Mobsters - James Hines - The Ultimate Political Fixer

He started out as an easy Harlem blacksmith, but as he dug his fat fingers deep into Tammany Hall, James Hines became the biggest political figure in New York City history.

Hines was born on December 18, 1876, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. His father operated a blacksmith shop at 121st and Eight Avenue, and when his father became ill, Hines took over his father's business at 17.

Through his father's political affiliation in the 11th Assembly District on the Upper West Side, Hines became so close to Big Tim Sullivan, a politician who was so crooked that he actually took advantage of the racist group's street gang, which seized the lower East Side. Manhattan. Sullivan was a major cog in the political machine called Tammany Hall and he played his constituents like a violin, getting certain people to vote on Election Day several times, constantly changing their appearance. Hines learned the ropes from his master, and in 1907 Hines ran for a position called Alderman. With the help of manipulating Sullivan's electoral process (Sullivan had a man, who would not vote in the election, badly beaten by his street gang, best known as Whyos), Hines won the election.

In 1910, Hines took the bold step of running the District Leader against his incumbent. After both sides resorted to tactics against the other, Hines appeared. With his new founding role as District Leader, Hines formed the Monongahela Democratic Club, which has been his base for many years to come. In Monongahela, Hines plays a good boy; providing the poor in the neighborhood with Thanksgiving turkeys, donating clothes to the needy, and finding jobs for anyone in need. Of course, that means Hines can rely on the people's votes on Election Day, for any candidate Hines considers to be the winner, no matter who the candidate is.

Every year Hines sponsors the annual "June Walk and Picnic" in Central Park, which attracts 25,000 people, mostly children. At one of the events (The Walk of the Year), Hines, after taking the children to the pigs, then laid them on the table with the best food spread, Hines wiped his sweat from his eyebrows and said, "The children came first , these things are voters now, they don't all vote in my constituency, but they do vote somewhere. In politics, all they have to do is build their own army. "

To supplement his income, and with no experience at all, Hines, with his brother Philip, started a trucking company, and then a construction company. Almost immediately, the Hines brothers gained control of the city's best and largest state-of-the-art trucking and construction projects, which then subcontracted people who really knew how to do the job.

Although Hines is the greatest player in Democratic politics, he has very little future in running for the elective office. Hines is an unskilled public speaker, and is more skilled in the back room business, where just nodding his head will indicate who is elected, or appointed for political work. As a generous person he can be with his friends, if someone crosses Hines, as far as Hines is concerned, that person may have died.

During Prohibition, Davey "The Killer" Madden and "Big Bill" carried out the largest demolition operation in the entire United States. However, both boat owners know that their business can't grow without them having police in their back pocket. And the person in charge of all the police promotions at that time was none other than Jim Hines. Dwyer and Madden pay Hines, and they pay him well, taking care of police, judges, prosecutors, and debtors. By taking care of Hines properly, Madden and Dwyer knew that if any of their men had an accident that was caught by the police, either unpaid, or simply disobedient, Hines would arrange for the person's immediate release.

Tammany big shot George Washington Plunkitt, a man who was attending Hines school when Hines first started politics, said it was a good thing for a crooked politician like Hines to be associated with a known thug. The idea is, if someone is foolish enough to report Hines to the authorities, or refuses to play ball with him, they will think twice, recognizing someone like Owney "The Killer" Madden is waiting in the wings to fix it if they do.

Plunkitt once explained exactly what District Leaders like Hines wanted. He said, "As a rule, the District Leader has no business or occupation other than politics. He plays politics every day and night of the year, and his headquarters bears the inscription 'Never Closed.'

Madden and Dwyer often met with Hines at the Monongahela Democratic Club on the Upper West Side to discuss business. Some businesses are concerned that politicians, who want to advance their careers, are best for the "Merge," as Madden and Dwyer operations call it. In 1925, it was decided by all former Tin Pan Alley songwriters Jimmy Walker who would be the perfect choice for New York City Mayor. With the support of Hines, and Madden controlling the polls, Walker was overcome by landslides.

In 1929, Walker was re-elected, this time defeating the reformer and future mayor of Fiorello LaGuardia. But Walker was crooked when they arrived, and spent some time as Mayor of New York City. Again, when asked by a political opponent after he raised the price from $ 25,000 to $ 40,000 a year, Walker exclaimed, "Hell, that's cheap. Imagine what I should give if I worked full time."

But all good things must come to an end. In 1932, after Walker was grilled by the Seabury Committee, which investigated police and political corruption, New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt worked with Hines, Walker who was forced to retire. Walker picked up the signal, and left the office immediately. Walker took the first available boat and sailed, with his girlfriend, Betty Compton, to a more friendly France. Walker remained in France for four years before being considered safe to return to New York City.

The 1932 presidential election was a bigger coup for Hines. In 1928, New York Governor Al Smith, a man trying to gain control of Tammany Hall of Hines, ran unsuccessfully for the US President against Republican Herbert Hoover. Under Hoover, the stock market crashed in 1929, and in 1932 America was under the pressure of The Great Depression. Smith wanted to run for President again, but he was opposed by Roosevelt, who took Smith's place as Governor in 1928.

Hines has a long memory of Smith, and he threw all his weight behind Roosevelt for the Democratic nomination for President. Roosevelt easily won the Democratic nomination against Smith, as well as the presidential election of Herbert Hoover. With the man Roosevelt regularly at the White House, Roosevelt rewarded Hines for his inconsistent service by giving Hines the task of giving all the federal support in Manhattan, to anyone he considered fit for Hines's job.

By 1933, Hines was riding high in New York City politics. Money flows in the bushel of his aides, and Dwyer is known as the "King Maker" - a man who can influence any election he chooses throughout New York State, and even if necessary, throughout America.

