Pendergast, Tom (1873–1945)

ONE OF MISSOURI'S most powerful politicians during the first decades of the 20th century, Thomas Joseph “Boss Tom” Pendergast helped launch the political career [Page 492]of future president Harry S. Truman, but ultimately went to prison for corruption.

Pendergast was born into a large Catholic family in St. Joseph, Missouri. As a young man, he moved to Kansas City, where he worked in a saloon owned by his older brother James. James won a seat as a Democratic alderman in Kansas City and when he retired in 1910 he made sure that his brother Tom followed him onto the council. The younger Pendergast immediately began consolidating his political strength by any means necessary, and proved to be a ruthlessly effective organizer.

He soon controlled Kansas City and became a political force within Missouri's Democratic Party. With the Pendergast machine pulling the strings, Kansas City was wide open, with large sums of cash routinely changing hands in exchange for political favors and jobs. “Boss Tom” did business from an unassuming two-story building downtown where he chose candidates for local and state offices. He also ran a growing business empire that included real estate, a hotel, and a concrete company that prospered as a result of lucrative government contracts. He controlled a variety of gambling operations, and, during Prohibition, profited from speakeasies and the distribution of illegal alcohol. Though notoriously corrupt, Pendergast also had a reputation for efficiently distributing essential items such as food, clothing, and heating fuel to the city's poor.

Pendergast first backed Harry Truman in a successful bid for a district judgeship during the 1920s, beginning a relationship that would later be scrutinized when Truman achieved high office. With “Boss Tom's” backing, Truman won election to the U.S. Senate in 1934, prompting many of the future president's critics to claim that he was actually going to Washington to represent “the State of Pendergast.” Once in the Senate, Truman did not behave as many expected. He cooperated with the Pendergast machine in Missouri on routine patronage issues, but did not get involved with the illegal financial dealings and general corruption that eventually brought Pendergast down.

After years of rough-and-tumble conduct that often turned violent and sometimes deadly, the Pendergast machine drew attention from federal authorities in the late 1930s, and the organization began to crumble. After a highly publicized trial, “Boss Tom” was convicted of income tax evasion in 1939. He served 15 months in prison and received a parole on the condition that he refrain from any involvement in politics. No longer a political power broker, Pendergast retired after his release. He died on January 26, 1945, and Harry Truman raised eyebrows as vice president by unapologeti-cally attending his former patron's funeral.