In 1932 he was Special US Assistant Secretary of Labor, and from 1934 to 1937 he was director of the Select Committee of the US House of Representatives to investigate bondholder reorganizations.

[1] Garsson and his younger brother Henry (11 April 1896 – November 1983) started a munitions contracting business in 1941 with a letter to the war department on borrowed stationery on behalf of a non-existent company, Erie Basin Metal Products Inc. A small order for shell fuses led to development of a combine with $78 million in government contracts.

[2] Their factory produced 4.2-inch mortar shells with defective fuzes, resulting in premature detonation and the deaths of 38 American soldiers.

May, chairman of the House Military Affairs Committee during World War II, facilitated the Garssons' enterprise.

Milton Helpern, the chief medical examiner, performed an autopsy and determined the cause of death was brain hemorrhage, the result of a fall down a flight of stairs.