Homer Cummings

Homer Stille Cummings
Born	30 4, 1870
Birthplace	Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	Template:Death date and age Washington, D.C., U.S.
Nationality	American
Occupation	Lawyer, politician, government official
Known for	United States Attorney General under Franklin D. Roosevelt; exonerating an innocent man as a prosecutor; pioneering federal gun control legislation
Education	Yale Law School (LL.B.)
Awards	Chairman of the Democratic National Committee (1919–1920)

Homer Stille Cummings (April 30, 1870 – September 10, 1956) was an American lawyer, politician, and government official who served as the 55th United States Attorney General from 1933 to 1939 under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A figure whose career spanned the most turbulent decades of early twentieth-century American governance, Cummings is remembered both for his influential role in shaping New Deal legal strategy and for a singular act of prosecutorial integrity decades earlier. As state's attorney for Fairfield County, Connecticut, in 1924, Cummings investigated and ultimately exonerated a man wrongly accused of murder—a case so remarkable that it was later adapted into a major Hollywood film and held up as a standard of justice in American legal discourse. As Attorney General, Cummings was instrumental in the Roosevelt administration's efforts to combat organized crime, expand federal law enforcement powers, and enact the first significant federal gun control legislation in the United States. He also played a central, and controversial, role in Roosevelt's attempt to reorganize the United States Supreme Court through what critics called the "court-packing plan."

Early Life

Homer Stille Cummings was born on April 30, 1870, in Chicago, Illinois. He grew up in a period of rapid industrialization and political transformation in the United States. His family later relocated to the East Coast, and Cummings spent much of his youth and early adulthood in Connecticut, a state that would become the base of his political career. Details of his parents and upbringing prior to his college years are sparsely documented in available sources, though his later career trajectory suggests he was raised in an environment that valued education and public service.

Cummings developed an early interest in law and politics. Connecticut, with its tradition of civic engagement and proximity to the intellectual centers of the northeastern United States, provided a fertile environment for his ambitions. He would become deeply embedded in the civic and political life of Stamford and Bridgeport, Connecticut, communities where he practiced law and held public office for decades before entering the national stage.

Education

Cummings attended Yale University, where he pursued both his undergraduate and legal education. He earned his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree from Yale Law School, which equipped him with the legal training that would underpin his career as a prosecutor, private attorney, and eventually the nation's chief law enforcement officer. Yale's law program in the late nineteenth century was among the most respected in the country, and Cummings's education there placed him in the company of many future leaders in American law and politics.

Career

Early Legal and Political Career in Connecticut

After completing his legal education, Cummings established a law practice in Connecticut and quickly became involved in Democratic Party politics. He served as mayor of Stamford, Connecticut, gaining early experience in public administration. His political acumen and legal skills drew the attention of party leaders, and he rose through the ranks of Connecticut's Democratic establishment.

Cummings served for many years as the state's attorney for Fairfield County, Connecticut—a position equivalent to a district attorney or chief prosecutor. In this role, he handled a wide range of criminal cases and developed a reputation for thoroughness and integrity in the prosecution of criminal matters.

The Harold Israel Case (1924)

The event that most distinguished Cummings's career as a prosecutor—and that would come to define his legacy in the annals of American criminal justice—occurred in 1924. A popular Roman Catholic priest, Father Hubert Dahme, was shot and killed on the streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut. The case drew enormous public attention, and pressure mounted on law enforcement to identify and convict the killer. Harold Israel, a young, itinerant man with no significant ties to the community, was arrested and charged with the murder. Israel appeared to be a convenient suspect: he was an outsider, and circumstantial evidence was assembled against him.

Cummings, as state's attorney, was expected to prosecute the case aggressively. Public sentiment overwhelmingly favored a swift conviction. However, as Cummings investigated the evidence more carefully, he grew increasingly troubled by its quality. Rather than proceeding to trial with a case he believed to be weak or fabricated, Cummings undertook his own independent investigation. He re-examined ballistics evidence, interviewed witnesses, and scrutinized the alibis and timelines presented by police.

