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Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.

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Speaker 2: Wheeler really was a David versus Doherty's Goliath. He was

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Speaker 2: an untested freshman senator who took on Washington's most cunning

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Speaker 2: political operator, and yet he essentially won.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor

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Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical

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Speaker 1: true crime podcast Tenfold More Wicked and the co host

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Speaker 1: of the podcast Buried Bones On Exactly Right. I've traveled

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Speaker 1: around the world interviewing people for the show, and they

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Speaker 1: are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true

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Speaker 1: crime stories, and now we want to tell you those

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Speaker 1: stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold More

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Speaker 1: Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers may,

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Speaker 1: good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories

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Speaker 1: behind the stories. A man is found dead from a

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Speaker 1: gunshot wound in Washington, d C. In nineteen twenty three.

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Speaker 1: He's an aide and a confidant to a powerful politician,

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Speaker 1: the Attorney General of the United States. Was his death

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Speaker 1: a murder or a suicide? Author Nathan Masters tells us

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Speaker 1: the story at the center of his book, Crooked.

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Speaker 3: Well, let's get into the story.

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Speaker 1: Where does it make sense to you to start with

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Speaker 1: which person? You've got several players happening here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are two big players, but I would actually

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Speaker 2: start with somebody who's not one of them. I'd start

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Speaker 2: with a man named Jess Smith who was discovered dead

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Speaker 2: of a gunshot wound almost one hundred years ago to

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Speaker 2: the day that we're recording this Memorial Day, nineteen twenty

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Speaker 2: three in the Attorney General's apartment, the bedroom of the

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Speaker 2: Attorney General of the United States. And this man, Jess Smith,

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Speaker 2: he was widely known around Washington as a as a

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Speaker 2: sort of a power player behind the scenes. Nobody really

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Speaker 2: understood exactly what his relationship with the Attorney General was.

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Speaker 2: Nobody really understood exactly what he did. They just knew

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Speaker 2: that he wielded a lot of influence. And this is

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Speaker 2: the dead body that opens this mystery nonfiction novel, right,

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Speaker 2: and a suspicious crime scene because first of all, the

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Speaker 2: very first law enforcement officer on the scene is the

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Speaker 2: director of what was then called the Bureau of Investigation,

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Speaker 2: which later became the FBI, a man named Billy Burns.

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Speaker 2: Smith's head was found seemingly stuffed into a waste basket

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Speaker 2: filled with burned papers, burned government documents, burns. The director

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Speaker 2: of what became the FBI somehow lost, maybe put lost

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Speaker 2: in quotation marks, lost the handgun, lost the suicide weapon

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Speaker 2: or murder weapon.

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Speaker 4: And when he.

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Speaker 2: Finally called local authorities under the scene, he wielded a

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Speaker 2: heavy hand in directing their investigation and directed them forcefully

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Speaker 2: to a verdict of suicide or to a conclusion of suicide,

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Speaker 2: when there was really way too much going on for

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Speaker 2: the conclusion to be that quick.

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Speaker 1: Justice living with the Attorney General of the United States,

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Speaker 1: For those of us who don't know, can we define

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Speaker 1: what this person does and what is their sphere of

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Speaker 1: influence like in government? What kind of power do they

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Speaker 1: actually have.

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Speaker 4: Are we talking about Jess Smith or the Attorney General?

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Speaker 1: The Attorney General, just so we know who Jess Smith

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Speaker 1: is influencing to begin with.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the Attorney General in the nineteen twenties, especially today,

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Speaker 2: but even in the nineteen twenties was a very powerful office.

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Speaker 2: I mean it actually went back to the beginnings of

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Speaker 2: the Republic. But the Attorney General was entrusted with the

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Speaker 2: Department of Justice, which was created around eighteen seventy to

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Speaker 2: better enforce reconstruction laws, basically better enforced federal power in

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Speaker 2: the defeated South around this time. The attorney general he

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Speaker 2: was the ultimate arbiter of prosecutorial decisions. He could step

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Speaker 2: in and say to a US attorney in one of

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Speaker 2: the federal districts, don't prosecute this. He Shepherd did pardon

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Speaker 2: applications through the federal government. He managed the Bureau Investige Gation,

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Speaker 2: which was the chief investigatory body of the federal government

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Speaker 2: at the time or still is today. He wielded tremendous

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Speaker 2: power and his friend Jess Smith worked actually had a

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Speaker 2: desk in the Anti room just off the Attorney General's

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Speaker 2: private office. Wasn't on the government payroll, in fact, refused

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Speaker 2: a job on the government payroll, and he was in

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Speaker 2: there every day. He was seen with bundles of Department

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Speaker 2: of Justice files under his arms. He was always in

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Speaker 2: the Bureau of Investigations offices. Nobody knew quite what he did,

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Speaker 2: but he was so close to power. People knew that

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Speaker 2: he wielded big influence.

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Speaker 1: Is there a confirmation, like a real confirmation that they

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Speaker 1: had an intimate relationship?

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Speaker 3: These two men.

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Speaker 1: And actually, now it's probably a good time to introduce

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Speaker 1: who the attorney general was at this time.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you just reminded me that I haven't named him yet.

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Speaker 2: So the Attorney general was Harry was Harry Doherty. He

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Speaker 2: was a machine politician from Ohio. He was essentially Ohio's

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Speaker 2: Republican political boss, and his pet project through most of

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Speaker 2: his political career was shepherding a man named Warren G.

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Speaker 2: Harding into the White House, a man that he plucked

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Speaker 2: from obscurity, got elected to as a Lieutenant governor of Ohio,

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Speaker 2: got elected to the US Senate, and then Doherty engineered

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Speaker 2: Harding's unlikely election in nineteen twenty to the presidency. He

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Speaker 2: was the definitive dark horse candidate, and yet he took

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Speaker 2: the Republican nomination and he took and he took the

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Speaker 2: presidency in November, and Doherty as his prize after engineering

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Speaker 2: Harding's election, he claimed the office of Attorney general. You know,

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Speaker 2: he was technically a lawyer, although he was essentially a

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Speaker 2: lobbyist or a political operator, but he wanted the office

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Speaker 2: of attorney general over anything else.

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Speaker 1: When we talk in the wider context of presidents and

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Speaker 1: corruption of all the corrupt presidents we've had.

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Speaker 3: Would you put.

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Speaker 1: Harding in top five, top ten? Because his administration was

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Speaker 1: a mess, a mess.

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Speaker 4: It was a total mess.

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Speaker 2: And if we're speaking in terms of administrations, and I

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Speaker 2: think we separate the president as a person from the administration,

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Speaker 2: if we can just do that for a second, then yes,

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Speaker 2: it's in the top top three at least now. Now

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Speaker 2: there's no evidence that President Harding himself was complicit in

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Speaker 2: any of the corruption. I mean, he's certainly responsible for

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Speaker 2: everything that happened under his watch. Very late into his life,

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Speaker 2: in fact, his last days, he really came to regret

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Speaker 2: I believe, letting these scandals fester beneath him in his presidency.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so we've got these two main people, the Attorney General,

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Speaker 1: Harry Doherty, and then you've got his assistant, slash companion,

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Speaker 1: slash mystery man, Jess Smith. And Jess is the one

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Speaker 1: who has found shot to death with his head in

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Speaker 1: a waste paper basket in Doherty's apartment.

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Speaker 3: And what we want to talk about now.

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Speaker 1: Is the specifics that we know of the relationship between

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Speaker 1: Doherty and Smith, because I'm assuming at some point, either

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Speaker 1: you know, outwardly or behind closed doors, people are whispering

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Speaker 1: if Doherty is responsible for this, since this is the

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Speaker 1: closest person to Jess Smith, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, immediately after Smith's death, those whispers began, Those rumors

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Speaker 2: found their way through Washington and ultimately found their way

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Speaker 2: to the ear of the senator who investigated Harry Doherty.

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Speaker 2: But what we can conclude about their relationship behind closed doors,

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Speaker 2: it's not much. Smith was referred to in the day

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Speaker 2: as Doherty's you know, most intimate friend or partner in everything,

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Speaker 2: which we can we can read as coded language for

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Speaker 2: you know, gay lovers. But there is no I didn't

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Speaker 2: I didn't come across any conclusive evidence for that.

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Speaker 4: I will say that the Hardings themselves, Warren G.

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Speaker 2: Harding and his wife Laurence the first Lady, they treated

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Speaker 2: them essentially as a couple. They invited them to all

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Speaker 2: social functions in facts quite reminiscent of the relationship between

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Speaker 2: jig Or Hoover and Clyde Tolson, where it was probably

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Speaker 2: an open secret that they were romantically involved, even if

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Speaker 2: there wasn't a sexual component to it, but nobody really

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Speaker 2: spoke about it openly, which made it really hard for

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Speaker 2: me as a as a writer. And researcher to to

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Speaker 2: say anything conclusively about it.

