tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-585636405512522252024-03-19T04:37:18.479-05:00The Chicago Crime Scenes ProjectPhotographs of locations associated with infamous criminal incidents in ChicagoKendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.comBlogger147125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-84312535616520211722010-01-05T22:19:00.007-06:002010-01-06T09:29:06.513-06:00Death of Jake Lingle<div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423647514629411234" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEju7yNexV7zVn9DKTrRuxWSU3MxK3i3MMzGWMqL04lPZ1fbucH9oaY_x2OV0kZgc4uVuTYtAPMDu5ceBwhvBLmLlo5aBDe3g2d6PhSWUWmD8oAD-1_mS5ClzIqwPLIXwa4xmwKkYQ87tCA/s400/Millenium+003.jpg" border="0" /> <div>During the 1920s, a series of increasingly spectacular acts of violence enraged the public and each led to at least a short-term increase in police enforcement against criminals. But none was so prominent and far-reaching as that which followed the murder of Jake Lingle, <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Chicago Tribune</span> reporter, close to here in the tunnel under Michigan Ave. at Randolph St., on June 9, 1930.<br /><br />By raising the price of alcohol, while doing little to reduce the public’s demand for it, Prohibition had served to enrich those who were still willing to produce and sell. It also put the industry in the shadow of the law, and so created the incentives and opportunities for violence. Thus, the 1920s were the era of big-spending, flashy gangsters and headline-splashing murders, epitomized by the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/lookout-nest-for-st-valentines-day.html">St. Valentine’s Day</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/st-valentines-day-massacre.html">Massacre</a> in 1929. By 1930, that epoch was coming to a close. The stock market crash of the previous October and the rapidly worsening economy dampened the demand for booze, and the shrinking government revenues from income and sales taxes produced a political demand for new sources of tax revenue – and liquor was high on the list of potentially lucrative targets, if only it was legalized. Within three years, Prohibition was repealed, and its personification, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/capones-chicago-home.html">Al Capone</a>, was rotting away in prison. The .38 caliber revolver shot that killed Lingle symbolized the end of the golden age of the Chicago gangster.<br /><br />Alfred J. Lingle was born of modest means on Chicago’s west side in July, 1891, the son of a small business owner. Lingle’s great talent lay in his personality: he was a “character” not easily forgotten, a warm, self-possessed fellow, and an easy confidant. Born a Jew, his family converted to Roman Catholicism when he was eight years old, meaning he could easily fit in with a variety of ethnic groups. Lingle was also fascinated with police work from a young age, and he would frequently haunt police stations and crime scenes, peppering detectives with questions.<br /><br />After attending the John Calhoun North school at Adams and California streets (the school still operates today), Lingle first took a job as a stocker at the Schoelling Company, a surgical supply house. He also played semi-pro baseball for a short time. But it was not long before his talents and interests found him in a job as a crime beat reporter at the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Chicago</span><span style="FONT-STYLE: italic"> Tribune</span>, where he first started work in 1912.<br /><br />In those days, men like Lingle, who had progressed no farther than 8th grade in school, were paid to gather news on the street and feed it back to specialist writers who organized the facts and wrote the purple prose. Hence, Lingle typically had no byline, but his reporting laid the foundation for most of the big crime stories at the paper during the 1910s and 1920s (except during WWI, during which Lingle served as a Navy intelligence officer). One of his first assignments was to cover the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/maj-funkhouser-and-inspector-dannenberg.html">closure</a> of the south side “Levee” (open vice) district during 1912-13.<br /><br />Lingle was successful in his work because of his ability to mix with the criminal element, and he was on familiar terms with all of the top racketeers of his period. <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/mossy-enright.html">Mossy Enright</a>, Tommy Maloy, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/search/label/Colosimo">James Colosimo</a>, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/search/label/Torrio">Johnny Torrio</a>, and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/search/label/Capone">Al Capone</a> all counted Lingle as a friend. After his death, Lingle’s relationship with Capone would come under particular scrutiny. Lingle had, on several occasions, procured exclusive interviews with Capone, and “Big Al” had even gifted him with a $300 diamond-encrusted belt buckle, which he wore proudly.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghxaWNkIZmNxxTuQgmmwME8yFyyveM5EuXsR3-5k6vhaSHkDK23zT4HmAIm27N7t8hLF2QkWkiWHuELjVdLbLvAHKwB52jrK8ixTmXgNKfhWyUGXcMtCSE769U6s-iM50j9JVCvXRkr5I/s1600-h/lingle.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423481853920242994" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 282px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghxaWNkIZmNxxTuQgmmwME8yFyyveM5EuXsR3-5k6vhaSHkDK23zT4HmAIm27N7t8hLF2QkWkiWHuELjVdLbLvAHKwB52jrK8ixTmXgNKfhWyUGXcMtCSE769U6s-iM50j9JVCvXRkr5I/s400/lingle.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Jake Lingle)<br /></div><div><br />Lingle was also close to many political figures and top police brass in the city. A childhood friend was William F. Russell, who became police commissioner in 1928 after scandals erupted surrounding the previous office-holder, Michael Hughes (described in <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/political-banquet-for-obanion.html">this post</a>). Some say that Lingle, through his various power connections, actually had a hand in lobbying for, and promoting Russell to the position. Lingle even had a joint stock investment fund he ran with Russell. Lingle’s close relationship with Russell (and his propensity for braggadocio) caused others to only half-jokingly refer to him as the “unofficial chief of police.” Many other key city officials, bureaucrats, and patrolmen were also among his friends.<br /><br />But it’s possible to have too many friends. Lingle’s social network made him an ideal “fixer,” someone who could make deals between the underworld and those who were tasked with eliminating it. In time, the opportunities to put in a good word in City Hall for this or that gambling joint, to pass along a tip about an upcoming raid to some brothel proprietor, and to broker deals between speakeasies and the patrolmen on their beat, became too great for the $65-per-week newspaper stringer.<br /><br />Like a great many others in the 1920s, Lingle also participated in the bull stock market of that decade. His bank records indicate he amassed over $85,000 in capital gains at the height of the frenzy. But, also like many others, he took a bath on Black Tuesday in October, 1929, losing most of his fortune and diving deeply into debt. But is was hard for Lingle to relinquish the lifestyle his underworld earnings and investment riches had brought him. It wasn’t easy to give up the vacations in Cuba, the high-rolling afternoons at the race track, and his luxurious suite at the city’s top hotel, the Stevens on Michigan Ave. (now the Chicago Hilton). Then there was his wife, Helen Sullivan, and their two young children, Alfred Jr. (born 1924) and Dolores (born 1925), who Lingle worshipped. He had recently put down $18,000 on a family vacation home in Indiana.<br /><br />Thus it was that Jake Lingle increased his involvement with the criminal element. Where there was money to be made, he made it. To supplement that income, he even began double- and triple-crossing his acquaintances, working simultaneously as an agent for the police, politicians, and rival gang syndicates. Friends became enemies and enemies friends.<br /><br />On the morning of June 9, 1930, Lingle left his in-town suite at the Stevens Hotel and, after stopping in at Tribune Tower to chat with his editor, he set out for the nexus of politics and crime in Chicago at Clark and Randolph streets, to see what choice tidbits he could pick up from the gamblers and sharpies who made that corner their headquarters. Next, it was a round of gladhanding and small talk with other power brokers in the lobby of the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/12/gangster-peace-conference-at-sherman.html">Sherman House</a> hotel. Satisfied that he’d completed his work there, he walked east to Michigan Ave. At the corner of Randolph St., he purchased a newspaper and a horseracing publication and entered the underground tunnel leading to the train station on the other side of Michigan Ave.<br /><br />The 1:30 train to Homewood was leaving in a few minutes and Lingle expected to spend the afternoon at the Washington Park Race Track. He was a big-spending gambler on the ponies, sometimes placing up to $1,000 on a single sprint. He was close with many horse owners and jockeys, and sometimes had inside information he used to turn the odds in his favor. The turf was also a great place to chat up those in the know in gangland, picking up tips he could pass on at the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tribune</span>. So the afternoon gambling junket wasn’t purely a matter of pleasure.<br /><br />As he walked through the tunnel, he lit a cigar, unaware of two men who trailed him in from the street. As he approached the far east end of the tunnel, one of them, a thin man with dark eyes and blond, wavy hair, pulled up behind Lingle and fired a single bullet into the back of his head. Lingle’s jaw clamped shut on the cigar and he fell face-forward to the ground, instantly dead.<br /><br />His shooter and accomplice took off back through the tunnel, then suddenly, the man with blond hair who had fired the gun turned back and ran past Lingle’s body, leapt a railing at the train station entrance, and climbed up to the east side of Michigan Ave. Hot on his tail at this point were several by-standers who had watched in terror as the scene unfolded. Reaching the surface, they called out to a police patrolman, Anthony L. Ruthy, “Stop that man!” Officer Ruthy chased the killer across Randolph, then westward on the north side of the street across Michigan and into an alley which made a left turn and emptied onto Wabash St. At the corner of Wabash and Randolph, the shooter disappeared into the crowd and made a getaway from his pursuers. Later it was learned he entered the Taylor Trunk Company at 23 E. Randolph, nervously purchased a $5 hat, asked to use the restroom, and then left the store without his hat.<br /><br />The gangland-style shooting of a humble and presumably honest news reporter with a wife and two children shocked the city. Here was a man who, to the public, appeared to have no gang affiliations, and killed in cold blood. If it could happen to him, it could happen to anyone. Public pressure to find Lingle’s killer and to rid the city of criminal gangs once and for all was intense.<br /><br />Within 24 hours, the police rounded up 664 “wise guys” into the city bridewell, and an unsurpassed manhunt blanketed the Chicago area. One enterprising judge, John Lyle, used the opportunity of public outrage to issue largely unconstitutional, but ingenious, arrest warrants for “vagrancy” to top gang leaders, including Al Capone, on the theory that if they paid their bail, then they could be questioned on the source of their income and either imprisoned or investigated for tax evasion. Almost all of these efforts ended in little more than a waste of police and court resources, though a few notable criminals did fall into the dragnet, including labor racketeer George “Red” Barker, and Joseph Traum, an Indiana desperado. Another fallout from the killing was the resignation, under intense political pressure, of Lingle’s friend in the police force, Commissioner Russell, as well as several other top police brass.<br /><br />Immediately after the killing, partially out of sympathy and partially for headline-grabbing purposes, Lingle’s employer, the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tribune</span>, posted a $25,000 reward for information leading to the capture of his shooter, and other city papers added an additional $30,000 on top of it. When, a few days, later, however, competing papers began learning – and printing – the details of Lingle’s close associations with mobsters, his political “fixing” activities, and his lavish lifestyle and gambling habit, the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tribune</span> maintained that no one at the company was aware of any of Jake Lingle’s darker side. In fact, Lingle had frequently bragged about his friendships with gangsters, although he also told friends that he had inherited hundreds of thousands of dollars from wealthy relatives.<br /><br />Frank Wilson, an IRS agent investigating the Capone case, claimed in his autobiography that Col. Robert McCormick, proprietor of the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tribune</span>, had personally arranged a meeting between Lingle and Wilson, scheduled for the day after the murder. If true, this implies that McCormick was well aware of Lingle’s underworld connections; however, McCormick always denied the accusation, and other sources claim that Wilson only contacted McCormick after the murder.