by Bruno, Joe
Even though Hines was the biggest player of his time in Democratic politics, he had very little future in running for elective office. Hines was an unskilled public speaker and was more adept at back room dealings, where a mere nod of his head would signify which person was getting elected, or appointed to a political job. As generous as he could be with his friends, if someone crossed Hines, as far Hines was concerned, that person may as well have been dead.
During Prohibition, Owney “The Killer” Madden and “Big Bill” Dwyer were running the biggest bootlegging and rum running operations in the entire United States of America. However, both men knew their business could never thrive if they didn't have the police in their back pockets. And the man who controlled the all police promotions at the time was none other than Jim Hines. Dwyer and Madden paid Hines, and they paid him well, to take care of the police, judges, prosecutors, and bail bondsmen. By taking care of Hines properly, Madden and Dwyer knew if any of their men did have the misfortune of being arrested by a cop, who either wasn't getting paid, or was just being plain disobedient, Hines would arrange for that person's immediate release.
Tammany big shot George Washington Plunkitt, a man who schooled Hines when Hines first started out in politics, said that is was a good idea for a crooked politician like Hines to be associated with known gangsters. Plunkitt believed, and with good reason, that if anyone was considering either to report Hines to the authorities, or to refuse Hines's demands, they'd think twice, knowing someone like Owney “The Killer” Madden was waiting in the wings to correct them if they did.
Plunkitt once explained exactly what a District Leader like Hines was expected to do.
He said, “As a rule a 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 met often with Hines at his Monongahela Democratic Club on the Upper West Side to discuss business. Some of this business concerned which politician was the best for the business of the “Combine,” as Madden and Dwyer's operation was called. In 1925, it was decided by all that ex-Tin Pan Alley songwriter Jimmy Walker would be the perfect pick for New York City Mayor. With Hines's backing and Madden's control of the polling places, Walker won the election by a landslide.
In 1929, Walker was reelected, this time defeating reformer and future mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. But Walker was as crooked as they came, and he spent very little time actually being mayor of New York City.
Once, after he was questioned by a political opponent after he gave himself a raise from $25,000 to $40,000 a year, Walker quipped, “Hell, that's cheap. Imagine what I would be worth 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 was looking into police and political corruption, New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, working hand-in-hand with Hines, pressured Walker to resign. Walker, taking the cue, quit his office immediately. Accompanied by his girlfriend Betty Compton, Walker jumped on the first boat available, and they traveled to the friendly confines of France. Walker remained in France for four years, before he deemed it safe to return to New York City.
The Presidential election of 1932 was an even bigger coup for Hines. In 1928, New York Governor Al Smith, a man who had tried to take control of Tammany Hall from Hines, ran unsuccessfully for the President of the United States against Republican Herbert Hoover. Under Hoover, the stock market crashed in 1929, and by 1932, America was in the throes of The Great Depression. Smith wanted to run for President again, but he was opposed by Roosevelt, who had taken Smith's place as Governor in 1928.
Hines had a long memory concerning Smith, and he threw all his weight behind Roosevelt for the Democratic nomination for President. Roosevelt won the Democratic nomination against Smith quite easily and also the Presidential election against Herbert Hoover. With his man Roosevelt snug in the White House, Roosevelt rewarded Hines for his unyielding service by giving Hines the job of awarding all federal patronage in Manhattan to whomever Hines deemed fit for the jobs.
By 1933, Hines was riding high in New York City politics. Tainted money was flowing into his coffers from the mobsters, and Hines was known as a “King Maker,” a man who could influence any election he chose to, throughout New York State, and if need be, anywhere in America.
The start of Hines's downfall was when Hines was introduced by his fellow gangsters to the only gangster in New York City whom Hines wasn't doing favors for: Dutch Schultz (real name Arthur Flegenheimer). The first meeting was so secretive, it started with Hines waiting surreptitiously under the elevated trains on a street corner on Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village, far away from Hines's domain on the Upper West Side. Minutes later, Schultz picked up Hines in a bulletproof Cadillac. Also in the Caddy was Schultz's associate George Weinberg and Schultz's lawyer and master fixer, Dixie Davis.
