Walter William Liggett (February 14, 1886 – December 9, 1935), was an American journalist who worked at several newspapers in New York City, including the New York Times, The Sun, New York Post, and the New York Daily News. In the Twin Cities during the 1930s, Liggett worked as an investigative journalist and editor of the newspaper Midwest American. He specialized in exposés of Minneapolis and Saint Paul organized crime and their connections to corrupt politicians. Biography Early life Walter Liggett was born on a farm near Benson, Minnesota on February 14, 1886, into a family of Scotch-Irish descent. His father, William Madison Liggett, had served in the 96th Ohio Infantry Regiment of the Union Army during the American Civil War. Liggett's mother, Mathilda Root Brown, married William Liggett in 1876. They had moved to a stock farm in Swift County, Minnesota after William Liggett, who was serving in the Ohio state militia, was severely wounded while suppressing the Cincinnati riots of 1884. William Liggett was a forward-looking, Progressive Republican, was the founder and later, the Dean of the Agricultural College of the University of Minnesota. After leaving college, Walter Liggett worked for a succession of newspapers in Saint Paul, Skagway, Alaska, Pasco, Washington, and in New York City. Although for years he was a card carrying member of the American Socialist Party, Liggett did not consider himself a Marxist. Rather, he was a sort of old-school Mid-Western Populist-Socialist. Beginning in 1915, he was active in the Nonpartisan League of North Dakota, and during World War I, he became the managing editor of the Press Bureau of the Nonpartisan League. Liggett campaigned with U.S. Representative Charles August Lindbergh, Sr. against United States involvement in the First World War and was the speechwriter and secretary for the elder Lindbergh when he ran for governor of Minnesota in the Republican primary in 1918 as the write-in Farmer-Labor candidate. Liggett was in the Committee that founded and established the Farmer-Labor Party in the period between 1918 and 1920. In 1921 he accompanied Senator Edwin Fremont Ladd, a Nonpartisan League candidate, to Washington D.C. as his secretary and speechwriter. Senator Ladd was the model for the Frank Capra film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. In the 1920s in the midst of massive journalistic output, Liggett was active in efforts to free Sacco and Vanzetti and Thomas Mooney. In 1929-1930, he vaulted to national prominence