Apr 13, 2008 - 04:05:07 CDT
A former North Dakota newspaper editor was murdered - gangland style.On Dec. 9, 1935, Walter Liggett was shot in the alley behind his apartment shortly after emerging from his automobile. Even though his wife, who was a witness, positively identified the assassin as Kid Cann (the Al Capone of Minneapolis), he was not convicted of the crime.
Liggett was the second newsman in Minnesota who was killed, in similar fashion, just as he was about to reveal damaging information about the administration of Minnesota Gov. Floyd Olson.
Adding to the intrigue, former North Dakota Gov. William Langer told authorities that he had a telephone conversation with Liggett the day he was murdered, and that he was planning to come to Bismarck the next day.
Liggett was born Feb. 14, 1886, in Swift County, located in western Minnesota, to William and Mathilda Root Brown Liggett. The later moved to St. Paul.
In 1904, Liggett graduated from high school and enrolled at the University of Minnesota.
Muckraking journalism was beginning to have a major impact on social, political and economic reforms, and Liggett wanted to be part of this movement. He quit college and began his journalism career.
At first, Liggett wrote for local papers: The St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Minneapolis Journal and the Minneapolis Daily News. He then moved to Duluth, and eventually ended up in Fargo in 1908, writing for the Forum.
In 1909, Liggett was hired as managing editor of the Skagway Alaskan and, later, became editor of the Pasco Progress in the state of Washington. In 1915, he sold the Progress and moved back to Minnesota, taking a position with the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
On Sept. 20, 1917, Liggett was assigned to cover a speech by Wisconsin Sen. Bob LaFollette. Liggett got carried away with the oration, and after it was reported that he enthusiastically applauded the senator's speech, he was fired by the paper.
Liggett may have lost a job, but he gained a cause. LaFollette, a progressive, advocated control of railroads and a number of other issues promoted by the Nonpartisan League. A.C. Townley, the founder of the NPL in North Dakota, was beginning to expand into surrounding states, and he hired Liggett to write for the NPL.
This organization backed Charles Lindbergh Sr., a Progressive Republican, in his run for governor of Minnesota in 1918, and Liggett was hired to work on his campaign. After Lindbergh's defeat, Townley persuaded Liggett to move to North Dakota.
In 1916, the NPL purchased the Fargo Courier-News, and Townley got Liggett hired as managing editor late in 1918. On Jan. 8, 1919, the NPL started the newspaper, Bismarck's Capital Daily, and Liggett was hired as editor.
Believing the NPL would be more effective by having a newspaper in each county, Liggett closed down the Capital Daily on March 2 and took charge of the Northwest Service Bureau. His duty was to organize and supervise weekly farmer-owned newspapers, and, in October 1919, he wrote to Upton Sinclair, declaring that all 53 counties had NPL newspapers. After a run-in with another bureau official, he lost his position in December.
John Worst, former president of the North Dakota Agricultural College (now North Dakota State University), a strong NPL advocate and a friend of Liggett, was North Dakota's commissioner of immigration.
Liggett was hired as Worst's deputy, and, in January 1920, he moved to Washington, D.C. While there, Liggett shared an office with the headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union. His association with the ACLU would have a lasting impression on him.
In 1921, Liggett resigned and moved to New York to become the city editor of the New York Call, a Socialist newspaper. When the paper folded in 1922, he worked for a variety of newspapers.
In the late 1920s, Liggett became editor of a tabloid called Plain Talk. He now had a regular forum where he could lash out against government corruption, gangsterism, party machines and other issues that he believed were hurting the moral fabric of this country.
In September 1930, Liggett went to work for the Chicago News, and in the summer of 1933 he returned to Minnesota.
Next week, we will look at Liggett's battle against organized crime in Minnesota, his battle with Olson, his murder, the trial of those accused of committing the crime, and Liggett's interesting telephone conversation with Langer on the day he was murdered.
(Written by Curt Eriksmoen and edited by Jan Eriksmoen. Reach the Eriksmoens by e-mail at cjeriksmoen@;cableone.net.)
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