NEW YORK “RACKETS”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1938, Page 5

NEW YORK “RACKETS”

PROSECUTION OF TAMMANY

LEADER. ANOTHER MAN TURNS STATE’S EVIDENCE. ■ NEW YORK, July 31. "Dixie” Davies, whose name was mentioned in connection with the arrest of James Hines, Tammany Hall’s most powerful individual district leader, on lottery charges, has reversed his plea, and will plead guilty. Davies, who turned State’s evidence, is expected to be the most important witness against the district leader of Tammany Hall. Thomas E. Dewey, the special racket prosecutor, declared that Davies now fears for his life if he remains in the city jail, and has secured parole for Davies in his custody, where he will be afforded police protection. In the meantime the investigation in Harlem disclosed that the policy racket not only continues unabated, but has apparently increased after the arrest of Hines. The boom is laid to the desperation of the unemployed, who vainly hope for riches from the lottery. Hines’s arrest in May caused a sensation. It was made possible through the confession of three members of the “Dutch” Schultz gang indicating that Hines provided protection against the 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.