction.

Of course, this meant Credit Mobilier was essentially a dummy organization through which Union Pacific could pay itself to collect rich dividends. The directors were well aware of this fact, and eagerly sought to increase their profits in any way possible. By being both part of the railroad and Credit Mobilier, they could not only overcharge for services but approve the faulty figure as well. The railroad further cut corners by using shoddy building materials, not paying subcontractors for work, and, most notoriously, paying laborers paltry wages for the often dangerous work. Credit Mobilier held the valuable bonds resulting from the project, while the Union Pacific's debt increased. When the two spurs linked up in Promontory Point in Utah in 1869, the railroad was $74 million in the hole while Credit Mobilier had produced some $16 million to $23 million for stockholders. The impressive accomplishment of the transcontinental route was undermined by the sub-par quality of the railroad and the unjust enrichment of Credit Mobilier. Mired in debt, Union Pacific went bankrupt in 1893.

Congress, overseeing several of the financial and other issues required to move the construction forward, was not immune from the corrupt practices. Several members had been appointed government directors of the Union Pacific, including Brooks in October of 1867. Though they were forbidden from holding the lucrative stock in companies related to the project, the temptation was overwhelming. "The members of it are in Congress; they are trustees for the bondholder, they are directors, they are stockholders, they are contractors; in Washington, they vote the subsidies, in New York they receive them, upon the Plains they expend them, and in the Credit Mobilier they divide them," journalist Charles Francis Adams wrote of Credit Mobilier in 1869. "As stockholders they own the road, as mortgagees they they have a lien upon it, as directors they contract for its construction, and as members of the Credit Mobilier they build it."

Though Adams' charge essentially outlined the Credit Mobilier problem, the issue did not explode into a full scandal until September of 1872. The New York Sun, a prominent enemy of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant's administration, published an article charging that Credit Mobilier had given 2,000 to 3,000 shares of stock to the chairmen of congressional committees related to the transcontinental railroad. The scandal broke in part because of bad blood among the Credit Mobilier group, with trustee and stockholder Henry S. McComb suing the corporation and its officers, including Republican Representative Oakes Ames of Massachusetts and former Republican congressman John B. Alley of Massachusetts, in an attempt to retrieve a signficant amount of stock he felt he had earned. The article concluded that Ames had written McComb three letters in late 1867 and early 1868, revealing that Credit Mobilier stock had been sold at a steep discount to congressmen and mostly kept in trust to hide their names. The letters also hinted that the sales aimed to influence legislation and that the stock should be put "where it will produce most good for us." The Sun implicated 12 Republican officials in the affair, including former Vice President Schuyler Colfax; Henry Wilson, a Massachusetts Senator chosen to replace him on the 1872 ticket for Grant's re-election; and Representatives James G. Blaine of Maine and James Garfield of Ohio. Brooks, who had won re-election in 1868 and 1870, was not among the names.

Coming as it did on the eve of the major election year of 1872, pro-Grant newspapers such as the New York Times accused the Sun's account of amounting to mudslinging. The Sun had indeed been highly critical of corruption during the Grant administration, and expressed its support for newspaper editor and renowned antebellum abolitionist Horace Greeley as the Presidential candidate of the Democrats and a splinter group of liberal Republicans. Though Brooks' involvement in the Credit Mobilier affair was still unknown, the Times nevertheless had harsh words for him and urged support of Republican candidate Adolphe G. Dunn. The newspaper said Brooks had been disloyal during the Civil War, shown more loyalty to Tammany Hall than the district, and that his career was "chiefly distinguished by the accumulation of a large fortune for himself." Within the year, it would be determined that this last charge had hit the nail on the head.

The Sun's accusations had little effect on the elections, which saw the re-election of Grant as well as Brooks. In December, Blaine called for an investigation into the Credit Mobilier affair, saying he wanted the "slanders" to be addressed. The House approved the formation of a committee of five attorneys led by Judge Luke Poland of Vermont. The committee called on the targeted politicians as well as representatives from Credit Mobilier, the Union Pacific, and the Central Pacific. The initial hearings were conducted behind closed doors, but certain tidbits leaked out. One involved McComb saying that Brooks had received 50 shares of Credit Mobilier stock to influence his own decisions and those of the Democrats regarding legislation about the Union Pacific railroad. Permitted to speak to the charge on the floor of the House, Brooks angrily denied the accusation. "If this charge is true, I am unfit to be a member of the House and ought to be expelled--and not only from the House, but from all association with decent men," he said. Brooks explained that his son-in-law, Charles Neilson, was the person who owned the shares and that he could produce the receipt to prove it; moreover, he said, McComb had become complicit in the crimes he was accusing Brooks of by bribing members of the Louisiana legislature to support railroad interests McComb had a stake in. "Mr. Brooks weakened the force of his explanation greatly by bringing in a great deal that seemed unnecessary, and by his bitterness toward McComb," the New York Times judged, "but his denial was very broad and very emphatic, and he left McComb a very badly impeached witness."