The beginning of Hines' downfall was when Hines was introduced by his gang friends to the only gangster in New York City that Hines had done no good to: Dutch Schultz (real name Arthur Flegenheimer). The meeting was supposed to be a secret, beginning with Hines waiting quietly under the high-train, at the corner of Sixth Avenue, in Greenwich Village, far from the Hines domain on the Upper West Side. A few minutes later, Schultz shot Hines in a Cadillac. Inside the car were Schultz's ally George Weinberg, and Schultz's lawyer, and parent supplier - Dixie Davis.

In 1938, when Hines was convicted on his first two counts of political corruption, George Weinberg testified in court for prosecution. Weinberg spoke in detail about an important conversation that occurred on Cadillac among himself, Hines, and Schultz, on that fateful day in 1933.

Weinberg said, "I explained to Hines that in order to run our business and bring it right, we had to protect the guards who worked for us. We had to protect them from prison, and if we got a big arrest that would hurt our business, we would like to have them sent to the Magistrates' Court, so that they do not have to go to the city center (this means sometimes more than three Special Sessions Court judges), explaining to him that we don't mind small arrests, but if we get any big arrests , we want them to be remanded to the Magistrates' Court, to show the people in Harlem working for us that we have the right protection there, and we want to protect them from prison. "

In Caddy, Hines, and Schultz ammunition also agreed to the agreement that Schultz would give Hines, as a good measure of his will, a thousand dollars in place. In addition, Schultz told Hines that Dixie Davis would charge Hines another $ 500 a week, to keep Schultz's multinational company free from law enforcement intervention.

In 1937, when Davis himself was tried for police involvement, he testified in court, "I planted Jimmy Hines from the beginning. I quickly learned that in order to run a well-organized group, you must have a politician. The suspected relationship between organized crime and politics. Well, I'm a lost link. "

Davis also testified that Schultz's base banks were kicking $ 500 a week for Hines, but Davis said, "Tossed in another $ 500 to Hines without telling Schultz." Davis said he put in extra money, so that the big financier (Hines) had the cash needed for "Friday night's fights and everything Hines had to do when Mr. Hines exercised his entertaining rights - judges, office bearers, big businessmen - overseeing the preservation of power. politics. "

For his crimes, Davis was sentenced to one year in prison, and he was fired.

Hines also held the appointment of several New York Judges, and when he appointed the judge, he explained that the judge was now working for him, and was forced to do whatever Hines said he needed to do. At one point, Weinberg and his sons were caught with the items, when a detective actively demolished an apartment they used for business, containing more than $ 20,000 worth of police rackets. Weinberg told the arresting detective that he had made a grave mistake, and that if he insisted on arresting Weinberg and his men, the detective would immediately be turned over to a uniformed police force, operating everywhere in Harlem.

After he was released on bail, Weinberg immediately ran to Hines. After hearing Weinberg's story, Hines told Weinberg that he would take care of the situation.

On the same night, Hines took Weinberg for a steak dinner at the Andrew B. Keating Democratic Club where they met Hines-appointed Judge Hulon Capshaw (not). Hines told the judge, "I have a police case, which is very important, coming before you that I want you to take care of me."

The judge replied, "I haven't failed, I'll take care of it."

And the judge, when he decided that the policy slip in the apartment could not be connected to the man in the same apartment. The case was dismissed and the detective who pulled the bomb was soon robbed himself, returning to patrol by Police Commissioner James Bolan, also a Hines man.

The wheels started spinning off the Hines gravity train when Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey began investigating Schultz's illegal business activities from the Netherlands. The Dutch don't like it too hot, so he tells others about the National Crime Commission, where he is a member of gangsters like Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Frank Costello, who wants to haunt Dewey, and is immediately exposed.

When the Commission voted on his request, Schultz said, "I still say Dewey should be beaten, and I'll do it myself."

The Commission did not like to hear too much, until on October 23, 1935, to save Dewey's life, Schultz was shot in the bathroom of the Chophouse Palace, at 12 East Park Street, in Newark, New Jersey. Schultz spent several hours in the hospital, in a state of madness, before finally dying.

With Schultz now eliminated, Dewey is now turning his attention to Hines. Dewey claimed that Hines was "a much-needed conspirator and functionary of the Schultz organization."

Things started to look great for Hines, when George Weinberg suddenly turned his canary and testified against Hines at Hines's first trial in 1938. With Weinberg speaking nonstop to witnesses about Hines's involvement in the Schultz attack, Hines seems likely to be convicted . However, on September 12, 1938, four days into the trial, a technical breach was declared. by the New York General Sessions Court of Justice Pecora.

As Hines waits for Dewey to be tried again, George Weinberg suddenly becomes sad to turn his mouse over Hines. Down and depressed, Weinberg committed suicide by firing a single bullet into his own brain.

With Weinberg out of the picture, it looks like Hines is clear. However, Hines took home the right to the jaw, when a new judge ruled on Hines' second line (which occurred in 1939), that Weinberg's testimony from the first trial was admissible.

With testimony from men such as Police Commissioner James Bolan, and Tammany Hall politician John Curry, Hines was found guilty on all thirteen charges; one of which received more than $ 200.00 in bribes from Dutch Schultz.

When Hines left the courthouse, he was asked by a fussy reporter if Hines was "tired." Hines teased, "How would you feel if you were kicked in the stomach?"

Hines was sentenced to 4-8 years on conviction, but was released on parole on September 12, 1944, after serving less than five years in prison.

Alone with his wife at their home on the beach on Long Island, Hines spends the rest of the year in obscurity. On March 26, 1957, James Hines died of natural causes at the age of 80.

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