<br /><br />In any case, Lingle’s death created a scandal for the paper. Mayor <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/mrs-william-hale-thompson-mayors-wife.html">William Hale Thompson</a>, a long-time target of the paper’s editorials, took the opportunity for a pot shot at the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tribune</span>, referring to it jokingly as the “Lingle Evangelistic Institute.” The Tribune tried to quash the furor by separating themselves from Lingle; they even published Lingle’s entire checking account register in a full two-page spread in an attempt at openness – while at the same time covering up what anyone at the paper might have known about the large and frequent sums entering and exiting the account. In an exculpatory editorial, the paper wrote,<br /><br /><br /></div><blockquote>Alfred Lingle now takes a different character, one in which he was unknown to the management of the Tribune when he was alive. He is dead and cannot defend himself, but many facts now revealed must be accepted as eloquent against him.<br /><br />He was not, and he could not have been, a great reporter. His ability did not contain these possibilities. He did not write stories, but he could get information in police circles. He was not and he could not be influential in the acts of his newspaper, but he could be useful and honest, and that is what the Tribune management took him to be. His salary was commensurate with his work.<br /><br />The reasonable appearance against Lingle now is that he was accepted in the world of politics and crime for something undreamed of in his office and that he used this in undertakings which made him money and brought him to his death. He has paid the penalty of it if he was enticed into this pool and the Tribune regrets it for the boy’s sake and for the sake of the profession.<br /><br />The occurrence, although not unusual, is always tragic.</blockquote><div>The <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tribune</span> also helped fund the investigation into the killing by the State’s Attorney’s office, contributing office space and the services of their corporate counsel, Charles F. Rathbun. Rathbun’s presence on the investigative team also helped insure that evidence unfavorable to the paper never saw the light of day. Pat Roche, lead detective in the State’s Attorney’s office, and Rathbun, lead a year-long focused manhunt for Lingle’s killer, which took them on investigative journeys as far as Havana and Los Angeles.<br /><br />So who killed Jake Lingle, and why? The answer remains shrouded in mystery after 70 years, but here are the known facts. Lingle’s killer dropped his revolver at the scene of the crime. The serial number on the weapon had been filed down, but careful forensics were able to recover it, and the gun was traced to a sale at the sporting goods dealership of Peter Von Frantzius at 608 W. Diversey Pkwy. Frantzius was a popular arms dealer to the underworld, and his shop had also supplied the weapons used in the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/st-valentines-day-massacre.html">St. Valentine’s Day</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/lookout-nest-for-st-valentines-day.html">Massacre</a>.<br /><br />Von Frantzius’s records showed the firearm had been sold to Frank Foster (born Frank Citro), known to police as a member of the Northside Gang, although there were indications Foster had recently switched sides, becoming a gunner for the rival south side Capone syndicate. Foster was arrested in Los Angeles on July 1, and extradited to Illinois.<br /><br />Upon seeing Foster, several witnesses, including Officer Ruthy, who chased the shooter through the Loop, declared he was the killer. However, other witnesses disagreed, and Foster had a reasonably plausible alibi. The State’s Attorney’s office suspected he was not their man, but kept him in legal limbo while they continued their frantic search.<br /><br />Finally, based on underworld gossip and a close resemblance to the witness descriptions, police arrested one Leo V. Brothers, a member of the St. Louis-based Egan’s Rats gang, which was a Capone affiliate in that city. Brothers was a labor union slugger, and was wanted in connection with a murder that took place during struggles between rival factions of a taxi drivers’ union. He had escaped to Chicago with a recommendation to one of this city’s top labor racketeers, Thomas Maloy, and had found work as a bouncer at the mob-controlled Green Mill saloon on Broadway and Lawrence Aves. (the bar still exists today). At his arraignment, Brothers curiously refused to plead either guilty or innocent, instead only saying “On the advice of my attorneys, I stand mute”. Many found it suspicious that Brothers, who was ostensibly destitute, was supported by a “dream team” of five top defense attorneys, led by the inveterately corrupt Louis Piquett, who would go on to greater fame as <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/10/dillingers-plastic-surgery-on-pulaski.html">John Dillinger</a>’s attorney and sometimes partner-in-crime.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9-rVTiMb3WTIZpwf4GfxxWS5AJ4GMfpCKPiioyPiZ7LSszBnZrngPjnSho_TgvH_4EaxVHBqSKSUVQonuHoqdEKPylTMVvxqSF5LiClBf1iHHPXJTEo6BanIakrZoYopZnDA7FTVKiv4/s1600-h/leobrothers3.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423481974079883330" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 274px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9-rVTiMb3WTIZpwf4GfxxWS5AJ4GMfpCKPiioyPiZ7LSszBnZrngPjnSho_TgvH_4EaxVHBqSKSUVQonuHoqdEKPylTMVvxqSF5LiClBf1iHHPXJTEo6BanIakrZoYopZnDA7FTVKiv4/s400/leobrothers3.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Leo V. Brothers)<br /></div><div><br />Brothers went on trial in the spring of 1931. The prosecution produced seven eye witnesses who fingered Brothers as the shooter. The defense pointed out that a number of these witnesses were on the payroll of the State’s Attorney, and that their descriptions to police at the time of the murder differed in several important details. The defense also produced eight witnesses of their own, including Officer Ruthy, who had chased Lingle’s killer through the Loop, who claimed Brothers was not the man they saw.<br /><br />In the end, however, the prosecution’s witnesses were more believable to most jurors, and Brothers’ checkered past in St. Louis made him a plausible assassin. One lone juror held out from the other eleven in returning a life sentence in the trial, however. Other jurors later claimed his man stubbornly refused to even discuss the matter, and so ultimately, the jury found Brothers guilty and sentenced him to only 14 years. At sentencing, Brothers proudly told reporters, “I can do that standing on my head!” Some intimated that Piquett or some wealthy supporters of Brothers behind the scenes had paid off the dissenting juror.<br /><br />Regardless of whether Lingle was shot by Foster, Brothers, or someone else, it does little to answer the more important question of why Lingle was killed. One prominent theory, promoted by Roche and Rathbun, and supported by a former Northside Gang associate, Julian “Potatoes” Kaufman, is that Lingle was killed in a dispute over a ritzy gambling resort, the Sheridan Wave Club, located at Sheridan Rd. and Waveland Ave. According to Kaufman, he managed the Sheridan Wave for four years in the late 1920s. During that time, the club catered to an exclusive clientele, high-rollers whose large bets brought in boffo profits for the gang. So lavish was the Club, it is said that all drinks and other amenities were provided to customers gratis and at will while they placed bets.<br /><br />In June, 1929, under public pressure to fight organized crime after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, police Commissioner Russell ordered the Sheridan Wave’s closure. Jack Zuta and other higher-ups in the Northside Gang itched to reopen it, and pressured Kaufman to get Lingle to talk with Russell about the possibility. Some sources claim that Lingle demanded a cut of the Club’s revenue. According to Kaufman, during one meeting with Lingle, Zuta showed up, and Lingle turned to him and said “Don’t speak to me, you lousy pimp.” Zuta was, in fact, a slimy pander, the Northsiders’ equivalent to the Capone syndicate’s <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/johnny-torrio-and-al-capones-account.html">Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik</a>. In any case, Zuta began to see Lingle as uncooperative.<br /><br />One ambitious gang underling, Grover Dullard, had run the craps table at the Sheridan Wave, and he had heard Lingle was the sticking point in keeping the Club closed. In Kaufman’s account, Dullard was looking to prove his worth to the gang, and saw Lingle’s murder as a way to impress Zuta. He told everyone he would “take care of” Jake Lingle.<br /><br />Did Grover Dullard – either on his own, or at the request of Jack Zuta – hire someone to kill Lingle (or do the job himself)? It was well-known and substantiated that a deep mutual dislike existed between Lingle and Zuta, as well as Zuta’s partners, the Aiello brothers. In fact, within a half hour of Lingle’s death, police raided the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/aiello-co-bakery.html">Aiello bake shop and headquarters</a> on Division street, arresting Carl and Dominick Aiello for questioning (the most prominent Aiello, Joe, was nowhere to be found). Zuta himself was brought in a few weeks later.<br /><br />Since police headquarters were on the south side at Michigan and 11th St., in the middle of Capone syndicate territory, when Zuta’s questioning was completed, he pleaded for a police escort to the north side. The officers obliged, but during the drive through the Loop, the car was attacked by gunmen, who after firing indiscriminately into a crowd and killing a street car driver, sped away Hollywood-style, blowing a smoke screen behind them along State street.<br /><br />Jack Zuta survived the hit, but met his end only a month later while on vacation at a resort near Delafield, Wisconsin. He was plopping nickels into a jukebox on the dance floor when he turned around and was met by a barrage of bullets from five men who had infiltrated the hall. Some theorize the killers were Capone’s men, and their purpose was to avenge Lingle’s death. Others believe Zuta was killed by his fellow gang members, who believed he was talking to police.<br /><br />An alternative theory of Lingle’s death claims he was offed at the order of a relatively minor, but interesting, hoodlum, John J. “Boss” McLaughlin. A former state legislator, McLaughlin had moved easily across the blurry line between politics and crime, and was at the time building a series of gambling enterprises. Supposedly, he had threatened Lingle just days before his death after a police raid at his headquarters at 606 W. Madison, “I’ll catch up with you, and it won’t be long either”. McLaughlin believed Lingle was going to keep police Commissioner Russell off his gaming centers.<br /><br />A third theory is that Lingle was actually a victim of Capone. Though Lingle and Capone were known to be friends, some sources claim Lingle had been paid a large sum of money to help Capone win political support and police protection for a number of dog tracks the syndicate planned to open in Illinois. Lingle had failed, the theory goes, and had lost the money gambling or in stocks. Then there is IRS agent Frank Wilson’s statement, alluded to earlier, that he was planning to meet with Lingle to discuss Capone’s tax issues. In addition, a number of witnesses at the scene of the crime identified Sam “Golf Bag” Hunt, a noted Capone gunman, as being present.<br /><br />Alternatively, some claim Foster, who had recently begun working with Capone, was the killer, and that Capone’s gang arranged for Brothers to take the fall in order to help him escape his murder charge in St. Louis (which he eventually did). Hence Brother’s odd non-plea at his arraignment, and irrational exuberance at having been sentenced to 14 years after his conviction. However, the truth is that Jake Lingle’s tracks in the underworld were simply too complex to trace precisely, and the reason for his death is likely lost completely to history.<br /><br />Leo Brothers served eight years and three months of his 14 year sentence at Joliet penitentiary, after being released early for good behavior. He was immediately re-arrested for the taxi murder in St. Louis, but the evidence had grown cold and he couldn’t be convicted. He went back to work in the tax racket in St. Louis, working his way up to a position of authority in the industry, until he was shot at his home in a gang hit in September, 1950. He died shortly after.<br /><br />Frank Citro (Foster) also continued working in organized crime, returning to Los Angeles, where he died of a heart attack in April, 1967. A few months after Brothers was sentenced in 1931, Officer Anthony Ruthy was shot and killed in the line of duty by a fleeing bank robber. Coincidentally, Ruthy was killed less than 100 ft from where Lingle met his end, near the corner of Michigan and Randolph. Grover Dullard was a prominent Chicagoland bookie, and ran with a violent gang of gamblers into the 1940s. Julius “Potatoes” Kaufman moved to New York City, and then to Miami, where he continued running casinos. Peter Von Frantzius was charged with accessory to murder before the fact in the Lingle killing, but the charges were eventually dropped. He continued operating his sporting goods business until his death in 1968.<br /><br />Lingle was shot at the east side of the tunnel under Michigan Ave., where it rose out of the ground and fed into the old Illinois Central railway tracks. That spot no longer exists today, since the train station has been moved underground. The tunnel under Michigan Ave. has long since been renovated and rerouted slightly, although it still passes close to where it lay in 1930 (see photo at the top of this post). Where the IC station once stood, today is the beautiful Millenium Park, built largely at taxpayer expense and only $130 million over budget and four years late for the millenium (it opened in 2004). Nevertheless, the park boasts a Frank Gehry-designed band shell, a fountain with a constantly-changing electronic image of a man or woman spitting, and "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Gate">the bean</a>". The spot pictured below at the southeast corner of Michigan and Randolph is Wrigley Square, featuring the "Millenium Monument", a set of greek columns that is a replica of a similar monument that stood on the spot in 1930.