James A. Reed: Legendary Lawyer; Marplot in the United States Senate

By J. Michael Cronan

This is a biography of little-known Missouri senator James A. Reed, who was in the running for the Democratic Partys presidential nomination in 1928 and 1932. While in the United States Senate, Reed was the leading opponent to president Woodrow Wilsons effort to have the United States join the League of Nations. During the administrations of Franklin Roosevelt, Reed was a critic of Roosevelts Neal Deal policies and gave his support to Republican presidential candidates in 1936 and 1940.

The book also presents the story of Reed, the outstanding trial lawyer in cases where he obtains remarkable results in civil damage claims, as well as various criminal cases in which he acted as prosecuting attorney or defense counsel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 10, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532043758

J. Michael Cronan

Mr. Cronan is a retired attorney, who practiced law in Kansas City for nearly forty years. He lives in Overland Park, KS with his wife Kathie. This is his first book.

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Copyright © 2018 J. Michael Cronan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-4374-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4375-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018902368

iUniverse rev. date: 03/26/2018

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter1     Early Years and Arrival in Kansas City

Chapter2     State of Missouri v. Jesse E. James

Chapter3     State of Missouri v. Dr. Bennett Clark Hyde

Chapter4     1910 Run for the United States Senate

Chapter5     The Relationship with President Woodrow Wilson

Chapter6     Interstate Railway Co. v. Kansas City, Clay County, & St. Joseph Interurban Railway

Chapter7     The Election of 1916 and Prewar Activity

Chapter8     The Fight Against the League of Nations

Chapter9     Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment

Chapter10   The 1922 Senatorial Campaign

Chapter11   The Two Mrs. Reeds

Chapter12   State of Missouri v. Roy B. Garvey

Chapter13   The Horse and Mule Case

Chapter14   The Wilderness Years: 1923-1929

Chapter15   Aaron Sapiro v. Henry ford and the Dearborn Publishing Co.

Chapter16   The 1928 Democratic National Convention

Chapter17   Universal Oil Products, Co. v. Standard Oil of Indiana

Chapter18   State of Missouri v. Myrtle Bennett

Chapter19   Nell Donnelly Kidnapping

Chapter20   Union Electric Light & Power v. Snyder Estate Co.

Chapter21   The 1932 Democratic National Convention

Chapter22   United States of America v. Warner Bros. Pictures, Co.

Chapter23   Tom Pendergast and Harry Truman

Chapter24   Anti-Roosevelt Years and Republican Support

Chapter25   Donnelly Labor Litigation

Chapter26   Outdoors, Farm Life, and Legacy.

Acknowledgements

Notes

Photographs

Bibliography

Appendices

It would hardly be possible for Mr. Reed to order a beef-steak and dish of hash brown potatoes without impressing his rare declamatory gifts on the waiter. The spontaneous character of his eloquence makes it all the more effective. Orators of this type are born not made.

                                                            The Kansas City Star Editorial

                                                            March 12, 1900

Marplot—One who frustrates or ruins a plan by meddling.

                                                            Merriam-Webster On-Line Dictionary

PROLOGUE

The Democratic National Convention of 1932 was held from June 27th to July 2nd in Chicago, Illinois. The country was in the depths of the worst economic crisis in its history and was desperate for strong leadership and decisive action. One-time Missouri Democratic Senator James A. (Fighting Jim) Reed hoped to be successful in the selection process as a dark horse candidate for President. The two leading candidates for the nomination were Governor Franklin Roosevelt of New York and 1928 Democratic presidential candidate and former New York Governor Al Smith. Prior to the convention, Reed’s prospects for a deadlock in the voting appeared somewhat hopeful since the nomination required the votes of two-thirds of the delegates and neither of the two principal candidates had the necessary votes going in. Auguring well for Reed was his national reputation for courageous and fiery oratory, as well as a credible effort in the Democratic campaign of 1928. However, early in the Chicago voting, Reed’s prospects were sabotaged by members of his own Missouri delegation who secretly plotted with the Roosevelt campaign. By the fourth ballot, most Missouri delegates had abandoned Reed. Those former Reed votes and the ninety votes previously committed to Speaker of the House John Nance Garner of Texas—now switched to Roosevelt with the promise to Garner of the vice-presidential slot—were at that point enough to put FDR over the two-thirds threshold required for the nomination.

That Reed was a serious candidate for president in 1932 and also in 1928, was somewhat of a miracle. Throughout his eighteen-year career as a U.S. Senator from Missouri which ended in 1929, his political fortunes rose and fell dramatically. He so exasperated President Woodrow Wilson by his vitriolic opposition to the League of Nations, that Wilson dubbed Reed The Marplot of the Senate. Although he was a tremendously gifted orator and a man of notable political integrity, he fought primarily against legislation and change rather than fighting for laws he deemed appropriate. The type of change he supported was going back to the political philosophy of Andrew Jackson or Thomas Jefferson. Reed’s platform expressed in 1928 emphasized the following: (1) preserving and restoring local self-government and the sovereignty of the individual states of the union; (2) arresting the march of centralization; (3) ending government by boards and bureaucracies; (4) equalizing the burden of taxation; (5) repealing all laws creating special privileges; (6) liberating honest business from oppressive interference by government agents; (7) making the ballot secure and inviolate; and, (8) abolishing Prohibition.¹ His political beliefs remained the same in 1932.