After the closed hearings were criticized, the proceedings were made public in January of 1873, along with transcripts from the private activities of the Poland Committee. In the same month, the House formed a second select committee to conduct their own investigation.

When the Poland Committee completed their work, they determined that Brooks had only been telling half the story in his assertion that the Credit Mobilier stock belonged to Neilson. The committee said that Brooks had spoken with Durant about acquiring $15,000 to $20,000 in stock, but no formal agreement was made. When the value of the stock increased substantially in December of 1867, Brooks again wanted a piece of the profits and sought a transfer of 200 shares. He had been made a government director of the Union Pacific railroad two months before, however, and such ownership was forbidden. To circumvent this prohibition, Brooks arranged for 100 shares of Credit Mobilier stock, $5,000 in Union Pacific bonds, and $20,000 in Union Pacific stock to be transferred to Neilson. The committee found that Neilson was not complicit in the activity, since Brooks had purchased the shares for him and Neilson immediately turned over the dividends to his father-in-law. When the Credit Mobilier stock increased by 50 percent, Brooks made the dodgy claim that it entitled him to an additional 50 shares via the agreement he had made. Even the Credit Mobilier parties were skeptical of the assertion, but Brooks ended up receiving the bonus.

Neilson admitted receiving an additional 50 shares, but denied that Brooks had ever received dividends on the stock. The committee did not believe there was sufficient evidence showing that Brooks was merely a third party, however. It discovered that Neilson had given Brooks $9,000 in dividends in June of 1868, ostensibly to repay Brooks for $10,000 that had been advanced for the purchase of the 100 shares of Credit Mobilier stock. This left only $1,000 left on the loan, yet Brooks continued to hold $16,000 worth of Union Pacific bonds given to him by Neilson as a security. The committee concluded that Brooks had been the proprietor of his son-in-law's funds, and had received the 50 shares of Credit Mobilier stock worth $15,000 to $20,000 worth of Credit Mobilier at a price of only $5,000.

While the Poland Committee determined that most of the people accused in the scandal had merely been indiscreet, it had different conclusions for Brooks and Ames. Brooks, they said, had knowingly defrauded the government and rather foolishly tried to hide the benefits of the stock while still managing the investment and dividends. They confirmed that Ames had used discounted Credit Mobilier stock to try to bribe congressmen. In February, the committee recommended that both congressmen be expelled. Two days later, the congressional committee led by Republican Representative Jeremiah Wilson of Indiana concluded that Credit Mobilier had bilked the U.S. taxpayers and Union Pacific out of millions of dollars to enrich their directors. It recommended suing to recover the lost funds.

The matter went before the House later in the month. The congressmen proved reluctant to go forward with the Poland Committee's recommendation. The chamber voted 164 to 59 against tabling the whole matter, and agreed in a 115-110 vote to accept Republican Representative Aaron Sargent's suggestion that Brooks and Ames be censured instead. The House voted 174 to 32 to censure Brooks, and 181 to 36 to censure Ames. Some Republican members immediately apologized to Ames, saying they had voted for his censure only because they felt it was what their constituents would approve. The votes also set off a barrage of abortive resolutions to retain the Poland Committee to further investigate other members charged in the scandal, since there was some grumbling that Ames and Brooks had simply been chosen to mete out symbolic punishment to both parties. These efforts eventually burned out, and the Poland Committee was discharged.

