ASSASSINATION OF THOMAS E. DEWEY
Considered one of the seminal acts of American history during the 20th Century, the assassination of President Thomas E. Dewey in the December of 1955 marked a major turning point in the First Civil Rights Era (1949 to 1961), partially leading to the demise of the Jim Crow Era through the passage of the
Civil and
Voting Rights Acts (1957/60 and 1958 respectively), in addition to providing the federal government a
casus belli to actively pursue decisive action against the Ku Klux Klan over the course of the late-1950's. In addition, the event marked a profound cultural change in the United States which saw many citizens (outside of the South) breaking out of their ambivalence towards the goals of the Civil Rights Movement, resulting in more public action and protests against Jim Crow laws across the country, leading in-part to escalation of violence during the First Civil Rights Era as well as the the worldwide Protests Movements of 1956 – all of these events being traceable back to the husband and wife that conspired to kill President Dewey on that Winter Day of 1955; Virgil and Elisa Haines.
Their story begins at the close of the Korean War (1950 – 1954); in Washington, President Dewey had been searching for a decisive act from his administration which would win-back public trust in his Presidency after much of it was eroded by the chaotic and sanguine conflict on the Korean Peninsula. With opinion polls languishing around 45% and his administration having already pushed-through tax, welfare, and public housing reform, Dewey turned to fulfil one of the primary planks of his 1948 and 1952 platforms; civil and voting rights for African-Americans in the Southern states. Throughout his first term and much of his second Dewey was consistently hamstrung on the issue of civil rights by conservative elements in both the Republican and Democratic Parties within Congress, and though he had forced through some significant reforms (most importantly the desegregation of the American Military in 1949), the President still sought to decisively end the Jim Crow laws and win-back the support of the American people. In early-1954, he received his rallying cry in the form of
Monroe v. Missouri, the Supreme Court decision which ended the doctrine of 'separate-but-equal' in schools across the country.
Buoyed by landmark case, President Dewey began turning his previous five-years of rhetoric into a countrywide push for civil rights in late-1954 when he came out decisively in favour of legislation which would integrate the Jim Crow South and result in voting rights for African-Americans. Attacked by Southern (and some non-Southern) Democrats as well as conservatives within his own Republic Party, many considered Dewey's abrupt shift in rhetoric from shallow-to-outright support of the Civil Rights Movement to be premature and ill thought-out; vitriolic Southerners in Congress signing the Southern Manifesto in early-1955 which swore them to uphold support for the Jim Crow laws and oppose any legislation coming out of the White House which would lead to the implementation of voting rights or integration.
Enter Virgil and Elisa Haines; both being born into desperately poor, conservative Virginian households, a 22 year-old Virgil first met the 16 year-old Elisa (then-named Simpson) in 1950 through mutual friends. Quickly developing a close and emotional relationship, the couple began performing a series of spree robberies in the Summer of 1951 - Virgil having been an experience gas station robber since 1948 - with the majority of their crimes being perpetrated in Southern Virginia around the cities of Petersburg and Richmond. Around the same time the couple began living in an apartment in Petersburg after Virgil gained a job as an inexperienced smith in the Appomattox Iron Works, with both continuing their series of small-time gas station robberies up until the November of 1951 when Virgil was apprehended by police in Chester and incarcerated for 8 months; Elisa, now smitten by Virgil, marrying him whilst he remained imprisoned.
After Virgil was released in mid-1952, the couple began to grow more violent in both their robberies and their marriage; a close friend of the pair once stating that Virgil would "never pass an entire day without taking the frustrations of work and crime out on his wife". Elisa is said to have felt restrained by her husband throughout the early-1950's, though in spite of the increasing violence within her relationship she nevertheless remained by his side during his run-ins with law enforcement and station robberies. In addition to this growing violence, Virgil had also began cultivating ties to the KKK during-and-after his time in jail with the couple (though most commonly Virgil) attending the growing meetings of a Virginian branch of the organisation during the early stages of the Civil Rights Era. Through his ties with the Petersburg KKK (which was headed by the local sheriff, George Marshall), Virgil often saw many police officers turn a blind eye to his robberies of African-American-operated gas stations, as well as the frequent beatings he inflicted on the stations' occupants (some of which involving other members of his local KKK).