The low point of Senator Reed’s political career was undoubtedly in 1920. That year he was refused admission as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention in San Francisco because of his opposition to President Wilson. Not easily blocked from anything he wanted to do, Reed managed to obtain the proxy of another Missouri delegate to enter the convention, regardless of the personal embarrassment he felt over the effort to exclude him. That embarrassment was considerably lessened when, upon his return to Kansas City, he was greeted at Union Station by a brass band playing, Hail to the Chief and a crowd of eight thousand well-wishers. He was carried from the station to a waiting car, which then took him to a celebration in his honor at Convention Hall.²

A significant factor in the demise of Reed’s presidential aspiration at the 1932 convention was the lack of vigorous support by some outstate and St. Louis members of the Missouri delegation. Those delegates were quick to defect to the camp of Franklin Roosevelt in defiance of their preconvention instructions. The state Democratic convention had told its delegates to, Use all honorable means to bring about the nomination of Reed. The meaning of that instruction would vary among the delegates based upon the strength of their commitment to Reed. To those delegates who were at best lukewarm in their support of Reed, this meant only a commitment to Reed on the first ballot. To those delegates downright hostile to Reed, it meant they were free to switch their votes before the final tally of the first ballot. While Roosevelt had agreed not to campaign in Missouri in advance of the convention in deference to Reed’s favorite son status, behind the scenes Roosevelt campaign leader James A. Farley was orchestrating an early defection of Missouri delegates from Reed to Roosevelt. This proved to destroy what limited chance Reed had to successfully compete in the selection process. It did not help his chances that while the state Democratic Party was choosing delegates for the Chicago convention, Reed was hospitalized at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota where he had surgery for the removal of his gall bladder.³

Having lost the 1932 presidential nomination, seventy-one-year-old James A. Reed none-the-less continued to be engaged in an eventful and demanding life over the ensuing years. Just within the eighteen months after the Chicago convention four significant personal events occurred: Lura, his wife of forty-five years, died from pneumonia; his younger brother John died from a heart attack; he survived a plane crash in Oklahoma that kept him hospitalized for several weeks; and he married the recently divorced Nell Quinlan Donnelly, a woman twenty-eight years his junior and the mother of his two-year-old son. Beyond these significant personal events, Reed’s legal career continued as a highly visible and successful trial lawyer in Missouri and other locations throughout the United States, much as it had been during his years in the United States Senate. Although he would never again hold elected office, he continued to speak passionately and often of his view of what the government of the United States should be—a conservative view that was radically different from that of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Reed’s fiery rhetoric that was once directed at President Wilson would now be focused on the man charged with leading the nation out of the Great Depression.

1

EARLY YEARS AND ARRIVAL IN KANSAS CITY

At the time of the Revolutionary War, James A. Reed’s ancestors lived in western Pennsylvania. Jim Reed’s great grandfather and other Reed family members lived on land in Washington County, Pennsylvania that George Washington claimed as his. Washington filed suit to oust the Reeds from his land and was successful in that claim.¹ Having lost their land, a part of the Reed family then moved to Ohio where on November 6, 1861, in Richland County, James Alexander Reed was born to parents John and Nancy. When James was three years old, his parents moved their family from Ohio to a farm near Cedar Rapids, Iowa. That move must have been perilous. One account states that they started overland from Ohio with a herd of five thousand sheep which by the end of the trip had been reduced to almost nothing.² John Reed died after only five years in Iowa. During that time, in addition to working as a farmer, he was a merchant and president of the local school board. John Reed was described as a prominent and influential citizen.³

Jim Reed was one of six children born of the marriage of John and Nancy (Crawford) Reed, only four of whom survived into Jim’s adulthood. From age eight James worked tirelessly on his family’s farm to help support his mother and siblings. He had two sisters, Mary and Hatti, one older and one younger, and, one younger brother, John.⁴ He attended high school in Cedar Rapids and in 1880 was chosen to give the valedictory address as an eighteen year old senior. He chose Free Thought as the topic of his speech, which the school principal believed advocated atheism and requested that it be rewritten. James refused to rewrite the address and because of that was denied a diploma.⁵ For a short time Jim attended Parson’s Seminary, a predecessor to Coe College in Cedar Rapids.⁶ In 1882, Reed began reading law in the Cedar Rapids offices of Hubbard, Clark & Dawley. He was admitted to the bar of Iowa in 1885 and thereafter practiced in Cedar Rapids for two years. He then moved to Kansas City. The story is told that at the beginning of his legal career Reed sold a horse for $135.00 and used that money to purchase his law library.⁷

On August 1, 1887, Jim Reed married Lura (Mansfield) Olmsted, a woman he had known since childhood. The same day that James and Lura were married in Cedar Rapids, they moved to Kansas City.⁸ Previously, Lura was married to Frederick C. Olmsted of Cedar Rapids. During that marriage, she began an affair with Reed and because of her infidelity the Olmsteds divorced in 1887. Following the divorce, the two children of the Olmsted marriage, Sophia and Lewis, remained with their father in Iowa. They appear to have had little or no contact with their mother for the remainder of her life. James A. and Lura Reed had no children from their marriage.

