Thomas E. Dewey

Born March 24, 1902 (Owosso, Michigan)
Died March 18, 1971 (Bal Harbor, Florida)

Criminal prosecutor, governor

Thomas E. Dewey was an attorney who became a national hero for his success in prosecuting organized crime in New York City. He later played a crucial role in moving the United States forward as a major world power following World War II (1939–45; war in which Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, the United States, and their allied forces defeated Germany, Italy, and Japan). He revived the Republican Party (GOP) in the 1940s and twice ran as the GOP presidential nominee. Elected governor of New York State in 1942, Dewey served for three consecutive terms. His administration established the state university system in 1947 and took the lead in public health and transportation policies. Under Governor Dewey, New York was the first state in the nation to enact laws prohibiting racial or religious discrimination in employment and education.

"It is our solemn duty . . . to show that government can have both a head and a heart, that it can be both progressive and solvent, that it can serve the people without becoming their master."

Pursuing a career in law

Thomas Edmund Dewey was the only child of Annie Louise Thomas and George Martin Dewey, Jr. The Deweys
were active participants in the Republican Party. Tom's father was editor for the family-owned newspaper, the Owosso Times. When Tom was fifteen, the United States entered World War I (1914–18; war in which Great Britain, France, the United States, and their allies defeated Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies) and he found himself part of the Boys Working Reserve, a program for young men under draft age who volunteered to fill the vacant civilian jobs caused by soldiers leaving to fight in the war.

After Tom graduated from Central High School in Owosso he attended the University of Michigan, studying both music and law. After graduating in 1923, he went on to receive a law degree from Columbia Law School in 1925. Dewey stayed in New York to work for several Wall Street law firms. In 1928 Dewey married Frances Eileen Hutt. The couple had two sons, Thomas Edmund Jr. and John Martin Dewey.

Gangbusters

Dewey left Wall Street in 1931 to become the youngest person to hold the title of chief assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. It was the oldest and largest of the nation's ninety-four legal divisions. Dewey temporarily became U.S. attorney in November 1933 until Democratic president Franklin Roosevelt (1892–1945; served 1933–45) filled the post a month later. During his years in the department, Dewey actively prosecuted New York's most powerful organized crime figures.

In the early 1930s, violence in the criminal underworld was increasing as new, younger leaders were challenging the authority of the older gangsters. The outlawing of liquor, called Prohibition, in the 1920s had opened up the profitable business of bootlegging (selling illegal liquor), which led to the dramatic growth of organized crime. With the end of Prohibition in 1933, competition over control of other potentially lucrative illegal activities grew intense. These activities included loan-sharking, stolen goods, and narcotics, among others. The media was filled daily with reports of bloody battles between crime families.

New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia (1882–1947), newly elected in 1934, was determined to rid the city of gangsters. La Guardia instructed Dewey to investigate "Dutch Schultz," whose real name was Arthur Flegenheimer. Police believed Schultz was behind a large number of crimes, but Schultz was murdered in a gangland slaying before Dewey could bring him to trial.

Dewey obtained seventy-two convictions out of the seventy-three prosecutions of leading criminals during his years as Special Prosecutor. Dewey's greatest success came when he obtained a conviction against Charles "Lucky" Luciano, in 1936. Luciano was New York's most notorious Mafia figure. By 1937 Dewey's fame had spread and he was elected district attorney of New York County.

Dewey and Dutch

Thomas Dewey's career as a public prosecutor in criminal cases against New York gang leaders was not without its personal hazards. He had a regular morning routine of leaving his home with two bodyguards and would call his office while stopping at a drugstore. Not until 1940, a gangster revealed that Dewey had been targeted for assassination at this drugstore stop only five years earlier by mob leader Dutch Schultz.

Dutch Schultz was born in the Bronx, in August 1902, to immigrant German Jews. Growing up in the tougher parts of the Bronx, he entered a career in crime at a young age. Dutch was convicted of burglary at age seventeen and served time in prison. By the mid-1920s, out of prison, Dutch established ownership of various breweries and speakeasies (places for the sale of illegal alcohol) in the Bronx and parts of Manhattan, supplying illegal liquor to eager customers during Prohibition when the sale and distribution of alcohol was prohibited. Known for his brutal ruthlessness, he sometimes personally rode as a guard on his trucks delivering the liquor. His competitors grew to fear him.

After Schultz survived the mob wars in 1930, the U.S. attorney's office began a lengthy investigation of Schultz's and associate Irving Wexler's bootlegging operations. Schultz was indicted in January 1933 on tax evasion charges for not filing tax returns from 1929 to 1931. Facing a potentially lengthy prison term, Schultz went into hiding for the next two years. He became the FBI's "Public Enemy No. 1," a title that added extra agents to the case and introduced wider cooperation among agencies. While Schultz was in hiding, Dewey began prosecuting the Wexler case in November 1933. He soon gained a conviction resulting
in a ten-year prison term and $50,000 fine. Afterwards, Dewey returned to private law practice.

