Sunland Tribune

Volume 26 01/01/2000 Article 9

2000

Tampa at Midcentury: 1950

Gary Mormino

Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/sunlandtribune

Recommended Citation Mormino, (2000) "Tampa at Midcentury: 1950," Sunland Tribune: Vol. 26 , Article 9. Available at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/sunlandtribune/vol26/iss1/9

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Sunland Tribune by an authorized editor of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Tampa at Midcentury: 1950

Dr. Gary Mormino Miami surged by 59 percent and 45 percent respectfully. To most Tampa The triggered Tampa Bay’s Big leaders, the lesson was simple: Expand Bang. National prosperity, Social or Die. Indeed, the early 1950s spawned Security, and Cold War defense a number of annexation attempts to bring spending made the Dream into Tampa’s boundaries the population possible to new generations of rich neighborhoods of , Americans. Technological wizardry, , , and Port most notably air conditioning, DDT, and Tampa City.1 superhighways, made Florida endurable and endearing. In 1950, Hillsborough The schism between Tampa and and Pinellas Counties totaled 409,143 Hillsborough County widened in the late residents. By the end of the decade, the 1940s and early 1950s, when for the first two counties combined had almost time, the county’s population gains three-quarters of a million residents, an outpaced the city’s. For almost a century, astounding population increase of 89 Tampa had claimed the lion’s share of percent. Demographers, bureaucrats, and Hillsborough County’s population. It was wordsmiths coined new terms to not that Hillsborough County’s other describe the changes sweeping the new towns threatened Tampa’s hegemony; in decade: suburban sprawl, climate fact, in 1950 Plant City numbered 9,230, control, and metropolitan area. Port Tampa City 1,497, and Temple Terrace only 423. Rather, new growth When officials released the results of the was settling in the county’s 1950 census, local and county leaders unincorporated areas. New reacted with expected ballyhoo. Upon developments were springing up along closer inspection, the tabulations posed South , Sulphur more questions than answers. In 1950, Springs, and especially the census takers counted 124,681 Tampa peninsula. In 1950, Fowler Avenue was residents, making the Cigar City a crude dirt road while Temple Terrace Florida’s third largest city. The Highway, the future Busch Boulevard, tumultuous decade of the 1940s was a two-lane road. To the north, east, experienced dizzying population and west was undeveloped, cheap land.2 mobility, but Tampa had grown a scant 15 percent. If Tampa’s growth was Midcentury downtown combined modest, Hillsborough County’s increase curious parts of dynamism and decay. was spectacular, its population still claimed the expanding 39 percent to 249,894. area’s most powerful banks, most envied corporations, and most prestigious For all of the self-congratulation, stores, but the central business district Tampa’s expansion paled when had been stagnating for some time. No compared to its urban rivals. While significant new building had been Tampa grew by 15 percent during the erected for decades. The era’s most decade of 1940-1950, St. Petersburg and colorful baseball player and philosopher, As the began to grow very rapidly in 1950, and the population grew more prosperous, the newest automobiles were just the way to move families of baby-boomer kids to homes in new suburbs. Shown is the Oldsmobile 88 Holiday hardtop coupe for 1950. Cost? $2183. (Photograph courtesy of Ferman Motor Car Company)

Yogi Berra, could have been describing Island still had large sections waiting for Tampa’s central business district when homebuilders. Large numbers of young he said of a certain restaurant, "No one Latin families left in the ever goes there anymore. It’s always 1950s, gravitating toward , crowded!" Shoppers and commuters but also to the more Americanized complained incessantly of downtown’s neighborhoods "off limits" to Latins lack of parking lots, overabundance of before the war. In 1950, a family could parking meters, and rush-hour traffic. By buy a new 3-bedroom home in Beach the end of the decade, shoppers literally Park for $10,250. In , Miss and figuratively steered away from Jonnie L. Cape purchased the Peter O. downtown Tampa, electing to patronize Knight "honeymoon" bungalow for the new shopping malls and suburban $11,000. The home, located on Hyde businesses. Park Avenue, later became the headquarters for the Tampa Historical In 1950, real estate traffic was brisk. Society.3 New construction filled in vacant lots in the city, but the most frenzied Honeymoon bungalows and development occurred in the Mediterranean Revivals in Palma Ceia unincorporated county. No single and Hyde Park graced the real estate individual comparable to David P. Davis section of the Tribune and Times, but the had yet sketched out a vision for era’s most popular home was the Tampa’s postwar suburbs; indeed Davis inexpensive, concrete-block ranch house. Terrazzo floors were the rage. Tampa faced competition not only from Tampa’s working classes were also on suburban Hillsborough County, but the march, migrating to newly developed Pinellas County. The 1950s was a sections of Sulphur Springs, West decade of reckoning. St. Petersburg and Tampa, and Belmont Heights. Sulphur Pinellas County, once regarded as a Springs had boomed throughout the quaint collection of beach resorts and 1940s as thousands of working-class small towns, began to challenge Tampa. homeowners sought cheap housing, a Surging numbers of new residents, country setting, and freedom from chiefly retirees from the Midwest and zoning. Jim Walter homes and septic Northeast, buoyed the populations of tanks characterized the development of Dunedin, Kenneth City and Pinellas Sulphur Springs and other Park. Trailer parks were the rage. St. unincorporated areas. Walter’s "shell Petersburg grew dramatically during the houses" found eager buyers who paid 1940s, adding 36,000 new residents. The $850 (lot, appliances, and moving fee average age of the population of St. not included) for a slice of the Florida Petersburg made it one of America’s Dream. Property in the county was oldest cities. Almost one in every four cheap. A 10-acre farm off 22nd Street residents was 65 years and older; in was advertised for $6,560.4 Tampa the proportion was 1 in 11. By 1950, Pinellas County was Florida’s The suburbs and country enticed most densely populated county, with shoppers increasingly frustrated by over 600 inhabitants per square mile. Tampa’s traffic. In 1950, the automobile Pinellas had grown by 73 percent during reigned supreme. Tampa had ended its the 1940s, in contrast to Hillsborough’s trolley operations in 1946. Residents in 39 percent.7 Hyde Park, Ybor City, and still patronized small, Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties family-run grocery stores, while new battled for supremacy throughout the chain supermarkets - many of them air 1950s. The rights to fresh water, the conditioned - opened in the suburbs, location of a public university, and the such as the new A & P supermarkets on recruitment of industry fostered a bitter Dale Mabry Highway near Henderson, rivalry. Historic jealousies and Dale Mabry and Jetton.5 notwithstanding, the U.S. Census of 1950 confirmed that Florida’s west coast Contemporaries praised the new was becoming a major population center. suburban businesses and homes, so Henceforth, announced officials, described by an observer as "built Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties mostly in the bright tropical motif." would be considered one metropolitan Suburbia, contended a reporter, was unit. Tampa Bay, once a body of water, "unsnarling traffic" and "rekindling the had become an urban yardstick, the small-town spirit of mutual helpfulness largest population center in the fastest and leisure living." A half-century later, growing state in America.8 few Tampa Bay residents agree that decades of suburban growth have Tampa Bay may have been Florida’s "unsnarled traffic."6 most populous metropolitan area in 1950, but it still had no public The front page headline of the Tampa Daily Times of Wednesday, , 1950, proclaims the election results in favor of George Smathers over Claude Pepper for his U.S. Senate seat. Smathers is shown with arms upraised celebrating a big victory over the incumbent. (Courtesy of Special Collections Library, University of South Florida)

