Word: pendergasts
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Democrats also can-and sometimes do-jail Democrats. The high moral character of Democrat Frank Murphy, who says he has never made an appointment for purely political reasons, permits no recognition of party lines if Evil is involved. Attorney General Murphy's men put mighty Boss Pendergast of Kansas City behind the bars (TIME, May 29). They went after judges they thought were crooked (see p. 17). High-minded, capable judges and law enforcement officers replaced unsavory political characters...
Through all this Frank Murphy was no shrinking violet. Last April he charged into the Midwest to be in at the Pendergast kill, taking with him G-Man J. Edgar Hoover, a great hand for being in on the kill himself. Everywhere Frank Murphy and John Edgar Hoover went they looked like Good, battling...
...When Tom Pendergast appeared in court with Tom Jr., his nephew James, and two attorneys, his mind was made up, his face was flushed. With what dignity remained to him, he took a seat before Federal Judge Merrill E. Otis, let his lawyers speak for him: guilty on both counts...
Kansas City and the U. S. then learned how rich, mighty Tom Pendergast got into so queasy a mess. According to the prosecution, Boss Tom wagered $2,000,000, lost $600,000 on horse races in 1935 alone. "It has been a mania with him," said Defense Attorney (and Democratic County Chairman) John G. Madden. Lawyer Madden pleaded heart trouble as reason for a light sentence: "Imprisonment would mean death. He can't survive if he enters a cell . . . . Here we have death in life. . . . I ask the utmost clemency...
Prosecutor Maurice Milligan declared that Tom Pendergast since 1927 had evaded taxes on $1,240,000, did not ask utmost severity (ten years in prison, $20,000 in fines). Judge Otis leniently ordered Defendant Pendergast to pay $10,000, serve 15 months (plus a suspended sentence of three years, five years on probation). If Tom Pendergast lives and behaves, he may have to spend only twelve months in Leavenworth Penitentiary, 40 miles from the city he no longer rules...