Perhaps best known for being part of the premature and false newspaper headline, "Dewey defeats Truman," Thomas E. Dewey was a prosecutor, governor of New York, and two time Republican presidential candidate. Dewey was born in Michigan in 1902, graduated from the University of Michigan in 1923, and received his law degree from Columbia in 1925. After spending several years in private practice, Dewey joined the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York in 1931. He rose rapidly, and by 1935 he had been appointed special prosecutor for the investigation of organized crime in New York. That position helped him gain national prominence.

In his role as special prosecutor, Dewey obtained 72 convictions out of 73 prosecutions against a variety of mobsters, drug dealers, racketeers, pimps, and loan sharks. Dewey's effectiveness was such that mobster Dutch Schultz took out a contract on his life, an attempt that was foiled only when...