Schultz finally turned himself in to authorities in November 1934. His tax evasion trial began in April 1935 and resulted in a hung jury. A second trial resulted in a not guilty verdict in August 1935. During this time, New York governor Herbert H. Lehman (1878–1963) appointed Dewey as special prosecutor for the state to tackle the organized crime problem once again.

After Schultz's acquittal, Dewey began building a new case against Schultz. When Schultz heard Dewey was after him again, he started making plans to assassinate Dewey. He had one gang hit man study Dewey's daily routines. The plan was to shoot Dewey one morning when he made his drugstore stop. When other gang leaders learned of the plot, however, they feared this would only increase legal pressure on the mob's activities. To protect Dewey, they had two gunmen kill Schultz and his three bodyguards in a Newark, New Jersey, restaurant on October 23, 1935.

Beginnings of presidential politics

Dewey used his national reputation as a criminal prosecutor to launch a career in politics. He was the Republican Party candidate for Governor of New York in 1938 and won the position in 1942 at the age of forty. By 1944 Governor Dewey was already a strong contender when he became the Republican candidate for president against Roosevelt. With World War II raging in Europe and the Pacific, however, Dewey was the underdog, since the American public usually does not change presidents during times of crisis. Although he lost to Roosevelt, Dewey was reelected New York's governor in 1946 by the largest majority in the history of the state.

A narrow loss

In 1948 Dewey once again secured the Republican nomination and ran for president, this time against President Harry S. Truman (1884–1972; served 1945–53). Despite his efforts in ending World War II and guiding the United States and its allies into a new postwar period, Truman entered the 1948 presidential campaign as the underdog. After the war, the american economy was struggling and people expressed their displeasure by giving Truman a poor approval rating. Even Truman's wife, Bess, predicted he would lose by a landslide. Dewey and his running mate, California governor Earl Warren, led in all the opinion polls.

Truman, however, added a new twist to political campaigning with what became known as "whistle-stops," quick stopovers in cities and towns along the railroad lines. The stops turned out to be a huge and unexpected success. At each whistle-stop Truman would speak to the crowd from the back of the train. He spoke casually to people who now felt like they knew the president and his family personally. He also blasted Dewey and warned that the Republicans would turn America into a nation by the rich and for the rich. Truman's folksy campaign style soon drew cheers of "Give 'em hell Harry," which resounded at each whistle-stop.

While Truman ran an aggressive campaign, Dewey tried not to be controversial to maintain his seemingly comfortable lead. Days before the election the media still predicted a Thomas Dewey White House and several of his aides even bought houses in Washington, D.C., in anticipation of the move. Dewey lost in one of the greatest upsets in American political history.

Dewey conceded defeat on the morning of November 3, 1948, while several newspapers, who had rushed the night before to get the morning edition out on time, ran the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman." A smiling Truman was shown holding the Chicago Tribune newspaper as his victory was announced to the world. Dewey returned to New York again and his job as governor.

Continued public service

Dewey was reelected as governor of New York again in 1950 and continued to be active in the Republican Party on a national level. In 1952 he helped Dwight Eisenhower (1890–1969; served 1953–61) win both the Republican Party nomination and the presidential election. When Dewey's third term as governor of New York ended in 1955, he returned to private law practice. He wrote Journey to the Far Pacific in 1952, and Thomas E. Dewey on the Two Party System in 1966.

Dewey declined an offer of nomination as chief justice of the Supreme Court in 1968, since he was caring for his ailing wife. Frances Dewey died in 1970 and Thomas Dewey died the following year, just a week short of his sixty-ninth birthday.

For More Information

Books

Karabell, Zachary. The Last Campaign: How Harry Truman Won the 1948Election. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.

Smith, Richard Norton. Thomas E. Dewey and His Times. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982.

Stolbert, Mary M. Fighting Organized Crime: Politics, Justice, and the Legacy of Thomas E. Dewey. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1995.

Wells, John A., ed. Thomas E. Dewey on the Two-Party System. Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1966.

Web Sites

"Presidential Politics." PBS Online.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/truman/sfeature/sf_ppolitics.html (accessed on August 15, 2004).

"Thomas Dewey (1902–1971)." Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site.http://www.nps.gov/elro/glossary/dewey-thomas.htm (accessed on August 15, 2004).

"Thomas Dewey." The National Archives Learning Curve.http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAdeweyT.htm (accessed on August 15, 2004).