kefauver hearings transcripts

Congress. They also talk about comics being distributed internationally and any censorship involved. Mr. George B. Davis - President Kable News Co. Draft of committee report on Infiltration of Organized Crime Into Legitimate Enterprises, Memorandum from Senator Estes Kefauver to members of the Committee, "Statement of Senator Kefauver When Introducing Crime Narcotics Bill". They included: Kefauver; Herbert O'Conor (Maryland), Lester C. Hunt (Wyoming), Alexander Wiley (Wisconsin), and Charles W. Tobey (New Hampshire). The committee's summary, which implicated the governor in illicit gambling activities, proved to be Warren's political downfall. When the committee returned, Halley asked one final question: Was it good policy to let people whose previous records had been bad to continue in the gambling business simply because theyd started before 1949? While that showdown led to new legal . In Chicago, the committee heard testimony from gangsters who confessed to using legitimate business interests to curry favor with local law enforcement. Series I: Subject Matter File (1933 - 1964) contains correspondence, memoranda, reports, reference materials and other documents gathered or created during Kefauver's legislative work. Gunner Dybwad - Executive Director of the Child Study Association of America. All materials in the first subseries are filed alphabetically according to folder topic. They ask about the editorial board but don't get very far. It wasnt surprising, then, that on November 9 the committee announced it would visit Las Vegas as part of a West Coast tour to learn about legalized gambling and its impact on neighboring states. Series XII: Speeches and News Releases (1939-1963) This series is arranged chronologically and described according to subject of speech or news releases and location given. Some of them were thoroughly grilled and William Gaines in particular had a bad 3 0 obj [10] The committee's final report, issued on April 17, 1951, included 22 recommendations for the federal government and seven recommendations for state and local authorities. Your Privacy Rights Cahlan, Kefauver kept the rest of the committee and witnesses waiting until 11, then held a press conference before starting the hearings a half-hour later. Hearings before a Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, United States Senate, Eighty-first Congress, second session, pursuant to S. Res. He first did Halley asked Jones if he knew Meyer Lansky. Cookie Settings, http://www.populist.com/96.10.kefauver.html, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America, Five Places Where You Can Still Find Gold in the United States, Scientists Taught Pet Parrots to Video Call Each Otherand the Birds Loved It, Balto's DNA Provides a New Look at the Intrepid Sled Dog, The Science of California's 'Super Bloom,' Visible From Space, What We're Still Learning About Rosalind Franklins Unheralded Brilliance. Chapter 4: Investigation They said they wouldn't be selling them, but the distribution companies wouldn't give them the better selling magazines like TV Guide unless they took and sold the crime and horror comics. Costello Defies Senators, Walks Out of Hearing Here; Faces Arrest on Contempt, by James A. Hagerty, New York Times, March 16, 1951. American News is one of, if not the biggest National Distributor of comic books at this time. Materials include correspondence, schedules, press releases, speeches, news clippings, polls and other political data and communications. questioned on how comic books were distributed. The Committee went west to Los Angeles, taking testimony from a handcuffed Allen Smiley, one of mobster Benjamin Bugsy Siegels former associates. While examining this issue they The Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission to advance the public understanding of organized crime's history and impact on American society. A fictionalized version of the Senate hearings is a central plot device in the 1974 film The Godfather Part II, featuring testimony by Michael Corleone, now the head of his eponymous crime family, and disgruntled Family caporegime Frank Pentangeli. With that explanation, Kefauver thanked and excused Jones and Wiener. Guess what? They also bash EC artist Johnny Craig quite badly. I owe Revelations of bribery and illegal gambling among the city's police force drew intense scrutiny from the mayor, leading one journalist to report that "one-fifth of the citys police captains were said to be slated for the skids." The Kefauver Committee held hearings in 14 cities across the country, including one in the courtroom of this building. Mr. William A. Eichhorn - Vice President of American News Co. When asked by the Committee to name one thing hed done for his country, Costello