Brooks had continued to travel throughout his life, and at the time of his censure he was extremely ill after picking up a fever in Asia. The proceedings may well have further drained the vitality from him, but he retained a bit of kick in the final months of his life. He thanked the black members of the House who had voted against his punishment, and issued a statement in March reiterating his innocence. He said the Poland Committee had ignored other testimony and exploited his illness, and once again claimed that Neilson had owned the 150 shares of Credit Mobilier stock rather than him. He died in April, and Ames followed him to the grave eight days later.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, "Criminal Prosecution Of The Editors Of The Express For Libel" in the New York Times on Dec. 13 1864, "Arrest Of Hon. James Brooks" in the New York Times on Dec. 28 1864, "Washington News" in the New York Times on Mar. 27 1866, "Washington News" in the New York Times on Apr. 7 1866, "New-York Contested Election" in the New York Times on Apr. 11 1866, "James Brooks" in the Lewiston Evening Journal on Apr. 17 1872, "Dunn vs. Brooks" in the New York Times on Nov. 1 1872, "The National Capital" in the New York Times on Dec. 18 1872, "Credit Mobililer" in the New York Times on Jan. 14 1873, "Telegrams Condensed" in the Reading Eagle on Feb. 27 1873, "Ames And Brooks" in the New York Times on Feb. 28 1873, "Credit Mobilier: Mr. James Brooks Again Explains His Connection With It And Loses His Temper" in the New York Times on Mar. 8 1873, "Obituary: Hon. James Brooks" in the New York Times on May 1 1873, Nothing Like it in the World: the Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad by Stephen E. Ambrose, Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad by David Haward Bain, The Reconstruction Era: Primary Documents on Events from 1865 to 1877 by Donna Lee Dickerson, Final Freedom: the Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment by Michael Vorenberg, William E. Dodge: the Christian Merchant by William Carlos Martyn, The American Ballot Box in the Mid-Nineteenth Century by Richard Franklin Bensel, The Election Frauds of New York City and Their Prevention by John I. Davenport, The Credit Mobilier of America by J.B. Crawford, Campaign of '84 by Thomas V. Cooper, The House: The History of the House of Representatives by Robert Vincent Remini

Harold G. Hoffman: laughing all the way to the bank

2009-11-28T10:58:00.011-05:00

Hoffman leaves the funeral of Ellis Parker in 1940. Image from pro.corbis.com.

Late in the evening on October 17, 1935, Bruno Hauptmann received a surprise visit in his prison cell. Eight days before, the New Jersey Court of Errors and Appeals had affirmed the conviction of the Bronx carpenter and German immigrant in the "Crime of the Century." Sentenced to die, Hauptmann must have been reassured to see that his visitor was someone who could help save him: Harold Giles Hoffman, the Republican Governor of New Jersey. For over an hour, Hauptmann talked with the Governor and maintained his innocence in the crime: the kidnapping of Charles Lindbergh Jr., the infant son of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, from his East Amwell home in 1932 and the child's subsequent murder.

Hoffman's belated involvement in the case has gained more attention than the indisputably criminal actions he admitted to later in his life. Hoffman had won the 1934 gubernatorial election, becoming the youngest governor of the state at 38 years old, and arrived in the office in the midst of Hauptmann's trial. As governor, he did not have the sole authority to grant clemency to condemned prisoners. Rather, the state had an eight-member court of pardons consisting of the governor and seven judges; a majority vote was needed to approve a pardon, and the governor had to be included in that bloc for it to go forward. When his meeting with Hauptmann became public in December of 1935, Hoffman said he was seeking to encourage the other members of the court to visit Hauptmann as well as part of their considerations regarding further action in the matter.

Hoffman also announced that Ellis Parker, a Burlington County detective who had been put on the case by the previous governor, Democrat A. Harry Moore, would be taking another look at the evidence. Parker was of the opinion that Hauptmann was innocent, but Hoffman claimed to have a different opinion. He said that while the courts had already determined that Hauptmann was guilty of the kidnap-murder, he did not believe the crime could have been carried out by only one person. At the same time, Hoffman levied criticism against key figures in the case. He charged that police superintendent H. Norman Schwarzkopf had mishandled the original investigation, while attorney general David T. Wilentz conducted a biased prosecution. On December 22 of 1935, the same day Hauptmann appealed for clemency to the court of pardons, Lindbergh and his family secretly left the country to make a home in England. The decision was probably motivated mostly by threats made against Lindbergh's other son, but the Associated Press reported that friends of the family were also dismayed by Hoffman's visit to Hauptmann and statements suggesting that the entire drama had not been unraveled. As far as Lindbergh was concerned, Hauptmann's conviction should have closed the case.

While the Lindbergh case has spurred plenty of arguments and theories about whether justice was done and Hauptmann was the person to blame, Hoffman's actions on behalf of such a notorious character soon made him extremely unpopular. When he granted Hauptmann a 30-day reprieve from the electric chair in January of 1936, there were cries for his impeachment. Hoffman defended the action, saying he "share[d] with hundreds of our people the doubt as to the value of the evidence that placed [Hauptmann] in the Lindbergh nursery on the night of the crime." At the end of month, he ordered the state police to reopen investigation, saying there was "abundant evidence that other persons participated in the crime."

