22 Facts About Walter Liggett

Walter Liggett specialized in exposes of Minneapolis and Saint Paul organized crime and their connections to corrupt politicians.

Walter Liggett became involved in politics and covered political corruption.

William Walter Liggett was a forward-looking, Progressive Republican, was the founder and later, the Dean of the Agricultural College of the University of Minnesota.

Walter Liggett was born on a farm near Benson, Minnesota on February 14,1886, into a family of Scotch-Irish descent.

Walter Liggett was in the Committee that founded and established the Farmer-Labor Party in the period between 1918 and 1920.

When Congress held its first ever hearings on the efficacy of Prohibition in February 1930, Walter Liggett was the first witness called to testify, for the simple reason that he was the most knowledgeable person in America on the subject of how the national experiment in Prohibition was not working.

Walter Liggett wrote scores upon scores of articles in newspapers and magazines as well as four books.

Besides his biography of Herbert Hoover, Walter Liggett wrote several novels along the lines of his first literary hero, Jack London.

Floyd B Olson had been elected governor of Minnesota on the Farmer-Labor Ticket in 1932, while Liggett was comfortably writing novels in an easy chair living with his family in a flat at Kew Gardens in Queens.

In 1933 Walter Liggett returned to his home state of Minnesota with his wife Edith Fleischer Liggett, and his two children, William Wallace Liggett, and Marda Molyneux Liggett.

Walter Liggett's intention was to engage in partisan journalism, to help build the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota into a viable third party of national prominence.

At first, getting back into his element in Minnesota, Walter Liggett was fired with admirable zeal.

Walter Liggett especially focused on their alleged connections to the North Minneapolis-based Romanian Jewish crime family and led by Jacob Blumenfeld and his older brother Isadore Blumenfield, alias "Kid Cann".

Liggett even made regular accusations of political corruption and racketeering against Minnesota Governor Floyd B Olson, whom Liggett said deserved to be impeached and prosecuted.

Walter Liggett repeatedly called in his articles for the United States Federal Government to become actively involved in investigating and prosecuting organized crime in the Twin Cities, as they had recently done so successfully against Chicago Outfit boss Al Capone.

Walter Liggett refused to accept the money and said that if he did it would make him even worse than Blumenfeld.

Walter Liggett escalated his attacks and began printing a list of reasons for Olson's impeachment on the front page of the Midwest-American.

Mrs Walter Liggett never believed that there was "a Chinaman's chance" of Blumenfeld's trial ending with a conviction.

Walter Liggett was successfully prosecuted for multiple crimes, including jury tampering, during the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations.

Walter Liggett died as a free man of heart disease in 1981.

Dubrovsky, the former head of the Russian Red Cross, alleged that the murder of Walter Liggett had been committed by the Soviet secret police.

Walter Liggett wrote a biography of her father, Stopping the Presses: The Murder of Walter W Liggett, which was published by University of Minnesota Press in 1998.