In 1938, when Hines was a defendant in the first of his two trials for political corruption, George Weinberg testified in court for the prosecution. Weinberg spoke in great detail about the pivotal conversation which took place in the Cadillac amongst himself, Hines, and Schultz, on that fateful day in 1933.
Weinberg said, “I explained to Hines, that in order to be able to run our business and bring it up the right way, we would have to protect the controllers that are working for us. We would have to protect them from going to jail, and if we got any big arrests that would hurt our business, we would want them dismissed in Magistrates' Court, so that they wouldn't have to go downtown (Weinberg was referring to the tougher three-judge Court of Special Sessions). I explained to him that we did not mind the small arrests, but if we got any large arrests we would want them dismissed in Magistrates' Court, to show the people in Harlem who are working for us that we had the right kind of protection up there, and that we would want to protect them from going to jail.”
In the bulletproof Caddy, Hines and Schultz came to an agreement that Schultz would give Hines, as a measure of his good will, one thousand dollars on the spot. Also, Schultz told Hines that Dixie Davis would be the go-between to funnel Hines another $500 per week, to keep Schultz's various enterprises free from law enforcement intervention.
In 1937, when Davis himself was tried for policy rackets involvement, he testified in court, “I cultivated Jimmy Hines right from the beginning. I soon learned that to run an organized mob you've got to have a politician. You have heard about the suspected link between organized crime and politics. Well, I became the missing link.”
Davis also testified that Schultz's policy banks kicked in the $500 a week for Hines, but that Davis, “tossed in another $500 himself to Hines without even telling Schultz.” Davis said that he put up the extra money, so that the big spender (Hines) had the cash he needed for the “Friday Night Fights, and whatever else Hines needed to do when Mr. Hines did the necessary entertaining - judges, officeholders, big businessmen - that kept his political power mower oiled.”
Because of his cooperation, Davis was sentenced to a mere one year in prison, plus he was disbarred.
Hines also controlled the appointments of the various New York judges. And when he did appoint a judge, Hines made it clear that the judge now worked for him and was compelled to do anything Hines said needed to be done.
On one occasion, Weinberg and his boys were caught with the goods, when an enterprising detective busted into an apartment they used for business. Once inside, the bull was pleased to discover the apartment contained over $20,000 worth of policy racket receipts. Weinberg told the detective that he was making a very big mistake, and if he insisted on arresting Weinberg and his men, the detective would soon be busted back to uniformed cop, walking a beat somewhere in Harlem.
After he was released on bail, Weinberg immediately ran to Hines. After hearing Weinberg's story, Hines told Weinberg he would take care of the situation.
That same night, Hines took Weinberg to a steak dinne
r at the Andrew B. Keating Democratic Club, where they met a Hines appointee, the very honorable (not) Judge Hulon Capshaw.
Hines told the judge, “I have a policy case, a very important one, coming up before you that I'd like you to take care of for me.”
The judge replied, “I haven't failed you yet. I'll take care of it.”
And that the judge did, when he ruled that the policy slips found in the apartment could in no way be connected to the men who were in that same apartment. The case was dismissed, and the detective who did the aborted bust was soon busted himself, back to patrolman, by Police Commissioner James Bolan, also a Hines appointee.
The wheels started spinning off Hines's gravy train when Special Prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey began investigating Dutch Schultz's voluminous illegal business activities. The Dutchman didn't like the heat too much, so he told the other men on the National Crime Commission, of which he was a member with gangsters like Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Bugsy Siegel, and Frank Costello, that he wanted Dewey hit and hit right away.
When the Commission voted down his request, Schultz said, “I still say Dewey should be hit, and I'm going to do it myself.”
The Commission didn't like hearing that too much, so on October 23, 1935, to save Dewey's life, Schultz was shot in the bathroom of the Palace Chophouse at 12 East Park Street in Newark, New Jersey. Schultz lingered for a few hours at the hospital, in a delirious state, before he finally stopped breathing for good.
