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Three Bullets Sealed His Lips

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The legislature has been the focal point of public outrage in Michigan, as newspapers across the state have described graphically years of unrestrained pillage of the House Fiscal Agency's budget, the dubious role of legislators in administrative decisions conferring million-dollar windfalls on garbage barons, resort developers and snake-oil "technology" peddlers, and the revolving doors between legislative offices and lobbying dens.

Historical perspective can be useful as you confront concerned and disenchanted constituents. While it is difficult to judge comparative degrees of depravity, as bread-and-circus drama the Lansing scene of today pales by comparison to the Lansing of the mid-1940s, when the high-powered deal-making among lobbyists and legislators implicated some of Michigan's most powerful political, business and criminal figures in the murder of a state senator.

In 1943 the executive secretary of the Michigan Medical Sochety was convicted of bribery for a 1939 offer of a free California trip to a member of the Michigan House of Representatives in exchange for support of legislation barring osteopaths from certain medical practices. In the meantime, the representative, Warren Hooper of Adrian, had become both chairman of the House Public Health Committee and paid executive secretary of the Michigan Association of Osteopathic Physicians and Surgeons! Hooper reported the Medical Society's bribe offer only after an official inquiry into legislative corruption had been forced on Attorney General Herbert Rushton (himself a former state senator) by reports of an independent Detroit Citizens' League investigation and by another representative's unwitting revelation of a bribe when he told reporters that a man in a gray suit had stuffed $1,350 and a note instructing him to vote against an anti-chain-bank bill into his overcoat pocket in the Capitol cloakroom.

In August 1944 a jury convicted 20 current or former legislators and four finance-company officials of bribery involving a 1939 automobile financing bill. A key witness was attorney and lobbyist Charles Fitch Hemans, who was also to be a witness in the anti-chain-bank-bill case. By late 1944, the principle witness in the chain-bank case was Representative (and Senator-elect) Warren Hooper. Under intense grand-jury interrogation, Hooper had crumbled, admitting that he was on the payroll of Grand Rapids political boss Frank D. McKay and accusing McKay of bribery to kill the anti-chain-bank bill and legislation to curb corruption in horse-race betting.

Indicted in December 1944, McKay became the primary target of the corruption investigation. Michigan's Republican national committeeman and founder of General Tire Company, McKay had served three terms as state treasurer (leaving office in 1931 under the cloud of a grand jury investigation into his handling of state funds). As treasurer, McKay had insured that the state purchased only General Tire products (including inventories of obsolete and flawed tires). Later, he was reputed to have used his influence over Governor Frank Fitzgerald to protect illegal gambling operations and to have his cronies appointed state purchasing director and chairmen of the Liquor Control and Corrections Commissions. In the early 1940s federal grand juries indicted McKay for shaking down distillers to get their products into state liquor stores, for defrauding the city of Grand Rapids through rigged bids on municipal bonds, and for extorting $10,000 from Edsel Ford, supposedly to pay party campaign debts. But, all of McKay's trials ended in acquittals.

The testimony of Senator Hooper and lobbyist Hemans was expected to bring McKay's run of legal luck to an end. However, on the evening of January 11, 1945, en route from Lansing to Adrian, Senator Hooper was murdered in what authors Bruce Rubenstein and Lawrence Ziewacz (THREE BULLETS SEALED HIS LIPS, Michigan State University Press, 1987) concluded was a plot involving McKay, Jackson State Prison officials and Purple Gang members in and outside of Jackson Prison.

Further dooming McKay's prosecution, Hemans refused to testify in the anti-chain-bank case, eventually fleeing to Washington, D.C., where he was arrested for unlawful flight from Michigan, convicted and sentenced to a year and a half in federal prison. On his release Hemans was rewarded with a high-paying position by Charles Bohn, president of Bohn Aluminum Company and a member of the board of directors of Michigan National Bank, the state's largest chain bank; Bohn was one of those against whom Hemans had refused to testify.

From the vantage point of the 1990s, observing the blatant buying and selling of legislative influence and votes involving auto insurance, medical malpractice insurance, telecommunications, "economic development" grants and loans, landfill and other environmental regulation, state contracts, criminal investigations, ..., it is difficult to conclude that anything has really changed in Michigan.

Consider a 1992 incident eerily reminiscent of Hooper, his public health committee, Medical Society bribes, the anti-chain-bank bill and related scandals of the 1940s: Senator John Pridnia adjourned a Public Health Committee hearing on a bill favorable to chiropractors, crossed the street from the Capitol to the Michigan National Bank's tower, a lobbyists' den, to pick up checks at a chiropractor-sponsored fund-raiser, and later reconvened the hearing and favorably reported the chiropractors' bill.

As in the 1940s, criminal investigations, occasionally, are initiated, as in the case of the House Fiscal Agency, and convictions, occasionally, are obtained, as in the Michigan Tech Ventures case. Sufficiently dangerous lips might again be sealed by a sweet-heart job or, if necessary, by three bullets.

However, one contrast can be drawn between the prosecutions of the 1940s and those of the 1990s: In the earlier cases the 62 people convicted included a former lieutenant governor, 12 state senators, 11 state representatives, and scores of prosecuting attorneys, police officials and lobbyists. In the 1990s it is very unlikely that the lieutenant governor, legislators or lobbyists will be either indicted or convicted for anything other than the simplest fraud (for example, billing the state for bogus travel expenses).

The legislature learned the lesson of the 1940s corruption prosecutions. No longer do lobbyists surreptitiously place instructions and $1,350 in coat pockets in the Capitol cloakroom. Rather, they openly tell legislators what legislation they want and openly hand legislators their checks, payable to "campaign accounts" and "office holder expense funds," which the legislators then use to pay for their own trips to California (and elsewhere), to compensate their wives for "secretarial services," to pay their children for "shoveling snow" at "district offices" (their homes), to purchase clothing, to buy presents for supporters, ... Legislators and lobbyists no longer need fear prosecution for what would have been bribery in the 1940s, for the very simple reason that the legislature legalized that bribery.

