Tammany Hall

 

It was not uncommon in the early 1920s for very few arrests to be made by the police for operating illegal numbers games. By early 1928, the numbers games operations had grown and become more profitable. Arrests increased by leaps and bounds and police "on the take" (receiving graft) in Harlem, began to report the numbers games large profits to certain corrupt superiors. In turn, these superior officers would pass the information on to certain corrupt politicians in New York City's Tammany Hall. These corrupt, elected officials had strong ties with white gangsters who ran the Mob's syndicate.

Corruption ran throughout New York's law enforcement, legal and political systems, including bondsmen, high-ranking police officials, judges, lawyers and politicians. Kickbacks, known as graft, for protection was already being paid by Harlem's nightclubs, businesses, bars, pimps, whores, gamblers, bankers and numbers runners. But now everybody wanted a piece of the numbers game action and the action was getting bigger. Harlem's numbers racket no longer was seen as a small-change operation.

James "Jimmy" Hines

 

James J. Hines, a Democratic Party boss in Manhattan, was a powerful figure who had strong ties in Tammany Hall and with mobster, "Dutch" Schultz. Schultz had grown powerful through taking advantage of Prohibition by controlling all beer and liquor production and distribution in Harlem. He was called the "Beer Baron." When Jimmy Hines informed Schultz about Harlem's numbers rackets' profitability, Schultz and his fellow Murder Incorporated gangsters, "Lucky" Luciano, Frank Costello, Owney Madden, Bugsy Siegel, Joe Adonis and Meyer Lansky, began a rapid takeover campaign.

Dutch Schultz

 

On "Black Tuesday" on October 29, 1929, America plunged into what became known as The Great Depression. New York's gangsters saw the Harlem numbers rackets as a quick way to compensate for lost revenues in their other vices and a way to compliment the profits from their bootlegging industry.