He started off to be a simple Harlem blacksmith, when he dug his fat fingers deep into Tammany Hall, James Hines was crowned the biggest political fixer inside the history of New York City.

Hines came to be on December 18, 1876, within the Upper West Side of Manhattan. His father operated a blacksmith shop on 121st Street and Eight Avenue, then when his father became ill, Hines took over his father’s business in the age of 17.

Through his father’s connections in politics within the 11th Assembly District for the Upper West Side, Hines became near Big Tim Sullivan, a politician so crooked, he actually took part in the profits from your rackets perpetrated by street gangs, who have been plundering the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Sullivan was the primary cog from the political machine called Tammany Hall and that he played his constituents such as a fiddle, getting certain people to vote on Election Day more than once, by change regularly their appearances. Hines learned the ropes through the master, plus 1907 Hines ran with the position called Alderman. With the help of Sullivan’s manipulation with the election process (Sullivan had men, who wouldn’t vote his way in the polls, beaten up badly by his street gangs, perhaps most obviously the Whyos), Hines won the election going away.

In 1910, Hines took the bold move of running for District Leader contrary to the incumbent. After each side used roughhouse tactics up against the other, Hines could emerge victorious. With his new-found power as District Leader, Hines formed the Monongahela Democratic Club, that was his base of operations for quite some time to come. At the Monongahela, Hines totally good old boy; offering the poor from the neighborhood with Thanksgiving turkeys, donating clothes for the needy, and finding jobs for whomever needed jobs. Of course, that meant Hines could trust in those people’s votes on Election Day, for whomever candidate Hines deemed ought to be the winner, whatever District that candidate was running in.

Every year Hines sponsored a “June Walk and Picnic” in Central Park, which drew several 25,000 people, mostly children. On one such occasion (The 22nd Annual Walk), Hines, after carrying a youngster on piggyback, then depositing him using a table overflowing with a huge spread with the finest food, Hines wiped the sweat from his brow and said, “Kids who came towards the first of such things are voters now. They’re not all voting my district, but they are voting somewhere. In politics, the thing to do is build yourself an army.”

To supplement his income, is actually no experience in any respect, Hines, in reference to his brother Philip, started a trucking company, after which a construction company. Almost immediately, the Hines brothers had the ability to garner the most effective and the most significant city trucking contracts assuring construction projects, which subsequently subcontracted in the market to people who actually knew the way to do those jobs.

Even though Hines was the most important player of his in time Democratic politics, he very little future in running for elective office. Hines was an unskilled public speaker, and was more good at back room dealings, certainly where an mere nod of his head, would signify which person was getting elected, or appointed to your political job. As generous he could be together with his friends, if a person crossed Hines, as far Hines was concerned, your mind may as well are already dead.