In early-1953, both Virgil and Elisa were apprehended by police near Richmond after they stole $80 from an African-American owned gas station; Elisa being jailed for 5 weeks, Virgil for 3 months. After their respective releases, both agreed to lay low in Petersburg for the immediate future, during which time Virgil began to grow more integrated into the local KKK which resulted in him leading more 'beating parties' against local African-Americans for any transgressions. In the October of 1953 Virgil was fired from his low-paying job at the iron works, the man and his wife returning to station robberies and petty theft; Virgil becoming slowly more radicalised against African-Americans as a result of his time in the KKK and the poor conditions he was living under. This culminated in the December of 1953 when he and several other members of the KKK lynched a 15 year-old African-American student for supposedly winking at an 18 year-old white woman. After being the only member of that mob to be apprehended, Virgil was once again incarcerated for a year (his ties to the local sheriff and the KKK being unable to save him from persecution).
During her husband's third imprisonment, Elisa kept her head above water by engaging in several acts of petty theft throughout her Petersburg neighbourhood; her husband's release in late-1954 ushering in another series of gas station robberies after the couple moved into a poor district in Charlottesville in early-1955. Around this time, the perpetually poor and increasingly cynical Virgil began plotting what would ultimately become the conspiracy to kill Thomas E. Dewey; the President's campaign for integration and civil rights growing as he pushed for legislation that would help in abolishing the Jim Crow laws. In mid-1955, the Dewey Administration announced that the President and Vice President would begin 'engaging with the people of the South', with Dewey poised to lead a speaking campaign which would sweep the Upper South in an attempt to win over local support for the Civil Rights Movement. The first of these public speeches was to be held on December 9, 1955 in Baltimore; the date and location providing Virgil Haines the perfect opportunity to strike.
Purchasing his uncle's 1949 FN Model rifle, Virgil put into action his plan to kill the President; together with his wife, the couple travelled to Baltimore and the Druid Hill Park where Dewey was to be speaking. Once in the city, Virgil scaled a synagogue undergoing repairs which overlooked the Liberty Pavilion in which the "mongrel integrationist Dewey" would be speaking; this turn-of-events being lucky for the conspirators as an open synagogue would preclude the opportunity to fire on the President from a height. In addition to this luck, the Haines' had also found themselves arriving two hours late in the city, though they would come to find President Dewey still at the Liberty Pavilion surrounded by onlookers. Elisa Haines took up her position within the crowd all the while Virgil awaited the signal from his wife; ten minutes passing before a break in Dewey's speech led Elisa to scream out the now immortal phrase, "
Mr. President, watch out!". Distracted by the call from the crowd, Dewey looked around cautiously for a moment before two bullets rang-out; one passing through the President's neck and the second through his lungs - the two conspirators escaping in the chaos that followed immediately afterwards, with Elisa driving herself and her husband back to Charlottesville. Meanwhile, despite lingering on for several more minutes just in time to reach the local hospital, Thomas Dewey would ultimately succumb to his wounds later that day. The President of the United States was dead.
It didn't take too long for Virgil and Elisa Haines to be caught; at 6:40 pm whilst nearing the Maryland-Virginia state border, patrol officers mobilised by state government in the wake of the President's assassination pulled the speeding Elisa to the side of the road and searched the car and it's frantic occupants; the discovery of Virgil's rifle on the underside of the car leading the officer to detain both suspects. In conjunction with the jailing of the Haines', Vice President Earl Warren was inaugurated into the office of the Presidency at the Government House in Annapolis where he was staying during Dewey's trip to Baltimore; the new President announcing that the perpetrator of one of "history's greatest crimes" would be captured and persecuted until the full jurisdiction of the law; Warren going further in stating that he would continue Dewey's pro-integration, pro-civil rights campaign which formed the crux of the late-President's speaking tour in the Upper South.