university. That year did bring good opportunities at the University. In 1950, news to the University of Tampa. Since a new faculty member, historian James its founding as a private junior college in Covington, arrived under the Minarets. 1931, the University of Tampa had struggled in depression, war and peace. The 1950s also brought a "golden age" Returning veterans had bolstered of football to the University of Tampa. enrollment, but the school’s academic Playing in front of small crowds at and financial woes persisted. In 1950, Phillips Field, the University’s football the University received news that team, the Spartans, delighted local fans. accreditation was imminent. The G.I. Since the 1940s, the University of Bill, accreditation, and an endowment of Florida had played one game a year at $500,000 saved the University of aging Phillips Field but this ended in Tampa. Future civic leaders, such as Bob 1950 when Auburn University refused to Martinez, Sam Rampello, and Dick play at such a "small stadium." Florida Greco took advantage of educational State University, however, was delighted to be invited to Phillips Field. On New scarcity, but postwar prosperity and the Year’s Day 1950 the Seminoles’ Cold War created new anxieties. fledgling football team played in Tampa’s Cigar Bowl. The Cigar Bowl Pepper’s once vaunted political instincts represented Tampa’s attempt to lure failed him in the years preceding 1950. tourists to the city. Hosting teams such A series of political gaffs left the senator as Missouri Valley, Rollins, Delaware, vulnerable and embarrassed. He visited and Wofford, the Cigar Bowl hardly the Soviet Union where he praised rivaled Miami’s Orange Bowl. In the late "Generalissimo Stalin." Pepper idolized 1950s, teams from Wisconsin La Crosse Franklin Roosevelt, but frankly thought Teachers College and Valpariso Harry Truman was a lightweight. When accepted invitations to play at the last he sought to block Truman’s nomination Cigar Bowl. Betty Jo Grubbs was at the 1948 Democratic convention, the crowned Cigar Bowl Queen. A president was furious. Harry Truman bedazzled reporter wrote, "The lovely never forgot nor forgave him. An daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T.W. Grubbs overconfident Pepper also challenged the stepped from a giant cigar box to receive South’s color line. Earlier in his career, a jeweled crown of cigars . . . " In 1950, Pepper had trimmed his liberal sails on two Tampans, Rick Casares and Nelson the race question - even using the phrase Italiano, had just begun remarkable "white supremacy" - but in the late athletic careers at the University of 1940s he openly courted the African- Florida and Florida State University.9 American vote. The Florida Sentinel, Tampa’s black newspaper, urged newly The most entertaining event of 1950 was politicized readers and voters to support played not at Tampa’s Phillips Field but Pepper. To place an advertisement in the in the political arena. For sheer Sentinel was one thing; to share a New melodrama, Florida’s U.S. senatorial York City stage with race had it all: compelling personalities, singer-actor-activist Paul Robeson, a poisonous environment, and a suspected Communist, was quite captivated audience. Though only 50 another. years old, U.S. Senator Claude Pepper was Florida’s senior U.S. senator. With Conservative Floridians had waited for passion and conviction, Pepper had this day: "Red" Pepper stood square in served the Sunshine State since his the cross hairs. For a decade, Pepper had improbable election in 1936. (He might openly and bitterly clashed with the most have been elected senator in 1934 had it powerful man in Florida. Ed Ball, the not been for blatant vote fraud in Ybor senator’s arch-nemesis, managed the City and West Tampa.) A champion of duPont Trust. The entangled Ball New Deal liberalism and government controlled powerful interests in the activism, this passionate spokesman for state’s communications, railroad, President Roosevelt’s programs dutifully banking, and industrial sectors. Ball brought home "pork" in the form of easily found allies in his crusade to military bases, highway construction, destroy Pepper. The American Medical and jobs. Floridians cheered Pepper’s Association loathed him because of his liberalism during an economy of steadfast support for nationalized health care. President Truman summoned to the cheerleader and student body president. During World War II, the square-jawed Smathers enlisted in the Marines and saw combat in the South Pacific. A close friend of fellow Congressman John F. Kennedy, Smathers was simply an irresistible candidate in 1950.11

