wikipedia | Thomas Joseph Pendergast (July 22, 1873 – January 26, 1945) was a political boss who controlled Kansas City and Jackson County, Missouri from approximately 1925 to 1939. "Boss Tom"
Pendergast gave workers jobs and helped elect politicians, becoming
wealthy in the process. He was eventually convicted of income tax
evasion and served 15 months in a Federal prison.
Pendergast was a patron of the early political career of Harry S. Truman, a fact that caused some controversy after Truman became Vice President and then President.
In the 1890s young Tom Pendergast worked in his older brother James Pendergast's, West Bottoms tavern. The West Bottoms were at that time an immigrant section of town located at the 'bottom' of the bluffs overlooking the Missouri River,
above which spread the more prosperous sections of Kansas City. James
Pendergast, an alderman in Kansas City's city council, tutored him in
the diversities of the city's political ways and systems and in the
strategic advantages of controlling blocs of voters. Jim retired in 1910
and died the next year, naming Tom his successor. Following his
brother's death, Pendergast served in the city council until stepping
down in 1916 to focus on consolidating the factions of the Jackson County Democratic Party.
After a new city charter passed in 1925, placed the city under the
auspices of a city manager picked by a smaller council, Pendergast
easily gained control of the government.[citation needed]
Pendergast married Caroline Snyder in January 1911 and raised three children, two girls and a boy, at their home on 5650 Ward Parkway.
Pendergast ruled from a simple, two-story yellow brick building at
1908 Main Street. Messages marked with his red scrawl were used to
secure all manner of favors. He was unquestionably corrupt and there
were regularly shootouts and beatings on election days during his watch.
Some apologists have tended to be kind to his legacy since they allege
that the permissive go-go days gave rise to the golden era of Kansas City jazz (now commemorated at the American Jazz Museum at 18th and Vine) as well as a golden era of Kansas City building. In addition he spotted the talent of Harry S. Truman
(dubbed derisively at the time as "the Senator from Pendergast").
Pendergast tried to portray a "common touch" and made attention grabbing
displays of helping pay medical bills, provide "jobs", and hosted
famous Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for the poor. Often due to
fraud and intimidation Kansas City voter turnout tended to be close to
100 percent in the Pendergast days.[1]
Despite Prohibition, Pendergast's machine and a bribed police force allowed alcohol and gambling.
Additionally many elections were fixed to keep political friends in
power. In return, Pendergast's companies like Ready-Mixed Concrete were
awarded government contracts. Under a $40 million bond program the city
constructed many civic buildings during the Depression. Among these
projects were the Jackson County courthouse in downtown Kansas City, and
the concrete "paving" of Brush Creek near the Country Club Plaza. (A local urban legend,
that bodies of Pendergast opponents were buried under the Brush Creek
concrete, was finally put to rest when the concrete was torn up for a
renewal project in the 1980s.) He also had a hand in other projects like
the Power and Light Building, Fidelity Bank and Trust Building, Municipal Auditorium, and the construction of inner-city high schools.
Pendergast was able to place many of his associates in positions of authority throughout Jackson County. Pendergast handpicked Harry S. Truman, the 1934 candidate for U.S. Senate, and Guy Brasfield Park as governor in 1932 when the previous candidate, Francis Wilson, died two weeks before the election.
Pendergast also extended his rule into neighboring cities such as Omaha, Nebraska and Wichita, Kansas
where members of his family had set up branches of the Ready-Mixed
Concrete company. The Pendergast stamp was to be found in the packing
plant industries, local politics, bogus construction contracts and the
jazz scene in those cities. Many of Truman's old war buddies had
veterans' clubs in Omaha.
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