Cummings's investigation revealed significant problems with the prosecution's case. The ballistics evidence did not conclusively link Israel's gun to the crime. Witness identifications were unreliable, and Israel had plausible alibis for the time of the murder. Cummings concluded that the evidence was insufficient to prove Israel's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt—and, more than that, that Israel was likely innocent.

In a move that was extraordinary for its time—and remains rare in American legal history—Cummings stood before the court and announced that he was dropping all charges against Harold Israel. He publicly declared that the evidence did not support a conviction and that justice required the release of the accused man. This decision was made at considerable personal and political risk: prosecutors who decline to pursue high-profile murder cases often face public backlash and damage to their careers.

The aftermath of the case was notable not only for its legal significance but also for the personal bond that developed between Cummings and Israel. Rather than fading into obscurity after the charges were dropped, the two men maintained a relationship that lasted for years. Cummings took a personal interest in Israel's welfare and, according to multiple accounts, the two forged an unlikely friendship—a prosecutor and the man he had rescued from wrongful conviction.

The Harold Israel case became a landmark in discussions of prosecutorial ethics and the duty of a prosecutor to seek justice rather than merely to secure convictions. It was later adapted into the 1947 film Boomerang!, directed by Elia Kazan, which dramatized the events and brought the story to a national audience. Decades later, legal scholars and journalists continued to cite the case as an example of prosecutorial integrity, particularly in an era when wrongful convictions and prosecutorial misconduct have become prominent public concerns.

Chairman of the Democratic National Committee

Cummings's stature within the Democratic Party grew steadily through the 1910s and 1920s. He served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 1919 to 1920, a period that encompassed the final year of Woodrow Wilson's presidency and the 1920 presidential election cycle. In this role, Cummings was responsible for coordinating party strategy and organization at the national level. The 1920 election proved a difficult one for Democrats, as the party lost the presidency to Republican Warren G. Harding in a landslide, but Cummings's tenure as chairman cemented his standing as a national Democratic figure.

United States Attorney General (1933–1939)

When Franklin D. Roosevelt won the presidency in 1932, he assembled a cabinet of experienced lawyers and political operatives to carry out the ambitious legislative and regulatory agenda of the New Deal. Roosevelt appointed Cummings as United States Attorney General, a position he held from March 1933 to January 1939. As Attorney General, Cummings oversaw the United States Department of Justice during one of the most consequential periods in American legal history.

War on Crime

One of Cummings's most prominent initiatives as Attorney General was the federal government's aggressive campaign against organized crime and high-profile criminal enterprises. The early 1930s were marked by a wave of bank robberies, kidnappings, and gangland violence that captured public attention and undermined confidence in law enforcement. Cummings championed the expansion of the powers and resources of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover, supporting new federal criminal statutes that made bank robbery, kidnapping across state lines, and other offenses federal crimes subject to prosecution by the Department of Justice.

Federal Gun Control Legislation

Cummings played a central role in the passage of the National Firearms Act of 1934, the first major federal gun control law in the United States. The legislation was crafted as a response to the widespread use of machine guns, sawed-off shotguns, and other weapons by organized crime figures during the Prohibition era and its aftermath. Rather than attempting to ban such weapons outright—which might have faced constitutional challenges under the Second Amendment—Cummings devised a strategy based on the federal taxing power. The National Firearms Act imposed a $200 transfer tax on each sale or transfer of machine guns, short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and certain other weapons. This tax, equivalent to thousands of dollars in modern currency, effectively made the weapons prohibitively expensive for most buyers and created a federal registration system for covered firearms.

Cummings persuaded Congress to adopt this approach, arguing that the taxing power provided a constitutionally sound basis for federal regulation of firearms. The strategy proved durable: the National Firearms Act was upheld by the Supreme Court in United States v. Miller (1939) and remains the foundation of federal firearms regulation in the twenty-first century.

The Court-Packing Plan

Perhaps the most controversial episode of Cummings's tenure as Attorney General was his role in Roosevelt's 1937 proposal to reorganize the Supreme Court. Frustrated by the Court's invalidation of several key New Deal statutes, Roosevelt proposed legislation that would have allowed him to appoint additional justices to the Supreme Court for every sitting justice over the age of 70 who declined to retire. The plan, widely denounced as "court-packing," was seen by critics as an attempt to undermine the independence of the judiciary. Cummings was one of the principal architects of the proposal and defended it publicly on behalf of the administration. The plan ultimately failed in Congress, encountering opposition not only from Republicans but also from members of Roosevelt's own party. The episode damaged both Roosevelt's political standing and Cummings's reputation in some quarters, though the threat of court-packing is often credited by historians with prompting the so-called "switch in time that saved nine"—a shift in the Court's jurisprudence that led to the upholding of subsequent New Deal legislation.