</div><div> </div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5423647520043615778" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheM15-mlFgWeew3beZq3w_Nv0sXI3zbIJtkK6-02Fay9e5a3CsD-7oF03J9lpvnFULWbHpEVL0eMplCRe6gygHvETHB14cTULC2K_d9RuS4JR5hIhZacr0VA_b-GbCliTPV9eI6rN1Ll8/s400/Millenium+004.jpg" border="0" /></div>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com56tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-33213985175037853162009-12-12T14:02:00.004-06:002009-12-12T16:21:50.504-06:00Jeff Fort Family Tree<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOr8-c6cQWYEDzbZ2audfcEhGXI8KDrGYyQpUKQOX34n2v4bdX_ZVJl2rRN0U23b61KBdgLF_4yh3ZhvzDvTWoUITjPlJ7XQ_VTAOXLldKQs8QlFs-ItTaOysbxLVFIPQ0EFFmjwlnA2I/s1600-h/Dec1209+001.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414443551132673442" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOr8-c6cQWYEDzbZ2audfcEhGXI8KDrGYyQpUKQOX34n2v4bdX_ZVJl2rRN0U23b61KBdgLF_4yh3ZhvzDvTWoUITjPlJ7XQ_VTAOXLldKQs8QlFs-ItTaOysbxLVFIPQ0EFFmjwlnA2I/s400/Dec1209+001.jpg" border="0" /></a>As discussed in previous posts (<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/el-rukn-leader-jeff-forts-home.html">here</a>, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/el-rukn-temple.html">here</a>, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeff-fort-founds-black-p-stone-nation.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/woodlawn-immanuel-evangelical-lutheran.html">here</a>), Jeff Fort was one of the most notorious gangsters in Chicago history. Like better-known Italian mob leaders such as <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/11/colosimos-home.html">Colosimo</a>, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/johnny-torrio-shot.html">Torrio</a>, and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/capones-chicago-home.html">Capone</a>, he perceived arbitrage profits from government policy (primarily drug prohibition in Fort's case), then developed and managed a huge criminal distribution and marketing enterprise to exploit them. Also like other top gang leaders, he used ingenious methods to distract law enforcement and to massage political and community perceptions, and became a controversial community leader.<br /><br />Fort was critical in establishing several important gang entities, including the Blackstone Rangers, the Black P. Stone Nation (a collection of local affiliated "stone" gangs), the People Nation (a national cartel of gangs including the BPSN as well as other lage organizations including the Vice Lords), and the El Rukns (a religiously-motivated gang). While the Italian mob in Chicago is today a mere shell of its former self, Fort's gangs, with the possible exception of the Rukns -- whose influence is nevertheless still felt -- are going strong.<br /><br />It is not uncommon for gang members to draw their family into a criminal organization. Without the ability to enforce employment contracts through the court system the way legal businesses do, trust becomes a next-best substitute for formal contracts in underground industries. Ethnicity and common background engender some level of trust -- hence the fact that most gangs are composed of members of the same race or ethnicity -- but family ties are even stronger. Shirking and disloyalty to the gang in such cases thus means turning one's back on loved ones. In addition, family members of prominent criminals may face discrimination in the labor market (would <em>you</em> think twice before hiring someone named "Gotti"?), so non-gang opportunities become relatively scarce.<br /><br />The Fort family exemplifies the role relatives play within a gang. Jeff Fort had seven brothers and three sisters, most of which are known to have been active in his criminal enterprise. He is believed to have fathered at least seven children, and two of these rose to leadership positions in the gang. In addition, nephews and even grandchildren have also been connected with criminal activity.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Brothers</strong><br /><br /><ul><li>Andrew Fort (born c. 1959)</li></ul>Active in developing the drug sales operations of the El Rukns in the 1970s and 1980s after Jeff Fort's release from prison in 1976. In 1986, convicted of the April 1985 murder of Robert "Dog" Johnson on Stony Island and 67th Place. Johnson, a former Rukn, had left the gang to deal drugs independently and was allegedly killed by Andrew Fort in a territorial dispute.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLnby3_ajmD4m7bAxJ9BMUtzN3XmONRSUWdNf8L0cxCkQHShdgun-Z6wEjV7b8LgSzc5l9d-YOX8l5TQwD7-U6HGbdR833fOhIbqKZ6-APQTGkTUdELjod4IO_Wh_A1dsDHrKZLs_pJlk/s1600-h/andrewfort.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5414443545670235714" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 202px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLnby3_ajmD4m7bAxJ9BMUtzN3XmONRSUWdNf8L0cxCkQHShdgun-Z6wEjV7b8LgSzc5l9d-YOX8l5TQwD7-U6HGbdR833fOhIbqKZ6-APQTGkTUdELjod4IO_Wh_A1dsDHrKZLs_pJlk/s400/andrewfort.JPG" border="0" /></a> (Pictured: Andrew Fort, being arrested for marijuana possession in 1979 at the El Rukn Temple)<br /><br /><ul><li>Bennie Fort (born c. 1949)</li></ul><p>Active in the Blackstone Rangers and BPSN during the 1960s and 1970s. Served two years in prison between 1968 and 1970 for aggravated battery. After release, rejoined gang and was among top leadership during Jeff Fort's first prison sentence, 1972-76. He apparently continued to be active in the El Rukns during the 1980s, and in 1982 was involved in a physical altercation with a woman in a dispute over ownership of a television set. The woman called police, and while accusing Bennie Fort of aggravated battery, also fingered him as the killer in a murder a few months before, a bar fight that ended in the death of Darryl Poindexter. Fort went on trial for the slaying, but after some witness intimidation by his brothers Eugene and Johnny Lee (see below), was acquitted. He did serve two years in prison for the woman's battery, however.</p><p>Televisions were bad news for Bennie Fort. In June 1988, a fellow El Rukn, Perry Squire, sold a broken TV to Fort for $40. Fort managed to repair it, and when Squire saw his broken set working again, he insisted it be returned to him. Fort refused, but a few days later, the television was stolen, and Fort confronted Squire about it. An altercation ensued, during which Squire stabbed Bennie Fort to death.</p><ul><li>Eugene Fort (born c. 1951)</li></ul><p>A low-level enforcer in the Rukns. Along with Johnny Lee Fort, he was involved in intimidating witnesses during Bennie Fort's 1983 murder trial. On July 14, 1983, the day after police arrested Bennie Fort, Eugene and Johnny Lee Fort allegedly broke into the home of the woman who had accused him of the killing and threatened to kill her.</p><ul><li>James Fort (born c. 1962)</li></ul><p>Drug dealer in the Rukns. Convicted of crack cocaine distribution and imprisoned in 1994.</p><br /><ul><li>Johnny Lee Fort (born c. 1947)</li></ul><p>The oldest of the brothers and the namesake of his father. Despite age, does not appear to have held high office in the gang, though together with Eugene Fort, was involved in intimidation of witnesses in Bennie Fort's 1983 murder trial (see above).</p><ul><li>Lawrence Fort (born c. 1960)</li></ul><p>Ran one of the El Rukns' ancillary businesses in the 1980s, a security firm known as Security Maintenance Services, Ltd. The firm was unlicensed, and Fort was arrested as part of a police sting operation at McCormick Place. Pled guilty in the case to operating a security firm without a license, and carrying an illegal firearm.</p><strong></strong><br /><strong>Sisters</strong><br /><br /><ul><li>Pee Wee Fort (born ?)</li></ul><p>Active in El Ruks during 1980s. In 1985, Yonava Eason and two girlfriends were walking down a street when they saw Andrew Fort (above) and David Carter, both El Rukns, open fire on Robert "Dog" Johnson. Eason picked Carter's photo from a lineup, but when asked to testify in court, recanted her identification. Andrew Fort was convicted, but without Eason's testimony, Carter went free. Later, in 1991, Eason admitted she had changed her testimony after being threatened out of court by Pee Wee Fort, who told her she "better not testify". "My family was more important to me than telling the truth in that courtroom that day," she said. </p>Carter was convicted of murder, but eventually had his sentence reduced to 8-1/2 years on narcotics distribution charges, based on prosecutorial misbehavior. Prosecutors in the case had allowed gang snitches to use drugs, liquor, and to have sex with their wives and girlfriends while under state guard.<br /><ul><li>Merriam Rice (neé Fort) (born ?)</li></ul><p>No known gang activities in Chicago. Today is an anti-gang activist, working alongside former Gangster Disciples leader K.G. Wilson in inner-city Minneapolis, who is involved in street preaching and anti-violence community organizing. See <a href="http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/77836752.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUjc8LDyiUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUHDYaGEP7eyckcUr">this article</a> for details. The Disciples are the chief Chicago rivals of the BPSN, and form the core of the "Folk Nation", a gang cartel organization rival to Fort's "People Nation"; hence, Rice's work with Wilson is significant. Wilson said,<br /></p><blockquote>I heard Jeff Fort had a sister here. I introduced myself and told her to come out with me. She did, and she's been with me ever since. Here I am, an ex-chief of the Black Gangster Disciples, and God gave me the sister of Jeff Fort. I think that allows us to show people that this gang thing is garbage.</blockquote><br />[Thanks to <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/woodlawn-immanuel-evangelical-lutheran.html">Otto Sotnak</a> for the tip about Merriam Rice, which inspired this post.]<br /><br /><br /><strong>Children</strong><br /><ul><li>Antonio Fort (born c. 1966) (also known as "Prince Akeem")</li></ul><p>Believed to have been among top Chicago-based leadership of the El Rukns during the 1980s (Jeff Fort commanded the gang from prison in Beaumont, Texas, for most of the period), Antonio Fort was the target of the arrest warrant police used to infiltrate and eventually demolish the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/el-rukn-temple.html">El Rukn Grand Major Temple</a> and mosque headquarters on 39th and Drexel in 1989. Antonio Fort was apparently not fully loyal to the gang (possibly under the influence of a substance abuse problem), leading Jeff Fort to direct "drummings" [beatings] of his own son by fellow gang members as punishment on at least two occasions.</p>In the early 1990s, Antonio Fort is believed to have led a large Stones set the South Shore neighborhood (colloquially known as "Terror Town" during the gang's reign). Between 1992 and 1996, he served a prison sentence for conspiracy to purchase cocaine in Evanston. His release may have created a power struggle in the gang; in any case, his body washed up on the shore of Wolf Lake, separating Illinois and Indiana, in March, 1997.<br /><ul><li>Watkeeta Valenzuela Fort (born c. 1970) (also known as "Prince Watkeeta")</li></ul><p>In the power vacuum left after the government takedown of the Rukns in the late 1980s, Valenzuela came to power, leading one of the major Stones sets which controlled the Englewood neighborhood, with headquarters at 54th St. and Bishop St. (pictured at the top of this post). Valenzuela led the Stones in violent clashes with the Gangster Disciples gang, which also tried to move in on Rukn territory on the South Side during the early 1990s. In March, 1997, he pled guilty to running a cocaine trafficking operation, telling the court "I was born into this. I had no other choice." </p>Valenzuela is believed to have remained the closest of his siblings to father Jeff Fort, and to have incorporated much of the quasi-Islamic religious aspects of the Rukns in the 1990s Stones sets. His followers called themselves "Moes", a reference to the "Moorish Science" tenants of the Rukns. That name is still common among some factions.<br /><br /><br /><strong>Others</strong><br /><br /><ul><li>Eugene Fort, nephew and son of Eugene Fort, brother (born c. 1972)</li></ul><p>Active in Minneapolis crack trade during the early 1990s. Was chief suspect in 1990 murder of 11-year old boy Marcus Potts, who was at home alone while his house was being burglarized. A trail of footprints in the snow from the boy's home led police back to Eugene Fort's house, where traces of the boy's blood were found. However, the evidence was not strong enough to convict in court, and so the case was not brought to trial for 15 years, when DNA testing technology had advanced to the point where the blood could be more authoritatively matched. Eugene Fort was convicted of murder in 2007, though a new trial was briefly considered in 2007 based on the apparent jailhouse confession of his cousin Paul Rice. However, Fort's conviction was upheld.</p><ul><li>Paul Rice, nephew and son of Merriam Rice, sister (born ?)</li></ul><p>After the conviction of his cousin Eugene Fort in the murder of an 11-year old boy, Rice supposedly bragged to jail inmates that he had "killed a little boy" on at least two occasions. On this basis, Eugene Fort received a hearing to determine whether a new trial was warranted, though Fort's conviction was subsequently upheld. </p><ul><li>Antonio Fort, grandson and son of Antonio Fort, son (born c. 1987) (also known as "Peanut")</li></ul><p>Allegedly involved in 2002 mob beating that made national news. Jack Moore and Anthony Stuckey were driving drunk and high through the Oakland neighborhood, and crashed their van into a house on Lake Park Ave., where three young women were sitting. The crash injured the women, killing one. A crowd of men who were nearby at the time of the wreck dragged Moore and Stuckey out of the van and beat them to death on the street. A police officer who arrived on the scene to break up the violence claimed that Antonio was a leader of the vigilante mob, and had personally attacked Moore and Stuckey.