Henry Crown
Encyclopedia
Henry Crown was an American
industrialist and philanthropist
. Among other things, he founded the Material Service Corporation, which merged with General Dynamics
in 1959. At the time of his death, he was a billionaire. Henry Crown and Company, of which he is the namesake, is an investment firm that owns or has interests in a variety of business assets http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/40/40214.html.
. He was third of seven children of a sweatshop worker, Arie Krinsky, and his wife Ida. His father changed the family name to Crown while Henry was a boy.
Crown did not attend school past the eighth grade. In 1915, at the age of 19, he started a company with his older brother Sol selling steel. Sol later died of tuberculosis.
, and coal
to builders in the Chicago
area.
Crown gained a controlling interest
in General Dynamics
in 1959, when he merged the company with MSC. By this time, MSC was a $100 million company.
published his Washington Merry-Go-Round newspaper column titled, titled, "'Songbird' Was Murdered" reporting that U.S. Attorney General Tom C. Clark
had assigned twelve FBI agents to provide protection to informer James M. Ragen
in 1946 while they interrogated him in Chicago. After the FBI fact checked Ragen's statements, Tom Clark confirmed to Pearson that the facts learned from Ragen were true and the top echelon of the Chicago mob "led to very high places." The names of seemingly respected politicians and businessmen revealed by Ragen to the FBI were words familiar to every Chicago household and some believed they had reformed, but Pearson wrote,
"Yet they still controlled the mob." Pearson added that Tom C. Clark
's Justice Department had no federal jurisdiction to prosecute the suspects Ragen named and after completing their questioning of Ragen and verifying his claims, the FBI withdrew their protection of him.
In the book titled, "The Drew Pearson Diaries" published five years after Pearson died in 1969, his stepson, Tyler Abell compiled and edited information contained in Pearson's investigative files. Included in the book is the additional details Pearson said Tom C. Clark and J. Edgar Hoover had learned from Ragen.:
"...it led to very high places. J. Edgar Hoover intimated the same thing. He said the people Ragen pointed to had now reformed. I learned later that it pointed to the Hilton hotel chain, Henry Crown, the big Jewish financier in Chicago [involved in Cook County real estate deals with Jacob Arvey
, the local democratic political boss], and Walter Annenberg
[son of the prewar wire service owner Moses Annenberg
.]"
Tom C. Clark
appointed Crown's son, John, as one of two of his 1956 Supreme Court session law clerks. In December 1963, Chief Justice Earl Warren
, acting as head of the newly formed Presidential Commission investigating the death of President Kennedy, suggested that Henry Crown's attorney, Albert E. Jenner, Jr.
, who also, at that time employed Crown's son, John at Jenner's Chicago law firm, be appointed as a senior assistant Warren Commission
counsel. Warren gave his fellow commissioners the names of two men who approved of Jenner's appointment, Tom C. Clark
and Dean Acheson
.
The Warren Commission
appointment of Henry Crown'a attorney Albert E. Jenner, Jr.
to investigate whether either Oswald or Ruby acted alone or conspired with others remains controversial.
Henry Crown and his close friend Sam Nanini, were reported in March 1977 to have had relationships with organized crime figures.
As Attorney General, Tom Clark was accused of impropriety in the early parole of convicted Chicago crime boss, Louis Campagna and three others. Sam Nanini wrote a letter in 1947 to the federal bureau of prisons advocating parole for Campagna.
, Brandeis
, Stanford, Northwestern
and the St. Lawrence University
student investment fund.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
industrialist and philanthropist
Philanthropist
A philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
. Among other things, he founded the Material Service Corporation, which merged with General Dynamics
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...
in 1959. At the time of his death, he was a billionaire. Henry Crown and Company, of which he is the namesake, is an investment firm that owns or has interests in a variety of business assets http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/40/40214.html.
Early years
Crown (birth name Henry Krinsky) was born in 1896 to Jewish immigrants from LithuaniaLithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
. He was third of seven children of a sweatshop worker, Arie Krinsky, and his wife Ida. His father changed the family name to Crown while Henry was a boy.
Crown did not attend school past the eighth grade. In 1915, at the age of 19, he started a company with his older brother Sol selling steel. Sol later died of tuberculosis.
Material Service Corporation
In 1919, on borrowed capital of $10,000, Crown established (with his brother Irving) the Material Service Corporation (MSC). In its first year the company made a profit of $7,000 on sales of $218,000. MSC sold gravel, sand, limeLime (mineral)
Lime is a general term for calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides predominate. Strictly speaking, lime is calcium oxide or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for a single mineral of the CaO composition, occurring very rarely...
, and coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
to builders in the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
area.
Crown gained a controlling interest
Controlling interest
Controlling interest in a corporation means to have control of a large enough block of voting stock shares in a company such that no one stock holder or coalition of stock holders can successfully oppose a motion...
in General Dynamics
General Dynamics
General Dynamics Corporation is a U.S. defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2008 it is the fifth largest defense contractor in the world. Its headquarters are in West Falls Church , unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, in the Falls Church area.The company has...
in 1959, when he merged the company with MSC. By this time, MSC was a $100 million company.
