Museum Collections

This "Democratic Crying Towel" is a souvenir of a Circus Saints and Sinners Club of America luncheon that took place on November 21, 1952, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City. The charity group, established in 1926, has held annual fundraising events at which honorees were subjected to a comedically humiliating "roast" as the "fall guy." An account of the event, published in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle the following day, says, "Attorney General James Patrick McGranery won't forget too soon the ribbing he took last Friday as the 'fall guy'.... He sat through three hours of political needling which included such topics as the elusive Thomas (Three-Finger Brown) Luchese, Newbold Morris, Washington politics...."