Partly-printed DS as president, one page both sides, 9 x 13.5, May 27, 1946. Presidential pardon issued to “Frances S. Ryan convicted…of violation of Section 51, Title 18, United States code, and on May nineteenth, 1938, was sentenced to imprisonment for three years and to pay a fine of Five hundred dollars…whereas the said Frances S. Ryan was received at the Federal Reformatory for Women, Alderson, West Virginia…on March seventeenth, 1939, was released on parole January sixteenth, 1941…the aforesaid fine has been paid; and Whereas it has been made to appear to me that the said Frances S. Ryan, since her discharge from supervision, has conducted herself in a law abiding manner: Now therefore, be it known, that I, Harry S. Truman…do hereby grant unto the said Frances S. Ryan a full and unconditional pardon.” Signed at the conclusion by President Truman and countersigned by Acting Attorney General J. Howard McGrath. In fine condition.
Truman’s association with Ryan’s case dates to his days as a Missouri senator in the late 1930s, when he verbally defended Kansas City political boss Tom Pendergast, accused (and later convicted) of income tax evasion and voter fraud in the 1936 election. Ryan, part of ‘Boss Tom’s’ Democratic political machine that controlled Missouri politics, was among the 259 people Kansas City US District Attorney Maurice Milligan convicted (out of 278 tried) for switching votes cast for the GOP candidate and applying them to the Democratic Party challenger. A year after ascending to the presidency, Truman saw fit to pardon her. A desirable document pertaining to political intrigue involving Truman and the Show Me State.
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