snapped, Paid my tax! The Los Angeles Times said it was the greatest TV show television has ever aired, and Variety estimated that ratings were among the highest ever achieved to that time. Chief counsel Halley probed Moores knowledge of the race wire situation. Today's Concerns About Drug Prices Echo The Past During his final months in office, a bitter Lucas tried unsuccessfully to prematurely end the committee's investigation. HTML menu inserted here for WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility compliance. Kefauver sought the Democratic Party presidential nomination in 1952 and 1956. Not all comics are bad! Mr. Charles Appel - Owner, Angus Drug Store. It was common knowledge in town. Congress. 757-1109) Part 4 (pp. Some of the more substantially covered subjects include the TVA (see Power as well as Tennessee Valley Authority), Civil Rights, Labor and Monopoly.Series II: Estes Kefauver Bills (1939-1963) consists of information about, and drafts and copies of, bills introduced or co-sponsored Senator Kefauver or of interest to him. Jones was the lieutenant governor of Nevada, a partner in the law firm of Jones, Wiener, Jones, and Zenoff, and a part owner of the Thunderbird Hotel, Golden Nugget and Pioneer Club. That is no sign he shouldnt have a license in a state where it is legal. This was a basic policy of the Tax Commission. 1991-2578) Part 8 (pp. [4][6] Many of the committee's hearings were televised live on national television to large audiences, providing many Americans with their first glimpse of organized crime's influence in the U.S.[1][5][7] Among the more notorious figures who appeared before the committee were Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo, Louis "Little New York" Campagna, Mickey Cohen, Willie Moretti, Frank Costello, Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, Meyer Lansky, Paul "The Waiter" Ricca,[6][8] Virginia Hill (former Joe Adonis-Chicago Outfit messenger and mobster Benjamin Siegel's girlfriend), and four of Irish mob boss Enoch "Nucky" Johnson's former policemen in Atlantic City were also called forth. (Creator), Southern Baptist Convention. The Kefauver collection is currently divided into fourteen series available for research. Clark started by sharing that he was a member of the corporation that owned Wilbur Clarks Desert Inn and an employee of the casino. Costello mumbled incoherent answers, became belligerent, refused to answer questions, and twice left the witness table without being dismissed. Hauser soon after hopped on a plane and fled the country to evade a tax evasion charge by the Internal Revenue Service. United States Senate. The last two subseries contain executive calendars and digests of public general bills, respectively.Series IV: Correspondence (1939-1963) consists of correspondence to and from Kefauver, his staff and his colleagues. When the committee reconvened, Henry Phillips, proprietor of the Last Frontier commission room, was sworn in. Kefauver's studied and balanced approach to his witnesses earned him the respect of many Americans. After doing all the things called wrong, there she was on top of the world, with a beautiful home in Miami Beach and a handsome husband and baby!. Email a Senate historian. We have provided links to the hearing volumes and summaries of their contents below: Part 1. Besides, it was an eye opening experience for me to Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, (Library of Congress Name Authority File), United States. Dr. Harris Peck - Director of the Bureau of Mental Health Services, Children's Court, New York, N. Y. Henry Edward Schultz - General Counsel, Association of Comic Magazine Publishers, Inc., New York, N. Y. Dr. Fredric Wertham - Author of Seduction of the Innocent, Mr. William Gaines - Publisher of EC Comics, Testimony of Walt Kelly, Milton Caniff and Joseph Musial - The National Cartoonist Society, Gunner Dybwad - Executive Director of the Child Study Association of America, Mr. William Friedman - Small comic book publisher with some horror books, Dr. Laura Bender - Psychiatrist working for DC Comics, Mr. Monroe Froehlich Jr. - Business Manager of Magazine Management Co. (Marvel Comics), Mr. William Richter - News Dealers Association of Greater New York, Mr. Alex Segal - President, Stravon Publications, Testimony of Mrs. Helen Meyer and Mr. Matthew Murphy - Vice President and Editor of Dell Publications, Hon. The table of contents Privacy Policy | In the end, Kefauver was unable to rouse Congress to action against Nevadas regime of legal commercial gambling, but in the aftermath of his committees investigations public opinion turned against illegal gambling, inspiring crackdowns against illegal gambling operations around the country. Many Illinois Democrats lost