Wikipedia

Draft:The Lid Off Los Angeles

"The Lid Off Los Angeles" was a 1939 five-part series of newsmagazine articles that ran in Liberty, an American general interest magazine. The series, written by Dwight F. McKinney and Fred Allhoff, asserted that the LAPD, in cooperation with officials in municipal government, had partnered with organized crime figures in the city for mutual financial benefit but to the detriment of the body politic. The article alleged police protection of gambling, alcohol smuggling, and bordello prostitution in exchange for payoffs by crime bosses, as well bribery, intimidation, spying, dirty tricks, ratfucking, and ultimately violence on the part of the corrupt Los Angeles Police Department to protect the corrupt system over a 20-year period, ending under the administrations of Chief of Police James E. Davis and Los Angeles mayor Frank L. Shaw. Frank L. Shaw, who had been deposed by the 1938 Los Angeles mayoral recall election, sued the authors for libel, sued a second group for a different article, and was later countersued by civic reformer Clifford Clinton for making false allegations. A jury in the first lawsuit was unable to reach a verdict. After lengthy court proceedings over several years, all parties settled out of court in 1943.[1] The articles made an "enormous impact,"[2] and the title has been continuously reused in reference to crime and problems generally in Los Angeles.[3][4][5] The title of the series comes from a statement made by Clinton in the wake of the car bomb that almost killed private investigator Harry J. Raymond; he announced he had information about the involvement of elected officials that would "blow the lid off of Los Angeles".[6]

History

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March 1941 Shaw files against "death struggle Vice czars" article in True Story.[7]

Jan 8 1942[8]

Jan 13 1942[9]

Jan 1942[10]

Series and successors

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Sequence Article Title Subhed Date Subject matter
1a Part One—A Dictatorship of Crime Beginning an astounding story of corruption and vice in a great city—and a stirring battle against them November 11, 1939 Example
1b Part Two—The Passing of "Good-Time Charlie" More astounding revelations in an astounding study of corruption and vice in a great American city—and of a gallant battle against them November 18, 1939 Example
1c Part Three—The Spy Squad That Floored Uncle Sam Corruption, vice, a hidden dictatorship! Dramatically, a startling saga unfolds November 25, 1939 Example
1d Part Four—Chief Davis Pulls a Boner A new startling chapter in an amazing chronicle of crime and corruption in a great American city December 2, 1939 Example
1e Part Five—The Fight...and the Stakes Dramatic, sinister, heart-warming! A saga of crime and courageous men December 9, 1939 Example
1f Part Six—Conclusion The story of a gallant fight ends with a question—Will the job be finished? December 16, 1939 Example
2 Buron Fitts Defends Los Angeles Liberty gives both sides! Without comment, here's a reply to "The Lid Off Los Angeles"—by the county's famous District Attorney March 16, 1940 Example
3 "My husband's death struggle with the vice czars of Los Angeles" Nelda M. Clinton as told to Pauline Swanson in True Story magazine January–February 1941 Example

Authors

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Fred Allhoff

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Fred Allhoff
Born
Christopher Frederick Allhoff

(1904-06-11)June 11, 1904
Dayton, Ohio, United States
DiedNovember 11, 1988(1988-11-11) (aged 84)
Dade County, Florida, U.S.

Fred Allhoff (June 11, 1904 – November 11, 1988) was an American magazine writer. Allhoff was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1904.[11] He was an only child, his father was a bookkeeper for a printing company,[12] and then an insurance agent.[13] His mother died when he was young and his maternal aunt moved in to help raise him.[13] In 1930, at age 25, Fred Allhoff was employed as a newspaper reporter in Dayton[14] and/or Cleveland, Ohio.[15] Allhoff got married in 1931 in New York City.[16] A 1936 article series for Liberty called "Tracking New York's Crime Barons" became the 1938 Edward G. Robinson picture I Am the Law.[17] The year after the publication of "The Lid Off Los Angeles", Allhoff authored "Lightning in the Night".

Allhoff and his wife lived on Long Island in 1940; his work was "writer".[18] Allhoff's wife Pauline died of illness in New York in 1944.[19] Allhoff moved to Coral Gables, Florida in 1945, where he continued to work as a writer.[20] Around 1948, Allhoff and his new wife bought 16 acres near the Caloosahatchee River.[21] In 1950, when he was living in Lee, Florida, with his second wife, and working as a fiction writer.[22] He May have gone into the real estate business in Miami in the 1960s.[23] Lightning in the Night was republished in book form in 1979.[24] Allhoff died in Florida in 1988.[25]

Dwight F. McKinney

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Dwight F. McKinney
 
Passport photo (1923)
Born
Dwight Faber McKinney

(1889-04-02)April 2, 1889
Ottawa, Kansas, United States
DiedNovember 5, 1979(1979-11-05) (aged 90)
Newport Beach, California, United States

Dwight F. McKinney was born in Ottawa, Kansas in 1889,[26] as the youngest son of a Presbyterian minister and his wife.[27] The family lived in Indiana for a time before they moved to California around 1898 for the father.[27]

