History of Sinn Féin 218. De Valera resigned and formed a new party, Fianna Fáil, on a platform of republicanising the Free State from within. He took the great majority of Sinn Féin support with him along with most of Sinn Féin's financial support from America. The remains of Sinn Féin fielded only 15 candidates and won only six seats in the June election, sinking to a level support not seen since before 1916. In the August 1927 by-election following the death of Constance Markievicz, SF's Cathal Ó Murchadha gained just 2.5% of the vote. Shortly after Vice-President and de facto leader MacSwiney announced
Benjamin Fein Benjamin Fein Benjamin "Dopey Benny" Fein (c. 1889–1962) was an early Jewish American gangster who dominated New York labor racketeering in the 1910s. With a criminal record dating back to 1900, Fein's arrest record included thirty charges from petty theft and assault to grand larceny and murder (of which he was acquitted twice due to lack of evidence). Fein was nicknamed "Dopey Benny" because of his eyes always being halfway-closed due to a medical condition. Born in New York City in 1889, Fein grew up in a poor neighborhood on Lower East Side becoming a petty thief and pickpocket as