Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-07-21

NEW YORK, July 20 (N.ANAD-
The general drafted by New York in
its latest war against racketS is a
quiet, cordial. young man, pale. dark,
stanchly built, small-town boy who
made good in the big city.
Rackets in this city have endured
through many wars, have been bat
tered, smashed, blasted, left for dead.
Then they come back again stronger
than ever, and it is estimated that
today gangsters are exacting tribute
from the business men of Manhattan
that is pretty close to. If not more
than, the overwhelming sum of a
billion dollars a year.
But, although the campaign has
hardly begun, the belief is growing
here that Thomas E. Dewey will win
this war the way man of the same
name won at Manila, and that the
war will stay won, that the rackets
left for dead will stay dead. This
belief is not something born in hope
and living in faith. 1t Is expressed
by the statement, Dewey wouldn't
take the Job if de didn't think it could
be done" 1t has behind it a liking
for the way this 33-year-old lawyer,
two years ago the youngest United
States attorney the country ever had,
and a leader in the T-men's-Treas-
ury Department's-drive against big
shot racketeerS who had made them
fn the 1aU IF their
communities, is going about his job.
Knows Problem.
Even a casual meeting with Dewey
is enough to persuade one that, when
he talks, he doesn't make words out
of thin air. He knows what he's up
against. He knows that man can't
buy an orange in this town, can't
have bis shirt washed, can't take his
wife to the movies, can't move into a
new apartment without paying trib-
ute to some racketeer. He knows,
too, that business men have been
taught the hard way to keep quiet
about the gangsters who prey on their
profits. He knows that his first. per-
hapS most important, task is to break
down this silence and and inspire the
business men with confidence in him.
So he contents himself with telling
newspaper men, who hound him for
a statement on what he expects to
accomplish with his investigation, that
actions speak louder than words and
that past generations of politicians
have pretty well discredited promises,
anyway. And to this reporter he die
tated the following statement:
When a prosecuting officer requires
a citizen to give testimony in a GRIM
inal prosecution, the citizen is abso-
lutely entitled to complete protection
and is entitled to have his identity
shielded until the time of trial and
to have his testimony accepted in the
confidence in which it was given.
Nothing is so destructive of effective
criminal prosecution as the failure on
the part of a prosecutor to keep the
confidence Of his witnesses. You may
be sure that witnesses who give help
full testimony in this investigation will
get absolute protection in every sense
of the word"
Revamps Old Tactics.
Reading between the lines, one sees
clearly that Dewey appreciated to the
full the nature of the animal he is
fighting. His investigation will be
conducted along entirely different lines
from those which preceded it. City
probes from William Travers Jerome
to Samuel Seabury have been con-
Quoted in the headlines in order to
arouse the public. Hearings were
thrown open to the press, but, while
the drums beat ferociously, indict-
ments and convictions were pitifully
few. Dewey is just as anxious to
arouse the public because he knows
that, while a small group of deter
mined men can make a city clean, the
voters must shoulder the job of keep
ing 1t clean by electing honest ON
cialS. But he is trying new tactics.
He will rely on trials to do the arous-
ing, and the racketeer will find him.
self in the dark until the moment
when news no longer can help him
and can help only the public.
Dewey found out what he could
do with sensational speed during a
career which has been as startling
as the flight Of an arrow. He began
life in Owosso, Mich, March "A. 1902,