With Schultz now eliminated, Dewey turned his attention to Hines. Dewey claimed that Hines was “a co-conspirator and indispensable functionary of the Schultz organization.”
Things started looking mighty bad for Hines, when George Weinberg suddenly turned canary and testified against Hines at Hines's first trial in 1938. With Weinberg talking non-stop on the witness stand about Hines's involvement in Schultz's rackets, Hines seemed doomed to be convicted. However, on September 12, 1938, four days into the trial, a mistrial was declared on a technicality, by New York General Sessions Court Justice Pecora.
As Hines was waiting to be re-tried by Dewey, George Weinberg suddenly became overcome with grief for turning rat against Hines. Down and depressed, Weinberg fired a fatal bullet into his own brain.
With Weinberg out of the picture, it looked like Hines was in the clear. However, Hines took a roundhouse right to the jaw, when the new judge ruled in Hines's second trail (which took place in 1939), that Weinberg's testimony from the first trial could be admitted into evidence.
With corroborating testimony from men like Police Commissioner James Bolan and crooked Tammany Hall politician John Curry, Hines was found guilty on all thirteen counts of the indictment; one of which was accepting more than $200,000 in bribes from Dutch Schultz.
As Hines left the courthouse, he was asked by a snotty reporter if Hines felt “tired.”
Hines snapped back, “How would you feel if you were just kicked in the belly?”
As a result of his convictions, Hines was sentenced to 4-8 years in prison. But he was released on parole on September 12, 1944, after serving a little more than five years of his bit.
Living alone with his wife in their home on a beach in Long Island, Hines spent the rest of his years in relative obscurity. On March 26, 1957, James “The King Maker” Hines died of natural causes at the age of 80.
Howe, William, and Hummel, Abraham
I'm sure you've all heard about the fictitious law firm of Dewey, Screwem, and Howe. But in real life there existed a law firm which was, without a doubt, the most crooked and corrupt law firm of all time. The name of this law firm was Howe and Hummel (William Howe and Abraham Hummel). These two shyster lawyers were the main players in a sleazy law firm, founded in 1870, of which New York City District Attorney William Travers Jerome said in 1890, “For more than 20 years, Howe and Hummel have been a menace to this community.”
The founding member of the law firm was William Howe. Howe was an extremely large man: over 6-feet-tall and weighing as much as 325 pounds. Howe had wavy gray hair, a large walrus mustache, and he dressed loudly, with baggy pantaloons, and sparkling diamonds, which he wore on his fingers, on his watch chains, as shirt studs, and as cuff buttons. The only time Howe wore a tie was at funerals. At trials, or anytime he was seen in public, instead of a tie, Howe wore diamond clusters, of which he owned many.
A New York lawyer, who was acquainted with Howe, said Howe derived tremendous enjoyment from cheating jewelers out of their payments for his many diamond purchases.
“I don't think he ever paid full price for those diamonds of his,” the lawyer said. “He never bought two at the same jeweler. When he got one, he would make a small down payment, and then when he had been dunned two or three times for the balance, he would assign one of his young assistant shysters to fight the claim. Of course, he had enough money to pay, but he got a kick out of not paying.”
Howe's background before he arrived in New York City is quite dubious. What is known is that Howe was born across the pond in England. Howe arrived in New York City in the early 1850's as a ticket-of-leave man, or in common terms - a paroled convict. No one ever knew, nor did Howe ever disclose, what crime he had committed in England. However, it was often said that Howe had been a doctor in London, had lost his license, and was incarcerated as a result of some criminal act. Yet, Howe insisted that while he was in England he was not a doctor, but in fact, an assistant to the noted barrister George Waugh. However, Howe's explanation of who he was and what he did in England could never be verified.