At the time of the 1910 U.S. census, McKinney worked as a salesman for a newspaper.[28] McKinney may have begun traveling internationally on a sustained basis around 1915.[29] In 1917, he was self-employed as a publisher in Los Angeles.[26] McKinney served in the U.S. military from May 1918 until February 1919, as "Sgt 2 Cas Co".[30] In August 1919, when he was involved in rescuing a baby from a house that had exploded, McKinney was described as a publisher with offices at Wayside Press .[31][a] He wrote at least two humorous travelogues, Henery in the Orient and Seeing California with Henery.[32] In 1922 he seems to have joined a research expedition to Baja California. According to the Los Angeles Evening Express, the expedition found four paintings that were supposedly buried around 1700 by missionaries, and "in an entirely separate cache of a dozen ancient coins of the time of Carolus IV and Philip V of Spain were discovered. Like the paintings they were thickly wrapped with cowhide. With them was a turquoise rosary, the medal carrying the image of a saint obsolete for such use in the Catholic church for centuries. This smaller cache is supposed to represent the private treasure of a fleeing priest."[33] At the same time, the group filmed a colony of sea elephants on Guadalupe Island. The film was exhibited at the Pantages Vaudeville theater at 7th Street and Hill in downtown Los Angeles. Advertisements for the show promised "First and Exclusive Showing - Robt. M. Connell and Dwight F. McKinney's "SEA ELEPHANT EXPEDITION" Men Risked Life to Secure These Marvelous Pictures."[34] A newspaper blurb that was published about the same time, about the fishing off Cedros Island, described McKinney as an associate of the Southwest Museum.[35]

In 1930 he spoke to a community group in Santa Barbara about his recent visit to the Soviet Union and his observations of Communist system there.[36] During the rest of the 1930s McKinney was a resident of Fresno, California, and worked at the Bankruptcy Referee office.[37] As of 1942, his occupation was "writer - on his own".[38] In 1957 he was scheduled to speak the California Cultural Club in Los Angeles about his "travels to trouble spots in the world".[39] Circa 1970, McKinney lived in San Francisco.[37] McKinney died in 1979, at age 90, in Orange County, California.[40]

Reception

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The Los Angeles Times previewed the series on the front page of section two, commending the magazine for amply setting the stage with the historical background for the then-recent events like the Kynette trial, and commented, "Unlike Look and Collier's, which were satisfied with a once-over-lightly treatment of the sadder aspects of our citizenry, Liberty is digging in for a long winter of flamboyant and grating adjectives to describe our sin...the tempo of their piece is set early in the article, to-wit: 'To those who look shudderingly upon the terroristic activities of the secret police of Germany and Russia and ask whether such things can happen here, the answer is yes'."[41] The articles were described by a business school professor in 1940 as "a fairly reliable account of corruption and the civic crusade which resulted in the recall of the mayor".[42] A 2023 dissertation on the labor market in Los Angeles from the time of the stock market crash to the beginning of World War II called "The Lid Off Los Angeles" a "fascinating albeit sensational telling" of the events leading to Shaw's recall.[43]

Notes

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  1. ^ The explosion was the result of a bomb intended for former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California Oscar Lawler.