In 1887, Kansas City was a rapidly growing town that had experienced a great deal of transition over the last quarter century. During the Civil War, the city and surrounding area were rife with conflict between northern and southern armies, and their respective sympathizers. The infamous General Order Number 11, issued in 1863 by Union General Thomas Ewing in reaction to Confederate guerillas burning and plundering Lawrence, Kansas, created bitter resentment that endured for generations after the Civil War. That order forced all persons living in rural areas of Jackson County and three adjoining counties to evacuate their homes and relinquish their crops to the Union military authorities. The Civil War Battle of Westport, which took place a few miles south of Kansas City on October 23, 1864, involved thirty thousand Union and Confederate troops.⁹ The fighting leading up to Westport, the deadly battle itself, and the continuing fighting as Confederate troops retreated to the south, resulted in the campaign being known as the, Gettysburg of the West. In 1860, the Kansas City census was only 2,319.¹⁰ At the same time, the census of St. Joseph, Missouri on the Missouri river to the north was 8,932, and the census of Lexington, Missouri on the Missouri river to the east was 4,122.

By 1883, the census of Kansas City was estimated as 93,733.¹¹ This rapid growth was brought about largely by the construction of the Hannibal Bridge over the Missouri river at Kansas City. The bridge, which was the first over the Missouri River, was completed in 1869. It provided railroad transportation through Kansas City to and from locations in the western and southwestern parts of the country. Railroads and the meat packing industry were the major enterprises in the city at that time. In 1886 new Kansas City, Kansas was created on bluffs to the west of the Kansas River and surrounding areas by the consolidation of five small municipalities.¹² The Kansas City stockyards, located in the river bottoms between Kansas City, Kansas on the western bluffs and Kansas City, Missouri on the eastern bluffs, were built by the railroads in 1870. The stockyards along with various slaughter houses were on the Missouri side of the Kansas River in an area known as the West Bottoms. In the year of the Reeds arrival, Kansas City, Missouri was ranked tenth among cities of the United States and was visited by President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland during their prolonged railroad tour of the country.¹³

The train trip from Cedar Rapids brought Jim and Lura Reed to Kansas City’s Union Depot in the heart of the West Bottoms. Upon arrival, detraining passengers were confronted with the overpowering stench from the stockyards and slaughterhouses. Then, after leaving the station, they likely were required to maneuver around delivery wagons hauling kegs of beer and freshly slaughtered carcasses. In places, the dirt streets of the city were occupied by roaming pigs and mule drawn street cars.¹⁴ Charles Gleed wrote of this time and place that there was a broad diversity of, …renegade Indians, demoralized soldiers, unreformed bushwhackers, and border ruffians, thieves, and thugs imported from anywhere…. The municipal water system was described as that which made whisky-drinking a virtue. Referred to often in the late nineteenth century as, The Pittsburg of the West, Kansas City represented both a western frontier town and a rapidly developing industrial center. Perhaps the most notable comparison to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania was the steep cable car lift system that transported people from the base of the bluffs in the West Bottoms to the business area at the top of the bluffs to the east.¹⁵ The mixture of commerce by cowboys, steamboats, and railroads presented an environment where there were more than twice as many gaming houses and saloons as there were churches.

When Jim Reed came to Kansas City, the Pendergast political machine was active and growing in influence. Jim Pendergast moved to Kansas City from St. Joseph, Missouri in 1876. Allegedly, in 1881 Pendergast placed a long shot bet on a horse race that gave him the money to open a saloon in the West Bottoms.¹⁶ From that business, Pendergast began to loan money and otherwise help out the poor, working people that frequented his bar. Jim Pendergast was elected a city alderman and held that position for eighteen years.¹⁷ Jim Reed came to the attention of Jim Pendergast, an Irish Catholic, after the young lawyer’s statements at a meeting of the American Protective Association. Reed listened to a number of speakers at that meeting denigrate Catholics, Jews, and others, after which he spoke out and chastised those present for their intolerance.¹⁸

Reed’s initial Kansas City law office was in the Nelson Building, a six-story structure located at the intersection of Main Street and Missouri Avenue, in what is now known as the City Market area of Kansas City. Early on, his office partner was William G. Clark, brother of a partner in the firm where he had worked in Cedar Rapids. After Mr. Clark’s health failed, Reed joined with other Kansas City lawyers to form the firm of Ellis, Reed, Cook & Ellis.¹⁹ Edgar Ellis came to Kansas City from Beloit, Kansas one year after Jim Reed. He was elected as a Republican member of Congress for five terms (1905-09; 1921-23; 1925-27; and, 1929-31). Hale Cook was for many years a member of the Kansas City school board. An elementary school in the Waldo area of Kansas City is named in his honor.²⁰

