MAY RUN FOR PRESIDENT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 27 February 1939, Page 7

MAY RUN FOR PRESIDENT

MR THOMAS DEWEY SEQUEL TO COURT VICTORY FORMER TAMMANY HALL LEADEF CONVICTED r l).P.A.—By Electric Telegraph—Copyriebt NEW YORK, 25th February. The jury, after seven hours’ deliberation, to-day convicted the foltnei Tahifnany Hall leader, Jatnes Hines oh all 13 counts in the indictment which charged him with conspiring with gahgsters to create and o'perate a "policy racket” estimated at 20,000,000 dollars annually. Hines faces a maximum of 27 years imprisonment. It was a spectacular victory for New York’s special racket and vice-prosecutor, Mr Thomas Dewey. Most observers were expecting an acquittal and it is now considered that Mr Dewey will be almost assured oi the Republican nomination for President in 1940. James Hines, Tammany Hall's most powerful individual district leader, was arrested last May on lottery charges. He was charged with attempting to “influence and intimidate judicial officers and others charged with the duty of enforcing and administering the laws of New York.” Hines’s arrest caused a sensation. It was made possible through the confession of three members of the "Dutch” Schultz gang indicating that Hines provided protection against arrest and prosecution of this most notorious racketeer whose gains were estimated to total one hundred million dollars from the Numbers Lottery, in which even school children’s pennies were raked in. Hines was released on 20,000 dollars bail. Mr Dewey, who engaged in a bitter word battle with Hines’s attorney, in which the latter came off second best, intimated that the grand jury indictment would show that Hines consorted and shared profits with some of the most vicious gangster figures of recent years, including Bedises, Schultz, and the notoroius Dixie Davis, and that he actively intimidated judges and other law-enforcement officers who attempted to bring these men to justice. The arrest of Hines marked the first arraingnment on serious charges of a Tammany leader for many years. Hines was also charged with receiving 500 to 5000 dollars weekly as a “rake off” from the Numbers racket. Tammany Hall is the headquartei's of the Democratic Party “machine” in New York. Till recently it held undisputed sway over city politics.