BENEVOLENT POLICEMAN: THE HISTORY OF CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIVE COMMITTEES

My History Can Beat Up Your Politics

Bruce Carlson

Politics, History, News

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 18 September 2023

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Harry S. Truman thought a congressional committee ideally should be like a 'benevolent policeman' Not changing the facts but investigating them. He should know as he headed up one. Yet he was also critical of committees during his time that he felt did not meet the criteria. Since an investigation of a U.S. army defeat by a Native American tribe in the 1790's, to a look at an attack on the Capitol today, there is a voluminous history of Congressional committees. That makes even this hour and one half plus episode an incomplete history. We take a look at some of the committees, including HUAC the House Un-American Activities Committee, not only in the 1940's but it in it's earlies form under Martin Dies in the 1930, we take a look at Kefauver's crime commission that became a TV sensation and a Civil War era committee that is viewed by historians to have hurt the Union effort in that war. We are part of Airwave Media Network. OUR SPONSOR IS SHORTFORM - To get a 5 days of unlimited access and an additional 20% discount on the annual subscription, join Shortform through my special link, shortform.com/myhistory or click the link in the description. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:04.9	Rivening TV, full of action, excitement with shadowy characters of the darkest noir of
0:11.0	1950s America.
0:13.9	Illegal acts, told by the lawbreakers themselves, sometimes when they wanted to talk at all, or by those who tried to catch
0:23.6	the lawbreakers, or by those criminal catchers who themselves became lawbreakers, or looked
0:29.7	the other way for a quick buck.
0:32.5	And Hollywood didn't have to write a word of this TV story.
0:36.7	It was Lights, Camera, Congressional Committee. Best show in town, Time Magazine said about what would become the Keefe Offer Committee,
1:05.9	an earnest, young southerner, an honorable old New Englander, a former governor of Maryland, all taking in the
1:13.9	stories of the underworld of America's cities. This is what the Keefeffer Committee was doing.
1:21.5	They went around the country too, bringing the big bulbs of early television with them.
1:26.9	Senator Keefeiffer, who in his last campaign,
1:29.7	had sported a Coonskin cap, called it a National Crusade.
1:34.5	Senator Toby of New Hampshire shocked, shocked,
1:37.0	to discover gambling and crime in cities,
1:39.6	lambasted witnesses,
1:41.1	who dared to take the Fifth Amendment, as many did.
1:44.2	What is your net worth?
1:47.3	I refuse to answer.
1:49.3	The mindset of culminate me.
1:53.2	The committee direct that you do answer, and I would understand that his...
1:58.5	The direction is made and a refusal is made.
	...

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