Few records are known to exist concerning Reed’s law practice in Kansas City before he became Jackson County prosecuting attorney in 1899. There are five Missouri appellate court decisions in which Reed was involved in the 1890s. Two of those opinions concern a case Reed and his wife brought against Western Union Telegraph Company for its negligence in composing a telegram from a real estate agent in Cedar Rapids to the Reeds in Kansas City. The telegram conveyed an offer to buy a lot in Cedar Rapids that the Reeds owned at a sales price of $1,900 instead of $1,300, which the buyer offered. The Reeds were successful in recovering six hundred dollars from Western Union for the mistake made in the telegram, but had to take the case to the Missouri Supreme Court in order to achieve that result.²¹ Reed’s skills as a lawyer and orator together with the backing of Jim Pendergast’s organization enabled him to become county counselor in 1897 at an annual salary of three thousand dollars.²² He was then elected to a two year term as prosecuting attorney of Jackson County from 1899 to 1901.²³

The political landscape that existed in Kansas City at the turn of the twentieth century included the Republican Party, the progressive good government movement led by newspaper man William Rockhill Nelson, and two factions of the Democratic Party. The more dominant Pendergast faction was known as the Goats, and the other faction led by Joe Shannon was known as the Rabbits. Shannon would in time go on to be a six term United States Representative (1931-1943). Jim Pendergast turned over control of the Pendergast organization to his younger brother Tom in 1910 and retired to his farm in Johnson County, Kansas. The elder Pendergast died a year later at age fifty-four.²⁴ The factionalism between the Goats and Rabbits was particularly significant to the future of Jim Reed because of a lawyer associated with the Rabbits. He was Frank P. Walsh, who would become Reed’s frequent courtroom adversary. Later in his career, Walsh held appointed positions in the administrations of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt.

Reed’s reputation as a fiery orator developed early in his political career. In one notable instance Fighting Jim Reed found himself on the losing side of a political battle. In 1898 when running for Prosecuting Attorney, he also gave speeches in support of Frank Sebree who was running for mayor. In one of those speeches to a group of men in the Kansas City Stockyards, Reed told his audience that while an earnest young minister in the city was telling his congregation of the virtues of Sebree’s opponent, incumbent mayor James Jones, the mayor was at the same time, in another part of the city, dead drunk. Word of this claim got back to Mayor Jones who later that day confronted Reed. This led to a fight between the men, the result of which was that Reed was knocked unconscious. Reportedly, when he came to Reed’s first words were, Who hit me? The Kansas City Star reported the fight as one sided—Reed striking wildly and Jones landing three hard blows which caused Reed to land in the gutter unconscious. The front page article reporting the fight also described Reed’s campaigning as consistently using uncomplimentary and abusive language toward Mayor Jones.²⁵ Reed was able to deliver the final blow to Jones when he succeeded him in the 1900 mayoral election.

Reed’s success in the mayoral race of 1900 was made possible by the support of the Pendergast organization. He campaigned for this office as a reform candidate, although in this instance reform would only go so far. Reed did successfully obtain reformation of favorable franchises granted to various public utilities by the previous administration, but he also appointed twenty-eight-year-old Tom Pendergast to the position of Street Superintendent at an annual salary of two thousand dollars with control over 250 patronage jobs. By all appearances Tom Pendergast performed well in this job even garnering praise for his efforts from Nelson’s Kansas City Star.²⁶ During Reed’s tenure as mayor, he also allowed Jim Pendergast to name 123 of 173 policemen to the city police force. His administration was credited with reducing the property tax rate one mill, redeeming bonds, paving streets, and, building sidewalks and sewers.²⁷

A matter of great significance during the early days of the Reed mayoral administration was the destruction of the Convention Hall from a fire on April 4, 1900, and the Hall’s reconstruction in time for its use as the site of the Democratic National Convention beginning July 4th of that year. In February 1900, Reed traveled to Washington, D.C. to advocate before the Democratic National Committee for the selection of Kansas City to host the party’s national convention. He praised the Kansas City Convention Hall as capable of holding twenty-five thousand delegates, and quoted favorable reviews of the facility by both William Jennings Bryant and evangelist Dwight Moody. Use of the Hall was promised free of charge.²⁸ Having secured the national convention for his city, when the Convention Hall burned to the ground Mayor Reed urged on the citizenry to raise funds for its reconstruction. He also worked with local construction companies and their workers to set aside disagreements and build the new hall in record time. Just before the start of the convention, The New York Times described the new facility as costing three hundred fifty thousand dollars and being worked on day and night. As the convention began, much of the exterior of the building remained to be completed but it was well designed, had good acoustics, and a finished interior. The new facility was 310 by 214 feet with walls of granite and brick eighty-five feet tall.²⁹ The rapidly built Convention Hall would be used for the next thirty-four years, including hosting the 1928 Republican National Convention.