their reelection bids in that year's midterm election, including Senate Majority Leader Scott Lucas. The twenty-one lengthy volumes of Kefauver Committee hearing transcripts are available in a variety of digital formats - including PDF, EPUB, Kindle and plain text - through the Internet Archive at Archive.org (contributed by Boston Public Library). endobj Senate. a special thank you to Jeff Trexler for photocopying them and mailing to me for free. He was also president of the National Cartoonist Society, a group of popular comic strip creators. Committee on Juvenile Crime (Creator), District of Columbia. THE KEFAUVER DRUG HEARINGS 63 biotics. The Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission to advance the public understanding of organized crime's history and impact on American society. surprise that the hearings worked in getting the comic book industry to adopt a self censoring code. Griffith, and operated the casino, which opened as the second major property on the Strip in 1942, after his uncles death. A series of hearings held by a special U.S. Senate committee in 1950 and 1951 changed that perception. Senate. In addition to his duties at the Last Frontier, Moore served as a member of the Nevada Tax Commission, the administrative body that oversaw the collection of taxes from Nevada businesses, including casinos. Other accumulations of mail have been sorted by function (e.g., condolences) or by location of correspondent (eg., Tennessee county, international, et cetera. We present the text of the three interim reports, the fourth and final committee report and the Virgil Peterson testimony - dealing with organized crime history - to the committee. William J. Moore was up first. All but two of these subseries hold material created or gathered in the course of Kefauvers work with various Senate, Joint, Select and House committees. Clark started building the Desert Inn in 1947 but ran out of funds. Wiener confirmed that he was attorney for the Siegel estates executor, and that Siegels interest in the Golden Nugget race book had a value of zero. That is all, Halley responded, dismissing Jones and turning to Wiener. The two sides went back and forth on this issue. After seeing Hausers appearance at the hearings, the columnist Walter Winchell contemplated the seemingly timeless paradox of reality television when he wrote, When the chic Virginia Hill unfolded her amazing life story, many a young girl must have wondered: who really knows best? He knew that Sam Tucker, Allard Roen and Cornelius Jones were overseeing the Cleveland groups interest at the Desert Inn but was unsure about his own role in the operation, despite the fact that his name was on the marquee out front. Morning Session: [4][5] More than 600 witnesses testified. The Committees recommendations on how to clean up organized crime were largely ignored, and the crime syndicates went back to business as usual, often with the same shadowy characters from the hearings still in control. Three years before the Army-McCarthy hearings and 22 years before Watergate, the Kefauver Committee hearings in the winter of 1951 brought a parade of gamblers, hoodlums, crooked sheriffs and organized-crime figures out from the shadows to sit and testify before the white-hot lights and television cameras. Then Kefauver headed north to San Francisco, uncovering a vast pattern of illegal payouts from lobbyists to state legislators. spelled with an H in the middle. Press releases, speeches, article drafts, and government publications penned by politician Estes Kefauver and colleagues on the organized crime and juvenile delinquency commissions are included in this collection. News releases do not always include a release location. Firemen's Head Claims Ex-Mayor Got $10,000, Committee Hears Hoover and McGrath in Capital, Contact | The few pro-comics experts ban crime and horror comics and they treat them with the highest amount of respect possible. New York and New Jersey, various doctors and educators, Comic Strip artists and Fredric Wertham himself 1-434) Part 2 (pp. The United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce traveled across the country in 1950 and 1951, holding hearings in many cities to expose organized crime. As far as I know, Jones contended, he has never been in the city of Las Vegas. When confronted by Halley with rumors that Lansky was reputed to live at the Thunderbird Hotel a great deal of the time, Jones admitted that a man named Jack Lansky had been a guest at the hotel. and Horror Comic books. [3] On May 3, 1950, Vice President Alben W. Barkley, sitting in his role as President of the United States Senate, cast the tie-breaking vote, and the Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce was established. <>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> stream