Crooked: The Roaring ‘20s Tale of a Corrupt Attorney General, a Crusading Senator, and the Birth of the American Political Scandal
Nathan Masters
Hachette Books}
Copyright 2023 by the author

When most people think of Warren Harding’s presidency, one of the first things that will come to mind is the “Teapot Dome” scandal, where federal oil reserves were sold off to oil companies to the benefit of people in the Harding administration. Less well-known to us today, but even more outrageous was the contemporary scandal at the Veterans’ Bureau. The Bureau was purchasing goods for far more than market price, surplus goods were sold off for much less than they should have been, and millions of dollars were flat out unaccounted for.

Senate committees were investigating all this. But the biggest scandal was, quite simply, that the US Attorney General and the Justice Department weren’t doing anything at all to help the investigations.

Masters has waded through literally thousands of pages of Senate hearing transcripts, newspaper reports, and other first-hand documents to put together a wonderfully dramatic and exciting tale. The cast of characters is amazing: A notorious bootlegger. A “sexy dame”. Political “fixers” of all stripes…..

A prologue set in 1922 introduces the two protagonists. We first meet the villain, Attorney General Harry Daugherty, when he makes a surprise personal appearance in a Chicago court to ask a judge – who won that position thanks to Daugherty’s machinations – to grant an incredibly sweeping injunction against striking railroad workers. Needless to say, the injunction was granted – which broke the strike. Our hero, Burton Wheeler, a rising star in Montana politics, saw this, and was incensed. A long time supporter of labor, he made it his main promise to get Daugherty when he tossed his hat in the ring for the upcoming Senate election in that state. Needless to say, he won.

A complex tale like this, with a lot of legal and political maneuvering, needs a good starting point so you don’t lose the reader too soon. Masters picks the suspicious suicide of Daugherty’s personal aide / assistant / BFF Jess Smith in May, 1923. Not only does that let him hint at all sorts of secrets and coverups, it also puts us right around when people were starting to ask questions about the DoJ.

The story itself is fascinating, and as Masters points out, became the inspiration for Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. It pretty much comes down to whether or not the Congressional investigation can find enough evidence to put Daugherty behind bars.

The real issue at stake is how much power Congress has to compel testimony. When local law enforcement is corrupt or criminal, there are things one can do to call them to account – usually involving state or federal law enforcement. But when the wrongdoing is at the highest level of our justice and law enforcement system? What then? That’s something that has become quite significant in the past few years…..

Daugherty was eventually forced to resign by Harding’s successor, Calvin Coolidge, and the “Bureau of Investigation” became the FBI – with J. Edgar Hoover in charge. Wheeler let Congress flex its muscle, and used public perception to get the DoJ to clean up its act. Maybe that was a better result…..