References

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  1. ^ "Shaw and Clinton Litigation Ended". The Los Angeles Times. April 29, 1943. p. 32. Retrieved 2024-06-18.
  2. ^ lmharnisch (June 19, 2020). "'The Lid Off Los Angeles' – Liberty Magazine Examines Corruption in the LAPD and at City Hall". Retrieved 2024-06-18.
  3. ^ British Books. Publisher's Circular Limited. 1960.
  4. ^ The American Mercury. American Mercury. 1960.
  5. ^ Henstell, Bruce (November 1977). "When the Lid Blew Off Los Angeles". Westways. p. 68.
  6. ^ Sitton, Tom (2005). Los Angeles Transformed: Fletcher Bowron's Urban Reform Revival, 1938-1953. UNM Press. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-8263-3527-2.
  7. ^ "Shaw Names Clinton, Mayor in Suit". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. March 28, 1941. p. 11. Retrieved 2024-06-22.
  8. ^ "Shaw Said Genius at Government". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. January 8, 1942. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-06-22.
  9. ^ "Shaw Case Articles Read". The Los Angeles Times. January 13, 1942. p. 25. Retrieved 2024-06-22.
  10. ^ "Clinton cast as writer in Shaw's libel action". Daily News. January 21, 1942. p. 11. Retrieved 2024-06-22.
  11. ^ "Ohio, County Births, 1841-2003", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VN71-YL5 : Sun Mar 10 12:27:35 UTC 2024), Entry for Charles Frederick Allhoff and Charles G. Allhoff, 1904.
  12. ^ "United States Census, 1910", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MLF6-6BC : Fri Mar 08 05:58:25 UTC 2024), Entry for Charles G Allhoff and Sarah E Allhoff, 1910.
  13. ^ a b "United States Census, 1920", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MDT2-967 : Thu Mar 07 06:41:39 UTC 2024), Entry for Charls G Allhoff and C Frederick Allhoff, 1920.
  14. ^ "United States Census, 1930", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X4H8-VYN : Sun Mar 10 15:46:47 UTC 2024), Entry for Charles G Allhoff and Fred C Allhoff, 1930.
  15. ^ "United States Census, 1930", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:X4QM-GTK : Fri Mar 08 16:41:30 UTC 2024), Entry for William H Byron and Elsie Byron, 1930.
  16. ^ "New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24D4-PSD : Tue Feb 20 17:39:29 UTC 2024), Entry for Charles F. Allhoff and Pauline Gertrude Engelhard, 1 Aug 1931.
  17. ^ Goble, Alan (September 8, 2011). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. p. 806. ISBN 978-3-11-095194-3.
  18. ^ "United States Census, 1940", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K3BM-M6J : Sun Mar 10 08:58:02 UTC 2024), Entry for Frederick Allhoff and Pauline Allhoff, 1940.
  19. ^ "New York, New York City Municipal Deaths, 1795-1949", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:2WTJ-NN1 : 3 June 2020), Fred Allhoff in entry for Pauline A Engelhard Allhoff, 1944.
  20. ^ "Florida State Census, 1945", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNNS-NF5 : Sat Mar 09 08:02:01 UTC 2024), Entry for Fred Allhoff, 1945.
  21. ^ "25 Years Ago". News-Press. February 4, 1973. p. 17. Retrieved 2024-06-24.
  22. ^ "United States Census, 1950", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6X24-S3Q1 : Tue Oct 03 03:44:10 UTC 2023), Entry for Margaret Allhoff and Fred Allhoff, April 17, 1950.
  23. ^ "Announcing Silver Palm Estates". The Miami Herald. February 6, 1960. p. 9. Retrieved 2024-06-24.
  24. ^ "BOOKS: What if Adolf Hitler had defeated the British?". The Morning News. March 25, 1979. p. 102. Retrieved 2024-06-22.
  25. ^ "Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VVNW-C5S : 25 December 2014), Charles Frederick Allhoff, 11 Nov 1988; from "Florida Death Index, 1877-1998," index, Ancestry (www.ancestry.com : 2004); citing vol. , certificate number 112331, Florida Department of Health, Office of Vital Records, Jacksonville.
  26. ^ a b "United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918", database with images, FamilySearch(https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZVN-SKF : 24 December 2021), Dwight Faber McKinney, 1917-1918.
  27. ^ a b "Errand of Mercy Ends in Sacrifice". Los Angeles Herald. August 11, 1906. p. 10. Retrieved 2024-06-18.
  28. ^ "United States Census, 1910", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MV21-LJR : Fri Mar 08 14:04:56 UTC 2024), Entry for Dwight McKinney, 1910.
  29. ^ "Russia Good Place to Be "From", Rotarians Are Told by World-Traveler Today". Santa Maria Times. October 28, 1930. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  30. ^ "United States, Veterans Administration Master Index, 1917–1940", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:7163-ZHMM : Sun Mar 10 06:52:34 UTC 2024), Entry for Dwight Faber McKinney, 13 February 1919.
  31. ^ "Rescue of Tot and Nurse from Burning Home Told". Press-Telegram. August 5, 1919. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-06-20.
  32. ^ "Former Highland Park Man Publishes Tourist Book". The Highland Park Herald. February 27, 1920. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  33. ^ "Four Old Masters Dating to 1700 Unearthed Near Mission". Los Angeles Evening Express. October 5, 1922. p. 19. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  34. ^ "Pantages Vaudeville". Los Angeles Evening Post-Record. October 24, 1922. p. 13. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  35. ^ "Fishers Paradise". The Morning Union. November 7, 1922. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  36. ^ "Russia Good Place to Be "From", Rotarians Are Told by World-Traveler Today". Santa Maria Times (part 1 of 2). October 28, 1930. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-06-21. & "World-Traveler Rotary Speaker" (part 2 of 2). October 28, 1930. p. 3.
  37. ^ a b "Old Timer Begins Journey". The Fresno Bee. May 17, 1970. p. 189. Retrieved 2024-06-18.
  38. ^ "United States World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:V48B-BKZ : Sat Feb 24 04:56:02 UTC 2024), Entry for Dwight Faber Mckinney, 1942.
  39. ^ "Cultural Club Bills Luncheon, Program". Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. April 22, 1957. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-06-21.
  40. ^ "California Death Index, 1940-1997," , FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VPCQ-YJ1 : 26 November 2014), Dwight Faber Mckinney, 05 Nov 1979; Department of Public Health Services, Sacramento.
  41. ^ "Sins of City Again in Print". The Los Angeles Times. November 1, 1939. p. 25. Retrieved 2024-06-18.
  42. ^ Ewing, Russell H. (1940). County Government and Administration: A Manual and Syllabus. School of commerce, accounts, and finance, University of Denver. p. 34.
  43. ^ Coffey, Daina Kathleen. "Build a Fence Around Los Angeles": Labor, Unemployment, and Survival in the City of Angels, 1929-1941 (Thesis). The University of Chicago. p. 229.

Sources

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