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American Dictators: Frank Hague, Nucky Johnson, and the Perfection of the Urban Political Machine (Rivergate Regionals Collection)

Amazon.com Price:  $23.06 (as of 20/04/2019 04:13 PST- Details)

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Description

One man was once tongue-tied and awkward around women, in many ways a mama’s boy at heart, even supposing his reputation for thuggery was once well earned. The other was once a playboy, full of easy charm and in a position jokes, his appetite for high living a matter of public record. One man tolerated gangsters and bootleggers so long as they paid their dues to his organization. The other was once effectively a gangster himself, so crooked that he hosted a national gathering of The usa’s most ruthless killers. One man never drank alcohol. The other, from all evidence, seldom drank anything else.

American Dictators is the dual biography of two of The usa’s greatest political bosses: Frank Hague and Enoch “Nucky” Johnson. Packed with compelling information and written in an informal, on occasion humorous style, the book shows Hague and Johnson at the peak of their power and the strength of their political machines throughout the years of Prohibition and the Great Depression. Steven Hart compares how both men used their influence to benefit and punish the local citizenry, amass huge personal fortunes, and on occasion collaborate to trounce their enemies.

Similar in their ruthlessness, both men were very different in appearance and temperament. Hague, the mayor of Jersey City, intimidated presidents and wielded unchallenged power for three decades. He never drank and was once happily married to his wife for decades. He also allowed gangsters to run bootlegging and illegal gambling operations so long as they paid protection money. Johnson, the political boss of Atlantic City, and the inspiration for the hit HBO series Boardwalk Empire, presided over corruption as well, but for a shorter time period. He was once notorious for his decadent way of life. Essentially a gangster himself, Johnson hosted the infamous Atlantic City conference that fostered the growth of organized crime.

Both Hague and Johnson shrewdly integrated another way disenfranchised groups into their machines and gave them a stake in political power. Yet each failed to adapt to changing demographics and circumstances. In American Dictators, Hart paints a balanced portrait of their accomplishments and their failures.

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