John Brooks Leavitt

Who was John Brooks Leavitt?

John Brooks Leavitt was a New York City attorney, author and reformer. As member of the "Good Government" movement, Leavitt crusaded against Tammany Hall municipal corruption, demanding in 1897 the indictment of United States Senator Thomas C. Platt on charges of extorting bribes from the New York Life Insurance Company in return for favors to the insurance giant. "We have positive evidence, which as soon as New York has an honest District Attorney," Leavitt told a crowd of 2,000 gathered at Long Acre Square on Broadway, "will be laid before him, and we then shall be able to obtain an indictment and send the arch-boss to the jail which yawns for him."