The Kansas City investigation : Pendergast's downfall, 1938-1939 /

Hartmann, a Treasury Department agent, chronicled the Department's investigation of Tom Pendergast and the members of his political machine in 1939. Ferrell, author of Truman and Pendergast (CH, Mar'00), found Hartmann's manuscript in the Henry Morganthau papers at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library. The narrative describes in great detail the political corruption that was widespread in Kansas City throughout the late 1920s and '30s. The strength of the work is its straightforward presentation of the facts of the investigation. Hartmann, who headed the probe, spells out the bribery, kickbacks, and violence that plagued Kansas City during the Pendergast years. The machine was broken by scandal, and Pendergast himself was sentenced to Leavenworth prison. The results of the Kansas City investigation shocked the city; Pendergast had pleaded guilty to accepting graft. Along with the "Boss," a number of others were convicted and sentenced, while one Pendergast machine member, E. Schneider, committed suicide. Hartmann's account demonstrates that even the most powerful political machine can be brought to justice. All levels. A. Yarnell; Montana State University

Readers suffering scandal withdrawal could do worse than sample the goodies Ferrell, an emeritus history professor from Indiana University, Bloomington, has dug up on the collapse of the Pendergast machine in Kansas City in the late '30s and the difficult campaign Harry Truman faced in 1940, trying to keep the Senate seat that ultimately led him to the White House. The subject of Truman and Pendergast has been covered in the late president's biographies. In this narrower study, Ferrell concentrates on Truman's working relationship with Pendergast and on the difficult 1940 senatorial primary. Drawing on the Truman Library and oral histories of many of the people involved, Ferrell brings to life the political battles of another era and adds nuance to the portrait of the redoubtable Harry Truman. The "new news" here is the Hartmann volume: the report that agent Hartmann submitted to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau Jr. in 1942, which lay unnoticed in the voluminous Morgenthau papers for more than 50 years. Hartmann's report describes the nature of Pendergast's rule and the corruption that sent him to jail (kickbacks on the settlement of a dispute involving fire insurance premiums); readers may be most interested in its tale of the process by which investigators circled Pendergast, gathering evidence against associates before closing in on the key operator. --Mary Carroll

Published for the first time since it was submitted to Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau in 1942, treasury agent Hartmann's 1939 report on his investigation of the corrupt Pendergast political machine in Kansas City, Mo., resulted in convictions and prison terms for Thomas J. Pendergast and his lieutenants. The document was exhumed from Morgenthau's papers in 1998 by presidential scholar Ferrell (History emeritus/Indiana Univ.; Truman and Pendergast, p. 771.), whose supporting text painstakingly traces the intricate, extensive, secret web of power that sustained what has been called the greatest political machine of its time. Boss Pendergast and his gangster connections controlled the police, the municipal managers, and the city council while living lavishly off the proceeds of phony municipal bids, gambling, prostitution, and racketeering as they plundered the city treasury. Elections were a farce, won year after year by fraudulent ballots that outnumbered voter registration in some districts. Ferrell writes that Pendergast provided some 60,000 ``cemetery votes'' to FDR in 1936; in return as many as 80,000 WPA jobs went to Missouri at a time of desperate job scarcity. Eventually, honest and courageous officials, juries, judges, and newspapers worked together to kill the Pendergast machine in an income-tax case that found large expenditures exceeding reported income. Pendergast lived at the highest level during the Depression, enjoying trips to Europe, days at the racetrack, and the best hotels. Over $4 million (a very large amount at the time) was recovered in back taxes, penalties, and fines. Pendergast and his efficient team went to prison, although modern readers may be surprised at the rather light sentences. A fine contextual presentation of an important historical document exposing a crooked, greedy, ruthless political empire that short-circuited the democratic process and betrayed the public trust.