Word: hoffa
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Grim, gruff John McClellan rapped the table with his gavel. Before him in the Senate caucus room sat Teamster Vice President James Riddle Hoffa, his stony face pale, his big fists flexing. It was a weary moment, the climax of 17 hours of question and evasion before McClellan's Senate labor-rackets committee, during which Hoffa wriggled relentlessly over craggy points of absurdity. McClellan began to talk: "For reasons that are apparent to everyone who has followed these hearings, we have reached a point where it seems to be useless and a waste of the committee's time...
With that, McClellan ordered a subpoena served on Jimmy ("Mr. Hoffa will be back again") and then read off a damning five-page statement that summed up, for the present at least, the sordid career of one of the most powerful labor leaders in the U.S. Some key items in the committee's indictment: ¶ Hoffa borrowed money-about $90,000, all told-from a variety of union business agents, a truck owner who employed Teamsters, and Teamster officials. He rarely paid interest, signed notes or offered collateral. In most cases there was no evidence that the payments...
Bert Beveridge. Commercial's accountant kept the Test Fleet books for four years at no salary. In eight years the wives got $125,000 in profits for their $4,000 investment. And Commercial Carriers had no trouble at all with Hoffa's union. ¶ Hoffa and Brennan lent Eugene James $2,000 or $2,500 to start operations of a Detroit jukebox local; in return, "Jimmie" James, later accused by a Senate investigation committee of stealing $900,000 from a welfare fund, put Hoffa's and Brennan's wives on the union payroll (using their maiden...
...Hoffa, who continually associated with and employed a gang of ex-convicts, masterminded the chartering of seven phony New York City locals, "knowing these locals to be racket-controlled and devoid of membership." He secretly joined with Johnny Dio, the notorious racketeer, in conspiring to get derogatory information to be used against New York Teamster Vice President Tom Hickey, tried to get Dio a Teamster charter for his taxicab local, even though the legitimate Teamster organization under Hickey was trying to organize the cab drivers...
...Ives: "What are you going to do after you are elected, if you are elected? You have consorted with all of these bums and these criminals and everything else throughout your career practically. Are you going to continue to do that if you are elected president of the international?" Hoffa cleared his throat. "I intend to conduct myself in keeping with respectability when I become president," he said. To clean up the mess, observed Chairman McClellan, peering over the rims of his glasses, "you will have to make a decided change in Hoffa...