He returned to Tennessee to practice law, taking an interest in finance and taxation, married a Scottish woman, Nancy Pigott, and started a family that would include four children. This committee became known to the public as the Kefauver Hearings, as freshman Tennessee senator Estes Kefauver, a Democrat, chaired it. Warren accused Kefauver of being an "ambition-crazed Caesar who is trying desperately and futilely" to be a presidential candidate. "Stenographic transcript of hearings before the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. Greeson admitted he had passed on to investigator Robinson when they met at a police chiefs convention in Colorado Springs the rumor that Stacher was willing to spend $250,000 to elect a group in Reno that would permit him to buy a one-third share in the Bank Club. There was a problem playing this event. They also give some absolutely stunning numbers on how well their comics sell and bash Wertham in the process. The hearings on the West Coast drew the largest audiences recorded in daytime television. that did not think comics had an effect on juvenile delinquency, but they were not invited to testify. Estes Kefauver Papers, MPA-0144. All of it came courtesy of a deliberate-speaking, endlessly polite Southern senator in horn-rimmed glasses named Estes T. Kefauver. Dr. Harris Peck - Director of the Bureau of Mental Health Services, Children's Court, New York, N. Y. Greeson had no opinion on the ramifications of Renos wide-open gambling on surrounding states and did not know of any operators currently in Reno with outside interests. [4], The Kefauver Committee held hearings in 14 major cities across the United States. Senate. Sheriffs Ex-Wife Tells Senators How He Accumulated $150,000, New York Times, January 27, 1951. This starts with some letters from a couple of organizations that did not testify but were asked for their opinions. to keep the documents as authentic as possible. for DC and Fawcett. [9], Many of the Kefauver Committee's hearings were aimed at proving that a Sicilian-Italian organization based on strong family ties centrally controlled a vast organized crime conspiracy in the United States, but the committee never came close to justifying such a claim. Some of the correspondence in this collection is arranged chronologically; some is alphabetically arranged, or in some combination. In addition to Costello, the committee interrogated a veritable who's who of the criminal underworld. Jones was certain that neither Jack nor Meyer Lansky had ever directly or indirectly loaned any money to the Thunderbird. Antagonized by the press, Hill kicked and slapped aggressive journalists on her way out of the hearing room, actions caught on live television. He was afraid of retaliation for testifying, but Kefauver cut him off with a bland reassurance that they probably wouldnt leave him twisting in the wind (we will do our best anyway) before adjourning the committee and convening the final press conference of the day. There is much talk about the relationship Kefauver warned Carroll that hed be cited for contempt by the Senate, but Carroll refused to answer any questions, meandering nervously around the courtroom. United States. In the Senate, Estes Kefauver (D-TN) chaired the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly (part of the Senate Judiciary Committee) and had recently led a lengthy series of hearings on . He professed not to know the hotels final construction cost, or the current book value of the property. He knew Hank Greenspun, but not under his birth name of Herman. The subseries are arranged in rough alphabetical order by title of committee subject. The materials are arranged alphabetically by 85 subjects, from Advertising to Youth. To arrive at a thorough, accurate, and over-all picture of the problem of organized crime in interstate commerce, the committee, consisting of Senator Estes Kefauver as chairman; two other Democratic members, Senators Herbert R. O'Conor and Lester C. Hunt: and two Republican members, Senators Charles W. Tobey and Alexander Wiley, has visited and The Kefauver Committee held hearings in 14 cities across the country, including one in the courtroom of this building. In the aftermath of World War II, the public started hearing more about organized crime and its corrosive influence in communities across America. He approached them again in Reno three months later, and they accepted. Senator from Tennessee". The committee was officially known as United States Senate Special Committee to Investigate Crime in Interstate Commerce, but most people knew it as the Kefauver hearings.

Brandon Boston Vertical, Do Psa Help Reduce Distracted Driving Incidents, Scallops With Chorizo And Black Pudding, Articles K