At the completion of his two-year term as Mayor, Reed stood for reelection and defeated his opponent 16,448 to 15,442. The race was difficult for several reasons. First, Reed faced criticism not only from his Republican opponent but also from The Kansas City Star. Another difficulty was he chose to engage in a very public dispute with the highly-regarded Chief of the Fire Department, George C. Hale. The election took place on Tuesday, April 8, 1902. On the Sunday before the election, The Star ran several stories which criticized Reed and supported his Republican opponent. One of the stories, contained on the front page, was a parody of Reed’s oratorical style in which Reed was called upon to, Turn his excoriating eloquence upon a man possessing Mr. Reed’s own public record. In this satirical account, Reed examines the record of Rames A. Jeed, or, Rimmyjeed which, it was suggested, would describe the incumbent mayor as follows:

I refer to the personal and official record of my antagonist in this battle of the people against soulless wealth, the purchased and paid creature of the iron-heeled rich, who was placed in power to serve greedy masters, and has done their bidding like a dog.

… Let’s make a little careful study of this gentleman with the gold collar, this water carrier for the rich men’s elephant, this sneak shoved in through the city’s transom to open the door for the thieves—this Honnorrable [sic] Rames A. Jeed! Honnorrable! Strange uses the English language has come to when such a word can be applied to such a creature!

… When Rames A. Jeed—my friend Rimmy, my esteemed friend Rimmyjeed, the alleged friend of the people—when Rimmy started in to run for mayor what was the first thing he did? I’ll tell you what he did, my friends. He resigned from a position which paid him $5,000 a year to run for an office which paid only $3,600. Anything queer about that? Does it look right to you? Who was his friend and principal backer when he calmly threw that $1,400 a year to the birds? Was his backer one of the wealthiest men in town, a skilled politician? Don’t you know that he was? And didn’t that wealthy backer afterward make, in one slice, by the aid of the Honnorrable Rames A. Jeed, many hundred times $1,400? ³⁰

If the parody of Reed was not enough, other prominent articles in that edition of the paper reported on a meeting of the group, Democrats Against Reed; the existence of an $8,000 slush fund to aid Reed’s election efforts; and, an enthusiastic Republican mass meeting the night before at which 16,000 people were present to offer their support for Reed’s Republican opponent, John J. Green. At that rally, much was made of the decision of the city and supported by Reed to purchase a fire and police alarm system, claimed to be greatly overpriced, which used, Gamewell Boxes to send an electrical signal to a central location. When activated, immediate notice would be given of the location where fire or police service was needed. The esteemed fire chief Hale, who had led a team of Kansas City firemen in winning international firefighting competitions, had been opposed to the Gamewell system. Reed maintained that Hale’s opposition was because he had invented a similar system that he wanted the city to use. Hale denied that this was the basis for his opposition, but once Reed won re-election, it was a short time before Hale was removed from his position as fire chief. In support of Hale’s removal, Reed presented a statement of nine grounds for the dismissal, including insubordination, falsifying reports, and that he had brought politics into the fire department.³¹

During Reed’s second term as mayor, Kansas City experienced one of the greatest natural disaster in its history—the flood of 1903. It was estimated that fifteen to twenty thousand people became homeless because of the flood. A substantial number of those were provided temporary shelter at the newly rebuilt Convention Hall.³² Flooding in Kansas City occurred primarily in the West Bottoms area of the city where the Union Depot was filled with over six feet of water and in other parts of the Bottoms the depth of water was as much as fifteen feet.³³ Several railroad boxcars containing lime were consumed by fire as a result of the high temperature generated from the chemical reaction of lime and water. As many as twenty railroad cars were destroyed in this fashion. To prevent the fires from spreading to nearby warehouses, fireman found themselves in water up to their arm pits working to extinguish the boxcar fires.³⁴

At the Great Bend, where the Missouri is joined by the Kansas or Kaw River and then turns east towards St. Louis, the flooding was so extensive that it created a vast inland sea. Most of the city’s factories were shut down and Mayor Reed convinced Governor Alexander Dockery to place the city under martial law.³⁵ Police and militia were authorized to shoot thieves observed in the act of looting property, or looting the bodies of those who had drowned in the flood. Reed also secured an ordinance imposing stiff penalties on anyone charging unreasonable prices for food and water.

The flood destroyed an aqueduct over the Kansas River which provided drinking water for Kansas City from a reservoir in nearby Quindaro, Kansas. To address the loss of the city’s Quindaro water supply, a new water line was constructed over the Kansas River by men working around the clock over nine days. The replacement line was created by suspending a twenty-five inch steel pipeline from steel cables strung across the river and attached to the old aqueduct piers at each side of the river.³⁶ In order to provide a long term solution for supplying water for the city, a piping system contained in a tunnel sixty feet below the bed of the Kansas River was constructed, but not completed until 1906.³⁷ Sixteen bridges were destroyed by the flood. Only one bridge over the Kaw withstood the flooding. It was the bridge of the Missouri Pacific railroad. To increase resistance to the flood water, eight locomotives were placed on the Missouri Pacific bridge. Even though water washed over the top of the bridge and threw wreckage against the locomotives, the bridge and the locomotives positioned on its tracks withstood the tremendous pressure exerted from the raging water.³⁸