Controversy
In October, 1963, Syndicated columnist Drew PearsonDrew Pearson (journalist)
Andrew Russell Pearson , known professionally as Drew Pearson, was one of the best-known American columnists of his day, noted for his muckraking syndicated newspaper column "Washington Merry-Go-Round," in which he attacked various public persons, sometimes with little or no objective proof for his...
published his Washington Merry-Go-Round newspaper column titled, titled, "'Songbird' Was Murdered" reporting that U.S. Attorney General Tom C. Clark
Tom C. Clark
Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States .- Early life and career :...
had assigned twelve FBI agents to provide protection to informer James M. Ragen
James M. Ragen
James Maxwell Ragen, Sr. was an Irish mobster and co-founder of the Chicago-based street gang and political club Ragen's Colts.-Biography:...
in 1946 while they interrogated him in Chicago. After the FBI fact checked Ragen's statements, Tom Clark confirmed to Pearson that the facts learned from Ragen were true and the top echelon of the Chicago mob "led to very high places." The names of seemingly respected politicians and businessmen revealed by Ragen to the FBI were words familiar to every Chicago household and some believed they had reformed, but Pearson wrote,
"Yet they still controlled the mob." Pearson added that Tom C. Clark
Tom C. Clark
Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States .- Early life and career :...
's Justice Department had no federal jurisdiction to prosecute the suspects Ragen named and after completing their questioning of Ragen and verifying his claims, the FBI withdrew their protection of him.
In the book titled, "The Drew Pearson Diaries" published five years after Pearson died in 1969, his stepson, Tyler Abell compiled and edited information contained in Pearson's investigative files. Included in the book is the additional details Pearson said Tom C. Clark and J. Edgar Hoover had learned from Ragen.:
"...it led to very high places. J. Edgar Hoover intimated the same thing. He said the people Ragen pointed to had now reformed. I learned later that it pointed to the Hilton hotel chain, Henry Crown, the big Jewish financier in Chicago [involved in Cook County real estate deals with Jacob Arvey
Jacob Arvey
Jacob M. Arvey was aninfluential Chicago political leader from the Depression era until the mid-1950s. He may be best-known for his efforts to end corruption in the Chicago Democratic organization, and for promoting the candidacies of liberal Democratic politicians such as Adlai Stevenson and...
, the local democratic political boss], and Walter Annenberg
Walter Annenberg
Walter Hubert Annenberg was an American publisher, philanthropist, and diplomat.-Early life:Walter Annenberg was born to a Jewish family in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on March 13, 1908. He was the son of Sarah and Moses "Moe" Annenberg, who published The Daily Racing Form and purchased The Philadelphia...
[son of the prewar wire service owner Moses Annenberg
Moses Annenberg
Moses "Moe" Louis Annenberg was an American newspaper publisher, who purchased The Philadelphia Inquirer, the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the United States. in 1936. The Inquirer has the sixteenth largest average weekday U.S...
.]"
Tom C. Clark
Tom C. Clark
Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States .- Early life and career :...
appointed Crown's son, John, as one of two of his 1956 Supreme Court session law clerks. In December 1963, Chief Justice Earl Warren
Earl Warren
Earl Warren was the 14th Chief Justice of the United States.He is known for the sweeping decisions of the Warren Court, which ended school segregation and transformed many areas of American law, especially regarding the rights of the accused, ending public-school-sponsored prayer, and requiring...
, acting as head of the newly formed Presidential Commission investigating the death of President Kennedy, suggested that Henry Crown's attorney, Albert E. Jenner, Jr.
Albert E. Jenner, Jr.
Albert Ernest Jenner, Jr. was an American lawyer and one of the name partners at the law firm of Jenner & Block. He served as assistant counsel to the Warren Commission; as a member of the U.S...
, who also, at that time employed Crown's son, John at Jenner's Chicago law firm, be appointed as a senior assistant Warren Commission
Warren Commission
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...
counsel. Warren gave his fellow commissioners the names of two men who approved of Jenner's appointment, Tom C. Clark
Tom C. Clark
Thomas Campbell Clark was United States Attorney General from 1945 to 1949 and an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States .- Early life and career :...
and Dean Acheson
Dean Acheson
Dean Gooderham Acheson was an American statesman and lawyer. As United States Secretary of State in the administration of President Harry S. Truman from 1949 to 1953, he played a central role in defining American foreign policy during the Cold War...
.
The Warren Commission
Warren Commission
The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy, known unofficially as the Warren Commission, was established on November 27, 1963, by Lyndon B. Johnson to investigate the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963...
appointment of Henry Crown'a attorney Albert E. Jenner, Jr.
Albert E. Jenner, Jr.
Albert Ernest Jenner, Jr. was an American lawyer and one of the name partners at the law firm of Jenner & Block. He served as assistant counsel to the Warren Commission; as a member of the U.S...
to investigate whether either Oswald or Ruby acted alone or conspired with others remains controversial.
Henry Crown and his close friend Sam Nanini, were reported in March 1977 to have had relationships with organized crime figures.
As Attorney General, Tom Clark was accused of impropriety in the early parole of convicted Chicago crime boss, Louis Campagna and three others. Sam Nanini wrote a letter in 1947 to the federal bureau of prisons advocating parole for Campagna.
Later Years
According to his own claim, Crown had given away "nine figures" in his philanthropic pursuits by the time he turned 79. His beneficiaries included the University of ChicagoUniversity of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, Brandeis
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
, Stanford, Northwestern
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
and the St. Lawrence University
St. Lawrence University
St. Lawrence University is a four-year liberal arts college located in the village of Canton in Saint Lawrence County, New York, United States. It has roughly 2300 undergraduate and 100 graduate students, about equally split between male and female....
student investment fund.