The Antiquities Act and Presidential Authority

Cummings also weighed in on questions of presidential authority under the Antiquities Act, which grants the president the power to designate national monuments. Legal opinions issued during Cummings's tenure addressed the scope of presidential power to create and, potentially, to revoke monument designations—a question that has resurfaced repeatedly in subsequent administrations. Scholars have continued to debate the legal framework established during this period, with some contending that the president may revoke monument designations made by predecessors, a position that has significant implications for federal land management and environmental policy.

Departure from Office

Cummings resigned as Attorney General in January 1939 and was succeeded by Frank Murphy. His six-year tenure was among the longer in the history of the office and encompassed a period of extraordinary legal and institutional change. After leaving government, Cummings returned to the practice of law in Washington, D.C.

Personal Life

Homer Cummings was married multiple times during his life. He maintained his primary residence in Connecticut for much of his career, though he lived in Washington, D.C., during and after his service as Attorney General. Cummings was known as a skilled orator and was active in Democratic Party affairs well beyond his formal positions. His friendship with Harold Israel, the man he exonerated in 1924, remained a notable aspect of his personal story, frequently cited by journalists and legal scholars as evidence of his character and commitment to justice.

Cummings died on September 10, 1956, in Washington, D.C., at the age of 86.

Recognition

Cummings's role in the Harold Israel case has been the subject of extensive media coverage and scholarly attention. The 1947 film Boomerang!, directed by Elia Kazan and starring Dana Andrews, dramatized the case and brought it to a wide audience. The film was praised for its realism and its depiction of prosecutorial integrity.

In the decades following his death, Cummings's legacy has been revisited by journalists and legal commentators, particularly in the context of ongoing debates over wrongful convictions and prosecutorial ethics. A 2016 article in The Marshall Project examined the case in detail, noting that Cummings's decision to drop charges against Israel stood in sharp contrast to the practices of many modern prosecutors who have been criticized for prioritizing convictions over justice. That same year, WBUR's All Things Considered broadcast a feature on the case, highlighting the friendship between Cummings and Israel as a remarkable footnote in American legal history. In 2017, Smithsonian Magazine published a lengthy account of the case, describing how new evidence had shed further light on Cummings's investigation and the bond he forged with the man he saved from wrongful conviction.

Cummings's contributions to federal law enforcement, gun control policy, and New Deal legal strategy have also been recognized by historians and legal scholars. The National Firearms Act of 1934, which Cummings helped design and shepherd through Congress, remains a foundational statute in American firearms regulation.

Legacy

Homer Cummings's legacy is shaped by two distinct, though related, contributions to American public life. As a prosecutor, his decision to exonerate Harold Israel in 1924 established a standard of prosecutorial ethics that continues to be cited in legal education and public discourse. In an era when wrongful convictions and the conduct of prosecutors have become subjects of intense scrutiny, the Harold Israel case serves as a benchmark for the principle that the duty of a prosecutor is not merely to win convictions but to seek justice. Legal commentators have noted that Cummings's willingness to risk his own career and reputation in order to prevent the conviction of an innocent man remains an exceptional example of integrity in the American legal system.

As Attorney General, Cummings helped shape the institutional and legal framework of the modern Department of Justice. His support for the expansion of federal law enforcement, the passage of the National Firearms Act, and the legal defense of the New Deal left lasting marks on American governance. His role in the court-packing controversy, while damaging to his reputation at the time, is now viewed by many historians as part of a broader struggle over the relationship between the executive and judicial branches during a period of constitutional crisis.

Cummings's career illustrates the complexities of public service in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century. He operated at the intersection of law, politics, and public morality, and his decisions—both celebrated and controversial—continue to inform debates over the proper role of prosecutors, the limits of executive power, and the meaning of justice in a democratic society.