The election attracted national and international attention because of the fascinating personalities and the high stakes prize. The election also served as a vote of confidence for Wisconsin’s U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy. In , the roguish-looking McCarthy may have been America’s least known senator; but, by May, he was the most revered and despised man in Washington. McCarthyism burst upon the national scene like a Cape Canaveral rocket in Wheeling, ’Vest Virginia, when Cover of "The Red Record of Senator Claude in the 41-year-old Pepper," a fiery tabloid published by ex-Marine announced that he had in his supporters of George Smathers during his hand "a list of 205 Communists known successful campaign to unseat Pepper. (Courtesy of the Special Collections, Library, to be working in the State Department." University of’ South Florida.) At times, one might have thought that Josef Stalin was on the ballot. Each time the Daily Worker, the American Communist party newspaper, trumpeted the achievements of Senator Pepper, the White House a little known 12 congressman, informing him, "I want Smathers’ team smiled. you to beat that son of a bitch Claude Endorsements from Pravda and the Pepper."10 Daily Worker notwithstanding, the 1950 campaign was determined by voting George A. Smathers was the antithesis blocs along Tampa Bay, Central Florida, of Claude Pepper. Whereas Pepper was and the Gold Coast. Claude Pepper homely and ungainly, Smathers was counted heavily upon his past dashingly handsome and a decorated accomplishments. A military hawk, he athlete. "The people don’t care whether a worked tirelessly to build an arsenal and homely man or handsome man goes to citadel. During each visit to Tampa Bay, the Senate," laughed Pepper. "If it had Pepper pointed with pride to shipyard been a Hollywood contest, I wouldn’t contracts, military bases, and federal have put up a qualifying fee." Ironically, grants he had helped steer home. His Smathers worked to elect Pepper while wife Mildred was a St. Petersburg an undergraduate at the University of native, as were mounting numbers of Florida, where he served as a retirees from Ohio and New York who now called St. Petersburg home. His Race was a major issue in the 1950 impassioned defense of Social Security election. "This is the most important made Pepper a popular speaker in primary held in Florida since the turn of Pinellas County. The senator assumed the century," wrote C. Blythe Andrews, that the transplanted seniors who publisher of the Florida Sentinel. Pepper brought their life-long associations with enjoyed the support of an energized the Republican Party would support the black electorate, but social and political candidate Time magazine had called customs lingered. Manuel Garcia helped "Roosevelt’s weather cock." manage the Smathers’ campaign in Hillsborough County. A lawyer by The campaign took on the passion of a training and confidante of Governor religious crusade, as the candidates Fuller Warren, Garcia knew intimately traded insults and accusations. Pepper the details of the 1950 election. He complained of "dirty literature," "race recalled, in a 1982 interview, that he prejudice," and "religious prejudice;" hired bodyguards to ensure that no Smathers bewailed the interference from African-Americans were ever organized labor and "delusion, photographed shaking the hand of deception, and trickery." Florida’s last George Smathers. Indeed, Smathers great old-fashioned election, the 1950 canceled a scheduled address at the primary was refreshingly free of TV Metropolitan Bethel Baptist Church in soundbites (only Miami and Jacksonville St. Petersburg, a black congregation, operated television stations and then because a St. Petersburg Times pho- only a few thousand households owned tographer threatened to take pictures. television sets.) The candidates endured Pepper also played the race card, a punishing cross-state campaign, filled accusing his opponent of "buying the with hundreds of speeches, handshaking, Negro vote." Smathers "tells the white and fried chicken benefit suppers. people I [Pepper] am too friendly with Politics was still spectacle, and in Tampa the Negroes and he is telling the Negroes no respectable rally was complete I have betrayed him."15 without a courthouse square appearance. Spectators appreciated pit barbecue, live A master of mullet fish fry and music, and old-time oratory. WDAE and hushpuppy oratory, Pepper failed WFLA, Tampa’s two premier radio miserably convincing Florida’s leading stations, bombarded listeners with newspapers that he deserved another interviews and political commercials.13 term in Washington. Among the state’s leading dailies, only the St. Petersburg In Tampa, Pepper relied upon his pro- Times and Daytona Beach News-Journal labor record to turn out union supporters. endorsed the incumbent. The Tampa He closed out his campaign with huge Tribune and Tampa Times deserted their rallies at Tampa’s Courthouse Square - old friend, taking up arms with the ironically, the much-loved courthouse hard-charging Smathers. would soon fall to the wrecker’s ball - and St. Petersburg’s Williams Park. During the last days of the long Pepper used the occasion to announce a campaign, local and state newspapers million dollar federal grant to Mound unleashed withering editorials Park Hospital.14 undermining Pepper’s candidacy and even questioning his loyalty. The Miami promised to pay a reward to anyone with Herald depicted the race "as a trial of evidence that he was ever so clever. radicalism and extremism," while the Historians believe that the "wicked Tampa Tribune accused Pepper of thespian in New York City" speech defending "welfare proposals." In case actually resulted from a bored press any voters had not already been corps, who in the evenings following the saturated with the point, Smathers’ same stump speeches in Niceville, supporters published a wicked tabloid, Marianna, and Vernon, concocted a The Red Record of Claude Pepper. speech they wanted Smathers to Incendiary quotations accompanied deliver.17 photographs of Pepper standing alongside Josef Stalin, Henry Wallace, On Tuesday, , 1950, the greatest and Paul Robeson. An exasperated political race in Florida history Pepper confided to a reporter, "If they concluded. In this era of the Solid South, can’t make a black out of me, they want the winner of the primary was to make me a red."16 guaranteed victory in November. The Secretary of State announced that a As the 1950 Smathers-Pepper race record one million Democrats had recedes deep into the past, and the registered for the primary. In contrast, warriors who clashed in the town 69,000 Floridians admitted they squares of Florida die away, one belonged to the Republican Party. imperishable memory remains. Pepper’s hopes soared when hours before Americans first read about it in the 17 the election, national columnist Drew issue of Time magazine. "Are Pearson predicted a Pepper victory. In you aware that Claude Pepper is known the 1950s, the Tampa Daily Times and all over Washington as a shameless its radio affiliate, WDAE, earned an extrovert?" fast-talking George Smathers enviable reputation for reporting is said to have whispered to an "lightning" fast election results. unlettered, rural audience. "Not only Hampton Dunn, the paper’s managing that, but this man is reliably reported to editor and "Palm Tree Politics" practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, columnist, knew minutes after the polls and he has a sister who was once a closed that Smathers had achieved a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of smashing victory.18 all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper before his marriage habitually Smathers, the upstart challenger, claimed practiced celibacy." The legend not only 55 percent of the vote, winning the endures, it grows. New material has election by 64,771 votes. In spite of the embellished the speech. "Are you aware steadfast support of the Tampa Tribune that Pepper’s great-aunt died from a and Tampa Times, Smathers lost degenerative disease? That his nephew Hillsborough County 29,111 to 25,749. subscribed to a phonographic magazine? In Pinellas County, the St. Petersburg That his own mother was forced to Times’ embrace of Pepper failed to help resign from a respected organization the Senator, who lost 18,244 to 15,906. because she was an admitted "Senator Pepper brought it on himself," sexagenarian?" Smathers swears he editorialized the Tampa Times. "The never gave the speech and has even news of Smathers’ victory is flashing signals of hope to the moderates of both old parties . . .."19

