Moses Annenberg

Moses Louis Annenberg was born in Kalwischen, East Prussia (German Empire) in 1877 to a Lithuanian Jewish family. He left Germany and immigrated to Chicago in 1900.[4]

After starting out as a newspaper boy hawking papers on the street, Annenberg rose through the ranks, first as a newspaper salesman at the Chicago Tribune, later for the Hearst Corporation, which owned the Chicago American, the Chicago Examiner and the Chicago Herald, rising to circulation manager. Annenberg bought the Daily Racing Form in 1922 and the Philadelphia Inquirer in 1936. He also owned The New York The Morning Telegraph, a broadsheet that was focused on entertainment and horse racing.

In the fall of 1934, Annenberg purchased the defunct Miami Beach Tribune, moved operations to Miami and relaunched it as a tabloid called the Miami Tribune. In an asset swap involving cash, Annenberg sold it to John S. Knight, owner of the Miami Herald, for $600,000 and the Massillon Independent, a profitable newspaper located in Massillon, Ohio. The last edition was published on December 1, 1937, and then the Miami Tribune was absorbed by the Herald.[5]

The assets of his publishing company, the Cecelia Corporation (named after his wife) became the foundation of Triangle Publications, which was created in 1947 by his son Walter to hold his and his sisters' inherited assets.

During the Roosevelt administration, he was indicted for tax evasion on August 11, 1939, for income tax evasion for the years 1932-1936, totaling $3,258,809.97 in income taxes evaded.[6] On April 4, 1940, Annenberg pleaded guilty to the 1936 income tax evasion count in the indictment that charged him with evading $1.2 million in taxes ($25.7 million today).[7]

Judge James Herbert Wilkerson, the same judge who previously sentenced Al Capone, sentenced Annenberg to three years in prison and a fine of $8.0 million ($167.1 million today) "the largest single tax fraud penalty in history" at the time.[7]

Annenberg married Sadie Cecillia Freedman (1879–1965). They had one son, the publisher and philanthropist Walter Annenberg, and seven daughters;[8] Diana Annenberg (1900–1905), Esther Annenberg Simon Levee (1901–1992), Janet Annenberg Kahn Neff Hooker (1904–1997),[9] Enid Annenberg Haupt (1906–2005),[10] Lita Annenberg Hazen (1909–1985),[11] Evelyn Annenberg Jaffe Hall (1911–2005),[12] and Harriet Beatrice Annenberg Ames Aronson (1914–1976).

Annenberg was released from Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary prison on June 3, 1942,[13] and died in the Mayo Clinic on July 20, 1942, after having surgery for a brain tumor.[14] His Ranch A in eastern Wyoming is now listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

• Moses Annenberg's connection to Chicago's organized crime: Part 2 of 3
• Moses Annenberg's connection to Chicago's organized crime: Part 3 of 3
• Cooney, John E. The Annenbergs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982.
• Cooney, John "Annenberg, Moses Louis" American National Biography (1999) https://doi.org/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1602545
• Fried, Albert. The Rise and Fall of the Jewish Gangster in America. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1980. ISBN 0-231-09683-6
• Johnson, Curt and R. Craig Sautter. The Wicked City: Chicago from Kenna to Capone. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998. ISBN 0-306-80821-8
• Reppetto, Thomas A. American Mafia: A History of Its Rise to Power. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 2004. ISBN 0-8050-7798-7
• Schatzberg, Rufus, Robert J.Kelly and Ko-lin Chin, ed. Handbook of Organized Crime in the United States. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1994. ISBN 0-313-28366-4
• Winter-Berger, Robert N. The Washington Pay-Off: An Insider's View of Corruption in Government. New York: Dell Publishing, 1972.

• Paper Trail Annenbergs
• The origins of the Mob and the Atlantic City Conference