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Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about the quote unquote investigation. I know

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Speaker 1: you said. Billy Burns with the Department of Justice arrived

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Speaker 1: and immediately tries to frame this as a suicide.

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Speaker 3: Is Doherty his boss?

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Speaker 1: Since Doherty is the Attorney General and Billy Burns works

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Speaker 1: for what would become the FBI, is he a direct boss?

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Speaker 2: Doherty is maybe not his direct supervisor, but effectively his supervisor.

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Speaker 2: Maybe not on the org chart. So one of Doherty's

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Speaker 2: first things upon becoming Attorney General was he launched a

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Speaker 2: reorganization of the Bureau of Investigation, which already had a competent,

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Speaker 2: respected director, but he preferred his own head of the

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Speaker 2: Bureau of Investigation. In fact, Billy Burns and Harry Doherty

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Speaker 2: were longtime friends. They had grown up together in Ohio.

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Speaker 2: They had met each other when they were both launching

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Speaker 2: into their respective careers, and there was a deep loyalty,

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Speaker 2: a deep bond of loyalty between the two of them.

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Speaker 2: In fact, Burns played a big role in the nineteen

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Speaker 2: twenty presidential campaign, and we have to remember that Doherty

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Speaker 2: was Harding's campaign manager. He actually functioned as Harding's campaign manager,

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Speaker 2: Billy Burns helped suppress numerous scandals that would have emerged

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Speaker 2: about Harding's illicit relationships or his affairs with multiple women,

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Speaker 2: including women who had been keeping love letters from him,

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Speaker 2: one who was raising Harding's love child. Billy Burns helped

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Speaker 2: keep those stories quiet. You know, he had people raid

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Speaker 2: local police offices and steal police records, et cetera, that

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Speaker 2: he paid them blackmail funds. Billy Burns was excellent at

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Speaker 2: uncovering secrets but also at keeping them okay.

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Speaker 4: So it made sense.

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Speaker 2: It made sense that Dougherty would want that man installed

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Speaker 2: as the head.

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Speaker 4: Of the Bureau of Investigation.

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Speaker 2: Somebody could trust to do anything care at the most

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Speaker 2: sensitive assignments.

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Speaker 1: So we cannot believe right now what Billy Burns is saying,

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Speaker 1: as sort of the lead detective in this Do we

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Speaker 1: have any objective information about the forensics at the scene, lockdoors,

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Speaker 1: the weapon that was used, the position of the body

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Speaker 1: where the gun was Do we have any kind of

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Speaker 1: source that can be trusted at this point?

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Speaker 4: Nothing?

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Speaker 2: No, there's unfortunately, there are no sources that are surviving.

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Speaker 2: There's just there are just references to sources, references to

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Speaker 2: police records that existed in.

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Speaker 4: The nineteen twenties.

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Speaker 2: There were subsequent investigations into this crime scene long after

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Speaker 2: the events of my book, but unfortunately those primary sources

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Speaker 2: are just missing or presumably destroyed.

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Speaker 1: What is your understanding of what the scene was like

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Speaker 1: when Billy Burns arrives.

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Speaker 3: And what does he see?

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Speaker 1: Is is it just I mean, I'm just picturing Jess

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Speaker 1: Smith slumped into this waste paper basket with burned papers

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Speaker 1: filled to the top in a dramatic scene.

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Speaker 3: Was there anything to add to that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a there was a bullet lodged into

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Speaker 2: the door jam. I mean the most the most dramatic

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Speaker 2: element is that is that, Yeah, there were these burned

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Speaker 2: government documents in the waste basket. He was at the

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Speaker 2: foot of the Attorney General's bed, the carpet just soaked

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Speaker 2: with blood.

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Speaker 4: It was a grizzly scene. But Burns was no stranger.

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Speaker 1: Those So is there a possible way, knowing what you know,

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Speaker 1: that this could have been a man who took his

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Speaker 1: own life. If there's a bullet in a door jam,

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Speaker 1: with the trajectory of where did the bullet enter his head?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it entered into his right temple.

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Speaker 2: In fact, there were rumors going around he was right handed,

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Speaker 2: but there were rumors going around that either the bullet

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Speaker 2: entered as left temple and he's right handed, or vice versa.

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Speaker 2: So in these rumors emerging, Mealy, there was a lot

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Speaker 2: of suspicion which fueled those rumors.

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Speaker 4: It was incorrect.

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Speaker 2: Actually, the trustworthy sources that I came across said that

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Speaker 2: the bullet entered the temple that you would expect if

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Speaker 2: he were holding the gun with his natural hand.

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Speaker 1: Can I assume that your untrustworthy sources would be the

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Speaker 1: hearst newspaper.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, as I'm sure you know, back in the nineteen

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Speaker 2: twenties there were overly explicitly partisan newspapers.

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Speaker 4: It was quite common, right, I mean, like the Los.

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Speaker 2: Angeles Times was a republican newspaper, and then you'd have

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Speaker 2: I mean, the New York Times was always sort of

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Speaker 2: an impartial, the non partisan newspaper. But there were republican

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Speaker 2: democratic newspapers, and you always have to infer a little

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Speaker 2: bit of spin when you're reading their reports.

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Speaker 1: Which paper, do you know, local paper would be the

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Speaker 1: paper that was really skeptical about this as a suicide,

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Speaker 1: because what happens, does it hit the newspapers later that

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Speaker 1: day or the next day that this powerful man who

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Speaker 1: is very close to the Attorney general, who is very

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Speaker 1: close to the president, is dead in the Attorney general's

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Speaker 1: own apartment.

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Speaker 2: It made national headline, front page headlines all across the nation.

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Speaker 2: And I wouldn't say that there was any one paper

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Speaker 2: that was particularly skeptical. They all acknowledged that there was

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Speaker 2: a big element of mystery to this death.

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Speaker 3: So what happens next?

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Speaker 1: It comes out, it says there's a verdict of suicide.

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Speaker 1: Does the coroner say this is definitively a suicide?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 2: Eventually, local authorities did come onto the scene, the local

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Speaker 2: DC police officers and the District of Columbia corner.

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Speaker 4: They ruled it a suicide. That was done almost immediately.

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Speaker 2: In fact, it might have been the certificate of course,

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Speaker 2: probably would have been signed later, but the coroner was

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Speaker 2: on the scene and made that judgment there in the room.

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Speaker 3: Okay, what is the next step?

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Speaker 1: Does this story just die, so to speak, in the

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Speaker 1: newspapers or is there anything that ramps it up in

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Speaker 1: the opposite direction.

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Speaker 2: It dies in the newspapers for a while, it lingers

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Speaker 2: in Washington gossip circles. Probably the American people aren't, probably

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Speaker 2: not aware of it, or they've forgotten about it. But

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Speaker 2: in Washington, gossip circles certainly, And eventually we get to

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Speaker 2: the other maid character in this book, a man named

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Speaker 2: Burton Wheeler who's elected to the US Senate in nineteen

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Speaker 2: twenty two and as a freshman senator, decides he wants

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Speaker 2: to launch an investigation into the Department of Justice and

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Speaker 2: specifically into Attorney General Harry Doherty, and those rumors find

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Speaker 2: his ear. You know, he's interested in anything he can

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Speaker 2: find about potential wrongdoing in the Justice Department. But certainly

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Speaker 2: the name Jess Smith when whistleblowers are calling him him,

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Speaker 2: when sympathetic newspaper reporters get on the phone, the name

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Speaker 2: of Jeff Smith keeps coming up over and over.

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Speaker 1: What is his beef with Doherty or Jeff Smith, whatever?

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Speaker 1: What is the thing that's sticking in his crawl about

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Speaker 1: this story? Why attach himself as a freshman senator where

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Speaker 1: you're thinking he's just trying to ingratiate himself to the Senate,

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Speaker 1: I'm assuming at this point, why go after such a

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Speaker 1: powerful department?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so most freshman senators, you know, are as Wheeler

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Speaker 2: himself said, are expected to sort of sit quietly in

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Speaker 2: the back of the room, like you know, well, reread children,

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Speaker 2: and just watch the old gray haired deans of the

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Speaker 2: Senate do their thing and learn, and maybe after you've

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Speaker 2: been elected a couple times, you can really start to play.

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Speaker 2: Burton Wheeler didn't usually play by rules like that.

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Speaker 4: He was no fan of tradition.

