DEWEY AND LAW ENFORCEMENT IN NEW YORK

One of the most amazing statements put out in the current political campaign in New York City is the assertion by Judge Mahoney that Mayor LaGuardia has destroyed the morale of the Police Department and allowed the administration of justice to sink to a low ebb. Aside from the fact that it is amusing to hear a Tammany candidate crying out for justice over privilege, and honesty over corruption, this statement focuses serious attention on the District Attorney's office, for it is there that the enforcement of all laws in the City begins. And it is there, where a lone Tammany stalwart has held out during the last four years, that Tammany mis-government has traditionally reigned supreme.

Of course the charge about the Police Department is buncombe of the sheerest kind. There has never in recent memory been a time when the Police Department was carrying out its daily tasks of protection to life and property with more efficiency, dignity, and restraint, and in the one or two serious disturbances during the administration of Mayor LaGuardia the police have demonstrated the ability to cope with ugly situations in scientific fashion, reducing damage to a minimum. Furthermore, every patrolman on the force knows in his heart that under the Fusion Government the only way to get ahead is by honesty and straight-dealing, and that the days of political protection for the racketeer are over.

Not so with the Tammany District Attorney's Office. Here such grave inefficiency was found, and such evident connection between the prosecution agency and the gangsters who four years ago held the City in their grip, that Governor Lehman set up a Special Prosecutor, Thomas E. Dewey, with all powers necessary to clean up the town. Mr. Dewey's record for rooting out the gangsters at the top, and for getting his suspect convicted, has been nothing short of phenomenal, far better, indeed, than the, more highly publicized Federal Bureau of G-Man Hoover.

Briefly, the Dewey record goes like this. He struck from the first at the loan shark racket, and by convicting twenty-one usurers put a million-dollar a week business out of commission. Then, in rapid time, the system of organized vice controlled by 'Lucky' Luciano felt the knife, and after extraditing Luciano from Hot Springs, Arkansas, where that worthy went to hide out, Dewey convicted him for a prison stretch of thirty-five to fifty years. Then the restaurant trade, which had been victimized by a series of fake labor unions and "protective associations" to the tune of millions, was cleared, and likewise the live poultry racket, which the notorious "Tootsie" Herbert controlled was broken up. The trucking racket, one of the toughest in the City was put straight, through not before one of the leaders, a man well known in the District attorney's Office, had been murdered in his downtown hideaway. Of the 73 men brought to trial for such activities, Mr. Dewey has convicted 72, and it is little wonder that the Tammany ticket fears to see him gain the office of District attorney under LaGuardia, where his investigations may be even more devastating than before.

But in his few years as Special Prosecutor, Mr. Dewey has not unearthed any more conclusive proof of the unregenerate nature of Tammany Hall than in his speech last Sunday in which he showed that Albert Marinelli, Tammany leader in the 2nd Assembly District and New York County Clerk, was a personal friend of "Lucky" Luciano and actually went on a party with him in Chicago while Luciano was hiding from Dewey's investigation. To this accusation, Mr. Marinelli, a shadowy figure with a large estate on Long Island, has no comment to make, and it is indeed hard to see how there is any more to be said about it.

For Tammany and the Democratic machine has proved itself bankrupt of moral responsibility and utterly unfitted to rule a modern city. In no department is Tammany less fitted than in that dealing with the enforcement of law and order. And yet the Tammany candidate for Mayor seriously asks an electorate to vote for his ticket on the plea that Fusion has ruined the City. Rather, "to end banditry" and make parks and streets safe for all, the LaGuardia and Dewey team deserves to be sent in with a large majority.