Smathers’ smashing victory may have been the most exciting political story of 1950, but it was not the most significant. Quietly, a political revolution was taking place in Pinellas County. Dormant and inert since the 1880s, Florida’s Republican Party came alive in , when GOP candidates swept Pinellas County. Led by a 28-year-old lawyer and war hero, William Cato Cramer, Republicans captured all the legislative seats and every county office except tax collector.20

On April 27, 1950, the Tampa Times prophesied, "A confused of America will look to voters representing the diversified interests of Charlie Wall, Tampa crime boss, shown Florida . . . " The Smathers-Pepper race testifying in front of Senator Kefauver’s U.S. proved to be a mirror reflecting local and Senate Committee investigating organized crime in the city. Radio broadcast the hearings national anxieties. As much as anything live. (Courtesy of the Hampton Dunn Collection, else, Smathers had tapped the sensitive Special Collections, Library, University of South vein of anti-communism. Midcentury Florida) America was awash in McCarthyism. The tactic of smearing one’s opponent as "red" worked in other regions as well. In North Carolina, Willis Smith defeated Americans: the Alger Hiss case, the U.S. Senator Frank Porter Graham, a "slave states" of Eastern Europe, respected educator and southern liberal. displaced persons, the Fall of China, the Smith’s campaign manager was a Iron Curtain, and Soviet atomic spies. relatively unknown radio announcer, Joe McCarthy’s contribution to the Jesse Helms. In California, Richard M. anti-Communist hysteria was his ability Nixon destroyed Congresswoman Helen to personalize the attacks. Harry Truman Graham Douglas, claiming "she’s pink and Richard Nixon had long warned of alright, right down to her underwear!" treason; McCarthy spoke of traitors.

In 1950, the United States may have, in In Tampa, the bonfires of Shakespeare’s words, "bestrode the anti-communism burned brightly. One world like a Colossus," but it was a individual stood out above others in his dominion characterized by insecurity, holy crusade against the Communist paranoia, and fear. A litany of foreign menace. Maj. General Sumter L. Lowry policy fiascos and catastrophes haunted had already packed enough exploits and One of the many charts displayed during the Kefauver hearings in Tampa. "ORGANIZED GAMBLING, IN TAMPA" was an attempt to link Tampa’s political figures with gambling, narcotics, assassinations and murders. (Courtesy of the Hampton Dunn Collection, Special Collections, Library, University of South Florida) accomplishments into the first half of the (Note: The superscript to endnote 23 was 20th century to stuff scrapbooks. Born omitted)23 on the grounds of St. Augustine’s Castillo de San Marcos in 1893, he grew To many Floridians, Communism up on the Lowry ancestral estate in Hyde represented not only a threat to the Park. Upon graduation from Virginia United States but in the United States. A Military Institute, his life accelerated in red spectre was haunting America. newsreel fashion: chasing Pancho Villa Tampa was not immune from the witch across Mexico at Pershing’s side, leader hunts. Dr. Ellwood Nance, president of of Company H, Second Florida Infantry, the University of Tampa, confessed that a colonel in the 116th Field Artillery, in a fit of youthful indiscretion, he had and a series of successful investments joined a communist-front organization. during the Florida Boom. Prior to World When a Soviet party newspaper Izvestia War II, Lowry’s most dangerous branded Nance as a warmonger, the moments may have occurred while educator was delighted. Hyde Park enforcing Tampa’s peace in the face of Methodist Church seemed an unlikely vigilantes and mobs. During the war, he setting for such fears, but in February saw action in New Guinea and the Dutch 1950, the church’s board of stewards East Indies.21 voted unanimously to ban all literature disseminated by the Methodist Lowry commanded the most strident Publishing House. Citing social and voice of anti-communism. Like an Old political concerns, pastor O.A. Murphy Testament prophet hurling thunderbolts explained the church’s stand: of red nightmare, Lowry attacked effete college presidents, pussy-footing Two of the Sunday school politicians, and American resolve. Only periodicals . . . have developed a "rebirth of patriotism," believed within recent months a trend in their Lowry, could save America. He saved treatment of the race problem - his most withering criticism for the especially the relation of the Negro University of Florida, charging that the and the white races in the United school advocated "a doctrine of world States - which in our judgement is citizenship and world government." He unwise. advocated the establishment of a special school to "teach our young people how In 1950, the Cold War turned very hot. to recognize, understand, and combat Anti-communism, the oxygen of the Communist spheres of influence in the Cold War, became sword and shield. U.S." Adjusting his aim toward the The principle of containment governed public schools, Lowry warned that U.S. foreign policy, a commitment to textbooks used in Florida schools were check Communist aggression anywhere, "slanted toward socialism and everywhere. The most ardent hawk communism." Senator-elect Smathers could not have imagined that the applauded Lowry’s stand, urging that the principle would be tested in Korea. U.S. consider putting "Reds under surveillance."22 A desolate and harsh land, Korea had been an afterthought since the final days of World War II. In 1945, while the U.S. was preoccupied with defeating Japan, checked by General Douglas Soviet troops crossed Manchuria and MacArthur’s daring gamble at Inchon; occupied sections of northern Korea. the promise of a decisive victory at the Hurriedly, officials in the U.S. Yalu repulsed by hordes of Red Chinese. Department of Defense sketched an Decades later veterans lamented Korea arbitrary line across the 38th parallel, as "the forgotten war," but Tampans hoping the Russians would halt their remembered all too vividly the Pusan advance. They did. The United States Perimeter, the tides of Inchon, and the reluctantly became ’s Chosin Reservoir. protector. Chinese, Russian, and North The evoked stirrings of Korean leaders were certain that the patriotism and duty, but the conflict United States would be unwilling to never captured the public imagination or fight for such a faraway land. soul as did World War II. Soon after the war’s start, the Tampa Daily Times’ In 1950, many American leaders also Man-on-the-Street Survey found support questioned U. S. fighting capabilities. as well as frustration. "I think it is U.S. Air Force Lt. General Curtis awful," said Miss Helen Waters, a LeMay, the architect of saturation restaurant cashier. "Just when we are bombing during World War II, spoke in getting settled down in peace. It is going Tampa where he maintained the U.S. to mess up a lot of lives . . ." Others felt had lost its military supremacy. In fact, the war camouflaged the real test. the U.S. armed forces had atrophied to General Sumter L. Lowry explained it 591,000 troops.24 was not Korea we were fighting, "but the might of Russia."26 On June 25 1950, ten well-armed divisions of the North Korean People’s Tampans came to understand the war’s Army poured over the 38th parallel, progress through the experiences of old smashing the weak defenses of the South friends and neighbors. From a relative’s Korean Army. "It looks like World War home on Highland Avenue, Mrs. Dora III is here," noted President Truman in Church explained how she heard frantic his diary. "By God I am not going to let calls over a Seoul radio, "Prepare to them have it," he told his daughter. evacuate!" Newspapers captured the While the United States Congress never poignant moments of wives, sweethearts, officially declared war in 1950 - Truman and families bidding farewell to declared it a "police action" - few servicemen at Union Station. One of the Americans made such semantic first local residents to be called to action distinctions.25 was a "leather-faced sergeant," a veteran of Iwo Jima who asked not to be In spasms of jubilation and horror, identified. He confessed to a reporter, in clarity and confusion, the public pure Tampanese, "I’ve been shaky for attempted to understand a distant war days. This kind of thing is just like bolita that Americans knew almost nothing - sometimes you win and sometimes you about. Newspapers brought the brutality lose."27 and nobility of the conflict home. In rapid fashion, the public mood shifted The Korean War, unlike Vietnam, was wildly: the threat of an Asian Dunkirk not a live, televised war. Residents of the The Tampa Morning Tribune of December 30, 1950 reports the big story of the day: Kefauver Committee members were investigating Tampa’s unsolved murders and questionable real estate deals by public officials. (Courtesy of Special Collections, Library, University of South Florida)

