The Ohio Gang

Hilary Barrett April 13, 2009 Ohio History Dr. Patrick Thieving Their sort into History In 1919 World war I had come to an end. Ten historic peak later the stock market dismantleed throwing the wank unitedly States into a Great Depression. The cadence period in between was a m that was classified by a ex exd in the economy and parapet legalized by the eighteenth a mendment. This amendment had lead to an increase of organised crime nationwide. In that meter crossbreed of these dickens prominent moments in American history was bingle of the around shocking presidencies in American history. It came from no other than Ohioan warfareren G.Harding. Harding can be considered one of the worst presidents of all in all time. He won the prexyial election of 1920 which make him eat upicially the President in January of 1921. erstwhile he became president, he instantaneouslyadays make up his footlocker. Three members of his cabinet include his lawyer general provoke Da ugherty, his secretarial assistant of the navy Edwin Denby, and his secretary of the interior Albert set. These triad men along with Charles Forbes, Thomas miller and Jess smith were coined The Ohio group. The Ohio camp was a group of men either in Hardings cabinet or they straight off knew Harding.Although some of the members are non from Ohio, they were coined this physique due to their simile to Harding. In point a majority of the members were non from Ohio. Harding allow these men do as they p call ford. These men single generateily put together some of the biggest scams of the 1920s. The scandals they pulled off were neither exuberant or spectacular except they make a ton of silver off of them. Daugherty was Hardings first ordained cabinet member. The beginnings of The Ohio closed chain surfaced while Daugherty was in office. He was acc apply of selling his vote for vanadium gram dollars.From that point on every kind of scandal relating to Daugherty and had an affiliation with President Harding went simultaneously with The Ohio conspiracy. In a nutshell, as soon as Daugherty was appointed by Harding, the gang began their scandals. Not merely that, Daugherty was the single adventureing of all of the scandals that occurred during Hardings presidency. For all tense and purposes Daugherty was the backbone of The Ohio multitude. The Department of Justice at the time had two desks with the names Jess smith and Howard Mannington on them. Jess smith was a long time friend of Daugherty. Daugherty and his brother truly curry metalworker up in business.Mannington was a long time political coadjutor of Smith. They had both worked in capital of Ohio together. both(prenominal) Smith and Mannington were brought to Washington to help the attorney general. Mannington was released from his office though. Harding believed that Mannington was be flood tide alike intoxicating for his face and sent him to Cuba. He had sharp affiliations wi th the gang notwithstanding never authencetically lived them turn up the affilations as often as the other members did. He went there on behalf of the largest riming association in the United States and was then no longer officially associated with The Ohio Gang.The 1920s was a time of prohibition and having someone who was considered an alcoholic as a President tho lead to scandal. The only part of The Ohio Gang that related to Mannington was the misapplication of alcohol to New York. John Gorini, post horse Orr, and Mannington would illegally sell permits. The money for these permits was given over to Gorini, then to Orr, then to Mannington. Then if you would actually want to buy liquor you could at an extra cost. Every member of the chain of sales got a little kickback. Gorini altogether made over two coke kelvin dollars in a look of four months.Orr and Mannington also got cuts that big and sometimes bigger. Also, Manningtons objurgate hand man, Jess Smith, also g ot a cut. The rest of the money made on the selling of alcohol and permits was not know by Gorini where it ended up. This was the only relation that Mannington had to the gang. Since he was at rest(p) before anything major had happened, he was the only one who got apart with turn up repercussion. He became rich and went on to own a very successful life. The Ohio Gang even went and had their scandals go international. A Nipponese man had a connection with Mitsui and Company.The bankers of this company handed one c one thousand dollar bills to the Japanese man. He in turn gave the bills to Gaston B. agent. Means before worked for the Bureau of Investigation in Ohio. Means then handed over all of the money to Jess Smith. That was a grand check of 100,000 dollars made with clean this one company. Harry Daugherty never bring outmed to be out of the challenge in all of the scandals that The Ohio Gang was a part of. It started with alien property keeper Thomas Miller. He had ac cepted bribes by Smith to illegally transfer a German-owned American subsidiary to the American firm.John queen mole rat also had a part in this scandal. He manipulated the alien property flight attendants office to his own benefit. He died right after he was indicted for this caseful. It was plant that he left his widow lambert thousand dollars in American Metals bonds. Daugherty is attached because all three of these men were indicted for this case. It was the case that eventually leads to the demise of the head of The Ohio Gang. The biggest scandal that The Ohio Gang pulled off was the Teapot domed stadium Scandal. The Teapot Dome is an area of anoint bearing drink down in Wyoming and Elks Hills in California.The get down had been set aside for the Navy in narrate to provide them with petroleum. Edwin Denby was the Navy deposit at the time. He had just about accomplished control of what happened to this area. Albert declination, who was the secretary of interior, w as illegally leasing the tear to two crude companies the Mammoth crude oil Company and the pan American oil Company. In return, Fall would receive someoneal loans or gifts from the two different oil companies. formerly the scandal came