ABSTRACT
By all accounts, the union that Harry Van Arsdale Jr. joined on August 13, 1925, as an electrician's helper (after passing the helper's examination on May 1, 1925) was a labor scandal. Along with other building trades unions in New York City, the Local came under the close scrutiny of the Lockwood Committee, a state investigative panel established in 1921. It found that the Local's finances were in a shambles with almost nonexistent bookkeeping. There were three cashiers receiving money but no one was responsible for keeping track of it. l
The Local president would receive packets of cash from the treasurer and place them in a safe, and, not surprisingly, some would be unaccounted for. Because of this, treasurer William Hogan was indicted and jailed. He was charged with stealing $21,675 from the union between August 1918 and July 1921. It was alleged that Hogan had deposited an average of $11,000 annually in his bank in 1919, 1920, and 1921, and had constructed a $13,000 home in Mount Vernon, New York. Local 3 raised a $19,000 defense fund, but it failed to save Hogan from conviction. He was sentenced to serve from eighteen months to three years in Sing Sing prison in Ossining, New York. But many in the union thought that Hogan was just a victim of the Lockwood Committee witch-hunt singled out for blame. The support he enjoyed within the union was shown when he was once again elected financial secretary after his prison term was over. And during that whole time he had also continued as treasurer of the IBEW.
