Editing Thomas E. Dewey (section)

===Manhattan District Attorney===
In 1937, Dewey was elected [[New York County District Attorney]] ([[Manhattan]]), defeating the Democratic nominee after Dodge decided not to run for re-election.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Limpus|first=Lowell|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/102271971/lowell-limpus-laguardia-wins-by/|title=LaGuardia Wins by 454,000, Dewey, 108,000, in Fusion Tide|date=November 3, 1937|work=New York Daily News|access-date=May 21, 2022|page=3|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> Dewey was such a popular candidate for District Attorney that "election officials in Brooklyn posted large signs at polling places reading 'Dewey Isn't Running in This County'."<ref name="Smith, p. 40">(Smith, p. 40)</ref>

As District Attorney, Dewey successfully prosecuted and convicted [[Richard Whitney (financier)|Richard Whitney]], former president of the [[New York Stock Exchange]], for [[embezzlement]]. Whitney was given a five-year prison sentence.<ref>Smith, p. 249–250.</ref> Dewey also successfully prosecuted [[Tammany Hall]] political boss [[James Joseph Hines]] on thirteen counts of [[racketeering]]. Following the favorable national publicity he received after his conviction of Hines, a May 1939 [[Gallup poll]] showed Dewey as the frontrunner for the 1940 Republican presidential nomination, and gave him a lead of 58% to 42% over President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] in a potential 1940 presidential campaign.<ref>(Smith, p. 285)</ref> In 1939, Dewey also tried and convicted American Nazi leader [[Fritz Julius Kuhn]] for embezzlement, crippling Kuhn's organization and limiting its ability to support [[Nazi Germany]] in [[World War II]].

During his four years as District Attorney, Dewey and his staff compiled a 94 percent conviction rate of defendants brought to trial,<ref>(Smith, p. 341)</ref> created new bureaus for Fraud, Rackets, and Juvenile Detention, and led an investigation into tenement houses with inadequate fire safety features that reduced "their number from 13,000 to 3,500" in a single year.<ref>(Smith, pp. 341–342)</ref> When he left the District Attorney's office in 1942 to run for governor, Dewey said that "It has been learned in high places that clean government can also be good politics...I don't like Republican thieves any more than Democratic ones."<ref>(Smith, p. 342)</ref>

By the late 1930s Dewey's successful efforts against organized crime—and especially his conviction of [[Lucky Luciano]]—had turned him into a national celebrity. His nickname, the "Gangbuster", was used for the popular 1930s ''[[Gang Busters]]'' radio series based on his fight against the mob. Hollywood film studios made several movies inspired by his exploits; ''[[Marked Woman]]'' starred [[Humphrey Bogart]] as a Dewey-like DA and [[Bette Davis]] as a "party girl" whose testimony helps convict the mob boss.<ref>Smith, p. 250</ref> A popular story from the time, possibly apocryphal, featured a young girl who told her father that she wanted to sue God to stop a prolonged spell of rain. When her father replied "you can't sue God and win", the girl said "I can if Dewey is my lawyer."<ref name="Smith, p. 18">(Smith, p. 18)</ref>