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Speaker 2: You know, he first got the idea to target the

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Speaker 2: Justice Department in nineteen twenty two while he was running

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Speaker 2: for Senate Attorney General Doherty. You know, he already had

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Speaker 2: a reputation as being on the side of capital versus labor. Right,

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Speaker 2: he was on the side of big business versus the

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Speaker 2: working man. And Burton Wheeler was a fierce progressive, strident progressive,

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Speaker 2: which is a little surprising given that he comes from

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Speaker 2: came from Montana out in the west, but at the

294
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Speaker 2: time Montana had this really strong progressive street. Burton Wheeler

295
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Speaker 2: was a champion of organized labor. He had fought against

296
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Speaker 2: corporate interest. He fought against the corporate monopoly the mining

297
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Speaker 2: company that controlled Montana state politics, both as a state

298
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Speaker 2: legislator and then as the US Attorney for Montana, so

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Speaker 2: that was the background. In nineteen twenty two, Harry Doherty,

300
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Speaker 2: as Attorney General orchestrates the most sweeping injunction ever imposed

301
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Speaker 2: on American organized labor to end a nationwide railway strike.

302
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Speaker 2: And this injunction prohibited strikers from even commenting to the

303
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Speaker 2: newspapers for standing on soapboxes. Right, and Wheeler saw a

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Speaker 2: great injustice in that he saw Attorney General Doherty as

305
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Speaker 2: stepping in on the side of big business against the

306
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Speaker 2: working man. And so he pledged on the campaign trail

307
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Speaker 2: to quote get Doherty. And so when he arrived in

308
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Speaker 2: Washington months later, that was his top priority.

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Speaker 3: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So what this Wheeler in all of his digging

311
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Speaker 1: around and you know, nosing around or try to find information,

312
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Speaker 1: what does he start to uncover not just about corruption

313
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Speaker 1: in Harding's administration or within the Attorney General's office and

314
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Speaker 1: with Doherty himself, but about specifically what happened with Jess Smith.

315
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Speaker 2: Right, Yes, he came across a lot of stories, a

316
00:16:21,800 --> 00:16:25,640
Speaker 2: lot of corruption stories, but with Jess Smith specifically. He

317
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Speaker 2: actually got a tip that Jess Smith's ex wife widowed

318
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Speaker 2: ex wife.

319
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Speaker 4: I don't know what the term for that would be.

320
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Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay, that came out of nowhere to me. Okay,

321
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Speaker 1: let's talk about that for a second.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So Jess Smith had been married for a very

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Speaker 2: short time. Was a brief, ill fated marriage about twelve

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Speaker 2: years before the events of this book. He was married

325
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Speaker 2: to a woman named Roxy Stinson who lived in the

326
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Speaker 2: same town in Ohio called Washington Courthouse. For reasons that

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Speaker 2: might be obvious, the marriage just didn't work out if

328
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Speaker 2: he really was gay or whatever the term would be

329
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Speaker 2: at that time. She filed for devorce against him, claiming cruelty,

330
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Speaker 2: but nobody could believe that he was guilty of cruelty

331
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Speaker 2: against any woman, but especially this woman that he very

332
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Speaker 2: clearly adored, And in fact, after they divorced, they remained

333
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Speaker 2: the closest of friends, and when Jess Smith eventually went

334
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Speaker 2: to Washington, he would make frequent trips back to Ohio

335
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Speaker 2: and just share just gossip about all the things he

336
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Speaker 2: and Harry Dougherty had been doing in Washington, all the

337
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Speaker 2: quote deals that they'd been making. Once he came back

338
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Speaker 2: with a money belt filled with seventy five thousand dollars

339
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Speaker 2: in cash, which is a lot of money today, it

340
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Speaker 2: was certainly a lot more back then, gave her just

341
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Speaker 2: as gifts, sent one hundred dollars bills loose in an envelope,

342
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Speaker 2: gave her blank stock certificates that had been freshly issued

343
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Speaker 2: by these corporations that had been doing business with American government.

344
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Speaker 2: So Roxy Stinson, Jessaminth's ex wife knew about all of

345
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Speaker 2: this stuff, or.

346
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Speaker 4: She had inklings.

347
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Speaker 2: And then when Wheeler found out that she knew, he

348
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Speaker 2: made it his priority to get out to Ohio, and

349
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Speaker 2: he personally served a Senate subpoena on her to make

350
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Speaker 2: her his investigation's first witness.

351
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Speaker 1: Wow, not to geek out on nineteen ten to nineteen

352
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Speaker 1: twenty two divorce proceedings. But I wonder before we talk

353
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Speaker 1: about what Wheeler found out, I wonder if cruelty is

354
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Speaker 1: actually equal to alienation of affection. In the nineteen tens,

355
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Speaker 1: I'm not sure they would have had that phrase alienation

356
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Speaker 1: of affection, you know what I mean, Cruelty might have

357
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Speaker 1: been withholding the intimacy between a man and a woman.

358
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Speaker 1: That seems pretty likely to me, But who knows.

359
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Speaker 2: That's a very good point. Hadn't considered it, that's probably

360
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Speaker 2: the case.

361
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Speaker 3: Yeah, if they're friends afterwards, that's what I would think boy.

362
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Speaker 1: The furviage for how they used, if any sort of

363
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Speaker 1: legal documents very different than now. Okay, So Wheeler travels

364
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Speaker 1: and he meets with Roxy, the widowed ex wife whatever

365
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Speaker 1: we want to call her. What does she say about

366
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Speaker 1: her ex husband, who she's very fond of.

367
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Speaker 4: It sounds like the one time she's.

368
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Speaker 2: Reluctant to speak out. She doesn't really want to solely

369
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Speaker 2: his memory. And we're talking about you know, Wheeler found

370
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Speaker 2: Stinson maybe about nine months after Smith died, so she

371
00:19:01,040 --> 00:19:04,800
Speaker 2: doesn't want to solely his memory. But while this is

372
00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:08,359
Speaker 2: all happening, Arry Doherty and his cronies, especially like some

373
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Speaker 2: people in the Senate, are trying to lay all the

374
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Speaker 2: blame for the rumors of impropriety within the Justice Department

375
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Speaker 2: on Jess Smith. And she thinks that's unfair because she

376
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Speaker 2: knows that it wasn't just just Smith doing this, because

377
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Speaker 2: Smith had been telling her over and over, yeah, Harry

378
00:19:22,680 --> 00:19:24,160
Speaker 2: and I are doing this or you know, we're working

379
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Speaker 2: on this deal. So she knew that Doherty was complicit

380
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Speaker 2: in anything that Smith was involved in, so she wanted

381
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Speaker 2: to set the record straight. It took a Senate subpoena

382
00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:35,439
Speaker 2: to get her to Washington. But when she you know,

383
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Speaker 2: when she was sworn in and put before the committee,

384
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Speaker 2: she basically told everything, and she was she remembered, she

385
00:19:42,520 --> 00:19:44,359
Speaker 2: had a sharp memory. She remembered it all. She was

386
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Speaker 2: a really compelling witness. All of the newspapers described her

387
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Speaker 2: as like the most attractive woman in Washington courthouse or town.

388
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Speaker 3: Of course they did, of course they did.

389
00:19:53,520 --> 00:19:55,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of the reports are are.

390
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Speaker 1: Little sexualized, I'm sure. Yeah, Oh yeah, really gross. Yeah,

391
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Speaker 1: let me go back real quick. So are we saying,

392
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Speaker 1: unless I'm misunderstanding you, that a year after his likely

393
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Speaker 1: companion lover died via suicide, that Harry Doherty is now

394
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Speaker 1: blaming a lot of things on Jess Smith, using him

395
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Speaker 1: as a scapegoat for things that happened within the Justice Department.

396
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Speaker 3: Is that right?

397
00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:21,600
Speaker 4: Yeah? Not Harry Doherty himself.

398
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:24,680
Speaker 2: Oh, he wasn't even at the time acknowledging any of

399
00:20:24,720 --> 00:20:27,679
Speaker 2: these accusations against him. So you know what happened was

400
00:20:27,880 --> 00:20:30,200
Speaker 2: Senator Wheeler stood up on the floor of the Senate

401
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Speaker 2: and gave this speech basically this is what I would

402
00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:37,320
Speaker 2: say irresponsible speech, repeating verbade him all of these rumors

403
00:20:37,359 --> 00:20:39,520
Speaker 2: that he'd heard without any evidence to back them up,

404
00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:44,679
Speaker 2: and then Doherty's allies responded, and Doherty's allies decided to

405
00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:46,880
Speaker 2: use Jess Smith as the scapegoat.

406
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Speaker 3: What were the accusations exactly?

407
00:20:49,760 --> 00:20:52,640
Speaker 1: What are we talking about money or covering up all

408
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Speaker 1: these investigations. You're talking about that people covered up secrets

409
00:20:55,960 --> 00:20:57,200
Speaker 1: or dug up other secrets.

