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One man was tongue-tied and awkward around women, in many ways a mama's boy at heart, although his reputation for thuggery was well earned. The other was a playboy, full of easy charm and ready jokes, his appetite for high living a matter of public record. One man tolerated gangsters and bootleggers as long as they paid their dues to his organization. The other was effectively a gangster himself, so crooked that he hosted a national gathering of America's most ruthless killers. One man never drank alcohol. The other, from all evidence, seldom drank anything else.American Dictatorsis the dual biography of two of America's greatest political bosses: Frank Hague and Enoch \"Nucky\" Johnson. Packed with compelling information and written in an informal, sometimes humorous style, the book shows Hague and Johnson at the peak of their power and the strength of their political machines during the years of Prohibition and the Great Depression. Steven Hart compares how both men used their influence to benefit and punish the local citizenry, amass huge personal fortunes, and sometimes collaborate to trounce their enemies. Similar in their ruthlessness, both men were very different in appearance and temperament. Hague, the mayor of Jersey City, intimidated presidents and wielded unchallenged power for three decades. He never drank and was happily married to his wife for decades. He also allowed gangsters to run bootlegging and illegal gambling operations as long as they paid protection money. Johnson, the political boss of Atlantic City, and the inspiration for the hit HBO seriesBoardwalk Empire, presided over corruption as well, but for a shorter period of time. He was notorious for his decadent lifestyle. Essentially a gangster himself, Johnson hosted the infamous Atlantic City conference that fostered the growth of organized crime. Both Hague and Johnson shrewdly integrated otherwise disenfranchised groups into their machines and gave them a stake in political power. Yet each failed to adapt to changing demographics and circumstances. InAmerican Dictators, Hart paints a balanced portrait of their accomplishments and their failures.

Market with three robust news players energized by Stanley Cup championship THE HOCKEY TEAM IN St. Louis has been around for 50-plus seasons, but the Blues' Stanley Cup victory in June was the team's first ever. Fox-aligned KTVI, which Nexstar Media Group will take over from Tribune Media, is the leader, with Meredith's CBS-affiliated KMOV and Tegna's NBC outlet KSDK real players in news, too. A headline on the KTVI website after a July 4 holiday weekend that featured numerous shootings read, \"Officials to Hold Press Conference After Most Violent Weekend in St. Louis This Year.\"

Frank Patterson Hague, 55, also known as Jennifer Patterson, was arrested Saturday on 63 counts of passing forged documents, 63 counts of grand theft and one count of scheming to defraud, according to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

As you read about [Frank Hague]'s penchant for score-settling, you can't help thinking about the scandal that now engulfs the Christie administration. \"Closing down the lanes to the George Washington Bridge -- Hague wouldn't have blinked at anything like that,\" says [Steven Hart], noting that Hague could be more fearsome than [Johnson]. \"If Nucky didn't like you, then it simply became impossible for you to make a living in Atlantic City, so you might as well pack your bag. If you were a critic of the Hague machine, you could see your property tax triple overnight. If you had any relatives on the city payroll, they'd very soon lose their jobs. If you spoke out in public too much, you might get a visit from the Jersey City police, who were legendary for their brutality.\" When Hart finished that book, he had so much good Hague material left over, he decided to write another book -- \"American Dictators: Frank Hague, Nucky Johnson, and the Perfection of the Urban Political Machine,\" which he'll be talking about on Tuesday at the Fort Lee Public Library. The book is a dual biography of Hague and Johnson, a contemporary, who ran Atlantic City for decades and is the prototype for Steve Buscemi's Nucky Thompson character in the HBO series \"Boardwalk Empire.\"