Boss Tom Slips Trap! Reformers Eat Hats!

By Bjorn Skaptason, Tom's Town Historian

KANSAS CITY, 1925:   Respectable Republicans of Kansas City were sick and tired of Pendergast Populism.

They decided the bi-cameral legislature – with upper and lower houses resembling the U. S. Congress – was too beholden to Boss Tom’s corrupt machinations. A new city charter, conceived “scientifically” by urban engineers and supported by bankers and businessmen, was put to a vote. The new charter would put Boss Tom and his cronies out of business, and replace Tom’s figurehead mayor with a professional city manager with dictatorial power. The legislature would be replaced by a nine-man city council whose principal duty was to hire the dictator.

Tom figured it was easier to make friends with five-out-of-nine councilmen than thirty-some legislators. After Pendergast candidates took five council seats in the election, they hired Tom’s hand-picked man, H. F. McElroy, for city manager.

In trying to destroy Boss Tom, the reformers handed Kansas City over to him on a silver platter.

Photo credit: ©UMKC Libraries