410
00:20:57,520 --> 00:20:59,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean Wheeler had heard from a whistle blow

411
00:21:00,119 --> 00:21:03,679
Speaker 2: or at the Federal Trade Commission that the FDC had

412
00:21:03,960 --> 00:21:07,400
Speaker 2: recommended dozens of cases for prosecution to the Justice Department,

413
00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:11,400
Speaker 2: and under Doherty, the Justice Department had prosecuted none from

414
00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:14,879
Speaker 2: that too. He had been too cozy with criminals. And

415
00:21:14,920 --> 00:21:18,560
Speaker 2: these were unsubstantiated rumors at the time, but with organized crime,

416
00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:21,240
Speaker 2: with bootleggers, right, Prohibition was a huge thing then, and

417
00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:25,359
Speaker 2: bootleggers were especially the bigger operators within bootlegging, were trying

418
00:21:25,359 --> 00:21:27,439
Speaker 2: to find some angle on the federal government. And the

419
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:30,479
Speaker 2: rumors that were later backed up that Dougherty was involved

420
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Speaker 2: in that.

421
00:21:45,400 --> 00:21:46,520
Speaker 3: Give me some samples.

422
00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:49,119
Speaker 1: I know we talked a little bit about what Roxy said,

423
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Speaker 1: but on the Senate floor you said she was very

424
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Speaker 1: composed and very credible. What were the things that she

425
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Speaker 1: said that she heard directly from Jess Smith or you know,

426
00:21:59,359 --> 00:22:01,560
Speaker 1: just witness just materially there.

427
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:05,960
Speaker 2: So there were certainly details that made her testimony compelling,

428
00:22:06,320 --> 00:22:08,800
Speaker 2: such as the seventy five thousand dollars in the money belt,

429
00:22:09,040 --> 00:22:13,320
Speaker 2: but she revealed schemes that were kind of bizarre, you know.

430
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Speaker 2: For instance, she accused Harry Doherty and Jess Smith. I

431
00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:21,840
Speaker 2: suppose of orchestrating this criminal conspiracy to counter vent a

432
00:22:21,840 --> 00:22:25,960
Speaker 2: federal statute against the interstate distribution of boxing films. And

433
00:22:26,040 --> 00:22:29,040
Speaker 2: this was a statute that had been enacted about fifteen

434
00:22:29,080 --> 00:22:32,119
Speaker 2: years earlier. It was amid this racist hysteria against the

435
00:22:32,520 --> 00:22:35,080
Speaker 2: black fighter Jack Johnson. I think I'm getting that right.

436
00:22:35,119 --> 00:22:36,879
Speaker 2: But in any case, there was this federal law in

437
00:22:36,920 --> 00:22:39,720
Speaker 2: the books against taking a fight film from one state

438
00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:43,359
Speaker 2: to another, and Doherty and Jess Smith were huge boxing fans,

439
00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:48,040
Speaker 2: and it seemed that, for no reason other than Dererty

440
00:22:48,040 --> 00:22:50,600
Speaker 2: thought it would be fun, he came up with this

441
00:22:50,640 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 2: scheme to get around that law, and using his friends,

442
00:22:54,320 --> 00:22:57,000
Speaker 2: using his influence as Attorney General, he had his friends

443
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:59,680
Speaker 2: distribute these films. There were people who sort of took

444
00:22:59,760 --> 00:23:03,720
Speaker 2: a nominal fine. There was this big fight in New Jersey,

445
00:23:04,080 --> 00:23:06,399
Speaker 2: the fight film was moved to New York, it was

446
00:23:06,440 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 2: exhibited there. The person in charge of the exhibition was

447
00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:13,119
Speaker 2: prosecuted and fined, but then Doherty would make sure that

448
00:23:13,160 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 2: there was just a small find.

449
00:23:14,240 --> 00:23:15,960
Speaker 4: You pay fifty bucks and you'd be off the hook.

450
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Doherty there was evidence that he received kickbacks

451
00:23:20,240 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 2: from the scheme, but I think my personal.

452
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:26,000
Speaker 4: Take is that he just really enjoyed doing it.

453
00:23:26,280 --> 00:23:28,800
Speaker 2: He was at heart he was a schemer, and he thought, oh,

454
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:32,040
Speaker 2: this would be fun to find a way around this

455
00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:32,640
Speaker 2: federal law.

456
00:23:32,960 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 1: What is the reaction after Roxy's testimony here in the Senate?

457
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: What is the reaction from the lawmakers who are witnessing this.

458
00:23:41,400 --> 00:23:45,199
Speaker 2: So the committee was it was five senators, it was

459
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:49,840
Speaker 2: three Republicans and two Democrats, and pretty much everybody, despite

460
00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:54,240
Speaker 2: the partisan breakdown, was shocked. Even the most conservative Republican,

461
00:23:54,240 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 2: who you would expect to be most sympathetic to Doherty,

462
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:58,160
Speaker 2: he seems sort of swept off his.

463
00:23:58,119 --> 00:23:59,320
Speaker 4: Feet by this testimony.

464
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:02,639
Speaker 2: And there were accusations beyond just this bizarre fight film,

465
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:06,439
Speaker 2: that Dougherty done favors for these companies that were under investigation.

466
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:11,200
Speaker 2: They basically quashed investigations and received stock certificates as a result,

467
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:14,720
Speaker 2: there were allegations that he had been involved with bootleggers,

468
00:24:14,720 --> 00:24:17,159
Speaker 2: that he'd been doing quote whiskey deals, which was the

469
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:20,600
Speaker 2: language that she used. So all of this was quite shocking, right.

470
00:24:20,840 --> 00:24:23,520
Speaker 2: The gist of her testimony was that the man who

471
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,880
Speaker 2: was supposed to be upholding the supremacy of federal law

472
00:24:27,359 --> 00:24:29,720
Speaker 2: was doing everything he could to undermine it for whether

473
00:24:29,720 --> 00:24:32,919
Speaker 2: it was for personal gain or just for pleasure, he

474
00:24:33,080 --> 00:24:35,600
Speaker 2: was acting exactly the opposite of how the Attorney general

475
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 2: should act. So yes, most Senators were outraged, and in fact,

476
00:24:39,480 --> 00:24:44,200
Speaker 2: this became a huge national spectacle. Right, Not just the senators,

477
00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 2: but the American public were outraged by what was going on.

478
00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 2: They were shocked. They had never really before considered just

479
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,360
Speaker 2: how dangerous the office of Attorney General could be. But Wheeler,

480
00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 2: through his investigation, and through his use of the national

481
00:24:58,280 --> 00:25:02,800
Speaker 2: media and this emerging national media that involved tabloid newspapers

482
00:25:03,400 --> 00:25:07,479
Speaker 2: and radio, the American public was able to follow along

483
00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 2: almost in real time as this scandal unfolded. It was

484
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 2: really the first time in American history that that could

485
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:13,399
Speaker 2: happen in real time.

486
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:19,160
Speaker 1: So is Jess Smith's suicide talked about also in front

487
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:20,560
Speaker 1: of this committee during.

488
00:25:20,480 --> 00:25:20,879
Speaker 3: All of this.

489
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:23,719
Speaker 1: Are there people who have been whispering about this? And

490
00:25:23,760 --> 00:25:26,159
Speaker 1: now the voices are louder because of all of this.

491
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:27,159
Speaker 4: Yeah.

492
00:25:27,359 --> 00:25:30,439
Speaker 2: Actually one of the first mysteries or first issues that

493
00:25:30,440 --> 00:25:34,119
Speaker 2: Wheeler dispensed with, right he had Jess Smith's ex wife

494
00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:37,919
Speaker 2: on the stand and she was herself torn about what

495
00:25:38,000 --> 00:25:40,119
Speaker 2: had actually happened, but you know, she was able to

496
00:25:40,160 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 2: recount some of the odd ways that Smith had been acting.

497
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:47,880
Speaker 2: In the days before his death, Harry Dougherty essentially betrayed Jessmith,

498
00:25:47,920 --> 00:25:50,080
Speaker 2: and he actually did hold him up to be the scapegoat.