An even stranger twist occurred when the pardons court received copies of a confession signed by Paul H. Wendel, a disbarred Trenton lawyer. Wendel later denied confessing to the kidnap-murder, saying it had been extracted by torture. In addition, he claimed Parker had encouraged him to sign the document because it would lead to a financial windfall and Hoffman would ensure that he would escape punishment. Hoffman denied having any knowledge of Wendel's confession, but later admitted that he'd been informed about it. Time reported that Hoffman also fought to reduce Hauptmann's sentence to life imprisonment during a closed session, but by spring of 1936 Hoffman had said no more help would be forthcoming. On April 3, Hauptmann was executed.

The governor's actions raised questions as to whether he was simply playing politics with the infamous case. It was suggested that his criticism of Schwartzkopf aimed to replace the Republican police commissioner with one of his own appointees, while also trying to discredit the Democratic attorney general. In doing so, critics posited, Hoffman would have been able to elevate his own standing in the Republican Party and make a strong bid for Vice President at the 1936 Republican National Convention. If his actions had led to Hauptmann being found innocent or another perpetrator being arrested, he may well have been hailed as a hero.

Instead, Hoffman was blasted in the press and by members of the state government. A normally mundane selection process for four New Jersey delegates-at-large to the Republican National Convention was followed closely when former congressman Franklin William Fort challenged Hoffman for one of the spaces. With the selection process taking place not long after Hauptmann's execution, Fort charged that Hoffman was receiving support from Jersey City mayor and Democratic boss Frank Hague. However, Fort focused most of his attention on Hoffman's handling of the Hauptmann matter. "No man has done more in my memory to attempt to break down the fundamental American respect for the power and dignity of our courts of justice," he declared.

Hoffman was able to defeat Fort to become a delegate, but received the lowest number of votes of the four people selected, dashing any hopes of getting onto a national ticket. The whole affair had a few notable epilogues. Attending a formal dinner opening for the National Exhibition of American Art in New York City, Hoffman didn't much like whatever Hearst reporter Lou Wedemar was saying about the governor's political future; Hoffman responded by cold-clocking the man, whom he outweighed by 80 pounds. Hoffman later wrote a series of articles on the case for Liberty magazine; among the assertions he made was that the corpse that was found was not positively identified as Lindbergh's son. In 1985, a total of 23,633 documents related to the case, including the Lindberghs' original statements to police, were found in the garage of Hoffman's former home; Hoffman had taken them for review in his own investigation and never brought them back. The discovery prompted Hauptmann's widow to sue the state for wrongful death, arguing that the documents revealed such miscarriages of justice as handwriting experts changing their opinion on whether Hauptmann had written a ransom note after talking to police and an autopsy performed by an intoxicated coroner. State officials denied the claim, saying that the documents actually reinforced Hauptmann's conviction.

Born in South Amboy, New Jersey in February of 1896, Hoffman began working as a sports reporter when he was only 12 years old. He kept up the job through his graduation from the South Amboy High School in 1913, eventually becoming sports editor for the Perth Amboy Evening Times and freelancer for the New York Times. After serving with the Army in World War I and attaining the rank of captain, Hoffman returned to his home state to become the treasurer of the South Amboy Trust Company. He later became vice-president of the bank and remained active with the organization until 1942. Hoffman also dabbled in real estate, helping found the Hoffman-Lehrer Real Estate Corporation and serving as director of the Investor Building and Loan Association.

Hoffman's first entry into politics came in 1920, only one year after he began working with the South Amboy Trust Company, when he was chosen to be the city's treasurer. He left the post five years and two terms in the New Jersey house of assembly later, when he was chosen to be mayor of South Amboy. Hoffman also worked as a secretary to Morgan F. Larson, future governor of the state, when Larson was president of the state senate. After being elected to the House of Representatives in 1926 and 1928, Hoffman was appointed motor vehicle commissioner of New Jersey in a 59-16 vote of the state legislature. The decision came in February of 1930, and Hoffman did double duty as a congressman and commissioner until his term in the national office expired in 1931.