Tampa Bay area followed the conflict Lopez was killed in his first engagement, through the pages of the local papers. a daring assault of the Inchon Time supported the war but understood beachhead. Shot while assaulting an the public’s frustration. "The man of enemy bunker, he fell upon a live 1950 was not a statesman," wrote Time; grenade to save the lives of his fellow rather, the man of the year was "destiny’s Marines. In recognition of extraordinary draftee," the American fighting-man. gallantry in combat, the military Tampa had its share of heroes. bestowed upon Lopez posthumously the Baldomero Lopez personified the citizen Congressional Medal of Honor. soldier. The son of Spanish emigrants, a Tampans learned that Lopez had written 1943 graduate of Hillsborough High, a prophetic letter to his parents on the Lopez enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving eve of battle. eleven months until the end of World War II. Superiors recognized his Dear Mom, Dad and Joe, leadership skills and encouraged the Well, here I am fat and happy and Ybor City native to enroll at the U.S. not doing much of anything at the Naval Academy. Commissioned in the present . . . Mom, it makes me very U.S. Marine Corps, First Lieutenant happy to hear you say that military men are always subject to orders Thomas was one of only 31 men out of from higher authority . an original outfit of 400 to escape the Chinese advance.29 . . . Knowing that the profession of arms calls for many hardships and The odyssey of Herbert Doyle Harvill many risks I feel that you all are now was the stuff of dreams and nightmares. prepared for any eventuality. If you The son of a Primitive Baptist preacher, catch yourself starting to worry, just Harvill grew up in the rural Hillsborough remember that no one forced me to County community of Keysville. When accept my commission in the Marine the Korean War began, he was working Corps. in the composing room of the St. Baldy, September 14, 195028 Petersburg Times. Six months later he was fighting on the border of Manchuria. The war produced many more stirring In late , the Times tales of heroism. When U.S. forces reprinted one of Harvill’s letters: retook the capitol of Seoul, Marine We made Inchon, Kimpo air strip corpsman Luther D. Leguire planted the and Seoul, and believe me it was Stars and Stripes on the roof of the U.S. hell. We lost a lot of good men. Embassy. On Thanksgiving Day, victory seemed imminent. By December, U.S. We pulled out of Wonsan . . . The troops heard the terrifying blare of Marines drove forward into the enemy trumpets and were fighting for mountains . . . The Chinese started their lives against overwhelming pouring in by the thousands and the numbers of Chinese troops at the Chosin Marines were outnumbered 100 to 1. Reservoir in northern Korea. Albert The weather was 24 below zero at Thomas, a veteran of the South Pacific the Chosin reservoir and we were and a lieutenant in the First Marine pinned down. Division, Tenth Corps, wrote his parents on Tampa Bay Boulevard about the cruel Harvill returned from the war and began conditions. a distinguished career with the Tampa Tribune.30 Dearest Mom and Dad: Here I am, believe it or not. It was The Korean War may have been the first only through the grace of God that American war to be fought by integrated we made it out of . troops, but the contributions of black soldiers are largely invisible in the We were cut off in six different Tampa Bay dailies. The pages of places and had to fight for our lives Tampa’s black weekly newspaper, to be taken prisoners. We were however, were filled with heroism. On surrounded for 15 days. We couldn’t October 21 and 30, 1950, the Florida even get our feet out of our shoe pacs Sentinel headlines read: "Negro Troops because the socks were frozen to the In Korea Were Tough and Brave," and inner soles. "Negro Troops Save Beachhead In 18 Hour Fight Down To Last 8 Bullets."