</p>At trial in 2003, Antonio Fort testified that he arrived on the scene after the violence had already begun, and that he left quickly when he heard his mother calling him. Fort was acquitted. Reports indicate he is not closely associated with the Stones.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com427tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-13172839677500114572009-12-01T20:58:00.006-06:002009-12-01T22:30:02.972-06:00Monroe Street<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoVhZNgLe5f8HxBIIk60XAd6sMRzchAcTT0lfIOgHFIXuJOUhinwAqRZDMXibmRE4p5yvHjyfy68SXFwC37WsZc5gt86TCPTkmCA3osE03SHtS11J5dPtIqDNn-zyWwk5WOIIFB3fMI3Y/s1600/Fall2009+016.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoVhZNgLe5f8HxBIIk60XAd6sMRzchAcTT0lfIOgHFIXuJOUhinwAqRZDMXibmRE4p5yvHjyfy68SXFwC37WsZc5gt86TCPTkmCA3osE03SHtS11J5dPtIqDNn-zyWwk5WOIIFB3fMI3Y/s400/Fall2009+016.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410468545902711778" border="0" /></a>Perhaps second only to <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/south-wells-st.html">Wells St.</a>, Monroe St. was the home of vice in pre-<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/oleary-cottage-where-great-fire-began.html">Fire</a> Chicago.<br /><br />In the earliest years of Chicago's history, Monroe street was entirely rural, with many farmhouses. It may well have been Monroe that inspired one of the earliest town ordinances, passed in 1833, which imposed a fine of $2 on anyone allowing a pig to run loose in the city "without a yoke or a ring in its nose" (pigs were forbidden on the street entirely, nose ring or not, in 1842).<br /><br />By the 1840s, Monroe was home to many fine mansions, primarily country-style homes. The architectural vogue in those days was a Chicago version of Palladian, mixing the classical Greco-Roman columns with aspects more familiar to southern plantation estates. The area near Wabash Ave. was known as "Garden City", likely inspired by the city seal ("Urbs in Horto"), but also indicative of the greenery that covered the Loop in those early years. Standing at Monroe and Wabash today, with the clash and clatter of the elevated train passing overhead and darkened by the hulking shadows of steel tracks and skyscrapers, it is difficult to picture the bucolic setting in which early Chicagoans once resided.<br /><br />But while Wabash and Michigan Ave. retained their large estates up until <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/oleary-cottage-where-great-fire-began.html">the Fire</a>, the 1850s saw Monroe St. in decline. Lumberyards sprouted at the west end of Monroe, near the river, and just on the other side of the river. 1850 saw the city's first gas works plant, the Chicago Gas Light and Coke Company, built at the corner of Monroe and Wacker Dr. (then known as Market St.). The presence of a big, dirty, industrial factory lowered surrounding property valuesSeptember 5, 1850 saw the city lit by gas for the first time, and by the end of the year, a series of pipes connected the factory to 112 street and bridge lamps around Chicago.<br /><br />Another cause for Monroe street's diminishing reputation was the establishment, in 1856, of North's National Amphitheater, one of the city's first commercial venues for amusement, on the north side of Monroe, between Wells and Clark streets. The Amphitheater played host to traveling circuses, carnivals, and other troupes, and the characters who worked in these events were considered unsavory, and frequently stood accused of drunkenness, vice, as well as more serious crimes. <br /><br />One 1850s newspaper review of a show indicated the precarious position Chicagoans were still in with respect to Native Americans on the plains:<br /><blockquote>"The Iroquois Indians are a novel feature, and go through their dances, and other aboriginal barbarities, with as much unction as their white brethren of the sawdust. It is also cheering to know that they entertain a high opinion of their audiences, and are invariably in favor of peace."</blockquote>Levi J. North, the proprietor of the Amphitheater, was one of the 19th century's most famous horsemen. After performing in traveling shows up and down the East Coast, the Caribbean, and in Europe, where he was famed for an act involving galloping bareback, while holding aloft an infant child, North came to Chicago and built the Amphitheater.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCmlAFlYq5TOkclh6jUGuk4lqbHDLn60ySG4wqAilE1PpkDNaEySazythvv5lfru8jQLC5omMygdHfODyUKV57mAznb_RayPJZhfKXKyooATApuzHVlmMI7hKp3nAxLMpPjqB6hwpPSWY/s1600/northsamphitheater.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 260px; height: 354px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCmlAFlYq5TOkclh6jUGuk4lqbHDLn60ySG4wqAilE1PpkDNaEySazythvv5lfru8jQLC5omMygdHfODyUKV57mAznb_RayPJZhfKXKyooATApuzHVlmMI7hKp3nAxLMpPjqB6hwpPSWY/s400/northsamphitheater.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5410468730437704626" border="0" /></a>(Advertisement of show at North's Amphitheater, Jan. 5, 1859).<br /></div><br />Like most great riders, North was relatively small of stature, standing less than five and a half feet, and had long, flowing blond hair, which trailed behind him as he sped around the circus ring. In his later years, one commentator wrote that "He was born on a horse, has always lived on a horse, will die on a horse, and have a horse for a monument, and will rest uneasily if the monument is not trained." He was said to have been the first rider to ever turn a somersault on horseback.<br /><br />While in Chicago, North also became involved in politics, running for and winning a seat as alderman of the third ward. The election was disputed, since North had only moved into the ward ten days before the election, but he was eventually allowed to keep his seat. After some years, however, misfortune befell the great rider when the theater burned, and the insurance company simultaneously went bankrupt. North rebuilt the circus ring and began performing again, earning $50 per night, which he continued in Chicago and in touring companies for over a decade before retiring in 1870 and moving to New York City. The Amphitheater was demolished in 1864 and the property rebuilt for commercial use.<br /><br />With the poverty and criminality growing on the street, wealthy residents increasingly moved away from Monroe, lowering property values and attracting even more itinerant and criminal elements, perpetuating a vicious cycle. Cigar stores and houses of prostitution, including most famously <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/mansion.html">Madam Lou Harper's "Mansion"</a> between Wells and Franklin, and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/waterford-jack.html">Francis Warren</a>'s troupe of streetwalkers, who resided between Clark and LaSalle.<br /><br />The 1850s and 1860s saw masses of poor immigrants, primarily from Ireland, building a shantytown of low, tumble-down buildings centered around Monroe and Wells St., known as "Mrs. Conley's Patch". Longtime alderman and world-renowned dandy <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/alderman-john-coughlins-basement.html">"Bathhouse" John Coughlin</a>, was raised there. However, "the Patch" was also notorious in its day, not only for the decrepitude of its dwellings, but also for the depravity and dark crimes of some of its residents. <br /><br />Chiefest among these was the city's first -- and perhaps greatest -- king of vice, Roger Plant. I have already covered Plant's exploits to some degree in this <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/under-willow.html">earlier post</a>. A Yorkshire-born Englishman, Plant arrived in the city about 1857. Legend has grown around Plant, who was always tight-lipped about his personal history, such that it is impossible today to discern fact from exaggeration, but purportedly Plant had been convicted of a felony in England and was scheduled to be exiled to Australia when he escaped and made his way to Chicago.<br /><br />By 1858, Plant had built "Roger's Barracks", a set of poorly-constructed shacks centered on the northeast corner of Wells and Monroe. The Barracks, later known as <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/under-willow.html">"Under the Willow"</a>, so named after a single sad willow tree which stood on the corner, was the center for all vice in the city up through the end of the Civil War. It was Plant who popularized the catchphrase "Why Not?", which was emblazoned on each of the blue window shades in the complex.<br /><br />Plant himself was diminutive, at just over five feet tall and no more than 100 lbs, but he was apparently a vicious fighter, skillful with pistol, knife, and club, but especially with his fists and teeth. The only one who could ever whip him, it is said, was Mrs. Plant, a mountainous woman weighing at least 250 lbs. Plant kept order in the saloon on the premises, and operated as a fence and a bail bondsman, while his wife ran a brothel with no fewer than 80 inmates, rented out cubbies on the property for use by streetwalkers, and made a trade in "white slaves".<br /><br />During the war, Under the Willow ("that shadowy haunt of sin", as the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune </span>put it), played host to battalions of soldiers and was rarely empty at any hour. It was a fearsome place, however, with many men finding themselves robbed, beaten or knived, and discarded in the alleys (oftentimes by Mrs. Plant herself) after imbibing too much or falling asleep in one of the decrepit cribs.<br /><br />Some of the permanent residents of the Plant complex included Mary Hodges, an apparently fantastically talented shoplifter, who it is said (again in tall tale fashion) would drive a cart into the shopping district several times a week to bring back her takings. Another was Mary Brennan ("an audacious old sinner", as the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> described her), who was herself a thief, but also the trainer of thieves and pickpockets. Mrs. Brennan's two daughters were caught breaking into a home whose owner was away on business one afternoon in 1866, and as punishment, were placed in the Catholic Asylum, separated from their mother until adulthood.<br /><br />Another long-time tenant was Lib Woods. Miss Woods arrived in Chicago in 1855, and was described in 1860 as "one of the gayest, prettiest, most fascinating creatures that could be found among her class in this city....with a splendid head of hair that made her rivals all despair. It hung down below her waist, in long, glassy ringlets."<br /><br />Woods was girlfriend to Billy Meadows, a successful prizefighter. But when Meadows took sick and died in 1861, Miss Woods' decline into dissipation was quick. She took up residence at Under the Willow as a prostitute shortly after, and was then seized with smallpox, which disfigured her beautiful features. She was frequently drunk and became increasingly violent as she aged. She died a sad death in 1870, found in a gutter of Wells street.<br /><br />Roger Plant was also notorious for paying off the police to keep the heat away from Under the Willow and his other nefarious doings. In October, 1866, he was arrested for robbing a man he had helped bail out of the bridewell of $25. A few days later, the police discharged him, much to the uproar of the city's more righteous denizens. Most likely, the increasingly wealthy Mr. Plant greased a few palms on his way out of the police house. In a later committee investigation before city council, Plant was directly asked whether he had every paid off the police, and, displaying honor among thieves, he refused to perjure himself -- he "took the fifth" and was eventually dismissed for being unwilling to answer questions.<br /><br />Within a few years after the war, Plant had amassed such a fortune as allowed him to depart his vile surroundings for a country estate outside of Chicago, and by 1871, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> reported that "Roger is now a member of the church in good standing, drives an elegant team, and lives like a Christian."<br /><br />Plant had many children, by some counts as many as fifteen, and a number of them went on to establish their own houses of vice in the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/custom-house-place.html">Custom House Place</a> district during the 1880s and 1890s, including daughters Kitty and Daisy Plant, and son Roger Plant, Jr. Many other former tenants not related to Plant also went on to develop vice businesses as well. He is rightly known as the father of vice in Chicago.<br /><br />By the time of Roger Plant's retirement, Under the Willow extended halfway down the block on both Monroe and Wells streets, and the centerpiece of the property, rebuilt after the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/oleary-cottage-where-great-fire-began.html">Great Fire</a>, was a four story building. Plant continued renting the property for large sums into the 1890s, until it passed out of the family's hands in 1908, purchased by the city's top sporting man, J.J. Corbett for the sum of $100,000.<br /><br />After the Fire, most of the residents of Mrs. Conley's Patch, having had their homes destroyed, moved to the south side, where many of the neighborhoods to this day still have substantial Irish populations. The west end of Monroe street was redeveloped largely as a warehouse district, while business and commercial buildings arose closer to the Lake.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com60tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-30895060162614566772009-11-27T18:35:00.006-06:002009-11-27T23:06:31.284-06:00Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Apartment<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaNFzO12cd_fdQXvodEio7lNMh9f9pbq44ebLThHz4ayHkSgsLVZ67ZqFvhTZw7AiNSfLqIjA5yp0VqQzDdSkL0wKNW6ouoyIvKab1h07FNz05FFIQZ1oMlqKv-9KML_94JxyOiwmlC3s/s1600/MLK.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408947072214038626" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaNFzO12cd_fdQXvodEio7lNMh9f9pbq44ebLThHz4ayHkSgsLVZ67ZqFvhTZw7AiNSfLqIjA5yp0VqQzDdSkL0wKNW6ouoyIvKab1h07FNz05FFIQZ1oMlqKv-9KML_94JxyOiwmlC3s/s400/MLK.