499
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 2: Doherty had been in office for two years, there were

500
00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:57,400
Speaker 2: already these rumors of wrongdoing were emerging. Warren Harding called

501
00:25:57,480 --> 00:25:59,800
Speaker 2: him into the Oval office and said, you know, you

502
00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:01,920
Speaker 2: need to do something about Jess Smith. I'm hearing all

503
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:05,960
Speaker 2: these wild allegations. Both of them knew. I believe that

504
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:09,000
Speaker 2: that Doherty was probably complicit in that. But the understanding

505
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:10,840
Speaker 2: between the two men was that we're going to pin

506
00:26:10,880 --> 00:26:14,920
Speaker 2: this on Jess Smith. So Doherty essentially banished Jess Smith

507
00:26:15,080 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 2: from the Justice Department, from his personal life, from Washington,

508
00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:22,040
Speaker 2: and Jess Smith, who was not only an intimate friend

509
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 2: and perhaps lover of Doherty, but he idolized Doherty right.

510
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 2: He lived for Dougherty. Doherty was his purpose in life.

511
00:26:28,200 --> 00:26:31,879
Speaker 2: When Doherty banished him, his life was shattered, right like

512
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:33,159
Speaker 2: his son went out.

513
00:26:33,480 --> 00:26:34,920
Speaker 4: So he went back to Ohio.

514
00:26:35,600 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 2: Roxy Stinson tried to console him, but he was a

515
00:26:39,119 --> 00:26:43,359
Speaker 2: broken man, and so the narrative of suicide then became

516
00:26:43,520 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 2: kind of compelling. And in fact, probably that revelation was

517
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:51,439
Speaker 2: more disturbing about Harry Doherty than allegations that Doherty had

518
00:26:51,440 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 2: had him knocked off or killed. Right, Doherty had betrayed

519
00:26:54,880 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 2: the closest person in the world to him. Roxy Stinson

520
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:01,560
Speaker 2: said that she considered him morally responsible for his death,

521
00:27:01,720 --> 00:27:02,639
Speaker 2: even if not legally.

522
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:07,000
Speaker 1: What is the time frame of when Jess Smith returns

523
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 1: to Ohio and is comforted by Roxy because he's rejected

524
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:15,800
Speaker 1: by Harry Doherty, and when he obviously returns and is

525
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:19,879
Speaker 1: somehow in this man's apartment and then dead with a

526
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,919
Speaker 1: gunshot wound to the head, face down in some papers

527
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,120
Speaker 1: which we should talk about the papers at some point too.

528
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:28,400
Speaker 1: What were these burning papers that we were talking about.

529
00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 4: No one knows.

530
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:35,000
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, uh Billy Burns that guy Golly, he covered it

531
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: all up.

532
00:27:35,600 --> 00:27:37,760
Speaker 2: I know, I know. There were a few papers. Actually,

533
00:27:37,840 --> 00:27:39,440
Speaker 2: Burns was probably a part of this. There were a

534
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:43,240
Speaker 2: few papers that had escaped the flames and burns or

535
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,320
Speaker 2: somebody put them in a pouch. An assistant Attorney general

536
00:27:46,600 --> 00:27:49,879
Speaker 2: took them to Jess Smith's funeral in Ohio in a

537
00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:52,960
Speaker 2: sealed pouch and gave them to the executor Smith's a

538
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 2: state who happened to be Harry Doherty's brother, man named

539
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:59,040
Speaker 2: mal Doherty. Mal Doherty opened up to one looking side

540
00:27:59,080 --> 00:28:00,399
Speaker 2: and burned the papers on the spot.

541
00:28:00,720 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 1: Man.

542
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 2: So, yeah, there's no the good evidence has gone unfortunately.

543
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:08,480
Speaker 1: Boy do we know that timeframe between when the breakup

544
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 1: happens and when this something happens to get him back

545
00:28:11,440 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 1: into this apartment?

546
00:28:12,840 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's roughly three weeks. So Smith said, okay, I'll

547
00:28:17,040 --> 00:28:19,480
Speaker 2: go out to Ohio. He spent some time with Roxy Stintson.

548
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:22,720
Speaker 2: Eventually Harry Doherty came back out west to Ohio again,

549
00:28:23,320 --> 00:28:25,359
Speaker 2: and for a time it seemed like they had made up,

550
00:28:25,480 --> 00:28:28,040
Speaker 2: even if Smith wasn't going to be welcomed back to Washington.

551
00:28:28,400 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 2: While they were in Ohio together, they seemed to fall

552
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 2: into their old habits. In fact, Smith was writing even

553
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,119
Speaker 2: though again he had no job on the government payroll.

554
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,520
Speaker 2: He was writing letters on Justice Department stationary, and I've

555
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 2: seen those letters in the Library of Congress. But then

556
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,479
Speaker 2: they had a blow up. There was a shack, they

557
00:28:44,480 --> 00:28:46,600
Speaker 2: actually called it the Shack. It was like a hunting

558
00:28:46,680 --> 00:28:49,520
Speaker 2: lodge that they shared a place called Deer Creek, Ohio.

559
00:28:49,840 --> 00:28:52,200
Speaker 2: Harry Doherty was taking a nap. Somebody came up on

560
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,000
Speaker 2: what he said urgent business with Harry Doherty, and jess

561
00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:58,479
Speaker 2: Smith woke them up, and Harry Doherty just threw a

562
00:28:58,520 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 2: fit through a tantrum. First, Jessmith, probably with every word

563
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:04,600
Speaker 2: in the book, told Jessmith that he would have to

564
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:08,240
Speaker 2: walk the twenty miles back to Washington Courthouse on his own.

565
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:09,719
Speaker 4: They never really made up after that.

566
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,560
Speaker 2: Smith asked Doherty for permission to go back to Washington,

567
00:29:12,680 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 2: just collect his papers, wrap up his affairs before returning

568
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:18,000
Speaker 2: to Ohio. So that's how he ended up back in Washington.

569
00:29:18,440 --> 00:29:21,160
Speaker 2: They were not spending time together in Washington. In fact,

570
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 2: Hardy knew what was going on obviously and invited Doherty

571
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:26,760
Speaker 2: to stay in the White House in a guest room

572
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:29,440
Speaker 2: of the White House while Smith was in the apartment

573
00:29:29,560 --> 00:29:32,480
Speaker 2: that they shared, and that's why Doherty wasn't there that night.

574
00:29:32,880 --> 00:29:35,440
Speaker 3: So Roxy said all of this to the.

575
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:37,520
Speaker 2: Committee, she told all that's right.

576
00:29:37,680 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so everyone is horrified both at the corruption

577
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:45,240
Speaker 1: of the Attorney General's office and within the administration. And

578
00:29:45,280 --> 00:29:48,719
Speaker 1: then on top of that, just how terrible Harry Doherty

579
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:50,800
Speaker 1: had have been to this man he was supposed to

580
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 1: be close to, and now the man's dead. How does

581
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 1: Wheeler tie all of this together? There's so many pieces

582
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,480
Speaker 1: that can lead headlines in the newspaper. What is the

583
00:30:01,600 --> 00:30:05,680
Speaker 1: narrative that he has put together to present to the

584
00:30:05,800 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: Hurst papers and everybody else.

585
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:12,000
Speaker 2: Well, unfortunately, he never really does write that narrative. He

586
00:30:12,240 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 2: in fact, his committee never issues a formal report. The

587
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:19,880
Speaker 2: hearings drag on for several months, but it's really the

588
00:30:20,040 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 2: it's the newspapers that are doing the work there. Wheeler's

589
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:25,640
Speaker 2: witnesses were all over the place. His next star witness

590
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 2: was this really shady detective who worked in the Bureau

591
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,800
Speaker 2: of Investigation, a man who had spied for Germany during

592
00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:34,760
Speaker 2: World War One against his own country, but who nonetheless

593
00:30:34,760 --> 00:30:37,600
Speaker 2: found his way into the Bureau of Investigation under Harry Doherty.

594
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,600
Speaker 2: You know, Wheeler was basically going after anything he wanted.

595
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 2: I know that for Wheeler himself, it must have been

596
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:46,440
Speaker 2: particularly disturbing to see the links that Harry Doherty would

597
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:49,200
Speaker 2: go to. This was a man capable of anything. I mean,

598
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:54,880
Speaker 2: Harry Doherty fought back against roxy Stinson's testimony by deploying

599
00:30:55,160 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 2: some blackmail that he'd been holding over her. He'd basically

600
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 2: been telling her not to testify because he had pretty

601
00:31:01,520 --> 00:31:04,000
Speaker 2: good evidence that she had been carrying on an affair

602
00:31:04,200 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 2: with a married man in Cleveland, Ohio. And a few

603
00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 2: days after she testified, he actually his lawyers. He and

604
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 2: his lawyers, in a formal letter to the Senate, deployed

605
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 2: that blackmail openly accused her of having an affair. So

606
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 2: Wheeler saw this and realized that this man was capable

607
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:23,280
Speaker 2: of anything, and so he probably wasn't very surprised when

608
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,320
Speaker 2: a few days later, maybe a week or so later,

609
00:31:25,640 --> 00:31:28,200
Speaker 2: he found that he himself, Wheeler himself was in the

610
00:31:28,280 --> 00:31:30,040
Speaker 2: legal crosshairs of the Justice Department.