To a public confident of its military, the The war also hit the University of news of 1950 was sobering. Two historic Tampa. The registrar feared a rush of military retreats had humbled the United enlistments threatened to drain the States. The prospects of a land war school of its manpower. During the fall against China, argued General Omar semester of 1950 alone, 74 students had Bradley, "would involve us in the wrong left school to join the armed forces.33 war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy." Once In 1950, Tampans fought still another optimistic of victory by Christmas, the home front battle. While American public began to doubt the war’s purpose troops fought a desperate retreat in North and outcome. Korea, Cuban bolita peddlers, aging crime bosses, and a prominent sheriff The home front war was equally stared down a congressional committee unsettling. Tampa, more than most in Tampa, Florida. The U.S. Senate cities, understood the paradoxes of war: Committee to Investigate Organized sacrifice acid profiteering, heroism and Crime in Interstate Commerce, chaired greed. The Korean war, while lacking by Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, the global sweep and domestic tumult of blew the lid off Tampa’s corrupt World War II, left its mark upon Tampa establishment, reinforcing and Bay. stigmatizing the image of Cigar City as a "Little " or "Hell Hole of the With memories of 1940s rationing and Gulf Coast." shortages all too fresh, Tampans reacted predictably to the war’s urgency. Tribune Florida has always straddled the line headlines captured the mood in July between respectability and 1950: "Tampans Race to Stock Up licentiousness, between honest toil and a Anything Money Can Buy In Incredible fast buck, between the rules of the Hoarding Spree." Purchases included not Protestant Work Ethic and the only sugar, coffee, and nylons, but also dreamland of luck and chance. For all of automobiles and washing machines.31 the rectitudinous Bible thumping and sermonizing against the wages of sin, the The war strengthened arsenal and rules were different in Tampa. Here the citadel. Tampa’s depressed shipyards, line between investment and gambling which employed 16,000 workers during has always been very narrow. World War II, bustled again. An influx of workers, military personnel, and Tampa’s reputation for corruption was families flooded . Over 720 well deserved. Bolita, a version of the acres of new homes and businesses Cuban Lottery or numbers game, had suddenly appeared in an area adjacent to paralleled the rise of Ybor City. What Tampa International Airport. World War had served as an innocent vice in the II had endowed Tampa Bay with a 1880s became a wellspring for economic military profile; Korea solidified the wealth, political corruption, and military-industrial complex. MacDill Air widespread cynicism. Gamblers sought Force Base served as a "post-graduate political protection for their lucrative school" for B-29 and B-50 bomber business, creating a chain of payoffs crews.32 from the lowly bolita peddler to the governor’s office. If gambling made a Kefauver - he of the coonskin hat - handful of survivors very rich, the spearheaded the investigation. business of bolita made democracy in Kefauver’s motivations may not have Tampa poorer. By the 1930s, powerful been as pure as Caesar’s wife. He gambling coalitions determined elections quickly realized these televised hearings and ensured continuity. As the financial would bolster his bid for the presidency. stakes increased, so did the violence. Tampa, along with 13 other cities, would Beginning in the 1930s, Tampans hold hearings for the committee.35 became accustomed to gangland slayings. James Clendinen, the late The announcement of Kefauver’s visit editor of the Tampa Tribune, arrived in coincided with still another sensational the city in 1935 and quickly sized up murder. The Tribune headline Tampa as "one of the rottenest towns in announced, "Jimmy Lumia, Tampa’s No. the country."34 1 Gambling and Mafia Chief, Shot To Death By Gangsters." While mourners By 1950, corruption had become intol- filed by Lumia’s casket, solid bronze erable. Forces locally and nationally adorned with 220 floral pieces, Tribune resolved to publicize and attack reporters persuaded the gangster’s family organized crime. The Tampa Tribune led to share business records. It seems the the assault locally. For decades the capo di tutti capi’s friends inhabited the Tribune had largely ignored the problem underworld and city hall.36 of organized crime, but beginning in 1947, managing editor Virgil M. "Red" Fittingly, the Kefauver Traveling Road Newton unleashed his most talented Show closed out the turbulent year 1950. reporters. J.A. "Jock" Murray, the state’s Tampa’s day in the sun was not what most feared journalist, investigated the boosters had hoped. Not since the rotten state of Tampa. The gangland Spanish-American War in 1898 had murder of Jimmy Velasco in 1948 had dateline Tampa been so associated with embarrassed Tampa, but nothing like the a national event. Even if no one in shame which followed the reportage by Tampa watched the hearings on live Murray and Paul Wilder. The journalists television, everyone knew about them. persuaded Velasco’s relatives to tell all. "Tampa is agog over the appearance Much of the evidence was turned over to here of the Kefauver Committee," wrote the Kefauver Committee. Tampa’s sordid Hampton Dunn. Since the investigating image was especially galling to an committee had earlier visited Miami, influential group of young veterans bent Tampa knew what to expect: public on reform. Beginning in the early 1950s, humiliation, private ruin and sordid Chester Ferguson, Julian Lane, Ed Rood, details.37 John Germany, and Sam Gibbons brought a combination of youth, (Note: The superscript to endnote 38 was idealism, and talent to Tampa’s civic and omitted)38 business community. Kefauver Committee staff arrived in In 1950, Senator Kefauver announced he Tampa weeks before the hearings began was bringing his Senate committee to on December 28. Klieg lights and investigate organized crime to Tampa. elaborate crime family-tree charts awaited witnesses. Ironically, Kefauver meat business. In 1932, he entered never came to Tampa. His place was public life, winning the race for taken by Senator Lester Hunt, a constable. In 1940, he became sheriff of Democrat from Wyoming. The Hillsborough County, a powerful committee issued subpoenas to scores of position. A patriot, he served in the residents, from the mayor and sheriff to Army Air Corps during World War II, bolita peddlers and bagmen. returning to office upon his return.