In his role as mayor of Kansas City aligned with the Pendergast Machine, Reed was viewed with suspicion and distrust by newspaperman William Rockhill Nelson. Nelson’s dislike of Reed was said to be fueled as well by Reed’s refusal as mayor to extend sewer lines into a piece of Nelson’s property which was outside the city limits.³⁹ In addition, Reed did not have the enthusiasm that Nelson had and shared with Jim Pendergast for spending lavishly for boulevards and parks, which had been authorized by a bond issue approved in 1893.⁴⁰ Notwithstanding the differences between Nelson and Reed, The Kansas City Star, during the first administration, on occasion praised Mayor Reed for his accomplishments.⁴¹ In later years, particularly during the lifetime of William Rockhill Nelson, praise was rarely given.⁴²

Charles P. Deatherage was a Kansas City lumberman who in his retirement did copious work toward publishing a three-volume history of Kansas City. The first volume which ends with events occurring in 1870, was published in 1928. The remaining two volumes were never published but extensive notes and drafts of his work are contained in the Missouri Valley Special Collections of the Kansas City Public Library. Correspondence between Deatherage and Reed makes clear that he had great admiration for Reed. Deatherage wrote to Reed asking him to relate his most notable accomplishments during his administrations as mayor for inclusion in what he would write. A six page manuscript that appears to be the result of input from both men lists the following significant events: overcoming the recalcitrance of various city contractors accustomed to having their own way at exorbitant cost to the city; reversing the last minute ordinances of the previous administration that extended lucrative thirty-year franchises to virtually every public service corporation in Kansas City; being elected to a second term in the face of an almost universal opinion that he was foredoomed to defeat; agreement by the street car companies to universal transfers allowing riders to ride to any part of the city for a single fare of five cents; cutting telephone and electric rates in half; rehabilitation of the water pumping station; initiating plans for a new city hospital and the new Union Station; and, bringing about changes that caused the street car companies to spend approximately ten million dollars making improvements to their operations and equipment.⁴³

Capitalizing on his success as mayor of Kansas City, Reed chose to enter the realm of state politics. There, his initial effort to run as a Democratic candidate for governor in 1904 was short lived. Reed entered the race for governor in September 1903 but found he could not overcome the popularity of St. Louis circuit attorney Joseph W. Folk. By May 11, 1904, Reed withdrew from the primary contest and released his convention delegates to Folk who in the general election went on to defeat Republican Cyrus P. Walbridge, president of the Bell Telephone Company of St. Louis, and a former mayor of that city.⁴⁴

After completion of two terms as mayor, Reed was instrumental in aiding the city in additional ways. He acted as legal counsel for a committee of citizens who brought proceedings charging members of a subsequent city administration with fraud and corruption. The result of that litigation was a reduction of gas rates for the people of the city to as low as twenty-five cents per thousand cubic feet for a period of many years, down from as much as a dollar per thousand cubic feet charged previously. Reed also represented the city in litigation with Union Station and the Terminal Railway in which heavy switching charges for local delivery of freight to side tracks of businesses were removed and the Terminal Railway was compelled to pay for and build viaducts allowing streets to pass over railroad tracks that accessed the new Union Station.⁴⁵

2

STATE OF MISSOURI V. JESSE E. JAMES

Jim Reed was extremely successful as prosecuting attorney for Jackson County in 1899 and 1900. The story was often told over his political career that as prosecutor Reed lost only two cases out of 242 cases tried,¹ or, perhaps it was out of 287 cases.² At a rate of 2.3 to 2.7 cases per week, the number of successful prosecutions probably includes jury trials, court tried cases, and possibly guilty pleas as well. In subsequent years, Reed modestly explained his success as a prosecutor by stating he carefully investigated the cases brought to him and only if he was convinced of the defendant’s guilt would he prosecute the case.³ Perhaps implicit in this explanation is that a number of the cases he did not pursue were those where allegations of gambling had been made—acts of prosecutorial discretion undoubtedly looked on favorably by Jim Pendergast and his political and business associates.⁴

The best known of Jim Reed’s criminal cases of this time is one of the two cases he lost. The matter involved charges against Jesse Edward James, a Kansas City resident and son of the outlaw Jesse Franklin James. The indictment claimed that the younger James participated in a train robbery of the type engaged in by his father in earlier years. This trial is recounted in the book by L.A. Little, The Trial of Jesse James, Jr: the Son of an Outlaw Stands Accused, an accumulation of contemporaneous news articles about the robbery and trial reported in the Kansas City Journal.⁵