As motor vehicle commissioner, Hoffman became an early opponent of drunk driving. In August of 1930, he told the magistrate judges in the state to end the practices of suspending sentences for driving while intoxicated cases and allowing such offenders to pay their fines on an installment plan. Hoffman held the post until he was elected governor of New Jersey in 1934. In this race, he easily won the Republican nomination, gathering more votes than the other three contestants combined, and defeated Democrat William L. Dill (the former motor vehicle commissioner) in the general election. As governor, Hoffman remained concerned about traffic safety. In December of 1935, in the midst of the controversy over his involvement in the Hauptmann case, Hoffman wrote an article entitled "Death After Dark." He said 20,000 of the 36,000 motor vehicle accidents in the prior year had occurred at night, with drivers going too fast and having too slow of a reaction time. "As a nation, we have failed to grasp the fact that as the sun goes down, so must our speed," he said. "We are simply driving too fast for our eyes."

Hoffman was a large, jovial man who loved to play the clown. He was not above dressing up in comically oversize pants or rigging up office telephones to spray unsuspecting callers with water. Over the course of his career, he put together a collection of hundreds of lucky elephant statues. Hoffman's temper could sometimes get the better of him, though. In addition to the reporter he punched out, he once tussled with a former prizefighter in Trenton.

Hoffman's intervention in the Hauptmann case largely overshadowed his other actions during his four years in office, but his other major initiative also proved unpopular. With the Great Depression still hitting the country hard, half a million residents were putting a heavy stress on the state relief program. In order to keep the program funded, Hoffman proposed a two percent tax increase on retail sales. The tax was pushed through the legislature, but proved unpopular with the majority of the Republican Party. The conservative Clean Government Group charged that support for the bill had been purchased, with 20 Hague Democrats in the legislature voting in favor of the measure after the governor promised Hague hundreds of patronage jobs. After only 117 days, the tax was overturned. The only other instance in which Hoffman received major attention during his time as governor was a near-death experience on the Fourth of July in 1937. While reviewing a deep-sea fishing fleet, an explosion in the engine room set fire to his yacht. Hoffman and the other 27 passengers were rescued by the Coast Guard.

New Jersey law prevented Hoffman from running for a second term, so in the waning days of his administration he created the New Jersey Unemployment Compensation Commission, whose friendly commissioners ushered him in as executive director. He tried again for the GOP nomination for governor in 1940, without success. He continued to serve as the unemployment commissioner until June of 1942, when he was granted military leave to return to the Army. He served overseas as a major in the Transportation Corps, and was discharged four years later as a colonel. Even during the war, Hoffman couldn't escape some of the old charges against him. In 1943, while in Trenton, he admitted that he had recommended friends for state jobs while governor, but did not consider that there had been any wrongdoing because he had not broken any laws to do so.

After returning from his service, Hoffman tried unsuccessfully for the 1946 gubernatorial nomination and resumed his post as executive director of the unemployment commission. He was later appointed by Republican Governor Alfred E. Driscoll to be director of the newly established Division of Employment Services. In the first hint of Hoffman's future troubles, there were suspicions in 1949 that a brokerage firm Hoffman had recommended had profited unfairly from bond sales to the state. He also admitted to seeking the political support of racketeer Longie Zwillman during the 1946 primaries.

In March of 1954, Democratic Governor Robert Meyner suspended Hoffman due to the discovery of financial irregularities within his department. As the investigation proceeded, it found that Hoffman had rigged bids to benefit friends, signed illegal contracts overpaying for state office space, and other errors suggesting embezzlement. In May, Hoffman gave a letter to his daughter, Ada, containing instructions to not open it until after his death. The timing was fortuitous; Hoffman passed away the next month after suffering a heart attack while in New York City.

When Ada opened the letter, she was so upset about its contents that she ended up destroying it. Before doing so, however, she had shown it to two of her father's friends, including attorney Harry Green, who urged her to reconstruct it and make it public. Ada did so, giving as a reason the assertion that Meyner and the Democratic administration had broken their promise to treat the case quietly after Hoffman's death and were "dancing on his grave." While Ada's entire recollection is only as accurate as her memory, she fired back that Hoffman had accused Meyner of complicity in the same rental-purchasing agreement with which her father had been associated.

More serious, however, was Hoffman's deathbed admission that he had stolen state funds throughout his career. He wrote that he went into debt after his 1926 congressional campaign when future Senator Hamilton Fish Kean reneged on a promise to pay off $17,000 in expenses and only gave him $2,500. With other costs mounting from keeping houses in New Jersey and the capital (and, as some have suggested, maintaining a lifestyle including lavish parties and bootleg liquor), Hoffman began drawing on inactive accounts at the South Amboy Trust Company. To cover those shortages, he had stolen $300,000 in state funds. Further investigation determined that Hoffman had elaborately juggled $15,801,197 between different state funds to make sure that theft wasn't noticeable. Hoffman said that a state official, deceased by that time, had discovered the wrongdoing and extorted $150,000 in exchange for keeping quiet; he maintained that but for the blackmail, he would have been able to repay the debt.