Over the following number of days, the investigation into Dewey's murder began to coalesce around the two suspects detained shortly following the shooting of the President; both Virgil and Elisa being initially unwilling to talk or give any evidence to the local police department; the media releasing the first information regarding the two suspects on December 16 after the couple's house in Charlottesville was tracked-down and ransacked for evidence by federal officers. Shortly thereafter, the Haines' history of crime became well-known to investigators, with Virgil's history of racial violence, radical beliefs, and membership in the Ku Klux Klan being released to the public as soon as it became known. Shortly thereafter, under the increasing pressure from the FBI to give them any evidence of wrong doing in regards to Dewey's assassination, Elisa Haines finally caved in late-December and announced to officers that both she and Virgil had conspired together to kill the President; Elisa announcing that whilst it was a radical decision of their part, it was necessary to "protect the Southern way of life", and that she neither regretted assassination nor wished to apologise on her husband's behalf.
With both the admission of guilt from Elisa and Virgil's history being thoroughly worked-through by federal investigators, the media circus surrounding the Haines court case began in earnest in the January of 1956. In conjunction with the ongoing election (which would see President Warren seek to win his own term against a Democratic candidate in Estes Kefauver), as well as the Protests of 1956 (of which the Civil Rights Movement featured prominently), the Haines court case was seen as just another battlefield in the fight for civil rights, with federal prosecutors seeking the death penalty for both defendants. Meanwhile, small-but-vocal groups in the South formed around Virgil and Elisa, with many more radical citizens believing them both to be 'martyrs' who fought the federal government in the name of segregation and Jim Crow; these groups (which included the KKK) being harassed by many in the public, media, and federal government for condoning the senseless murder of President Dewey. As the year moved on and the evidence against the Haines' racked-up, the court case culminated in early-September with the court returning their final verdicts; the death penalty for both Virgil and Elisa, both being the first people in the state of Maryland to be executed by means of a gas chamber.
Today, Virgil and Elisa Haines remain a major element within American culture, with movies, books, music, and conspiracies all being created in relation to them and their crimes. The Haines' have in recent years risen to the point of fame and infamy rivalled only by figures such as Benedict Arnold and John Wilkes Booth, though the story of Virgil and Elisa have captured the minds of the American public more-so as a result of their complex, passionate, though violent relationship (this aspect perhaps best illustrated in the 1975 movie
To Kill A President), as well as the integral part they played in shifting American opinions in regards to civil rights in spite of their act in defiance against it. Thomas Dewey's death, whilst devastating to many Americans, nevertheless united much of the country in a way not seen since World War 2; President Warren receiving much praise during his administration (1955 – 1961) for his remembrance of Dewey's legacy by managing to pass monumental civil rights legislation through Congress which overturned half-a-century of Jim Crow segregation in the South. In addition, federal action against the KKK increased during the late-1950's, partly out-of President Warren's attempts to force through his integrationist policies, though more-so out of revelations that Virgil Haines was an important and influential member one of the country's largest KKK organisations; several groups being forcibly dissolved in the wake of Dewey's assassination.
Whilst the rate of integration would slow over the course of President Johnson's presidency (1961 – 1969), the foundations for 'total integration' which occured under the Bush Administration (1969 – 1973) were laid as a result of President Warren's efforts and, unfortunately, the assassination of Thomas E. Dewey. Today the 34th President remains, like Abraham Lincoln, a martyr for the cause of civil rights, his assassins perhaps doing more than any before to spur-on civil rights legislation in their vain attempt to maintain Jim Crow through political murder. Whilst some claim that the shooting of the President was a conspiracy by communists/the civil rights movement/the federal government to help enact civil rights, or that Virgil and Elisa were 'merely' attempting to protect states' rights from an authoritarian federal government, many more individuals today look-on to the Haines' and the Dewey assassination as a quintessential case study in how hatred, racial supremacism, and radicalism can poison any mind into performing the most drastic of acts.
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BYRNESIVERSE