Postscript to Legislators: Read <STRONG>THREE BULLETS SEALED HIS LIPS</STRONG> and relieve your constituents' fears: It is less likely today that you will be so dangerous as to warrant three bullets.

This book reads like a crime novel, only the story is true. It is also interesting to students of Michigan political history and state legislative processes, as this shows extreme examples of corruption, murder, and deception for political gain.


In 1943, a grand jury investigation into Michigan state government corruption resulted in 130 arrests and 60 convictions, including the Lt. Governor, 12 State Senators, and 11 State Representatives. It was discovered that legislative votes were open to sale from lobbyists and special interests.

Attorney General Herbert Ruston, a former State Senator, had refused to create a grand jury even when the Detroit Citizen's League provided evidence of corruption. State Rep. William Stenson publicly declared that someone unknown to him put $1,350 and a note on how to vote on legislature concerning banks into his coat pocket. The Attorney General then felt obligated to create a grand jury. Judge Leland Carr was a one person grand juror.

The press attacked Republican State Party leader Frank McKay. He has been State Treasurer until resigning during a previous grand jury. McKay, though, was a political king maker who chose nominees for Governor and state offices. The press believed McKay and his political associates allowed illegal gambling operations to exist in Michigan. Futher, the press discovered McKay obtained state contacts for his own company. Three grand juries looked into charges McKay engaged in various influence peddling schemes. McKay was acquitted.

Judge Carr discovered over half of legislators brought before him stated they took bribes. Over a third of the entire legislature was eventually indicted.

At first, 20 legislators (some no longer in office) and six finance company employees were indicted on $25,000 in bribes on automobile financing legislation. The employees pled guilty are received immunity. Sen. Miles Callaghan became an informant.

The legislature considered holding up $150,000 in funds for the grand jury. Some legislators were concerned that the grand jury's investigator Charles Spare was a Klansman who previously incited wartime factory strikes among white workers. Spare was released from the investigation yet was later secretly hired under the name "Mary Duke".

The law did not allow for paying witnesses more than $2 a day plus meals. Yet a key lobbyist who turned witness, Charles Hemans, was provided funds and expenses that included prostitutes and replacing a mattress. Hemans then refused to testify against friends. He served 1 ½ years for unlawfully fleeing Michigan het he received a high salary from a bank that he had refused to testify against.

Sen. Warren Hooper admitted to the grand jury he received a salary from McKay in return for keeping a horse racing bill from moving out of his committee. Hooper also told of McKay bribing other legislators. Hooper was promised immunity for agreeing to testify against McKay.

Senator Hooper was shot to death. The legislature quickly acted to approve funding the grand jury.

Muri Aton, a local prosecutor, found a witness who indicated there could have been a woman with a man in the vicinity of Hooper's murder. Kim Sigler, who was prosecuting the grand jury, and Aton kept their silence on this information. When Sigler was nominated for Governor, the little known Aton was picked to run for, and was elected, Auditor General. Sigler had decided to use the murder investigation to further his career and he wanted to bring down McKay to do so.

Rumors emerged that Hooper had affairs. The State Police found suspicion that Hooper had been threatened to be killed by Harry Rosenberg, a mobster in a group known as the Purple Gang because Hooper supposedly had an affair with Rosenberg's wife. Sigler considered this a possible tie to McKay since McKay's bodyguard Charles Leiter had belonged to the Purple Gang.

Sigler, before becoming grand jury prosecutor, was an attorney for Rep. Bill Green, who was under indictment. Green had explained to Sigler a lot about legislative graft. Green was upset when Sigler left as his attorney and used what Green had told Sigler before the grand jury.

Sam Abramowitz, a Purple Gang associate, was found, through questioning as confirmed by a polygraph test, to have been involved in the Hooper murder along with Henry Luks. Luks failed the polygraph when denying his involvement.

Sigler speculated that McKay had ordered and financed Hooper's murder. Meanwhile, the grand juror Judge Carr charged McKay, Charles Leiter, and other Purple Gang members for liquor law violations. Abramowitz and Luks testified against some associated who were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder.

Sen. Ivan Johnson criticized Sigler's spending, especially funds spent on Charles Hemans. The current Grand Juror, Judge Louis Coash (who had replaced Carr when he was made a Supreme Court Justice) dismissed Sigler. Sigler, realizing his career faced oblivion, attacked Coash and claimed he sought only to punish criminals. A week later, Signer announced he was running for Governor. A week before the primary, a Sigler ally indicted Sen. Johnston for bribery. This created a boost for Sigler's campaign and helped him win the primary. Sigler was later elected Governor.

State Police Commissioner Donald Leonard investigated the Hooper murder. He took all the records when he resigned of Commissioner in 1952. McKay supported Leonard in his unsuccessful campaign for Governor.

In 1985, grand jury files was discovered. Sigler had brought Hooper to testify in front of McKay. Hooper testified McKay gave him a $500 bribe.
The Purple Gang was offered $25,000 to kill Hooper if it was done before Hooper next testified. McKay was presented, as a sign of good faith that the money would be paid. Abramowitz tried to blackmail Governor Sigler, claiming Sigler knew his testimony was false. Abramowitz vanished and was never seen again.

KcKay lead a successful campaign to defeat Sigler's reelection as Governor in 1948.

I was researching the purple gang for a report to a history club and found the book extremly interesting. The information was a little overwhelming but everyone in Michigan should read this book to know the history of the state , a regretful history for not so long ago.