611
00:31:30,200 --> 00:31:33,600
Speaker 1: Okay, what I was wondering, is Wheeler, who just seems

612
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:37,280
Speaker 1: like someone who is a holier than now? And do

613
00:31:37,360 --> 00:31:40,760
Speaker 1: we find any skeletons in his closet? Or does Dougherty.

614
00:31:41,120 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 2: Well, so, Wheeler was generally an upstanding, upstanding politician.

615
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:48,360
Speaker 4: He was a man of principle. It was hard.

616
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:51,880
Speaker 2: There were Justice Department agents, Bureau of Investigation agents crawling

617
00:31:51,920 --> 00:31:55,120
Speaker 2: over Montana for weeks, and they really, for the longest

618
00:31:55,160 --> 00:31:58,000
Speaker 2: time struggled to find any dirt on Wheeler. There was

619
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 2: a long standing rumor that he had been carrying on

620
00:32:01,080 --> 00:32:03,880
Speaker 2: an affair with a married woman and they had gotten

621
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:06,960
Speaker 2: into an automobile accident together. They found that, but they

622
00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 2: couldn't find anything to really substantiate it. Ultimately, they started

623
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 2: looking into his professional career because he was at the time,

624
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:16,560
Speaker 2: even as he was a US senator, he was still working.

625
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 2: He saw had a private practice as a lawyer, which

626
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:21,600
Speaker 2: wasn't uncommon at the time. Today that's very uncommon, but

627
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:24,080
Speaker 2: at the time it was actually pretty usual for a

628
00:32:24,120 --> 00:32:27,840
Speaker 2: congressman or or senator to carry on private legal practice.

629
00:32:28,320 --> 00:32:31,000
Speaker 2: And they found what might be considered a conflict of

630
00:32:31,040 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 2: interest there, and they spun it up into something really

631
00:32:33,520 --> 00:32:35,560
Speaker 2: big and went after Wheeler With that.

632
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 1: You would think that a senator not would be protected necessarily,

633
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: but with everything that's happening, you would think that Dougherty

634
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:47,239
Speaker 1: would be backing off so that it doesn't look like

635
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:52,080
Speaker 1: he is persecuting the person who is saying he just

636
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: wants to get down to the truth on behalf of

637
00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,959
Speaker 1: the American people. Does this not smack to everyone in

638
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:03,560
Speaker 1: the government as vindictiveness and somebody who is now trying

639
00:33:03,600 --> 00:33:06,880
Speaker 1: to create a vendetta with the person who is really

640
00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: shining a light on the corruption.

641
00:33:09,000 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 2: No, Kate, you're onto something there. He was as a schemer,

642
00:33:13,560 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 2: as a manipulator behind the scenes, you know, at twisting Arms.

643
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:18,840
Speaker 4: Dougherty was a master, right.

644
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 2: He was the most ruthless, most cunning political fixer in

645
00:33:24,160 --> 00:33:26,920
Speaker 2: Washington at the time. Probably, but yeah, maybe his political

646
00:33:26,960 --> 00:33:29,400
Speaker 2: instincts weren't all that good, right, He probably would have

647
00:33:29,400 --> 00:33:33,320
Speaker 2: been better served to stay quiet, especially not just go

648
00:33:33,400 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 2: after the Wheeler's star witness, which there was a big

649
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:38,520
Speaker 2: backlash to that, right, I mean, even at the time,

650
00:33:38,560 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 2: people thought it was just unseemly for an Attorney general

651
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,280
Speaker 2: to attack a witness's personal character like that. And of

652
00:33:45,280 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 2: course that was gender too, right, especially you can't go

653
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:49,200
Speaker 2: after a woman like Wheeler said.

654
00:33:49,240 --> 00:33:51,040
Speaker 4: It was an unmanly thing to do, that is what

655
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:51,480
Speaker 4: he said.

656
00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: So this did not this revelation that she was likely

657
00:33:55,680 --> 00:33:58,160
Speaker 1: having an affair with a married man in Ohio. This

658
00:33:58,280 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: did not seem really to credit Roxy in any way

659
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:05,440
Speaker 1: as far as the committee went or the public, you.

660
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:06,360
Speaker 4: Know, it did not.

661
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:09,000
Speaker 2: And all that I can say, yeah, all that I

662
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:10,920
Speaker 2: can see is maybe he thought that this was the

663
00:34:11,000 --> 00:34:15,280
Speaker 2: way he maintained his credibility because he operated largely by

664
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:19,000
Speaker 2: collecting information on people and much like Jagger Hoover later on,

665
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 2: and holding it over them. And maybe he needed to

666
00:34:21,600 --> 00:34:24,600
Speaker 2: demonstrate that, hey, if I have this threatening, if I

667
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:28,240
Speaker 2: have this compromising information and you know, cross my path,

668
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:29,359
Speaker 2: I'm going to deploy it.

669
00:34:29,400 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 4: And he had to do that.

670
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:32,640
Speaker 3: So the committee does nothing.

671
00:34:32,719 --> 00:34:36,480
Speaker 1: You said by the end of this marathon long hearing

672
00:34:36,640 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: where you have people coming in, and you said it

673
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:41,640
Speaker 1: dragged out for months. Did the newspapers lose interest at

674
00:34:41,640 --> 00:34:44,600
Speaker 1: some point? Or did the committee? Did the Senate lose interest?

675
00:34:45,040 --> 00:34:49,839
Speaker 2: Ultimately, sure, things petered out, but not before Attorney General

676
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 2: Doherty was forced to resign.

677
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:53,319
Speaker 4: Right so Wheeler Wheeler won.

678
00:34:53,520 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 2: He got his big victory, which partly explains why he

679
00:34:56,800 --> 00:34:59,400
Speaker 2: never issued a report. The other reason he never issued

680
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 2: a report is because Doherty and his brother Mal Doherty

681
00:35:03,400 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 2: dragged on the proceedings. So mal Doherty was the president

682
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:09,640
Speaker 2: of what was called Midland National Bank, which is where

683
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:12,960
Speaker 2: Harry Dougherty and just Smith did their banking. And so

684
00:35:13,080 --> 00:35:16,640
Speaker 2: when Wheeler was looking for hard evidence that they were

685
00:35:16,680 --> 00:35:21,240
Speaker 2: involved in shenanigans, he needed to see their bank ledgers,

686
00:35:21,640 --> 00:35:24,759
Speaker 2: and as the president of the bank, Malderty, Hardy's brother,

687
00:35:25,120 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 2: refused access, he defied a Senate subpoena. The Senate ended

688
00:35:29,200 --> 00:35:32,760
Speaker 2: up sending its sergeant at arms to Ohio to arrest

689
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:35,480
Speaker 2: mal Doherty and bring him before the Senate.

690
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:37,160
Speaker 4: The federal court stepped in before that happened.

691
00:35:37,200 --> 00:35:38,799
Speaker 2: The case went all the way to the Supreme Court,

692
00:35:39,200 --> 00:35:41,480
Speaker 2: and this is now nineteen twenty seven, so this is

693
00:35:41,520 --> 00:35:44,280
Speaker 2: about three and a half years after this is all happening.

694
00:35:44,480 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 2: The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the Senate's right to issue

695
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:52,240
Speaker 2: subpoenas and compel testimony, which was a huge victory for Congress,

696
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 2: right for Congression, for the power of congressional oversight. But

697
00:35:55,040 --> 00:35:58,040
Speaker 2: because that took so long, the investigation kind of petered out.

698
00:35:58,239 --> 00:36:01,120
Speaker 1: So Harry Doherty is gone, He resigns, and he's no

699
00:36:01,200 --> 00:36:02,520
Speaker 1: longer the Attorney General.

700
00:36:02,680 --> 00:36:04,600
Speaker 3: Where does he go, so.

701
00:36:04,680 --> 00:36:09,600
Speaker 2: He begins a decade's long bitter quest to restore his legacy.

702
00:36:09,760 --> 00:36:12,800
Speaker 2: He's essentially banished from Washington. Nobody wants to deal with

703
00:36:12,880 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 2: him anymore. I don't think he holds any office ever. Again,

704
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:18,880
Speaker 2: I don't think he even has an illegal practice. He

705
00:36:18,920 --> 00:36:23,400
Speaker 2: writes a self serving memoir with actually the co author

706
00:36:23,440 --> 00:36:26,560
Speaker 2: of The Klansman, the book that became birth of a nation.

