How Did Joseph Kennedy Sr Made His Money
Beloved Cecil:
What is the true source of the wealth of the Kennedy family of Hyannis, Massachusetts? I have heard several stories about Joe Senior having fabricated a killing in Prohibition rum, sleazy stock market place practices, or the Boston construction industry. I heard the other twenty-four hours that he made the seed money for all this past selling opium to People's republic of china, and that takes the cake. Besides, what is the Kennedy money doing today? Besides the Autonomous political party, is in that location a family concern? Practise they have a foundation or something? Why don't I see the Kennedy Trust equally a sponsor of quality public tv?
Peter Greenberg, Jackson Heights, New York
Cecil replies:
Cecil doesn't ordinarily go in for this People magazine stuff, but Lord knows I like dishing the clay as much as the next guy, and Joe Kennedy is a target the size of all outdoors.
J.P. was what we call an operator. He made his money by (1) pulling diverse hustles before it had occurred to anyone to make them illegal, and (2) possibly pulling other hustles that were definitely illegal but generally winked at. His stock-market shenanigans were an instance of the former, his Prohibition liquor business concern (never proven, by the manner) an case of the latter. That said, allow's not get ridiculous. He didn't sell opium to the Chinese; the British did. Nineteenth century. Very famous. Trust me.
Joseph P. Kennedy was the aggressive son of a prosperous Boston saloon keeper and ward boss. He married the mayor's daughter, went to Harvard, and generally made the nigh of his ample connections and talent. He ran a bank (admittedly two-bit) at 25, and was number-2 man at a shipyard with more than than 2,000 workers during World War I. At 30 he became a stockbroker and made a fortune through insider trading and stock manipulation. He was a chief of the stock pool, a then-legal stunt in which a few traders conspired to inflate a stock's price, selling out only earlier the bubble outburst.
Kennedy may as well have traded in illegal booze, although the prove is coexisting. His father had been in the liquor business before Prohibition, and Joe himself got into it (publicly, that is) immediately later repeal. Some believe the family concern but went secret during the dry years. He may have been strictly a nickle-and-dimer; Harvard classmates say he supplied the illicit booze for alumni events.
But there might have been more than to it than that. In 1973 mob dominate Frank Costello said he and Kennedy had been bootlegging partners. Other underworld figures have also claimed Joe was in pretty deep. At least one author (Davis, 1984) thinks bootlegging enabled Joe to earn his initial financial stake, just that's hard to believe; he had plenty of chances to make money more or less legally.
Whatever the truth of the matter, Kennedy's real strength wasn't his alleged criminal ties but his business concern smarts, notably an exquisite sense of timing. In the mid-1920s he became a motion-picture show mogul (taking time out for a celebrated dalliance with Gloria Swanson), so organized a merger and sold out simply when the industry was consolidating, clearing five to half dozen million dollars all told. He pulled out of stocks early in 1929 and sold short following the crash, actually making coin while others got creamed. But before Prohibition was repealed he lined up several lucrative liquor-importing deals.
Past the 1930s Kennedy was rich, merely he didn't brand serious money by mod standards until he got into real estate in a big way during World War II, raking in an estimated $100 million. In 1945 he made the deal that remains the centerpiece of the Kennedy fortune: for a measly $12.v 1000000 he bought the Merchandise Mart in Chicago, a huge wholesale emporium that had cost $xxx one thousand thousand to build. Within a few years the annual gross in rent exceeded the purchase price. In 1957 Fortune declared Kennedy one of the richest men in America, with assets of 200 to 400 million bucks.
The Kennedy family unit's wide-ranging business concern affairs are now run by hirelings at Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises in New York. Joe did establish a number of charitable ventures, several of which assistance retarded children (his daughter Rosemary was retarded). But he put nigh of his money in trust for his family. Being the odd combination of stud and monomaniacal family man that he was, he figured his existent legacy to the land was the fruit of his loins.
Cecil Adams
Send questions to Cecil via cecil@straightdope.com.
Source: https://www.straightdope.com/21341885/what-is-the-true-source-of-the-kennedy-family-s-wealth
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