Hollywood central casting could not Hugh Culbreath was certainly not the have orchestrated a more colorful first Hillsborough County sheriff to opening witness. Charlie Wall, dressed become a wealthy man in office, but he in an elegantly tailored pin-stripe suit was the first to be questioned by the and stylish bow tie, took the witness congressional committee. For three stand amid a flutter of flash bulbs. hours, crime committee attorney Called by the Times and Tribune "a Downey Rice interrogated the sheriff, former overlord" of Tampa’s who asked, among other questions, why underworld, and "an aging and he had paid no income tax for the years much-shot-at maestro of Tampa 1932 through 1940, and why his gambling," Wall reminisced about the spending and savings far surpassed his "old days." The scion of Tampa blue salary. The committee uncovered bloods, Wall waxed nostalgic about how $97,698 of assets held by Culbreath, he first worked at a gambling house and much of it scattered in out-of-town how he had been a frequent target of hit banks. Bagmen employed by Jimmy men. Admitting that he was once "the Velasco verified that they paid the biggest" boss, Wall confessed that he sheriff - cabeza de melon (melon head) - had been largely an observer during the $1,000 a week as protection money. last decade.39 Other witnesses described land and investment deals that benefitted the If Charlie Wall played to perfection the sheriff.40 role of the aging gangster and chatty informant, Hugh Culbreath performed Wall and Culbreath may have been the the part of stoic witness and besieged stars of the hearings, but others saw their public official. Born in 1897 at the reputations and careers suffer. Former pioneer family homestead on Old Tampa Police Chief J.L. Eddings and State Bay, Hugh Lee Culbreath seemed Attorney J. Rex Farrior were accused of destined for something special. In 1914, accepting protection money from he signed a contract with the Chicago gamblers. Charles Marvin, a lieutenant Cubs, but enrolled instead at the in the Air Force, testified that as a University of Georgia. In 1917, he member of the city’s vice squad from enlisted in the U.S. Army. While Charlie 1947 to 1949, he was told by Chief Wall was learning the intricacies of the Eddings that 105 bolita places were off roulette wheel and the probabilities of limits, and not to be raided. Current bolita, Culbreath was learning the Chief of Police told the mechanics of a Springfield rite and the committee that the records documenting lure of campfire poker. Following the 15 of Tampa’s gangland slayings had all Great War, Culbreath worked in the been stolen.41 conveniently sailed for Sicily. Organized Senator Hunt’s gavel ended the Tampa crime in Tampa did not disappear with phase of the Kefauver hearings. Angrily, the Kefauver Committee. he called for "an aroused and determined public" to demand reform and clean up Events of local, state, national and the city. international importance rocked Tampa in 1950. A war abroad created Two days of infamy changed everything suspicions at home. McCarthyism and changed nothing. To be sure, the poisoned the wells of civility and publicity brought humiliation and shame confidence. The shrill theme of anti- to the city. Earnest leaders promised communism destroyed a popular U.S. change. Cody Fowler, who had recently senator in what was arguably Florida’s been elected the head of the American ugliest election. Although a hot war and Bar Association, resolved to clean up a hotter election captivated Florida, the Tampa. Civic associations, such as the event that cast the greatest shadow was a Palma Ceia Civitans and the Tampa congressional indictment of Tampa’s Junior Chamber of Commerce, voted to corruption and crime. purge the city of corruption. Sheriff Culbreath, State Attorney Farrior, and When the calendar flipped over to 1951, others would never hold office again. On few Tampans shed tears. A year of April 18, 1955, the "dapper dean" of private disillusionment and public Tampa gambling, Charlie Wall, was shame, 1950 was also a year of killed at his Ybor City home at 1219 challenge and resolve. History later 17th Avenue. On his side table, a book vindicated some of the crestfallen lay open. It was Crime in America, by figures of 195() while indicting others Estes Kefauver.42 who succeeded. Who could have imagined that Claude Pepper would Cynics, however, might contend that the emerge in 1962 as a national icon? Kefauver hearings had more to do with cosmetics and politics, and less to do ENDNOTES with organizations and crime. Bolita, the source of all evil, had been in decline Dr. Gary R. Mormino is the Frank E. Duckwall since the late 1940s. Voting fraud had Professor of History at the University of South Florida and the author of numerous books and also been largely absent since the articles on history including Immigrants on the introduction of voting machines in the Hill: Italian-Americans in St. Louis, 1882-1982, late 1930s. By the 1950s, compared to The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and drugs, prostitution, and racketeering, their Latin Neighbors in Tampa, 1885-1985 with bolita was penny ante. If Tampa was too George E. Pozzetta, and is currently researching and writing a book on Tampa during World War hot, there was plenty of money to be II. A graduate of Millikin University, he holds a made in Cuba. Local politicians may Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at have been humiliated but none was sent Chapel Hill. Dr. Mormino was the 1991 recipient to jail because of evidence brought to the of the D. B. McKay Award. Kefauver hearings. Others simply 1 ignored the commotion. Santo Census of Population: 1950. Vol. II, Characteristics of the Population. Part 10, Traficante, Sr., for instance, disregarded Florida (Washington, 1952), 14-15. the subpoena, while "Red" Italiano

2 Ibid. 12 "Pepper Called Stalin Apologist," Tampa Daily Times, 9 . 3 "Knight Homestead Sold," Tampa Daily News, 25 December 1950; Tampa Morning Tribune, 3 13 "Communists’ Protest On Police Protection June 1950. Here Irks Smathers," Tampa Daily Times, 27 March 1950; "Senate Candidates Again Spark 4 Alvin Moscow, Building a Business: The Jim Rally," Tampa Daily Times, 29 April 1950; Walter Story (Sarasota, 1995), 1-60; Tampa "Smathers Sees ‘Red,’" Tampa Sunday Tribune, Daily Times, 27 December 1950; "Sulphur 7 March 1950; "Senate Candidates Again Spark Springs Tops County Communities in Gains," Rally," Tampa Daily Times, 29 April 1950; Tampa Sunday Tribune, 8 . "Pepper Sees Advent of ‘Dirty Literature,’" Tampa Daily Times, 21 April 1950; "Smathers 5 "New Buildings and Remodeling completed," Raps ‘Race Plot,’" Tampa Morning Tribune, 26 Tampa Morning Tribune, 10 December 1950; April 1950; Smathers Charges Pepper With "Bustling Suburbs Become Scene of Super ‘Delusion, Deception,’" St. Petersburg Times, 2 Market Building Boom," Tampa Daily Times, 25 May 1950. . 14 See Tampa newspapers, 28-30 April 1950. 6 "Tampa’s Parking and Traffic Problem Nearing Critical State," Tampa Morning Tribune, 20 15 "Good Negro Vote Expected," St. Petersburg October 1950; "Federal Census Shows Tampa Times, 2 May 1950; "Rep. Smathers Cancels Faced With Being Swallowed By Suburbs," Talk to St. Pete Negroes," Florida Sentinel, 4 Tampa Sunday Tribune, 10 ; February 1950; "So They Tell Me," Florida "Suburban Cities Rise in Florida," Tampa Sentinel, 1 April 1950; "Negroes Registering In Sunday Tribune, 21 May 1950. Droves All over Florida," Florida Sentinel, 11 March 1950; Manuel Garcia, interview with 7 Census of Population: 1950. Vol. II, Gary Mormino and Leland Hawes, 21 February Characteristics of the Population, Part 10, 1982, Tampa. Florida, 9, 14-15, 27-28. 16 The Red Record of Claude Pepper, Special 8 Ibid., 27; "Tampa-St. Petersburg Set As One Collections, Library, University of South Metropolitan Area," Tampa Morning Tribune, 23 Florida; Tampa Morning Tribune and Tampa May 1950; "Census Will Combine Tampa and Daily Times, 28-31 March 1950, 1-2 April 1950. St. Pete," Tampa Daily Times, 22 May 1950. 17 ‘‘Anything Goes," Time (17 April 1950): 27-- 9 "Betty Jo Grubbs Crowned Cigar Bowl Queen 28; James Clark, a former journalist with the of ‘51," Tampa Morning Tribune, 2 January Orlando Sentinel and an adjunct professor at the 1951; "Support the Cigar Bowl," editorial, University of Central Florida. He generously Tampa Morning Tribune, 17 December 1950; shared his to-be-published study with this author. Tampa Morning Tribune, 3 January 1950; "La Crosse Accepts Cigar Bowl Rid," Tampa 18 "600,000 Vote Seen In Primary," Tampa Morning Tribune, 5 December 1950; "Nelson Morning Tribune, 27 April 1950; "Pearson Italiano," Tampa Daily Times, 25 November Predicts Pepper Win," St. Petersburg Times, 1 1950; "The Morning After," Tampa Morning May 1950; "Voting Registrants Jam Dekle’s Tribune, 11 February 1950. Office," Tampa Daily Times, 25 March 1950; Leland Hawes, "The Race for Returns," Tampa 10 Tracy E. Danese, Claude Pepper & Ed Ball Tribune-Times, 22 October 2000. (Gainesville, 2000). 19 "U.S. Senate Race by Counties," Tampa Daily 11 Brian Lewis Crispell, Testing the Limits: Times, 4 May 1950; "Smathers New Senator," George Armistead Smathers and Cold War Tampa Morning Tribune, 3 May 1950; America (Athens, Ga., 1999); "Pepper Says Foe "Smathers’ Great Defeat of Pepper," editorial, Buys Negro Votes," Tampa Daily Times, 25 Tampa Daily Times, 3 May 1950. April 1950.

