Charles Binaggio was born in Beaumont, Tex., and moved to Kansas City with his family while he was still a youth. Not much is known about his early years. Living on Kansas City�s North Side, Binaggio became acquainted with Johnny Lazia who found work for him in one of his downtown gambling operations.
Binaggio was determined to follow in Lazia�s footsteps. He worked at the business of politics seven days a week building a following by performing favors for his constituents � finding jobs for them, and most importantly, helping them when they got in trouble with the law. He became an important political organizer and rose quickly through the ranks. Except for Gov. Forrest Smith, Binaggio became the most recognized leader of the Democratic Party. His detractors claimed that his rise came from his connections to the Kansas City Mafia, who backed him for leadership because of his organizing ability and his minor criminal record.
On his way to the top, Binaggio merged seven Democratic clubs and seized control of the North Side from Jim Pendergast, the nephew of Boss Tom Pendergast. Some believe Binaggio�s most brilliant political move was supporting Forrest Smith for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1948. Binaggio and Jim Pendergast had actually worked together until the mid-1940s before splitting on who the Democrats would support for governor.
As mentioned earlier, Missouri native son, Harry S Truman was a close friend of Jim Pendergast and served with him during World War I. Truman�s early success in politics was accomplished under the auspices of Tom Pendergast, a fact that his political opponents would continually use against him. Later, when Truman became president, Jim Pendergast was a frequent guest in Washington D.C. Despite Binaggio�s prominence in the Democratic Party, he was not welcome at the White House. Binaggio�s enemies claimed it was his arrest record, not his split with Pendergast, which kept him from an invitation to the Oval Office.
In 1946, while Binaggio and Jim Pendergast were still political allies, their political organization was involved in a well-publicized voting fraud scandal. It involved the Democratic primary held in August 1946 in which Enos Axtell ousted incumbent Roger C. Slaughter. President Truman had endorsed Axtell and in doing so publicly demanded that the defiant Slaughter be "purged."
While a grand jury was investigating the allegations of voter fraud, thieves broke into the Jackson County Courthouse and used nitroglycerin to blast open a safe. The intruders removed ballots and election records that supported the eighty-one vote fraud indictments.
In Jefferson City, the Republican state chairman commented that the theft indicated that the Pendergast machine "is just as rampant under the protection of Harry S Truman as it was under Mr. Truman�s mentor Tom Pendergast." As a result of the ballot theft, many of Binaggio�s aides escaped prosecution when the vote fraud cases collapsed. The one exception was Morris "Snag" Klein, an important associate of Binaggio�s who was known as one of the top gamblers in the city.
By the late 1940s, Binaggio oversaw a bloc of 30,000 votes and no other political boss in the state controlled more. Although some politicians were concerned about Binaggio�s underworld connections, they still came to him for the votes he could muster. At least two senators and six representatives were reputed to be under his control in the Missouri State Legislature.
Binaggio�s base of operations on the North Side was the First District Democratic Club. Newspapers gave the following description of the location and the activity that took place there:
"The political headquarters of Binaggio was in a large meeting hall on Truman Road in a neighborhood of cheap hotels and restaurants, second-hand furniture stores and used car lots. On election days squadrons of ghost voters were assembled in that room and dispatched to various polling places to vote in the names of absent or long dead citizens."
As far as Binaggio�s arrest record, it began in 1930. Some of his early arrests seemed to indicate that the Kansas City mob could have had a strong influence in Colorado during the 1930s. On Jan. 18, 1930, Binaggio was arrested in Denver along with Anthony Gizzo for carrying a concealed weapon. Their sentences were suspended after they agreed to leave town. One year later, Binaggio was arrested in Denver again, this time for vagrancy. In Kansas City he was arrested twice for bootlegging, in both cases the charges were dropped. In August 1939, he was arrested in Denver for again carrying a concealed weapon.
Another well-publicized arrest occurred in 1945 when Binaggio was involved in operating the Green Hills Country Club, a gambling resort in Platt County, Mo. Also involved with the club were Gus Gargotta, the brother of Charley, Nick Penna, Anthony "Slick" Bondon, Binaggio�s father-in-law, and Fred Wedow, who was described as a "veteran gambler."
During the 1940s, Binaggio was reputed to be the man in charge of the Harmony News Service, the Capone syndicate�s race-wire operation in Kansas City. The newspapers called Binaggio the "king-pin of state-wide gambling." Binaggio was also involved in the distribution of the Capone syndicate�s Canadian Ace Beer. He once admitted to a reporter that he received a 25-percent "cut" from the profits of the Duke Sales Company, the wholesaling firm that distributed the beer. He then refused to divulge his other business interests stating, "you will only crucify them in your newspaper."