At 9:15 the night of September 23, 1898, a Missouri Pacific passenger train departed from the Union Depot and 30 minutes later was robbed by a group of seven masked men in a wooded area along Brush Creek. The train was initially stopped by one of the robbers standing on the tracks and swinging a red lantern in front of the oncoming locomotive.⁶ After the engine and express car were uncoupled and separated from the passenger cars by over a mile, the safe in the express car was blown open with dynamite. The robbers emptied the safe and successfully fled the scene, but within a matter of days suspects were detained, one of whom was a switchman for the Santa Fe railroad who gave a confession implicating James and others. Twenty-three year old Jesse James both in public statements printed in the press and in response to the police questioning or sweating, as it was called in news reports, denied any involvement in the robbery and offered compelling alibi evidence from other family members.⁷

Jesse James was held and questioned by police officers and not released on bond until his attorneys sought and obtained a writ of habeas corpus. Shortly thereafter a grand jury indictment was issued against James and four other men. Jesse was again detained but released on bond a second time while the other men were kept in jail. One of them was also later able to make bail. To offer support and advice, Jesse’s famous uncle Frank James came from St. Louis to be with his nephew throughout the trial.⁸

The defendants sought separate trials, and the decision was made by the prosecution to try Jesse James first. James Reed was assisted in the Jesse James trial by six assistant prosecutors. The defense team of three attorneys was headed by Reed’s political rival Frank P. Walsh. In the course of jury selection, three potential jurors revealed that after their names had been published in local papers as members of the jury panel, they had been approached by police detectives to learn their opinions about the case.⁹ Once the twelve jurors for the trial were selected, their names, personal information, and addresses were set out in news accounts of the trial. While the trial took place, jurors were sequestered at the nearby Hotel Lynch.

Under Missouri law at the time, conviction for train robbery carried with it the possible penalty of death. While it was claimed by the railroad that only twenty-nine dollars was taken in the robbery and no one was injured during the occurrence, the stakes in the case were still very high. At trial, the principal witness against Jesse James was William Lowe, the Santa Fe switchman who acknowledged his own participation in the robbery and who, in exchange for his confession, was granted immunity and promised one-half of the $1,350 reward if a conviction was obtained.¹⁰ Lowe testified that Jesse was a member of the group that robbed the train and was actively involved in planning the robbery at the home of Andy Ryan. The train express messenger testified that he recognized the voice of Jesse James as that of the leader of the group robbing his express car. A passenger on the train, William J. Smith, testified he saw Jesse James during the robbery without a mask on. Smith was considered a very important witness for the prosecution as he was the only person, apart from Lowe, who gave positive testimony that Jesse James was one of the robbers present on the scene. He testified that he was riding in the smoking car and after the train stopped, he got up, went outside, and started walking forward. He then met one of the robbers who told him to get back on the train. Smith said that the man was not wearing a mask but had a black cloth around his neck. Smith identified the man as James.¹¹

The defense of Jesse James centered on his being at home with his family at the time the train robbery took place. However, attorney Walsh began the defense by recalling to the stand prosecution witness William J. Smith to attack Smith’s credibility. Approximately three years prior to the James trial, Smith was convicted of stealing property in Cass County, Missouri. This theft had first been reported in the Kansas City Journal the previous day following Smith’s testimony for the state. The prior conviction was acknowledged by Smith when recalled to the stand by Walsh.

The most poignant witness for the defense was seventy-four-year-old Zerelda Samuels, grandmother of the defendant. The courtroom appearance of Mrs. Samuels was a stark reminder of the persecution of her family for many years. The lack of her right hand and lower right arm vividly commemorated the results of the bomb thrown into her farm home by Pinkerton detectives in 1875. Mrs. Samuels’ testimony was similar to what she had given in the past. In 1883, she testified on behalf of her son Frank at his criminal trial in Gallatin, Missouri.¹² In her grandson’s case, she told of being with her daughter-in-law, granddaughter, and grandson at their Kansas City home when they heard the explosion from the train robbery. Similar testimony was given by Jesse’s mother and sister.

Jesse James testified and denied his participation in the train robbery, although he admitted knowing switchman William Lowe and Andy Ryan who was also identified as participating in the robbery. The defense also provided witnesses who vouched for the good character of Jesse James. These witnesses were Judge John W. Henry of the Jackson County Circuit Court (who had earlier released James after hearing the petition for writ of habeas corpus); E.F. Swinney, cashier of the First National Bank and one of the two men who posted Jesse’s eight thousand dollar bond; Will P. Hayde, Deputy Clerk of the Circuit Court; and, William Cargill, assistant superintendent of the Armour Packing Company where Jesse had worked for several years in the past.¹³

Closing arguments in the case consumed six hours. The arguments began with that of Frank G. Johnson for the state. This was followed by attorneys Yeager, Farr and Walsh for the defendant. Attorney Farr questioned why witness William Smith would get up out of his seat on the train and go outside and approach the robbers. He also emphasized that only Smith placed James on the left side of the train; all other prosecution witnesses who claimed to have seen the robbery put the robbers on the other side. Frank Walsh told the jury that the evidence of Jesse James’ character offered by defense witnesses was critically important, because, The law tells you that a man with such a character and such a reputation as has the defendant cannot be guilty of the crime with which he has been charged. He closed his argument by what was described in the press as a startling reference to remarks made by Major John N. Edwards on the death of the defendant’s famous father. Edwards editorially commented on the death of the senior Jesse James by saying that the circumstances of his killing warranted removal of the two bears from the flag of Missouri and putting in their place a thief blowing out the brains of an unarmed victim and a brazen woman, naked and splashed to the brows in blood. Walsh told the jury, that if they convicted his client, We might as well tear the two bears from the great seal of Missouri and place thereon, as more appropriate, the leering face of a detective seeking an innocent victim, and the crawling, snake-like shape of an informer.¹⁴

