Jack Tenney

Jack Breckinridge Tenney (April 1, 1898 – November 4, 1970) was an American politician who was noted for leading anti-communist investigations in California in the 1940s and early 1950s as head of the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities ("Tenney Committee"); earlier, he was a song-composer, best known for "Mexicali Rose".

Jack Breckinridge Tenney was born on April 1, 1898, in St. Louis, Missouri and moved to California in 1908. During World War I, he fought with the American Expeditionary Force in France. Upon his return, he married Leda Westrem, a 16 year-old stenographer, and they had a baby while living at 3764 South Main street, Los Angeles. Marital problems ensued when Tenney became a professional musician in 1919, formed the Majestic Orchestra and spent 1920 to 1923 playing dance halls and hotels in Calexico and Mexicali. Leda filed for separation on the grounds of desertion and non-support in July 1920, and was awarded custody and support. She was killed in an automobile accident in January 1921.

While he was a bandleader and professional musician 1919-1933 in Calexico, California and Mexicali, Mexico, he composed the popular "standard" "Mexicali Rose". In 1922, he wrote the lyrics, putting them under the name "Helen Stone", a singer who put up the money for the first publication, by W.A. Quincke & Co., Los Angeles, on March 10, 1923 (1923-03-10).

However, Tenney turned his energies towards night law school, and moved back to Los Angeles in 1928. The 1929 sound film Mexicali Rose, starring Barbara Stanwyck, came and went. He reportedly sold his interest in "Mexicali Rose" for two to three thousand dollars to M.M. Cole Company of Chicago. In December 1932 Tenney was elected to the lucrative post of president of Local 47 of the American Federation of Musicians. In 1935, he passed the California State Bar examination and became successful in practice.

Tenney ran for the California State Assembly in 1936 as a Democrat and won. During his tenure, he gained a reputation as a progressive and was even charged with being a member of the Communist Party. In 1940, he served as one of California's electors, casting his vote for Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1942, Tenney ran for the State Senate as a Republican, serving three four-year terms there.

Tenney made his name in the State Senate as a foe of Communism, and was chair of the California State Senate Committee on Un-American Activities from 1941 to 1949. He stated, "You can no more coexist with communism than you can coexist with a nest of rattlesnakes." As the chairman of the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities, which investigated alleged communists in California, Tenney "vigorously attacked everyone he believed to be a Communist or to have Communist sympathies".

Those investigated by Tenney's committee included:

In 1941, producer Walt Disney took out an ad in Variety, the industry trade magazine, declaring his conviction that "Communist agitation" was behind a cartoonists and animators' strike. According to historians Larry Ceplair and Steven Englund, "In actuality, the strike had resulted from Disney's overbearing paternalism, high-handedness, and insensitivity." Inspired by Disney, California State Senator Tenney, chairman of the state legislature's California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities, launched an investigation of "Reds in movies". The probe fell flat, and was mocked in several Variety headlines.