Radio mirror (Nov 1937-Apr 1938)

These new conditions make it necessary that we have a new understanding of the criminal problem. In attacking organized crime, it is just as foolish to think only about the man who commits the act of violence as it is to regard the left end of a football team as the whole team. Every large criminal organization which my office has prosecuted has been set up like an industrial enterprise. The list of defendants in the cases have included department heads in every branch of crime and lawyers who advised in every act. LET us first understand in plain language what a racket is. This word has been misused to describe every kind of a business fraud and everything which is sharp. In truth, the real meaning of the word "racket" is the regular extortion of moneys from business men, workers and others, by means of bullets, force, terror and fear. Let us also understand what we mean by a racketeer. Starting as a petty thief or thug, the racketeer is the product of a cynical society which usually, in the beginning, punished him for a petty crime, instead of giving him a real reformation. Then he was thrown back among his old associates again to earn his living by his wits. Having brains and ruthlessness, he rose to power to prey upon the society which failed in his reformation at Political broadcasts during the heat of election campaigns are usually forgotten the day after they make headlines. But in the month of October, during the pre-election speeches in America's greatest city, a new radio voice spoke words that deserve to be recorded permanently. It was the voice of a man who captured the confidence of voters hardened to callousness and suspicion toward public officials, a man who, new to criminal prosecution, and only thirty-five years old, has, in the past two years, broken the grip of organized crime in New York. Condensed to leave out the necessary references to the local political picture, they stand as a monumental indictment of crime and the civic indifference which bred it. Thomas Edmund Dewey meant to be a singer. Born on March 24, 1902, to the publisher of an Owosso newspaper, he entered the University of Michigan when he was seventeen. He studied law, but when he won a music scholarship, he left Ann Arbor and came to New York, where he studied voice and attended the Columbia University haw School. He won no honors, but he did meet Frances Eileen Hutt, whom he married in 192S, and who has borne him two sons, and then settled down to a practice of civil law. It was his friendship with a famous trial lawyer, George Z. Medalie, which changed abruptly the course of his life. When Medalie became United States Attorney from the New York district, he invited. Dewey to be his chief assistant. Medalie retired in 1933 and Dewey succeeded him. During his one month in full charge of the office, he won his first notable prosecution case when he obtained the conviction of the notorius underworld figure, Waxey Gordon, and the indictment of Dutch Schultz, another gangster leader. He then retired to private practice and probably would never have returned to public service, if the policy racket hadn't created so much public indignation that Dewey was appointed as special prosecutor by Governor Herbert H. Lehman of New York. The broadcasts on these pages give you a fascinating glimpse of what he faced and how he won his battle. the beginning. Let us trace the history of the two greatest racketeers in this country, known everywhere as Lepke and Gurrah. Gurrah is a short, beetlebrowed bull-necked thug who was once a petty thief. Coarse, hoarse voiced and violent, he was arrested f or the first time in February 1915 for malicious mischief and was discharged. He was again arrested in April of the same year and beat the rap. In August 1915, he was sent to the reformatory as a burglar. After that he served three additional terms in jail, but like all big shots, never since he rose to power has he been convicted of any crime. Teamed with Lepke, he gathered around him a band of assorted gangsters. He lived a life of luxury. He became a familiar figure in night clubs, at hockey games and at the race track. His clothes were costly and his habits expensive. Lepke is the brains of the team. He also started to build up a police record in 1915, when he was arrested for burglary and assault. Thereafter he served three terms in prison but none since he rose to power. Lepke is slimmer, acts like a respectable business man, and until he became a fugitive, lived in a luxurious apartment overlooking Central Park. The sinister parallel between the careers of the two partners, Lepke and Gurrah, began to develop about twenty Dutch Schultz, "Policy King." J. Richard Davis, "Kid Mouthpiece." "Tootsie" Herbert, "Poultry Emperor."