Last week, Attorney General Frank Murphy, accompanied by Chief J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI, suddenly appeared in Kansas City, Mo. This was but one stop for them, they said, on a whirlwind, 48-hour "inspection trip" to five big Midwest cities. Mr. Murphy explained that his mission was to tell his U. S. District Attorneys to snap into their work, clean up their dockets, above all not to cringe and flinch before any political overlords.
Newshawks knew that income tax evasion charges against William R. Skidmore, politically potent Chicago gambling tycoon, was one of the cases on Mr. Murphy's mind. They also knew that similar charges, of great magnitude, were being pressed in Kansas City against an even greater overlord than Tammany's Jimmy Hines. Three days after Mr. Murphy's visit, the Kansas City sensation was sprung: U. S. District Attorney Maurice M. Milligan obtained the indictment of Thomas J. Pendergast, a senior U. S. Democratic boss. Charge: Cheating the U. S. of income taxes on $315,000.
Ordinarily, FBI operatives do not enter income tax cases until the Treasury's T-men (internal revenue secret agents) have finished their work. Supposition was that the FBI stepped in early on Boss Pendergast's case because he is not only old (66) but sick. The Administration had to hurry, to be sure and match Tom Dewey's Hines sensation with an even greater prosecution of its own.
Credit for tipping President Roosevelt off personally on the case against Boss Pendergast was given to Missouri's Governor Lloyd C. Stark, handsome, 53-year-old Democrat of military background and bearing, famed for the apples ("Stark's Delicious") which his father raised before him. For alert Governor Stark a Presidential trial balloon promptly went up last week in the famed "Washington Merry-Go-Round" (syndicated column by Drew Pearson & Robert S. Allen).
Governor Stark quarreled with Boss Pendergast in 1937 over the reappointment of R. Emmet O'Malley, State superintendent of insurance. All Missouri had wondered about a great insurance rate fight, which Mr. O'Malley settled in 1935. Insurance companies had jacked up their rates on fire and windstorms. Some $9,500,000 in increased premium collections were impounded by the courts when the policyholders protested. Mr. O'Malley's settlement returned 20% of the money to policyholders, 50% to the companies; the other 30% was to defray litigation costs. What the grand jury believed last week when it indicted Boss Pendergast and Mr. O'Malley, was that a $447,000 slush fund handed out for the insurance companies by a man named Street in Chicago, was split between Pendergast, O'Malley and a few others. Messrs. Pendergast & O'Malley posted $10,000 bail each. Said Boss Pendergast: "There's nothing the matter with me."