The final argument was given by prosecuting attorney Reed. Mr. Reed’s closing was reported as one of the most powerful speeches ever given in the Jackson County criminal court.¹⁵ Reed spoke for an hour, and during that time he was interrupted by attorney Walsh eight times. He was also interrupted three times by Judge Shackleford. One of those occasions was when Reed quoted the testimony of Mrs. Leavins that Jesse James asked her the day after the robbery to remember that she had seen him the night before at 8 o’clock. Judge Shackleford announced that was not her evidence, but Reed insisted that it was. The judge said that the stenographer would read the testimony to the jury but when the stenographer first read the testimony to the judge and it confirmed what was said by Reed, he was told to shut up your book and go and sit down. Reed devoted a great deal of his argument to the evidence from witness Smith and explained the circumstances connected with Smith’s arrest and imprisonment. Reed told the jury, In heaven’s name, if the police were looking up a man to commit perjury in this case, wouldn’t they get a man who had never been arrested? At one point in his closing when he sought to remind the jury of the defendant’s father, Reed was chastised by the judge for arguing matters outside the record. Reed shrewdly dealt with the testimony of the James family members by saying, What mother would not come to the defense of her son in a case of this kind? I say before my God, I honor the mother who clings to her own through good and evil report. He told the jury, I don’t blame these women they followed the instincts of human nature.¹⁶

Following the tremendous effort put into the prosecution of the case and lengthy and impassioned arguments by the attorneys, the case was given to the jury at 6:35 in the evening. Before deliberating, the jury was taken to eat their evening meal and then returned to begin their deliberations at 8:00 p.m. At 9:20, a verdict of not guilty was returned to the applause and cheers of a packed courtroom. The jury foreman was quoted as saying, We simply threw out the testimony of W. J. Smith entirely, we did not believe that Smith was on the train or that he saw Jesse James there. We believed W. W. Lowe was a liar and that the whole charge against Jesse James was a plot of the police force to convict an innocent man. Another juror said, We simply made up our minds that the police had picked out this boy to railroad him to the penitentiary and were going to turn Lowe loose, and we wouldn’t stand for it.¹⁷ After the verdict was returned in favor of Jesse James, prosecutor Reed dismissed the charges pending against all of the other men indicted for the robbery on the basis that he would not be able to get a conviction since the strongest case was against James who had been acquitted.¹⁸

Freed by the verdict of not guilty, Jesse James returned to his business running a cigar stand in the Jackson County Courthouse. Later, with encouragement from attorney Frank P. Walsh, he began studying law and in 1906 was admitted to the Missouri Bar. In 1910, newspapers reported that William W. Lowe who had been arrested for a train robbery in St. Louis admitted to perjuring himself in the Kansas City trial brought against Jesse James. He released a written statement through his attorney that after his arrest twelve and a half years previous, he was pressured by Thomas Furlong, who worked for the Missouri Pacific Railroad, to say that James was in the robbery, but that statement was false. When told of Lowe’s statement, James said, I have always maintained that the confession Lowe made in 1898 was a fake. I do not know what promises were made to him to extract the confession, I was not present at the time, but I have always maintained it was a fake.¹⁹

Jesse James practiced law in Kansas City for several years, at least part of the time his office was in the Scarritt building. Interestingly, he seemed to develop a fondness for suing railroads, either for employees injured on the job or individuals injured by the operation of trains.²⁰ He married shortly after his acquittal in the trial for train robbery, and he and his wife Stella had four daughters. In 1921, James tried his hand at an acting career in which he played his father in two silent motion pictures, neither of which was a success. Those financial failures left the James family near bankruptcy and caused Jesse to have a nervous breakdown. In the late 1920s, Jesse and his family moved to Los Angeles where he initially practiced law. Later he operated a restaurant known as The Jesse James Cabin. He died in California in 1951.²¹

3

STATE OF MISSOURI V. DR. BENNETT CLARK HYDE

In 1857, thirty-year-old Thomas H. Swope came to Kansas City and for the next fifty-two years invested in real estate. He became the city’s most successful real estate investor. In 1896, at age seventy, he donated 1,344 acres of land to Kansas City that was used to create Swope Park. That philanthropy ensured for him an endearing place in the minds of present day Kansas Citians that far exceeds the image of the man during his lifetime. Colonel Swope was, in fact, a complaining, eccentric, demanding curmudgeon who was convinced over the last several months of his life that his death was imminent. His premonition of death came true on October 3, 1909, at the 26 room