OCR Text |
Show Hall. But he preferred to reign in his district as an absolute political monarch. That was what he was. A somewhat pudgy, grayish man with a twinkle in his eye, soft-spoken, seldom moved to anger, he issued orders or-ders and the boys always carried them out. Jimmy Hines was the last of the old-line district leaders. Just how many thousands of dollars he contributed con-tributed in one form or another of charity, possibly never will be known. One of Hines' closest friends once told me that Hines never kept track of what he gave away. When it was known that he would be at his Monongahela Democratic club, there was always a crowd on hand. Mostly they were down at the heel. White, black and yellow, they were all waiting for Jimmy Hines. Each had trouble or a problem. Hines listened to the troubles and problems. prob-lems. Most of the troubles could be cured with a dollar or so. It was always forthcoming. Hines paid rent, hired doctors, sent around coal or groceries, did a thousand and one things for residents of his district. dis-trict. And when the time came, his district voted right. Following the old axiom that children chil-dren of today are voters of tomorrow, tomor-row, Hines always made much of the youngsters in his district. Each year, he gave a "June Walk" in Central park. No invitations were necessary; the children merely came one by one, or in groups as organizations. Many were gaily costumed. cos-tumed. Ice cream, peanuts, popcorn, pop-corn, soft drinks, with milk for babies, ba-bies, all were provided in quantities. quanti-ties. Should supplies run out, there never wa3 any trouble. More were ordered and charged to Jimmy Hines. Once when bad boys stole all the ice cream, Hines merely laughed and within a half hour twice as much as had been taken was delivered. de-livered. We lived at 444 Central Park West, which figured much in the testimony in Hines' trial, when he was a resident resi-dent there. Every morning, there was a long line of men and women waiting for Hines to come out. But no one ever saw Jimmy Hines in his home unless he so wished. Every Ev-ery employee of the house was his friend. Daily he tipped each a minimum min-imum of SI. Elevator men, hall boys, porters and even firemen hated hat-ed to see Jimmy Hines move to another an-other address. But other tenants were relieved. Those who waited for Jimmy Hines out in front were not always ornamental. Recipients of Jimmy Hines' bounty boun-ty never asked where the money came from. It was all right with them so long as their wants were filled. To them, their leader was more or less of a patron saint. If he wanted a little thing like a vote, that was all right. Even today, there are many who believe that Jimmy Hines was unjustly convicted. convict-ed. But he is behind gray stone walls in a gray uniform and instead of being Jimmy Hines, he's No. 0K71O Hi By L. L. STEVENSON James J. Hines is now merely a number. He's a member of that gray-clad colony behind gray stone walls in a palace known as Sing Sing. As perhaps you know, his sentence is from four to eght years. Prosecuted by Thomas E. Dewey, he was convicted of using his political politi-cal influence to help Dutch Schultz and his hoodlums to run pennies, nickels and dimes of scrubwomen, laundresses, elevator operators and other little people into millions of dollars a year in a racket known as "numbers." Hines' case went to the highest court in the state. There the fight stopped. Hines, who had been at liberty under S35.000 bonds and who was at the race track when he received the news that the court of appeals had upheld his conviction, con-viction, gave up then. At once, he made arrangements to take that trip up to Ossining. Only a few years ago, had there been the suggestion in the Eleventh district that some day Jimmy Hines would go to prison, there would have been laughter. Hines was not only all powerful in his district but powerful pow-erful over the entire city as well. He had friends among other leaders lead-ers and in some instances, power over them. As a result, his word was law in various councils. If he '. had so desired he easily could have been elected leader of Tammany |