707
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 2: That's an interesting choice for a co author, right, writ's

708
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 2: a self serving member trying to justify his actions and

709
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:36,640
Speaker 2: gets a little bit into the Jess Smith story. But

710
00:36:36,719 --> 00:36:38,080
Speaker 2: that's essentially all that he does.

711
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:42,720
Speaker 1: Do you think that the collective consciousness in the nineteen

712
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 1: twenties and maybe for decades going forward, however long the

713
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:53,320
Speaker 1: story lasted, was that Harry Doherty murdered Jess Smith because

714
00:36:53,520 --> 00:36:54,359
Speaker 1: he knew too much.

715
00:36:55,440 --> 00:36:59,000
Speaker 2: I know that that version of the story still survives

716
00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:02,840
Speaker 2: to this day. I mean I actually studiously avoided watching

717
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 2: it because I didn't want to nix up fact with

718
00:37:05,120 --> 00:37:07,040
Speaker 2: fiction at all. But I know that this storyline made

719
00:37:07,040 --> 00:37:11,720
Speaker 2: its way into Boardwalk Empire, the HBO series. Harry Doherty

720
00:37:11,760 --> 00:37:15,320
Speaker 2: and Jess Smith were a big part of Gorvidal's novel Hollywood,

721
00:37:15,520 --> 00:37:17,760
Speaker 2: which was set in the roaring twenties around this time. Again,

722
00:37:17,840 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 2: I avoided that, so I don't actually.

723
00:37:19,360 --> 00:37:21,680
Speaker 4: Know the specifics of how the story's told there.

724
00:37:21,719 --> 00:37:25,520
Speaker 2: But I know that people still wonder about what actually

725
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:26,240
Speaker 2: went down.

726
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:27,640
Speaker 3: What did his family think?

727
00:37:27,680 --> 00:37:30,680
Speaker 1: And well, I'm assuming Roxy thought that Harry Dougherty was

728
00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 1: responsible for Jess's death.

729
00:37:32,400 --> 00:37:36,359
Speaker 2: Again, she claimed that he was morally responsible. She said

730
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:38,480
Speaker 2: that given everything that she knew about how he had

731
00:37:38,520 --> 00:37:41,359
Speaker 2: been acting, how he had been putting his affairs in order,

732
00:37:41,440 --> 00:37:43,319
Speaker 2: you know, how he had actually gone to his Justice

733
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,799
Speaker 2: Department office and gathered up all the compromising information and

734
00:37:47,320 --> 00:37:51,080
Speaker 2: burned those papers. Even if he felt betrayed and probably

735
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,239
Speaker 2: anger despair at being betrayed, he wanted to do one

736
00:37:54,280 --> 00:37:56,879
Speaker 2: final favor to Harry Doherty. He still loved the man,

737
00:37:56,960 --> 00:37:59,800
Speaker 2: and he sacrificed himself. I mean, he burned the papers

738
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 2: and and he got rid of himself. You know, he

739
00:38:02,560 --> 00:38:05,440
Speaker 2: was of course, he knew that he was a witness

740
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:07,120
Speaker 2: to all of Harry Doherty's crimes.

741
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:11,839
Speaker 1: And the legacy of the Harding administration is really such

742
00:38:11,840 --> 00:38:13,000
Speaker 1: a mixed one, is it not.

743
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:15,760
Speaker 2: I Mean, I don't even know why I'd say mixed it.

744
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:18,240
Speaker 2: It's a pretty bad legacy, they sure. I mean people

745
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:22,240
Speaker 2: forget that Warren Harding helped push through the first International

746
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,439
Speaker 2: Disarmament Agreement, So there's an accomplishment there.

747
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:26,120
Speaker 1: You know.

748
00:38:26,160 --> 00:38:27,840
Speaker 2: One of the first things he did after taking office

749
00:38:27,880 --> 00:38:31,160
Speaker 2: was he cut the federal income tax rates. I mean,

750
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 2: he accomplished things that some people that some people could celebrate.

751
00:38:35,280 --> 00:38:37,440
Speaker 4: You know. This scandal in the Justice Department was just

752
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:37,919
Speaker 4: one of many.

753
00:38:37,920 --> 00:38:40,000
Speaker 2: There was. Of course, we hadn't even mentioned Teapot Dome,

754
00:38:40,040 --> 00:38:43,840
Speaker 2: which was in the Warren Harding administration, which was bribes

755
00:38:43,840 --> 00:38:47,399
Speaker 2: for oil rights scandal. There was another huge scandal within

756
00:38:47,440 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 2: the Veterans Bureau where people were taking advantage of you know,

757
00:38:51,800 --> 00:38:55,560
Speaker 2: America's veterans. There was all this corruption happening. So I

758
00:38:55,600 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 2: think history's judgment against the administration is pretty severe. There

759
00:39:00,239 --> 00:39:04,400
Speaker 2: have been attempts recently to revise history's judgment of Harding himself.

760
00:39:04,640 --> 00:39:07,840
Speaker 2: There is evidence that in his final days, Harding wanted

761
00:39:07,960 --> 00:39:11,440
Speaker 2: to expose the scandals, wanted to clean up his administration. Again,

762
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 2: there's no evidence that he was personally complicit. So recent biographers,

763
00:39:16,840 --> 00:39:20,200
Speaker 2: including very interestingly John Dean, who was the White House

764
00:39:20,200 --> 00:39:22,680
Speaker 2: counsel under President Nixon, who happened to come from the

765
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:26,520
Speaker 2: same town in Ohio, Maryon, Ohio as Warren Harding. He

766
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:29,839
Speaker 2: wrote a biography of Warren Harding, he more or less

767
00:39:29,840 --> 00:39:31,800
Speaker 2: absolves him of responsibility.

768
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,839
Speaker 1: What do you think the reaction was between Harding and

769
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:39,160
Speaker 1: Doherty when this all came down, when he had to

770
00:39:39,239 --> 00:39:42,439
Speaker 1: resign when it was all said and done, this must

771
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:47,120
Speaker 1: have been a massive embarrassment on every level for Harding

772
00:39:47,400 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: to see how many of these criminals, because really that's

773
00:39:52,160 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: what it comes down to. Whatever happened with Jess Smith,

774
00:39:55,640 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 1: it really was that Harry Doherty allowed people to not

775
00:40:00,440 --> 00:40:03,839
Speaker 1: be prosecuted who probably should have been in prison from

776
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:06,280
Speaker 1: violent things and really bad things.

777
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 2: Well, for Harding, he was lucky in that he was

778
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,920
Speaker 2: spared of the embarrassment of this because he died actually

779
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:17,160
Speaker 2: the very first days of August twenty twenty three, when

780
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 2: we're coming up on the centennial of that, So he

781
00:40:19,840 --> 00:40:21,880
Speaker 2: died before any of these scandals emerged, So he did

782
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,920
Speaker 2: not have to see his own reputation tarnished.

783
00:40:24,960 --> 00:40:27,440
Speaker 4: He did not have to see his.

784
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:30,960
Speaker 2: Friend and political mentor, Harry Doherty a force from office.

785
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:34,759
Speaker 2: All of those problems fell on his successor Calvin Coolidge,

786
00:40:35,040 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 2: and this was the problem that Coolidge didn't want, especially

787
00:40:37,640 --> 00:40:39,520
Speaker 2: because this all happened during an election year.

788
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:42,399
Speaker 1: And I think, if I remember right, Coolidge was sort

789
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:44,120
Speaker 1: of was he not like sort of a breath of

790
00:40:44,160 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: fresh air where it was very much like the country

791
00:40:47,040 --> 00:40:50,400
Speaker 1: just came off of all of these terrible corruptions and

792
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: there's prohibition happening and everything, and then Calvin Coolidge was

793
00:40:53,560 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: a little like the old grandfather who was going to

794
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:56,680
Speaker 1: stabilize everything.

795
00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a little slow, I think to certainly,

796
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:03,680
Speaker 2: certainly was slow to force Dougherty from office.

797
00:41:03,920 --> 00:41:06,000
Speaker 4: He did it for what he considered principal reasons.

798
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 2: He thought Doherty was Warren Harding's choice for attorney general.

799
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:10,320
Speaker 4: He was his friend.

800
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:12,239
Speaker 2: If Harding was going to stand up for anybody, it

801
00:41:12,280 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 2: was gonna be Dougherty. So Harding was the man elected president,

802
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:18,200
Speaker 2: not Coolidge. So Coolidge thought it was his responsibility to

803
00:41:18,200 --> 00:41:19,839
Speaker 2: stand by Doherty. So he stood by him for a

804
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 2: long time, to his political peril. Right, I mean, he

805
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 2: took a political hit for doing this. He thought it

806
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 2: was a principled stand. But yeah, Coolidge, especially with Teapot Dome,

807
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 2: he acquitted himself pretty honorably.

