Boss Tom Pendergast Photos
The Morgue File in Saturday’s Crime Scene KC blog had some great photos of that celebrated Irish-American Tom Pendergast.
They include the courtroom huddle during sentencing and, as he leaves the courtroom following sentencing, a good scowl at his attorney.
James Hart also includes a great quote he found (in the Star’s book “Kansas City: An American Story) from Pendergast’s last interview with a St. Louis paper, after he got out of Leavenworth.:
I’ve done a lot for Kansas City — for the poor. I’ve done more than all the big shots and bankers … Put this down: I’ve never broken my word to any living human being I gave it to. That is the key to success in politics.
Pendergast was the son of Irish immigrants, and he’s discussed in the 2nd of the weekly podcasts on the history of the Irish in America by Mike O’Loughlin.
Pendergast is described as “The politician with the greatest effect on Missourians during the twentieth century” on the Missouri Secretary of State’s website.
The Kansas City Police Department introduces Pendergast by saying “Other than Tammany Hall in New York, the Pendergast machine in Kansas City was the longest-running and most thorough melding of vice and politics ever seen in the United States”.
The KC Public Library says “Pendergast’s influence brought more corruption to Kansas City than anyone in history, but is also credited with helping the city survive the Great Depression.”
And Time Magazine in 1938 details the following:
Tom goes to bed at nine o’clock, is shaved every morning by a barber, refuses to listen to political speeches, rarely appears in public. A teetotaler, he plays neither golf nor cards, eschews cigars for cigarets, beer for lemonade. He is vain about his grammar, not at all about his tough and much-cartooned visage.
Do check out the photos, and there’s many a great comment also.
See Stuff Vaguely Related:
• Co-existence: Kansas City & the Lebanon
• Book: Cycling Across America (by me)
• Kansas City Walls: Photo Essay
• Nobody gets upset with the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day
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