page_title: Blair Coan
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Blair Coan / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: Sen. B.K. Wheeler, 12/8/22 Abstract/medium: National Photo Company Collection (Library of Congress) Physical description: 1 negative&#160;:
context_page_description: Blair Coan was an American government agent under US Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty and anti-communist, known for his book The Red Web on early Soviet penetration in the US government, singling out US Senator Burton K. Wheeler. Coan's efforts followed the First Red Scare.
context_section_description: In 1913, as an “investigator for the senatorial vice commission,” Coan reported that the Armory Show at the Art Institute of Chicago showed female forms indecently.
  In 1922, as an "operative of the Department of Justice," Coan traveled to Tampico, Mexico, where an American Comintern agent described how Soviet agents were fomenting revolution in Mexico and the United States.
  In 1924–5, Wheeler faced investigation, without major impact, even despite publication of The Red Web: An Underground Political History of the United States from 1918 to the Present Time in 1925 by Coan, who fingered Wheeler as center of communist conspiracy.  During that time, the CPUSA newspaper the ‘’Daily Worker’’ called “M. Blair Coan” an “employee of the Republican National Committee” and reported that Coan was in Great Falls, Montana to investigate Wheeler.  Coan accused Wheeler and other congressional representatives elected as part of the movement of the Progressive Party (United States, 1924–34) who worked to undermine US Attorney Generals A. Mitchell Palmer and Harry M. Daugherty and took advantage of the Teapot Dome scandal to do so.  According to historian Richard Gid Powers, "Coan was a former operative in the Daugherty Justice Department who had been involved in efforts to frame its critics during the Teapot Dome."  Primarily, Coan blamed Wheeler, Robert M. La Follette, and Smith W. Brookhart as "pinks."
  In 1937, Coan worked with Dr. Francis Townsend to promote his pension plan.
caption: US Senator Burton K. Wheeler (1922), whom Coan attacked in The Reb Web
exif: {}