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />In April, 1963, Martin Luther King wrote in his famous "Letter from Birmingham Jail" that<br /><div align="left"><blockquote><div align="left">One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."</div></blockquote></div>In January, 1966, Dr. King brought civil disobedience to Chicago to support "open housing" and the end of neighborhood segregation in the city. After years of marches through Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, and Alabama, the "Chicago Freedom" movement was the first major action of the civil rights movement in the north.<br /><br />During the spring and summer of 1966, Dr. King lived three days a week in a slum apartment on this site, at 1550 S. Hamlin Ave. "You can't really get close to the poor without living and being here with them," he said.<br /><br />Dr. King moved in on January 26, 1966, and began paying $90 per month in rent to the landlord, Alvin Shavin & Associates. The building was a three floor walk-up with six flats, and Dr. King and his wife, Coretta, lived on the third floor.<br /><br />Aides to King had selected the apartment with the goal of obtaining a home in what they called a "typical ghetto apartment". The fact that the ultimate tenant would be the world-famous civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner was kept secret from the landlord, as well as from the press, in order to avoid either an attempt to keep King out of the building, or, contrarily, any attempt by the landlord to clean up the building in order to avoid embarrassment.<br /><br />In fact, the landlord did clean up the apartment substantially before he moved in, though it remained very dreary. The <em>Tribune </em>described it:<br /><blockquote>From the green painted entranceway of Dr. King's new home, up the three flights of bare wood stairs, to the partment on the right side of the third floor landing, poverty is everywhere.<br /><br />If Dr. King toured his new home yesterday he could hardly be impressed. Tho it was freshly painted, there seemed to have been little pains taken to make it comfortable. In the white painted living room, including the fake fireplace, there was only one sofa. A chair and small table were nearby. In the large bedroom, painted gray, there is a new Hollywood-type bed. An adjoining bedroom, also painted gray, has a similar bed as well as a folding bed which could be stored in a closet. The yellow-painted kitchen contained only a sink. There was no stove or refrigerator. The unwashed kitchen windows looked out over a row of roof tops, cluttered with debris. Next to the kitchen is a bathroom. The tiled floor is cracked and seemed to be symbolic of the apartment's roundown condition. Across from the washbowl is bathtub, dirty and stained with age.<br /><br />Mrs. King, dressed in a Persian lamb coat with mink-trimmed collar, admited she had some trepidation about living in the apartment: "I hear the accommodations are<br />not the best."</blockquote><br /><div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnuu2Op1qsspcrPlRH_Yfomu8301DWCUYZSAZT65oYy6j0K3VRkF464hIiLtBI-HDeF_hsWimHGEckZxE03s2QcT8QS-6Lml1hu80eJ4qG-5ecyy-Guvt9AgCBByCkUzUHnTglgph6kx8/s1600/King1550hamlin.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408947062146440994" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 363px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnuu2Op1qsspcrPlRH_Yfomu8301DWCUYZSAZT65oYy6j0K3VRkF464hIiLtBI-HDeF_hsWimHGEckZxE03s2QcT8QS-6Lml1hu80eJ4qG-5ecyy-Guvt9AgCBByCkUzUHnTglgph6kx8/s400/King1550hamlin.JPG" border="0" /></a></div><div align="center">(Pictured: Dr. Martin Luther King and wife (center window) waving from their apartment at 1550 S. Hamlin.)</div><div align="center"><blockquote></blockquote></div><div></div><div>Dr. King's purpose in Chicago was primarily to lead a movement for "open housing". Although a 1948 Supreme Court decision had ruled that neighborhood restrictive covenants were unenforceable, Chicago and many other cities remained de facto segregated through social stigma and intimidation. Blacks therefore faced serious difficulties in moving out of slum conditions like those in North Lawndale, where King's apartment lay.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div></div><div>Immediately after moving in, Dr. King announced a plan to lead rent strikes against "slumlords" like Shavin and Associates, "which have created infamous slum conditions directly responsible for the involuntary enslavement of millions of black men, women, and children. Our primary objective will be to bring about the unconditional surrender of forces dedicated to the creation and maintenance of slums." King planned to organize tenants into a "union" of sorts, and use collective bargaining to lower rents and force improvements in substandard housing. Returning to his theme of higher law, King told reporters, "It may be necessary to engage in acts of civil disobedience in order to call attention to specific problems. Often an individual has to break a particular law to obey a higher law, that of brotherhood and justice."</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5408947063384981602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 336px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoVb18WuHNlPMVJJZSNQVASUmVqWqMljFWmnkk3hk4LAbJ8z0xrLSmiQ9MA33LVlnsm6cInUPEyVySF9B4HKvdFaOi3qFcB5Xo5FW_MH_434uDEL6a5hPBMKhDdsvf_LK447Ty_djw9Bo/s400/kingsapt.JPG" border="0" /></div><div align="center">(Pictured: Dr. and Mrs. Martin Luther King, in their Chicago apartment)</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>It is unclear, however, how an attack on landlords in Black neighborhoods would solve the problem of discrimination in housing in white neighborhoods. If anything, the use of political force to reduce rents could have the primary effect of reducing the supply of cheap housing and minimizing the incentive of landlords to improve property in order to achieve higher rent. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>King's initial tactics along these lines also backfired politically. His first target was a decaying brownstone at 1321 S. Homan, a few blocks from his own fetid apartment. On February 23, 1966, King and twenty members of his Southern Christian Leadership Conference announced they were taking over the building, which was in a serious state of delinquency with city codes, as a "trusteeship". Tenants, he announced, would pay their rents to the SCLC instead of to the landlord, and their rents would be used to improve the building.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Naturally, the landlord was none too happy about the scheme. It turned out that he was no slimu Leona Helmsley-type character, but instead an elderly, debilitated man, who himself had few means of support. When told about King's actions, the property owner, 81-year old John Bender, from his wheelchair, told reporters that the building was a "white elephant," and that he hadn't seen a cent from it in the years he owned it. In fact, he said, he had lost $25,000 in the investment, and he would be more than happy to give it to Dr. King or anyone else, provided they simply pay the $150 a month mortgage.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Public opinion swung towards Bender. King's actions were a violation of Bender's property rights, and were illegal -- at least depending on one's definition of law. "I won't say that it is illegal, but I would call it <em>supra-legal. </em>The moral question is far more important than the legal one," said King.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>But the courts didn't agree. In April, 1966, Chancery court issued an injunction against the SCLC and handed the property back to Bender, who promptly died within the month. The property fell into the hands of a court-appointed receiver, who did little about the code violations. The building still stands, more than 40 years later, as dilapidated as ever.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Open housing wasn't King's only goal during his time in Chicago. In a June rally at Soldier Field, King declared a number of others: school desegregation in Chicago, a city income tax, a $2/hr minimum wage, Black history courses in all public schools, and an expansion of the elevated trains to O'Hare airport and the Northwest side (in order to allow Blacks to reach these primarily-White neighborhoods). The Soldier Field rally was also notable for the appearance of a number of Chicago street gangs, including the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/woodlawn-immanuel-evangelical-lutheran.html">Blackstone Rangers</a>. The <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeff-fort-founds-black-p-stone-nation.html">Rangers</a> unfurled a huge banner that read "Black Power", the slogan of <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/11/shoot-it-out-death-of-fred-hampton.html">the more radical element</a> in the civil rights movement, and one that King was uncomfortable with. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Dr. King's relationship with street gangs in Chicago was one of wary acceptance. After a perceived snub during the Soldier Field rally, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/07/conservative-vice-lords-inc.html">Conservative Vice Lords</a>, who were also in attendance, stood up and walked out, and were followed by the Rangers and another major gang, the Gangster Disciples. King's apartment was just a block away from <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/07/conservative-vice-lords-inc.html">CVL, Inc. headquarters</a> on 16th street, so it may have been a desire for peace that lead him to invite CVL leadership to a meeting a few weeks later at his apartment. He told them that SCLC needed help from gang members, needed them to be his "troops" on the ground, and street gang members were a part of King's efforts in Chicago throughout that summer, despite the discomfort they inspired in many SCLC members. King was probably right; if he were to lose the support of street gangs, who controlled the streets in many Black neighborhoods, he would likely lose the support of Blacks in the city generally. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>While King's "trusteeship" takeovers of slum dwellings were generally unproductive, his marches against discriminatory real estate agents were far more successful. In July and August, 1966, the SCLC led marches through all-White neighborhoods on the Southwest side, including Gage Park, Bogan, and Evergreen Park. These events invariably turned violent. In one August march, crowds of white residents blocked the marchers path along Kedzie Ave., between 63rd and Marquette Rd. Dr. King arrived on the scene and, as he got out of his car, was pelted on the back of the neck with a rock. Falling to the ground, he steadied himself, saying "I have to do this -- to expose myself -- to bring this hate into the open. I have seen many demonstrations in the south but I have never seen anything so hostile and so hateful as I've seen here today."</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>For its part, the <em>Chicago Tribune</em> was openly hostile to Dr. King and his efforts throughout his time in the city. In one particularly inflammatory editorial, the paper wrote</div><div> </div><div><blockquote>These "rights" leaders and the foggy clergymen who abet them on are not heroes. For all their pious protestations of nonviolence, they are working hand in glove with the criminal element to create confusion and turbulence and to compound the danger to Chicagoans. They can no longer even pretend to be ignorant of this link. Chicago has already paid too high a price for this deliberate campaign of sabotage. Causing violence to achieve political ends is criminal syndicalism, a statutory crime in many states. There are other laws, in addition, against inciting violence. If the marchers keep up their sabotage, it will be time to indict the whole lot of them.</blockquote></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Mayor Daley took a more nuanced approach. While publicly respecting Dr. King's efforts, he also worked to undermine them by emphasizing the city's own efforts to improve conditions in Black neighborhoods, implicitly implying King's work was unnecessary. Nevertheless, Daley too was troubled by the increasing violence associated with the marches on the Southwest side. When King announced the next target would be suburban Cicero, elements in various White Power groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, made it clear that they would confront and oppose any civil rights march in the city.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Daley and others pleaded with Dr. King to cancel the march in Cicero, to no avail. Finally, just a few days before the event, a compromise was achieved. Mayor Daley, the Chicago Real Estate Board, and a number of other city leaders signed a statement agreeing to the principles of open housing, and promising to end "steering" practices, by which Black residents were discouraged from purchasing property in white neighborhoods. In return, King postponed the march in Cicero indefinitely. (More radical elements were not dissuaded, however, and a smaller march did take place in Cicero in September, and in fact, it was marked by violence).<br /><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Having apparently brought the city on board with the principles of open housing, Dr. King declared victory in Chicago, and moved on to new challenges, leaving an affiliate, Jesse Jackson, to continue the SCLC's operations in the city under the banner of Operation Breadbasket.<br /><br />When King was assassinated in April, 1968, riots erupted on the West and South sides of Chicago, with burning and looting throughout these neighborhoods. One of the buildings burned in the riots was the one where King had lived at 1550 S. Hamlin. The building survived, however, at least to some degree, and remained a burn-out for another decade. It was demolished in 1979.