In 1874, Howe and Hummel were being sued by William and Adelaide Beaumont, who were former clients of the two lawyers and were claiming they had been cheated by them. Howe was on the witness stand and was being interrogated by the Beaumont's attorney, Thomas Dunphy. Dunphy asked Howe if he was the same William Frederick Howe who was wanted for murder in England. Howe insisted he was not. Dunphy then asked Howe if he was the same William Frederick Howe who had been convicted of forgery in Brooklyn a few years earlier. Howe again denied he was that person. Yet, no definite determination could ever be made whether Howe was indeed telling the truth.
Rumor had it, before Howe set down stakes in New York City, he had worked in other American cities as a “confidence man.” Other crooks said that Howe was the inventor of the “sick engineer” game, which was one of the most successful sucker traps of that time. In 1859, when he arrived in New York City, Howe immediately transitioned from criminal into a criminal attorney, which in those days most people considered to be the same thing.
In the mid-1800's, it was easy to get a license to practice law in New York City, and background checks on the integrity of law license applicants were nonexistent. Famed lawyer George W. Alger once wrote, “In those days there were practically no ethics at all in criminal law and none too much in the other branches of the profession. The grievance committee of the Bar Association was not functioning, and a lawyer could do pretty much anything he wanted. And most of them did.”
In 1862, “Howe the Lawyer,” as he came to be known, suddenly appeared as a practicing attorney in New York City. However, there is no concrete evidence on how Howe actually was admitted to the New York Bar. In 1863, Howe was listed in the City Directory as an attorney in private practice. In those days, almost anyone could call themselves a lawyer. The courts were filled with lawyers who had absolutely no legal training. They were called “Poughkeepsie Lawyers.”
Howe began building up his clientele in the period immediately after the Civil War. Howe had the reputation of being a “pettifogger,” which is defined as a lawyer with no scruples and who would use any method, legal or illegal, to serve his clients.
Howe became known as “Habeas Corpus Howe,” because of his success in getting soldiers, who didn't want to be in the service, out of the service. Howe would bring his dispirited soldiers into court, where they would testify that they were either drunk when they enlisted, which made their enlistment illegal, or that they had a circumstance in their
lives at the time they were drafted that may have made their draft contrary to the law. In a magazine article published in 1873, it said, “During the war, Mr. Howe at one time secured the release of an entire company of soldiers, some 70 strong.”
Howe also had as his clients scores of street-gang members, who had instigated the monstrous “1863 Civil War Riots.” Reports were that Howe, using illegal and immoral defense tactics, was able to have men who committed murder during those riots acquitted of all charges. As a result of his dubious successes, by the late 1860's Howe was considered the most successful lawyer in New York City. One highly complimentary magazine article written about Howe was entitled “William F. Howe: The Celebrated Criminal Lawyer.”
In 1863, Howe hired a 13-year-old office boy named Abraham Hummel. At the time, Howe had just opened his new office, a gigantic storefront at 89 Centre Street, directly opposite The Tombs Prison.
Hummel was the exact opposite in appearance of Howe. “Little Abey” was under 5-foot-tall, with thin spindly legs and a huge egg-shaped bald head. Hummel walked slightly bent over, and some people mistook him for a hunchback. Hummel wore a black mustache, and he had shifty eyes, which always seemed to be darting about taking in the entire scene. While Howe was loud and bombastic, Hummel was quiet and reserved.
However, Hummel was sly and much more quick-witted than Howe. Whereas Howe dressed outlandishly, Hummel's attire consisted of plain expensive black suits and pointed patent leather shoes: “toothpick shoes” as they were called at the time. Hummel's shoes were installed with inserts, a precursor to Adler-elevated shoes, which gave Hummel a few extra inches in height, putting him just over the 5-foot mark. Hummel considered himself neat and fastidious, and was extremely proud of the fact.
Hummel started off as little more than an office gofer for Howe. At first, Hummel washed the windows and swept the floors at 89 Centre Street. Hummel also was in charge of replenishing Howe's ever-dwindling stock of liquor and cigars. Hummel's job also included carrying coal from the safe, where it was stored, to the stove which stood right in the middle of the waiting room.