20 "Warning Flags Fly For Democrats In 29 "Marine Son Of Tampans Hoists Flag In Florida," Orlando Sentinel, 9 November 1950; Seoul," Tampa Morning Tribune, 28 September "Pinellas Political Primer For Democrats 1950; "Tampa Marine Describes Agonizing Rewritten By Republicans’ Sweep," Tampa Battle Through Enemy Lines To Beachhead Morning Tribune, 12 November 1950; St. Rescue," Tampa Morning Tribune, 28 December Petersburg Times, 8 November 1950. 1950.

21 Sumter L. Lowry, Ole 93 (Tampa, 1970). 30 "Timesman Writes of War In Korea," St. Petersburg Times, 28 December 1950, Bentley 22 "Smathers Wants Reds Put Under Orrick and Harry L. Crumpacker, The Tampa Surveillance," Tampa Daily Times, 29 ; Tribune, A Century of Florida Journalism "Smathers Asks Red Round-Up," Tampa (University of Tampa Press, Tampa, 1998), Morning Tribune, 29 July 1950; "General Lowry 280-282. Calls For More Patriotism During World Crisis," Tampa Morning Tribune, 12 November 1950; 31 Tampa Morning Tribune, 22 .July 1950; "Lowry Urges Civic Clubs To Lead Patriotic "Tampans Rush to Buy Cars, Tires and New Revival," 13 December 1_950; "Lowry Urges Appliances," Tampa Morning Tribune, 15 July State Schools To Fight Reds," Tampa Daily 1950; "War Profiteering Charged," Tampa Times, 13 December 1950; "Florida School Morning Tribune, 21 July 1950. Books Said To Be Slanted Toward Communism," Tampa Morning Tribune, 11 32 "Bomber Crews Being Trained," Tampa December 1950. Morning Tribune, 16 April 1950; "Hixon Calls Shipyard Reopening ‘Possibility,’" Tampa 23 "Russian Newspaper Adds Dr. Vance to Morning Tribune, 21 September 1950; "Largest Warmongers," Tampa Morning Tribune, 10 American Dry Cargo Fleet," Tampa Daily Times, December 1950; "Tampa U. Puts Ban Against 25 December 1950 "Tampa Shipyards Prepared Red Activities," Tampa Morning Tribune, 12 For War Work," Tampa Morning Tribune, 2 ; Tampa U. Bars AVC chapter," August 1950; "Bustling Community Develops St. Petersburg Times, 28 September 1947; "Hyde Over Night At Drew Park," Tampa Daily Times, Park Methodist Ban Church Literature on 8 March 1950. Communism, Race Issue," Tampa Morning Tribune, 17 February 1950. 33 "Tampa’s Young Men Rushing To Colors," Tampa Morning Tribune, 6 .January 1951. 24 "General Sees War Danger," Tampa Sunday 34 James Clendinen, interview with author, 22 Tribune, 21 May 1950; "Air Force General Here, August 1980, Tampa. Warns U.S. Attack Danger Increases," Tampa Daily Times, 20 May 1950; David Halberstam, 35 "Kefauver To Seek Interstate Angles of The Fifties (New York, 1993), 62-67. Tampa’s Bolita," Tampa Morning Tribune, 19 June 1950. 25 Ibid., Halberstam, 69. 36 See Tampa newspapers, June 6-8, 1950. 26 "Average Tampan Endorses U.S. Military Action in Korea," Tampa Daily Times, 28 June 37 Dunn, "Palm Tree Politics," Tampa Daily 1950. Tribune, 23 December 1950.

27 "Tampan Tells Story of Korea Evacuation," 38 "Kefauver’s Aides Begin Inquiries In Tampa," Tampa Daily Times, 28 July 1950; "Sober-Faced Tampa Morning Tribune, 19 December 1950; Marine Reserves Leave Tampa," Tampa Daily "Kefauver To Call Sheriff, Mayor, State Times, 3 August 1950. Attorney," Tampa Morning Tribune, 23 December 1950. 28 "Long-Desired Service Career Ends for Tampan at Inchon," Tampa Daily Times, 30 39 "Charlie Wall Recalls ‘Old Days,’" Tampa September 1950; "Destiny’s Draftee," Time (l Daily Times, 29 December 1950; "Charlie Wall January 1951): 16. Tells of His Death Escapes and Grambling," Tampa Morning Tribune, 30 December 1950.

40 "Four Tell Kefauver’s Men of Culbreath’s Realty Deals With Italiano and Torrio," "Committee Says Sheriff Spent $34,684 More Than Net Income During Term," and "Giglia, Ex-Bolita Peddler Tells of Payoffs To Sheriff," Tampa Morning Tribune, 30 December 1950.

41 "Fired City Cop Tells Of 105 Protected Bolita Spots," "Police Chief Beasley Tells Of Missing Murder Records," Tampa Morning Tribune, 30 December 1950.

42 "Tampa Clubs Pledge Action," Tampa Morning Tribune, 2 .January 1951; "Clean-Up Campaign Is Urged," Tampa Morning Tribune, 3 ,January 1951; "Tampan Leads 43,000 Lawyers As ABA head," Tampa Daily Times, 16 September 1950.