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The property remained an empty lot for the next thirty years. In spring, 2009, developers announced plans to build a $17 million complex called the "Dr. King Legacy Apartments," including commercial space and an "exhibition center". A sign was planted indicating the complex would break ground in fall, 2009. As of November, 2009, there is no sign of any construction, and the sign is gone.</div></div>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-71025675155925350442009-11-03T15:01:00.005-06:002009-11-03T15:47:51.725-06:00Shoot It Out? The Death of Fred Hampton<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha0TjkfqF0Jj1fF7iQm0jKpfVK2YBSrHrvmyLwt4z9QNjwq9giw6Y1ze-7rj9TcnkGfKpYvLJmgwNUDUwjBFSDLeCEno3Iyo7eZUkkyfk-zUON5dD6JbziFcr8tTYW9E4NN96Z1fCjpb4/s1600-h/HamptonApt.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399987559958963138" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha0TjkfqF0Jj1fF7iQm0jKpfVK2YBSrHrvmyLwt4z9QNjwq9giw6Y1ze-7rj9TcnkGfKpYvLJmgwNUDUwjBFSDLeCEno3Iyo7eZUkkyfk-zUON5dD6JbziFcr8tTYW9E4NN96Z1fCjpb4/s400/HamptonApt.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Fred Hampton, Illinois Chairman of the Black Panther Party, was living with his girlfriend and other Panther friends in the first-floor apartment of this building at 2337 W. Monroe St. on December 4, 1969. At 4:30 a.m. that morning, 14 officers from the state’s attorney office served a warrant to search the premises for illegal weapons. A shoot-out followed, in which Hampton and Peoria Panther chapter leader Mark Clark were killed. But after the sound of gunfire died down, investigations into the incident would shake the foundations of law and order in Chicago, destroy the career of the city’s brightest rising political star, fill newspaper headlines for over a decade, and create a scandal that reached all the way to J. Edgar Hoover’s desk at the FBI.<br /><br />Fred Hampton’s family came to Chicago after World War II from Haynesville, Louisiana, part of the great migration of southern Blacks into the industrial cities of the North during the late 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Initially settling in suburban Argo, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hampton both found work at the famous Corn Products plant in that city. The Hamptons’ first child was a daughter, Delores, and shortly after arriving in the Chicago area, their first son, Fred, was born, in August, 1948. A few years later, Iberia Hampton would give birth to a third child, William. The family lived briefly in Blue Island, but then made their permanent home in Maywood, at the time a mixed-race working-class suburb with solid schools and easy access into Chicago.<br /><br />Growing up in Maywood, Fred Hampton was a good student, and active in sports, playing on the baseball, football, basketball, and wrestling teams at Proviso East High School. It was while attending Proviso East in the mid-1960s that Hampton became deeply interested in the civil rights movement. He began spending his evenings listing to recordings of speeches by Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, over and over again, and in this way, developed rhetorical skill that would soon turn him into a political wunderkind. As one Maywood resident later noted, “He never really was a teenager in the normal sense of an adolescent. When other teens were talking about clothes, dating, and sports, he always would be talking about ‘the movement’.”<br /><br />Hampton was also a natural leader, and began organizing Black students at Proviso East in marches and demonstrations against the school administration, agitating against discrimination and in favor of more resources for minority students. During this period, Hampton’s grades fell, but he nevertheless graduated in 1966. That summer, he found work supporting anti-discrimination efforts in housing markets in Chicago, led by Martin Luther King. Based on his work with the famed civil rights leader, he was appointed head of the youth council of the NAACP in Maywood, and became an active political agitator in that town.<br /><br />During the late 1960s, Hampton attended Triton College, YMCA Central College, and Malcolm X College sporadically, but his heart was in political organizing, and through the influence of the burgeoning radical movement, as well as hard experiences, he drifted away from the moderate non-violence of Martin Luther King, and towards a more confrontational protest style, which both put him in trouble’s way, and made him a target for conservative elements in society and the police.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhGMKiyBVQ2Axwn2_ian_8oTcJbw5ORjDUz-kuet4X4FktzJdUVDewuUulH3Vv3TFmj6NpZXogDoxNePD812scpUhsi7O_O_1bVqoaxeZBFOUAGrVj5arGd-EuLqwWJLukfXKgWLxiz3I/s1600-h/hampton.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399987209083937186" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 324px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhGMKiyBVQ2Axwn2_ian_8oTcJbw5ORjDUz-kuet4X4FktzJdUVDewuUulH3Vv3TFmj6NpZXogDoxNePD812scpUhsi7O_O_1bVqoaxeZBFOUAGrVj5arGd-EuLqwWJLukfXKgWLxiz3I/s400/hampton.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Fred Hampton)</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>In June, 1967, Hampton was arrested while leading 18 Maywood youths in a protest that turned violent. The group was criticizing the village’s administration for the dearth of public services available to Black residents, particularly a public pool. In those days of segregated pools, white Maywood residents could travel to nearby suburbs to swim, but Blacks were not allowed in pools in upscale suburbs like Oak Park and River Forest. Hampton was arrested again in September, 1967, for leading a protest at Proviso East High School in which a riot erupted and a policeman was attacked. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>But Fred Hampton’s most infamous moment took place on July 10, 1968, when a white ice cream truck driver, Nelson T. Suitt, was trolling for customers through a Black section of Maywood, and was accosted by a gang of youths, asking for free product. “Don’t you know you are in a black power neighborhood?” they demanded. Just then, Fred Hampton drove by, and one of the boys told Suitt, “now you’re going to have to give us the ice cream – here comes our leader”.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>According to police, the group then attacked and looted the truck, with Hampton personally climbing into the cab and beating Suitt. After his attackers departed, Suitt hailed down a passing police car, and, with the officer, identified Fred Hampton on the street. In his defense, Hampton claimed the truck was already looted when he arrived on the scene, and that the supposed battery on Suitt was a frame-up by the Maywood police, who disliked the protests he led against Maywood village administration.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Shortly after this incident, Hampton joined the Black Panther Party, apparently immediately becoming leader of the Illinois chapter. The BPP was founded in 1966 in Oakland, California, and was notoriously violent, and particularly antagonistic towards police. In one case, a Panther chapter supplied children with coloring books that pictured police being shot and stabbed by Blacks, and included the statement “The only good pig is a dead pig.” By 1968, the BPP had chapters throughout the country and boasted 3,000 – 5,000 members nationally; violent clashes with police were reported in many cities.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Because of the Party’s violent and confrontational nature, being associated with the BPP was no small matter – it was a choice that put one outside the realm of polite society, to say the least. A friend to tried to convince Hampton not to join, arguing that his membership in the BPP would keep him from his potential as a great political leader. The friend said, “We talked about this in depth many times and he used to tell me he was involved in the liberation of people. He used to say he didn’t want to live a long time, but that he wanted to do something while he was alive.” Hampton’s response was prophetic.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>As a BPP member, Hampton increased the pressure on the Maywood village government, leading increasingly violent clashes between Black protestors and police. In July, 1968, he led a troop of 150 young men in an assault on Maywood city hall during a city board meeting. When refused entry to the meeting, the group began pelting the building with rocks, breaking out windows and shouting angry slogans. The mayor and other city officials escaped down the back fire escape while the rioters moved down the street, breaking windows and starting fires in stores and homes.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Throughout 1968 and 1969, Hampton led the BPP’s movement in Chicago to recruit college and high school students to the party. He gave speeches at Roosevelt University, DePaul, and several city colleges, advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government, and quoting at length from the Communist Manifesto, and from the works of Mao Tse-Tung. In part for the purpose of improving their public image, the Chicago chapter of the BPP started a “breakfast for children” program, which provided food for Black youth in three locations throughout the city, although critics claimed the program was poorly managed, and that “donations” of food and money were primarily obtained through extortion. A Tribune investigation also revealed evidence that money donated for the program was improperly channeled to pay for BPP members’ car payments and clothes. The BPP also attempted to open a free health clinic in the primarily-Black neighborhood of North Lawndale, although these plans never came to fruition due to opposition from a rival Black youth organization, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/07/conservative-vice-lords-inc.html">Conservative Vice Lords</a> street gang, which controlled that neighborhood.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Through his work in the BPP, and through the nationwide notoriety of the BPP, Fred Hampton was increasingly seen as a political figure, and a threat to the Chicago police and elected officials. In April of 1969, a jury convicted Hampton of robbery in the ice cream truck case, and given Hampton’s growing political status, the newly-elected state’s attorney, Edward V. Hanrahan, took special interest in the verdict, pushing for immediate sentencing. The judge in the case demurred, and put off the next phase of the trial until May, when Hampton was sentenced to serve 2-5 years. Through appeals, however, he was allowed to remain free.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div> </div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399987198487468802" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 201px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 310px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEntj-cDiNdHuXXq7M-dDwzjBrcRfE_uW_blvu1TIEyVZCDvNvGdECpPHvVkSL7RqAnlso91QPN122BE-tO9Uu5yib1cPL0Pa6BpNfsoOSgQm4I4mKOZq1mpZYqtRLJBCsS9R3zo6xhUw/s400/hanrahan.JPG" border="0" /></div><div align="center">(Pictured: State's Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan)</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Today, we typically associate gun rights with right-wing political organizations; however, historically, left-wing groups (see <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/07/lehr-und-wehr-verein-and-second.html">this post</a> on gun advocacy by 19th century labor agitators) opposed to the government were among the most ardent supporters of the right to bear arms. The Panthers strongly advocated arming Black citizens as a defense against government tyranny, and a deterrent to perceived police racism. One year, the Party sold Christmas cards which showed Black children aiming rifles at Santa Claus, and asking their parents for guns and explosives for Christmas, in lieu of toys. Fred Hampton’s Chicago BPP chapter advocated similarly, and stockpiles of weapons were kept at Panther headquarters. However, they had an additional reason to arm themselves: a perceived threat from other Black organizations in Chicago.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>I have already mentioned the rivalrous relationship between the BPP and the west side <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/07/conservative-vice-lords-inc.html">Vice Lords</a>, largely based on competition for leadership status among Chicago Blacks. Hampton’s relationship with another prominent street gang, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeff-fort-founds-black-p-stone-nation.html">Black P. Stone Nation</a> (formerly known as the Blackstone Rangers), was no less strained. A Panther member described a bizarre meeting between Hampton and the BPSN in 1969:</div><div> </div><div><blockquote>[Jeff] Fort [leader of the BPSN], carrying only a lighted candle, met the small band of Panthers at the door and led them into a gymnasium, where a spotlight was turned out. “All around the room all I could see was the silhouette of Blackstone Rangers,” O’Neal recalled. “It looks to be maybe 500 of them. Hard-core crazies, man. They had a medicine man who was doing this dance. And then Jeff Fort said something like “There ain’t going to be no panthers in this city, there’s just going to be Stones.”</blockquote></div><div>Hampton talked his way out of the meeting, but on the drive home, told his compatriots that they needed guns – lots of them. The BPP made it known that they would buy guns, and soon, they were flooded with firearms, including many stolen and illegal weapons, which they stockpiled at Panther headquarters and in the homes of BPP leadership throughout the city. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Hampton’s rhetoric towards the police was often severe. One of his favorite quotes, which he repeated frequently, was “when you kill all the pigs [police], you get complete satisfaction.” Nevertheless, Hampton did not directly advocate violence – at least not yet. During riots in Chicago in October, 1969, instigated by the Weathermen, Hampton announced himself against an immediate overthrow of the government, saying “We don’t support people who are anarchistic, chauvinistic, masochistic, and Custeristic – people leading people into confrontations they are unprepared for. Revolution and uprising is an art, and we’ve got to move from that premise. If you persist in these spontaneous acts, we are going to have to look on you as pigs or pig agents.”</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Nevertheless, the Panthers’ violent rhetoric (and, in many cases, actual violence) against police and the government, and their stance towards firearms, quickly caught the wary eye of FBI agents in Washington. J. Edgar Hoover started a confidential operation known internally as “COINTELPRO – Black Extremists” which both sought intelligence on Black organizations such as the Panthers, and purposed to infiltrate, harass, and discredit the leaders of those organizations. In one memo, Hoover wrote that the purpose of the program was to “prevent the rise of a ‘messiah’ who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement.” In another memo, he referred to one of COINTELPRO’s explicit purposes, to “neutralize the Black Panther Party and destroy what it stands for.”</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>One of the FBI’s means for destroying the Panthers was to stir up animosity and violence between them and other Black organizations. In <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeff-fort-founds-black-p-stone-nation.html">this post</a>, I described an anonymous letter sent to <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/el-rukn-leader-jeff-forts-home.html">Jeff Fort</a>, BPSN leader, implying that the Panthers were planning to assassinate him, and suggesting he take violent action. Another program infiltrated the Chicago BPP chapter with an FBI informant, William O’Neal, a former low-level street criminal, who began passing information about Fred Hampton’s weapons acquisitions back to FBI agents in 1968 (O’Neal is the source of the quote above regarding the meeting with Fort and the BPSN). He also provided the feds with a floor plan of Hampton’s apartment in 2337 W. Monroe St., and tipped off agents about times Hampton spent there.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Hampton had established the BPP headquarters at 2350 W. Madison St., just a block away from the apartment, probably because he had family that lived in the neighborhood. The area was almost entirely populated by Blacks, and the Panthers felt safe there. The apartment itself was nothing to write home about, with five small rooms, including two bedrooms and one bathroom. It was run down and dirty, drafty and cold, and was in serious need of paint. In December, 1969, Fred Hampton was living in the apartment with his girlfriend, 18-year old Deborah Johnson, who had recently discovered she was pregnant with his child.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Besides becoming a father, Hampton was also active in pulling together a BPP movement which nationally was splintering between more and less radical factions, and had suffered from internecine fighting between the leadership (possibly facilitated by FBI efforts). The Party, which had once boasted 5,000 members, probably had no more than 1,000 nationwide by late 1969. Hampton had recently returned from a visit to Panther headquarters in Oakland, where he had conferred with other Party leaders about the future of the movement. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Upon his return to Chicago, he invited the only two members of the Peoria BPP up to Chicago to discuss plans for the Party in Illinois, and they stayed with him in the apartment on Monroe St. The leader of the Peoria chapter was Mark Clark, and his only acolyte was Tony Harris. Harris was arrested in Chicago after a gun battle with police on December 2, leaving Clark alone to lead the Panthers in Peoria. Unlike Hampton, who was a political leader who sometimes became involved in street crime, Mark Clark was a street criminal who became involved in politics. He never graduated high school, and had little sense of the future. He had repeatedly told his sister he would never live to see 1970.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399987203506837538" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 202px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 317px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieiuUOcOAuBIxcOJyoRyS20-S5MCz5DC09Uk3JVoFfHbCSPacKsTu5tbwUoPp3sb293epEOQ-xrA_TfCJZ1C9FxAvftDluPvQ5rRJDAQaFWepuTIfOVebFdrVxry8rkZjVZJKIpRSzZQk/s400/markclark.JPG" border="0" /></div><div align="center">(Pictured: Mark Clark)</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>On the evening of December 3, 1969, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, FBI informant William O’Neal, and several other BPP members ate a simple dinner of spaghetti, hot dogs, and Kool-Aid at the apartment on Madison St. The group stayed up late, talking, playing games, and cleaning a shotgun, one of the 19 firearms that Hampton kept at the apartment for protection. Slowly, the party ended with some members, including O’Neal, departing for their homes, and nine others falling asleep either in one of the two bedrooms or on mattresses in the living room. Hampton and his girlfriend Deborah Johnson eventually retired to the back (south) bedroom. The last lights finally went out around 4:00 a.m., just half an hour before all hell was to break loose.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>As noted above, FBI agents had received a floor plan of the apartment from O’Neal, and were informed of the weapons and ammunition Hampton stored there. They first approached the Chicago police about performing a weapons raid on the apartment in October or November, 1969, but were turned down twice. Next, they turned to the State’s Attorney’s office, led by the recently-elected Edward V. Hanrahan. Hanrahan was a rising star in the Democratic Party in Illinois, a machine politician who was widely considered the heir-apparent for the elderly Mayor Richard J. Daley. Hanrahan had taken a popular stand in favor of law and order, and was Daley’s chief instigator of a “War on Gangs,” in which the state vigorously prosecuted gang members who committed crimes.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Hanrahan saw the BPP as a criminal organization, and a threat to law enforcement, neither of which were entirely untrue. Just two weeks earlier, two Chicago police officers had been killed in a shootout with BPP members at an abandoned hotel on Calumet Ave., at 58th Street. When presented with the FBI’s information, he saw an opportunity to start ridding the Party of its weapons, and possibly to take down its leadership. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>A warrant to search Hampton’s apartment for weapons was drawn up and signed, and a team of 14 Chicago police officers who were working as investigators for the State’s Attorney office, was asked to develop a raid strategy. It would be a dangerous assignment, and the possibility of violence couldn’t be ignored. The raid was originally scheduled for 8:00 p.m. on the evening of December 3rd, but the police feared that the streets would be busy at that hour, and bystanders could be hurt or try to interfere in the raid. It was decided to serve the warrant at 4:30 a.m. on the morning of December 4th instead.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The 14 raiders were led by Sgt. Daniel Groth, and included five Black officers, among them James “Gloves” Davis, a west-side officer who had long been a bugbear for the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/10-cent-killing.html">Vice Lords</a> and other street gangs. The raiders surrounded the building, with eight officers manning the back door and windows, and six at the front. Sgt. Groth knocked on the front door. Inside, a voice asked “Who’s there?” and Groth replied “This is the police, I have a warrant to search.”</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>One of the men in the apartment, Louis Truelock, ran to the back bedroom and began trying to wake Fred Hampton. “Chairman, chairman, wake up. The pigs are back” (other accounts indicate it was Vietnam veteran and BPP member Harold Bell who attempted to wake Hampton). In the living room, Peoria chapter president Mark Clark sat in a chair facing the door, holding the shotgun the group had cleaned earlier that night. Sgt. Groth again pounded on the door, this time with the butt of his gun. “Open up, police!”</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg00Mtf6ZeebDNXaflKVPCPlwHnUhLWAd1IawZiyXa1dAKEj5vNNd70-J2pnbwO4XHNr9_yKcAANh41Q1NidxoqWBe_KPkQ-WQHHfe2Qgr9o11JtJ9jXsv1NrhxW1y4kp_C5QHce5zlXc/s1600-h/bppapartment.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399987209073781074" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 234px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhg00Mtf6ZeebDNXaflKVPCPlwHnUhLWAd1IawZiyXa1dAKEj5vNNd70-J2pnbwO4XHNr9_yKcAANh41Q1NidxoqWBe_KPkQ-WQHHfe2Qgr9o11JtJ9jXsv1NrhxW1y4kp_C5QHce5zlXc/s400/bppapartment.JPG" border="0" /></a><br />(Pictured: Floor plan of Hampton's apartment, where the raid took place)</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>When the door didn’t open, Groth ordered Officer Davis to break it in. Davis hit the door with his shoulder, opening up into an ante room, and falling onto a mattress spread across the living room floor. At just that moment, Mark Clark raised his twelve-gauge shotgun and fired once through the door at police. Sgt. Groth smashed through the door into the living room and, in the faint glow of a space heater, saw a woman, later identified as Brenda Harris, across the room, who appeared to be loading a gun and preparing to shoot. Sgt. Groth fired at her as Officer Davis arose from the mattress and spied Clark sitting on his chair with the shotgun. Davis fired three times at Clark, likely killing him at that point.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The other officers, hearing the gunfire, followed into the darkness and began a wild search through the apartment for the others. Without the aid of light or much space in an apartment that now held nine Black Panthers and 14 police officers, panicked officers mistook the sound of other officers’ guns for return fire from the Panthers, leading to more confused shooting. The raiders began piling up the apartment-dwellers in the kitchen as the found them.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Sgt. Groth later claimed that, at five different points during the raid, he called for his men to cease firing, and shouted for the Panthers to surrender. Each time, he claimed, a voice yelled “Shoot it out!”, and the gunfire continued. At one point, Louis Truelock and Deborah Johnson walked out of the rear bedroom with their hands up, and surrendered to police. After collecting them in the kitchen with the others, besides Clark, who was dead, the raiders went into the back bedroom, where they found Fred Hampton sprawled face-down on the bed, killed by two bullets which had passed through the thin walls of the apartment, and which were later determined to have been fired from Officer Davis’ service weapon. The raiders claimed that, on the floor by Hampton’s right hand was a .45 caliber automatic weapon, and by his left hand, a shotgun. When the gunfire finally ended, Hampton and Clark were dead, and four other Panthers and one police officer were shot and wounded. All seven surviving apartment-dwellers were arrested on charges of attempted murder.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The vast majority of Chicagoans viewed Fred Hampton as a violent militant and agitator, and saw the Panthers’ attacks on the raiders as murderous and, therefore, the raiders’ return fire as justifiable homicide. However, from the start, there were many unanswered questions. Why did the police serve a warrant at 4:30 in the morning? And after Clark shot through the door, why didn’t they employ tear gas or simply surround the apartment, instead of venturing inside for a gunfight? Who fired first, and who fired most?</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Several Black leaders were quick to condemn the raid, and rumors flew that Hampton was intentionally murdered by police. That day, at the concurrent trial of the “Chicago Seven” associated with the previous year’s Democratic National Convention riots, defense attorney William Kunstler asked the court for an adjournment for mourning, “because of the murder of Fred Hampton by police in Chicago early today.” A spokesman for the NAACP branded the killings as “modern-day lynchings”. Operation Breadbasket leader Jesse Jackson told reporters he was “personally grieved” by Hampton’s death, saying “he was a personal friend of mine,” and that he would demand a detailed investigation into the incident. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>At high schools throughout the city and suburbs, Black students walked out and congregated at the Civic Center downtown for a massive protest. At Hampton’s former high school in Maywood, Proviso East, classes were cancelled until January in order to avoid violence. The mayors of Maywood and Gary, Indiana, and the president of Malcolm X College all lauded Hampton’s work and insinuated that his death was no accident. Panther “Defense Minister” and post-Hampton leader Bobby “Che” Rush announced “inside information” he claimed to have received that the raiding party included known KKK members, and that Hampton was drugged and then killed in his sleep.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>State’s Attorney Hanrahan repeatedly told reporters that the officers had acted in a completely professional manner, serving a legitimate warrant, and defending themselves when fired upon. The first of many investigations of the incident was by the Chicago police internal investigation division (IID). The officers involved in the raid were acting at the behest of the State’s Attorney office, but IID performed an investigation anyway, quickly clearing the officers of any wrongdoing. