Stopping the Presses

Stopping the Presses

The Murder of Walter W. Liggett

Marda Liggett Woodbury

$20.00 Paper
ISBN: 0-8166-2929-3
ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-2929-9

In the 1920s and 30s, Minneapolis was crime city. Gangsters and politicians were partners running the Twin Cities' illegal gambling, prostitution, and liquor concerns. Stopping the Presses is a searing look at this corrupt time, told through the life of martyred journalist Walter W. Liggett by his daughter, who finally sets the record straight.

Walter Liggett published The Midwest American , a newspaper that sought to expose machine politics and corruption in Minnesota. At times Liggett seemed alone in this endeavor—very few journalists joined his crusade to detail the links between the political establishment of populist Governor Floyd B. Olson and the crime syndicate in Minneapolis.

For his efforts Liggett was threatened, offered bribes, beaten up, framed, and finally shot to death in the alley behind his home. His wife witnessed the assassination and was able to identify Liggett's killer as mob leader Kid Cann. Though he was indicted by a grand jury, Cann was not convicted after what appears to be a sloppy investigation and cursory trial.

Liggett's ten-year-old daughter Marda also witnessed the shooting that night. Decades later, while researching the events surrounding her father's death, she discovered a historical record that was either woefully inadequate or outright incorrect. She worked for more than eight years to research her father's life and death, exposing a side of Minnesota's history that has been often ignored or overlooked.

An intriguing report on the complex intersection between populist politics and corruption, Stopping the Presses is a personal and detailed account of the surprising stories of crime, politics, and journalism of the time.

"Marda Liggett Woodbury set off on a painful and painstaking research journey exploring the circumstances of her father's death. This project has led to a gripping book, Stopping the Presses: The Murder of Walter W. Liggett. This is much much more than a crime book or a tearful memoir. Stopping the Presses places this dramatic story within its important political and historic context, and it challenges the long dominant images of Governor Olson and is political allies. It also argues—passionately—that Walter Liggett be accorded recognition as a progressive and courageous figure in Minnesota politics. In the end, this book forces its readers to rethink the nature of those politics and the legacy they have left for us." —Peter Rachleff, Union Advocate

"Oakland author Marda Woodbury's 10-year study of the rise and fall of journalistic luminary Walter Liggett (the author's father) reads as a combination of true crime, historic biography and personal memoir of a dark time in American journalism and politics-the late 1930s." —The Montclarion

"We all should have children so devoted to the honor of their departed parents as Marda Liggett Woodbury. She has managed, in telling the story of her father, to rehabilitate an honest man maligned before and after his death by people who falsely claimed to be making the world a better place." —San Francisco Chronicle

"Marda Woodbury offers a fond memoir of a very interesting couple and their life in radical, grub-street journalism. Their kind of journalism hardly exists anymore, but for decades it was a major force in American politics. Historians of American journalism will profit enormously from reading this book. The implications of Woodbury's account are truly sensational." —Minnesota History

"Woodbury's book is a successful foray into investigative journalism with an historical edge." —The IRE Journal

"Tracing the life and journalistic career of her father, Walter W. Liggett, Woodbury presents a vivid and accurate picture of the time in which he lived and worked, the era of gangsters and Prohibition, when organized crime syndicates co-existed with machine politics in cities like New York, Chicago-and even Minneapolis." —North Coast Xpress

"Woodbury has written an exhaustive study of her father's life and death that illuminates the perils of radical journalism at a time of gangsters and widespread official corruption." —Journalism History

Marda Liggett Woodbury is a retired library director and author of seven reference books. She lives in Oakland, California.

288 pages | 20 black-and-white photos | 5 7/8 x 9 | 1998



Stopping the Presses *The Murder of Walter W. Liggett* Marda Liggett Woodbury		$20.00 Paper ISBN: 0-8166-2929-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-2929-9
In the 1920s and 30s, Minneapolis was crime city. Gangsters and politicians were partners running the Twin Cities' illegal gambling, prostitution, and liquor concerns. Stopping the Presses is a searing look at this corrupt time, told through the life of martyred journalist Walter W. Liggett by his daughter, who finally sets the record straight. Walter Liggett published The Midwest American , a newspaper that sought to expose machine politics and corruption in Minnesota. At times Liggett seemed alone in this endeavor—very few journalists joined his crusade to detail the links between the political establishment of populist Governor Floyd B. Olson and the crime syndicate in Minneapolis. For his efforts Liggett was threatened, offered bribes, beaten up, framed, and finally shot to death in the alley behind his home. His wife witnessed the assassination and was able to identify Liggett's killer as mob leader Kid Cann. Though he was indicted by a grand jury, Cann was not convicted after what appears to be a sloppy investigation and cursory trial. Liggett's ten-year-old daughter Marda also witnessed the shooting that night. Decades later, while researching the events surrounding her father's death, she discovered a historical record that was either woefully inadequate or outright incorrect. She worked for more than eight years to research her father's life and death, exposing a side of Minnesota's history that has been often ignored or overlooked. An intriguing report on the complex intersection between populist politics and corruption, Stopping the Presses is a personal and detailed account of the surprising stories of crime, politics, and journalism of the time. "Marda Liggett Woodbury set off on a painful and painstaking research journey exploring the circumstances of her father's death. This project has led to a gripping book, Stopping the Presses: The Murder of Walter W. Liggett. This is much much more than a crime book or a tearful memoir. Stopping the Presses places this dramatic story within its important political and historic context, and it challenges the long dominant images of Governor Olson and is political allies. It also argues—passionately—that Walter Liggett be accorded recognition as a progressive and courageous figure in Minnesota politics. In the end, this book forces its readers to rethink the nature of those politics and the legacy they have left for us." —Peter Rachleff, Union Advocate "Oakland author Marda Woodbury's 10-year study of the rise and fall of journalistic luminary Walter Liggett (the author's father) reads as a combination of true crime, historic biography and personal memoir of a dark time in American journalism and politics-the late 1930s." —The Montclarion "We all should have children so devoted to the honor of their departed parents as Marda Liggett Woodbury. She has managed, in telling the story of her father, to rehabilitate an honest man maligned before and after his death by people who falsely claimed to be making the world a better place." —San Francisco Chronicle "Marda Woodbury offers a fond memoir of a very interesting couple and their life in radical, grub-street journalism. Their kind of journalism hardly exists anymore, but for decades it was a major force in American politics. Historians of American journalism will profit enormously from reading this book. The implications of Woodbury's account are truly sensational." —Minnesota History "Woodbury's book is a successful foray into investigative journalism with an historical edge." —The IRE Journal "Tracing the life and journalistic career of her father, Walter W. Liggett, Woodbury presents a vivid and accurate picture of the time in which he lived and worked, the era of gangsters and Prohibition, when organized crime syndicates co-existed with machine politics in cities like New York, Chicago-and even Minneapolis." —North Coast Xpress "Woodbury has written an exhaustive study of her father's life and death that illuminates the perils of radical journalism at a time of gangsters and widespread official corruption." —Journalism History Marda Liggett Woodbury is a retired library director and author of seven reference books. She lives in Oakland, California. 288 pages \| 20 black-and-white photos \| 5 7/8 x 9 \| 1998