Hoffman declared, rather falsely, that no one had been hurt as a result of his theft of taxpayer money. He also said the awarding of jobs to friends was the result of "an almost uncontrollable urge to help other people." He urged Ada not to let her son enter the field of politics. "It is a lousy game," Hoffman complained. "In order to be elected, you must necessarily accept favors from a large number of people. If you attempt to repay them after being elected to office, it becomes wrongdoing. If you don't, you are an ingrate." Ada also recalled that the letter had a personal apology to his family. "It is a sad heritage I leave to Mother, to Hope, and to you," he said, "but I pray it may somewhat be softened by the knowledge that I do love you all so much."

Investigators confirmed the theft and also revealed lesser instances of misconduct. Hoffman was accused of depositing $3,427,000 without interest into the Trenton Trust Company, a bank run by a friend, an action that allowed the bank to earn $300,000 in five years; the bank returned the favor by putting $150,000 into a non-interest account for Hoffman at the South Amboy Trust Company. It was also alleged that Hoffman awarded one state employee $1,000 for overtime he never performed and unfairly gave 50 companies favorably low unemployment insurance rates.

Hoffman was beyond the reach of the law, but the scandal resulted in four of his aides being suspended and a fifth one resigning. His family promised to repay the stolen money, though it is unclear how successful they were in this venture. One year after the scandal, the state sued the South Amboy Trust Company for the stolen $300,000 plus interest; the suit was settled in 1958 for $176,000. As a more lasting result, the embezzlement resulted in stricter audits on state agencies to prevent such a crime from happening again.

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, The New Jersey State Library, "Hoffman Elected To Succeed Dill" in the New York Times on Feb. 5 1930, "Hoffman Will Hold Two Public Posts" in the New York Times on Mar. 29 1930, "Asks Drastic Curb On Drunk Driving" in the New York Times on Aug. 27 1930, "Governor Signs Repeal Soon After Passage By Legislature" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Oct. 26 1935, "Noted Sleuth Says Bruno Is Innocent" in the Evening Independent on Dec. 6 1935, "Death After Dark" in the Brownsville Times on Dec. 12 1935, "Hauptmann Denies 'Doubt Of Guilt'" in the New York Times on Dec. 19 1935, "Kidnap Threats Make Lindbergh Go To England" in the Spokane Daily Chronicle on Dec. 23 1935, "Jersey Court Unique Body" in the Bend Bulletin on Dec. 23 1935, "Reprieve Hint False, Bruno Told In Cell" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Dec. 27 1935, "Crime: Hoffman To Hauptmann" in Time on Jan. 27 1936, "Gov. Hoffman Orders Police To Resume Probe Of Evidence In Lindbergh Kidnaping Case" in the Daily Illini on Jan. 31 1936, "Kidnaping Probe Meets Turndown By Legislature" in the Evening Independent on Apr. 7 1936, "Political Notes: The Hoffman Case" in Time on Apr. 13 1936, "New Jersey: Hoffman v. Fort" in Time on Jun. 1 1936, "People" in Time on Jul. 12 1937, "Hoffman Defends Patronage Action" in the New York Times on Dec. 22 1943, "Hoffman To Direct UCC" in the New York Times on Jun. 8 1946, "Hoffman Defends Record In Office" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Jun. 25 1954, "A Death Divulges A Life Of Deception" in Life on Jun. 28 1954, "Joker's Heritage" in Time on Jun. 28 1954, "Millions Juggled In Hoffman Theft" in the New York Times on Jul. 30 1954, "Jersey Sues Bank On Hoffman Fund" in the New York Times on Feb. 11 1955, "Jersey Settles Hoffman Claim" in the New York Times on Jul. 3 1958, "Wife Says Man 'Framed' In Lindbergh Case" in the Eugene Register-Guard on Oct. 23 1985, Encyclopedia of New Jersey edited by Maxine N. Lurie and Marc Mappen, Notorious New Jersey: 100 True Tales of Murders and Mobsters, Scandals and Scoundrels by Jon Blackwell, The Lindbergh Case by Jim Fisher, New Jersey: A History by Thomas J. Fleming

Slowdowns

2009-11-11T18:43:00.002-05:00

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

2009-11-04T17:28:00.006-05:00

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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

2009-10-19T15:59:00.007-04:00

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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 had 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, hesitated 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