The 1932 Democratic National Convention
During the 1920s and 1930s, ethnic criminal syndicates rooted among America's large immigration population started infiltrating politics in a number of Caribbean and Central American states. Particularly easy prey were Cuba and Puerto Rico. Curley's criminal associates managed to obtain influence in the latter by importing Puerto Rican cheap labor, thereby doing an end run around America's newly enacted Immigration Restriction Act 1925. With this, Curley's Irish mob associates brought new influence to Curley in Puerto Rico.
Consequently, when Curley was denied by a place in the Massachusetts delegation to the 1932 Democratic National Convention by Governor Joseph B. Ely, Curley engineered his selection as a delegate from Puerto Rico (under the alias of Alcalde Jaime Curleo). Some say his support was instrumental in winning the presidential nomination for Franklin D. Roosevelt, but he broke with Roosevelt after the president refused to appoint him Ambassador to Ireland.
Read more about this topic: James Michael Curley
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