to a close, Fall had made over four hundred thousand dollars in loans or gifts.Fall resigned his slope once authorities found out what only was spillage on in Wyoming and California. During the U. S. investigation, Denby was called to the stand. Since he was the one who was supposed to be watching the area one would reckon that he would have known exactly what was going on. Yet, he was another gazump of Daugherty and came to the stand and basically pleaded the fifth. It was clear that during his confession that he was too stupid to be crooked like the rest and just went along with what Daugherty or Harding wanted him to do.Due to the trend he acted during the interrogation, he is known as Hardings best employee since he did not confess to anything. During the Senate hearing, it came to the court that Fall used the money to pay off ten years of backed taxes. Two good deal also came to the stand and admitted that they had leased land from Fall. They were Harry Sinclair and Edward Dohney. They both admitted to giving Fall large loans in order to lease off the land. Fall pleaded the fifth on these two accusations. Fall was found flagitious on accepting money for oil leases. He was fined one hundred thousand dollars and sent to a year in jail. alone of the oilfields were returned to the U. S. Navy. Charles Forbes was appointed by President Harding as the director of the Bureau of gaffers affairs. It was created by President Harding in order to help out veterans of World War star and future veterans of other come-at-able wars. It has been since renamed and appease holds some status today. Forbes did exercise in WWI in the marines and had a temper as being a deserter. Once Forbes received his rank from Harding, he immediately gave himself the honor of being a colonel in the United States Army.Also, the biggest scandal of the Bureau of Veterans affairs was that Forbes embezzled two hundred and fifty million dollars. This money was collected to help out sundry(a) veterans and Forbes kept it for himself and the gang. As quickly as The Ohio Gang came to power, they fell just as hard. Harding died on August 2, 1923. It has been said that he died from pneumonia yet it also could have been a heart attack. With this Calvin Coolidge came into office since he was Hardings Vice-President. Once Coolidge took the oath of the oval office, The Ohio Gang and their dominance in scandalous political events was over.The gang had put most of their coin that they received in a bank that Daughertys son burned to the ground. All of the embezzled money was mostly now gone. A perfectly good intellectual for this was so the authorities would not see the bank books of the gang. This way they could not bring them on charges of tax invasion as well as the ones that they were facing already. other place that the money ended up was in Means backyard. Means had back gate that was opened with a superfluous key. It was in some ways almost as good as a bank vault. It was camouflaged with vines so the average person would not see it.It was a small steel box that was displace into the ground by a concentrated rope. Means kept the money that Smith had bought to him. He always kept a detailed account on how very more money was coming in and how much was going out. At times, Means had as little as fifty thousand dollars and as much as volt hundred thousand dollars in his backyard. Smith would usually make withdrawals and go right to Daughertys house. Jess Smith always had a key role in the gangs constant thieving. Smith was Daughertys right hand man. He helped Daugherty get much of his money. Smith had brought a revolver in Columbus the shadow before he fly the coop suicide.Daugherty was with S mith the night he had bought the gun. Daugherty had gone to sleep and was awakened to Smith roll around with a revolver in his hand. Smith was not dead yet, but he was on the point of going crazy and shooting himself. The next night he had been rooming with a friend of Daugherty. This person was awakened by a crash and saw Smith with his head in a waste basket and a revolver in his right hand. One of the primary(prenominal) members was now dead and Daugherty was coming up on indictment. Not much is known why Smith killed himself but much can be assumed. The main theory is that Smith knew way too much.If Daugherty and Harding were the master minds, Smith was their associate handing out tasks to all of their little pawns he knew everything. well-nigh historians think that he killed himself because he did not want to go through the ache of trial along with spilling the inner most workings of the gang. Charles Forbes was the next one to go. He was brought to trial on a prison term of embezzlement. Yet, he stood no chance. Once his actions went public, he was immediately convicted of embezzlement. He received a one hundred thousand dollar fine and two years in jail.His actions brought attention to the American public. It showed just how suspicious government officials are among the American people. ironically Daugherty was forced to investigate most of the fill that was going on during Hardings presidency. Congress, at the time, said that Daugherty was doing a poor line of business investigating these cases. Once Daugherty backed Smith for his suicide, which he claimed it was just illness the Senate launched an investigation on him. Daugherty was not directly cogitate to anything that the gang did. Yet, Daugherty still resigned his post as attorney general.It was a sketchy move that a lot of people still question. It was not until Hoovers administration that all of the members of The Ohio Gang were out of office. They were a modern day mob, who had all of the resources to get what they wanted. Hardings presidency is solidified with their actions and should unfeignedly so. He headed the most scandalous cabinets in presidential history. All of the members were not the brightest in the bunch but they got what they wanted. Although they paid the hurt for their actions, they will go down as the biggest bunch of crooks to ever step into such(prenominal) high authority as they did.