808
00:41:30,080 --> 00:41:31,440
Speaker 4: He actually stepped in.

809
00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:35,200
Speaker 2: When Harry Doherty refused to investigate the teapot dome scandal,

810
00:41:35,440 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 2: Coolidge stepped in, said.

811
00:41:36,880 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 4: Doherty, you're no longer responsible for this.

812
00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 2: He appointed special counsel a Democrat and a Republican to investigate,

813
00:41:42,520 --> 00:41:45,160
Speaker 2: and actually called the Republican into the White House and said,

814
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:47,719
Speaker 2: however it shakes out, you got to follow follow the

815
00:41:47,760 --> 00:41:50,040
Speaker 2: leads wherever they go. It doesn't matter if the Interior

816
00:41:50,080 --> 00:41:52,240
Speaker 2: Secretary who's responsible is a Republican.

817
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:53,880
Speaker 4: Just go after the wrong doers.

818
00:41:53,920 --> 00:41:56,319
Speaker 2: So Coolidge acquitted himself pretty well.

819
00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 3: I think if.

820
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:01,360
Speaker 1: Jess Smith had not died, either by suicide or murder,

821
00:42:01,600 --> 00:42:04,719
Speaker 1: whatever happened to him, do you think any of this

822
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,919
Speaker 1: would have come out? Do you think Harry Dougherty would

823
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 1: have just retired at some point and faded into the

824
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,200
Speaker 1: would work with money that he had with you, the

825
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 1: power that he had, or do you think at some

826
00:42:16,840 --> 00:42:19,239
Speaker 1: point this had to have been revealed.

827
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 2: I think it was more likely to come out if

828
00:42:22,200 --> 00:42:25,720
Speaker 2: he'd survived. It was hard for Wheeler to prove anything

829
00:42:26,280 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 2: conclusively because Jess Smith was the one firsthand witness to

830
00:42:30,000 --> 00:42:31,120
Speaker 2: a lot of these transactions.

831
00:42:31,200 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 4: Right Roxy Stintson.

832
00:42:32,360 --> 00:42:35,480
Speaker 2: Was recounting things that she'd heard secondhand, so it would

833
00:42:35,480 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 2: probably would have come out quicker. In fact, I think

834
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,440
Speaker 2: the plan was to hold Jess Smith up as this scapegoat.

835
00:42:40,640 --> 00:42:45,560
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, what is the lasting message that you wanted

836
00:42:45,560 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 1: people to take away from the book? About government? About corruption,

837
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: about interpersonal relationships where people are supposed to trust one

838
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 1: another and someone is betrayed.

839
00:42:56,080 --> 00:42:58,440
Speaker 2: What I hope people take away from it is that

840
00:42:58,719 --> 00:43:01,800
Speaker 2: is the importance of a free per and congressional oversight

841
00:43:01,920 --> 00:43:06,279
Speaker 2: in reinging in an out of control presidency or administration.

842
00:43:06,920 --> 00:43:10,439
Speaker 2: Sometimes bad political actors truly do operate above the law.

843
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:13,279
Speaker 2: Right Doherty never spent a single day in jail for

844
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:16,960
Speaker 2: any of his crimes. He avoided jail time because he

845
00:43:17,000 --> 00:43:19,120
Speaker 2: was a shrewd lawyer. He was, really, but also because

846
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 2: of his high political office right as Attorney General, he

847
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:24,839
Speaker 2: was kind of shielded from that. But Senator Wheeler kind

848
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:28,120
Speaker 2: of shrewdly recognized that and said, well, even if he

849
00:43:28,160 --> 00:43:29,960
Speaker 2: can't be convicted in a court of law, we can

850
00:43:30,000 --> 00:43:32,080
Speaker 2: convict in him in the court of public opinion.

851
00:43:32,280 --> 00:43:33,319
Speaker 4: And he did right.

852
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:37,920
Speaker 2: His investigation shocked Americans into caring about what the Attorney

853
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 2: General was doing what was happening in the Bureau of Investigation,

854
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:44,080
Speaker 2: what was happening in the Justice Department, and he relegated

855
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 2: Harry Doherty to the ash bin of history. That's a

856
00:43:47,680 --> 00:43:49,720
Speaker 2: lesson that we can have for today when we're worried

857
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 2: about maybe we can never send this bad political actor

858
00:43:52,920 --> 00:43:55,759
Speaker 2: to jail, but we can at least discredit him in

859
00:43:56,160 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 2: history's judgment.

860
00:43:57,600 --> 00:43:59,319
Speaker 3: What ends up with Wheeler? What does he do?

861
00:44:00,640 --> 00:44:03,480
Speaker 2: So Wheeler has an interesting story after all of this happens.

862
00:44:03,719 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 2: You know, he started out as this fierce progressive and

863
00:44:06,080 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 2: then kind of wound up as a cranky conservative. He

864
00:44:08,320 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 2: opposed the New Deal, He opposed FDR's court packing scheme.

865
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:16,160
Speaker 2: He most infamously opposed American intervention in World War Two.

866
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:18,840
Speaker 2: He was aligned with the America First Movement, was friends

867
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 2: with Charles Lindberg. That led, of course, to charges of

868
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 2: Nazi sympathy. His reputation really suffered over the decades despite

869
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 2: this real triumph early in his career. What maybe a

870
00:44:29,719 --> 00:44:31,759
Speaker 2: lot of your listeners might be from Earth is a

871
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:34,880
Speaker 2: direct consequence of this story. A movie called Mister Smith

872
00:44:34,880 --> 00:44:38,240
Speaker 2: Goes to Washington. It was loosely patterned after the story

873
00:44:38,280 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 2: here right, it was. In fact, the original screenplay was

874
00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 2: titled A Gentleman from Montana, which was Wheeler's home state.

875
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:46,680
Speaker 2: It's about, you know, this young, naive politician arriving in

876
00:44:46,719 --> 00:44:49,280
Speaker 2: the Senate and having the tables turned on him when

877
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:52,080
Speaker 2: he tries to take on a corrupt older politician.

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00:44:52,560 --> 00:44:53,880
Speaker 4: That's exactly what happened to Wheeler.

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00:44:53,960 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 2: And when Frank Kappra premiered the movie in Washington in

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00:44:57,000 --> 00:44:58,160
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty nine.

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Speaker 4: He shared a box with Wheeler. They watched the movie together.

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00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:04,960
Speaker 1: You know, really going back to the victim here and

883
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:08,720
Speaker 1: ending with the victim Jess Smith, there is a blind

884
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:13,440
Speaker 1: devotion there that just seems so sad, whether or not

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00:45:13,600 --> 00:45:16,800
Speaker 1: it is a physically intimate relationship he had with Doherty

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00:45:17,000 --> 00:45:20,000
Speaker 1: or just you know, emotional. To put that much trust

887
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:24,360
Speaker 1: in someone then to be betrayed must have been just

888
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 1: the final moments of his life. Whatever caused his death

889
00:45:28,520 --> 00:45:31,640
Speaker 1: must have been so painful for this man who it

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00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:35,120
Speaker 1: just seemed like, even though he probably was complicit and

891
00:45:35,200 --> 00:45:39,279
Speaker 1: a lot of the corruption here, really seemed devoted to

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00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:43,600
Speaker 1: someone who it doesn't sound like really deserved his devotion.

893
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:46,640
Speaker 2: No, he truly didn't deserve the devotion, and that's something

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00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:49,759
Speaker 2: I wonder I've wondered about whether Smith realized that it's

895
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Speaker 2: a tragedy.

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00:46:01,080 --> 00:46:04,000
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the

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00:46:04,080 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That

898
00:46:07,280 --> 00:46:10,719
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock. This has been an exactly

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Speaker 1: right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Amrosi. Our associate

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00:46:15,440 --> 00:46:19,840
Speaker 1: producer is Alex Chi. This episode was mixed by John Bradley.

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00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: Curtis Heath is our composer. Artwork by Nick Toga. Executive

902
00:46:24,160 --> 00:46:28,520
Speaker 1: produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgarriff and Danielle Kramer. Follow

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00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:32,440
Speaker 1: Wicked Words on Instagram and Facebook at tenfold more Wicked

904
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:35,279
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at tenfold more and if you know

905
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:37,759
Speaker 1: of a historical crime that could use some attention from

906
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:41,200
Speaker 1: the crew at tenfold more Wicked, email us at info

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00:46:41,280 --> 00:46:45,360
Speaker 1: at Tenfoldmorewicked dot com. We'll also take your suggestions for

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00:46:45,440 --> 00:46:47,680
Speaker 1: true crime authors for Wicked Words