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The next investigation was at the behest of the Cook county coroner’s office. At the conclusion of a twelve-day inquest on January 21, 1970, a fury of three Blacks and three whites unanimously vindicated the raiders’ story. A chemist for the coroner’s office reported no evidence of drugs or alcohol in Hampton’s body. Ballistics crime lab expert John Sadunas examined the shell casings found at the crime scene, and determined that three shots were fired at police, including two from Brenda Harris’ weapon.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div><div><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjowwOhsbH5XtarvFZxKYSv7EmCZMyiOqX2J_Gui6JFLaG8TNtOnTcwmEBj2mDAT3PqBGqx6s7IEIPjCYRBRs9gqp7gB0pavQ9wTO_E9VsWXnYgfAH5_SsLx_Xy1BCU64-Zj4tYGksdnus/s1600-h/2337monroeapt.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5399987196457505906" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 268px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjowwOhsbH5XtarvFZxKYSv7EmCZMyiOqX2J_Gui6JFLaG8TNtOnTcwmEBj2mDAT3PqBGqx6s7IEIPjCYRBRs9gqp7gB0pavQ9wTO_E9VsWXnYgfAH5_SsLx_Xy1BCU64-Zj4tYGksdnus/s400/2337monroeapt.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Coroner's jury investigates the crime scene)</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>It appeared that the case was over. The grand jury found that Fred Hampton was not murdered, and that the State’s Attorney’s raiding party had acted in strict accordance with police principles, attempting repeatedly to stop the shooting, but each time being rebuffed with “Shoot it out!” But, in fact, the saga of Fred Hampton was only beginning, and the incident would be repeatedly replayed in court for the next ten years.<br /><blockquote></blockquote><br />One limitation of the coroners’ investigation was that the police had failed to properly seal the crime scene after the incident. Before the crime lab experts showed up on the scene, police had already removed all the weapons from the house and loaded them into a police vehicle. An attorney for the BPP got to the apartment early and removed the part of the door in which Clark’s shotgun shell had passed, taking it with him and making it available to the inquest only under court order. The BPP had allowed curiosity-seekers to tour the apartment and touch objects and furniture, and possibly take with them some of the shell casings. State’s Attorney Hanrahan put daily pressure on the coroner to finish the inquest, meaning that the crime lab was unable to fully examine the ballistics and fingerprint evidence that remained.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>For all of these reasons, and under intense pressure from the NAACP and other groups, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a probe into the incident, under the auspices of determining whether Hampton’s civil rights had been violated by the raiders. The jury methodically took statements from each of the raiders, examined the evidence, even exhumed Hampton’s body, which had been buried at the family’s native home in Haynesville, Louisiana. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The federal grand jury report, numbering 243 pages, was released in May, 1970, and its findings were damning. With additional time to investigate the evidence, crime lab expert Sadunas changed his testimony from that given at the coroner’s inquest: All but one of the roughly 100 shell casings found at the scene came from police weapons. Only Mark Clark’s weapon was fired among those belonging to the BPP. The violence at the scene was almost entirely due to police heavy-handedness. The post-incident crime scene investigation was completely inadequate and suggested an attempt to cover up evidence of police misconduct. State’s Attorney Hanrahan’s statements to the press and the coroner’s inquiry were disingenuous and misleading, and his efforts had materially obstructed the coroner's inquest.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The federal grand jury concluded that the original IID investigation was a complete sham, with each officer being asked questions which had been previously written up and given to them, along with a set of answers. The seven surviving apartment-dwellers refused to testify to the federal grand jury, and on that basis, the jury returned no indictments, but their report was unequivocal: “Physical evidence, standing alone and unexplained, is sufficient to establish probable cause to charge the officers with a willful violation of these survivors’ civil rights.” </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>With no evidence that anyone in the apartment except Clark had fired against police, Hanrahan was forced to immediately drop all charges against the seven survivors of the raid. The heads of the IID and the police crime lab, plus the deputy police superintendant, were all demoted, and the State’s Attorney police force was disbanded.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The injustice of the raid and the unnecessary violence, however, meant that the grand jury’s report did little to satisfy Hanrahan’s detractors. On the anniversary of Hampton’s death, December 4, 1970, protests throughout the city turned violent. El train conductors refused to make stops at the 63rd and Dan Ryan station, due to the presence of an angry mob on the platform. Continued political pressure finally led to the empaneling of a third grand jury in a special Cook county session, for another investigation of the incident.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>After much legal wrangling, the special grand jury indicted eight of the police raiders, including Sgt. Groth and Officer Davis, crime lab expert John Sadunas, and State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan, along with several other members of his office. The Chicago Bar Association, the Better Government Association, and the Chicago Crime Commission all advised Hanrahan to step down. Even fellow Democrats, including Sen. Adlai Stevenson, refused to support Hanrahan. He was political kryptonite.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>At Hanrahan’s 1972 trial, the apartment-dwellers finally gave their own version of the events that night. Before the federal grand jury’s report, it is unlikely that most Chicagoans would have given them any credence at all, but with the cloud of suspicion hanging over the State’s Attorney, their reports took on an air of possibility. Louis Truelock testified that he had shouted to the police “Stop shooting, stop shooting. We have a pregnant sister in here, a pregnant woman,” before he and Deborah Johnson surrendered from the back bedroom. He testified that one officer threw open her robe, saying “What do you know? We have a broad here.” Truelock testified that, after surrendering and being handcuffed in the kitchen, he heard officers say in another room, “he’s barely alive”, followed by more shooting, and then “he’s good and dead now”.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>At the time of Hanrahan's trial, the role of the FBI and its informant William O’Neal was still unknown, although some suspected Truelock as a stool pidgeon, as he was by far the oldest of the apartment-dwellers, and he had a length rap sheet. At one point, defense attorney John Cohglan asked Truelock on the stand, using the slang of the day, “Did you drop the dime on the chairman’s crib?”</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>But the biggest bombshell in the case was the release of a set of statements purportedly made by the survivors to their attorneys shortly after the incident. In them, the Panthers claimed that at least five people in the apartment held guns, and at least four shots were made at police. These statements contradicted the ballistics evidence, and those whose names were on them disowned their validity.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>In any case, the statements made their mark, and in October, 1972, after a 16 week trial, the Cook County Circuit Court acquitted the defendents. This ended the possibility of criminal culpability for Hanrahan and the raiders, but a civil suit for wrongful death was filed shortly after, seeking $48 million from Hanrahan, the city of Chicago, Cook County and the State of Illinois.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>That trial, one of the longest in Illinois history, lasted 18 months, and at its conclusion in April, 1977, also acquitted Hanrahan. It was during this trial, however, that the FBI’s role in surveillance against the BPP, and in driving the raid on Hampton’s apartment, was revealed, leading to further embarrassment for the state.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals reinstated the claim in 1979, and yet another trial took place. This one finally settled in 1983 with a $1.85 million payoff to the families of Hampton and Clark, paid from the city of Chicago, Cook County, and the FBI. It was the largest settlement in a civil rights case up to that date.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>What really happened in the early morning of December 4, 1969? After countless grand juries and trials, all of the details are still not known, will likely never be known. It seems plausible that the raiding party, or at least State’s Attorney Hanrahan, knew that Fred Hampton was in the apartment that day. It’s at least suspicious that the raiders chose to invade the apartment instead of waiting for back-up, having a stand-off, or employing tear gas. On the other hand, why would the raiders have spent so many shells, leaving evidence of incompetence all over the apartment, if their sole purpose was to murder Hampton? And if the entire incident was a frame-up, why wouldn’t the framers have fired more of the weapons found in the apartment to cover up their crime? Above all, who – if anyone — yelled “Shoot it out”?</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The BPP was already in serious decline at the time of Hampton’s death. Bobby Rush continued leading the Illinois chapter for a few more years until it essentially disappeared, then moved into politics, winning a seat on city council in 1980, and then the U.S. House of Representatives in 1993, representing Illinois’ first district, which covers a significant swath of the South side. In 2000, Bobby Rush defeated little-known community organizer Barack Obama in his challenge for the seat, and Rush remains the only politician ever to defeat Obama in an election.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Edward Hanrahan was slated by the Democratic Party to run again for State’s Attorney in 1972, but after harsh public backlash, dropped him from the ticket. Hanrahan ran anyway, and lost. In 1974, he ran for the U.S. House in the Illinois 6th district in DuPage Country, but was defeated by Republican Henry Hyde, who held the seat until 2007. Hanrahan also lost in a mayoral contest against incumbent Democrat Richard J. Daley in 1975, and lost an aldermanic election in 1980 for the 36th ward. He continued in private legal practice until his death in June, 2009.</div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>A month after Fred Hampton’s death in 1969, his wife, Deborah Johnson, gave birth to Fred Hampton, Jr. Later, she took on an Afrocentric name, Akua Nkeri, and became involved in the Uhuru movement. Fred Hampton, Jr., continued in his father’s footsteps as a lightning rod for racial controversy. In 1993, he was sentenced to serve 18 years in prison for firebombing two Korean-owned South side businesses in the wake of the Rodney King verdict the previous year. Hampton, Jr., served nine years and was released in 2002. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The house at 2337 W. Monroe still stands, though it has been substantially renovated since 1969. Over the last ten years, the neighborhood in which it stands has gentrified, from what was once one of the toughest districts in the city to a racially-mixed area including white residents priced out of nearer areas like Wicker Park and Bucktown. In 2006, a motion in city council failed which would have placed one of the ubiquitous brown “honorary” street signs at the corner of Monroe and Western Ave, indicating the block as “Honorary Chairman Fred Hampton St.” One wonders whether the residents of the building still receive a lot of curiosity-seekers; a sign next to the door reads “No Soliciting, No Loitering, No Trespassing – Violators Will Be Prosecuted”.</div></div></div>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com303tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-17345634311037274002009-10-24T16:57:00.005-05:002009-10-24T17:23:03.768-05:00Bobby Franks' Home<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqtH72frdom6Lm00C7KysmBXCO4dQerGKkrt8CVSW8PDKccLIh7r-t33QCdiY_rHSMUdnCpobettjKCGFq5BoYkJqQGVW_xEKQLvIFbyk6cyTW606BcINys7-577r_0JTGNqk4oAX7wjU/s1600-h/Hyde_Park_and_Woodlawn_010.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396291712653174994" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqtH72frdom6Lm00C7KysmBXCO4dQerGKkrt8CVSW8PDKccLIh7r-t33QCdiY_rHSMUdnCpobettjKCGFq5BoYkJqQGVW_xEKQLvIFbyk6cyTW606BcINys7-577r_0JTGNqk4oAX7wjU/s400/Hyde_Park_and_Woodlawn_010.jpg" border="0" /></a>Robert Franks, the 14-year old victim in the “Crime of the Century,” lived here at 5052 S. Ellis at the time of his <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/09/nathan-leopolds-home.html">kidnapping and murder</a> on May 21, 1924.<br /><br />Franks’ father, Jacob M. Franks, was a retired industrialist, formerly president of the Rockford Watch Company, with its factory in Rockford, 90 miles northwest of Chicago, and had at one time served as president of the Chicago Public Library. Married in 1906, his wife Flora gave birth to a daughter, Josephine, late that year, followed by Robert, known as “Bobby”, in 1909, and Jacob, Jr., known as “Jack”, in 1913.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXVjXbUvOSEUiGelWJdLVSf893ViENunxgTqMbvdJCmbTmQGiAivWtzGYYxg9lgd3qMWHm0Se_0Z1prazm4Ud-mnupufx1ivDbpcSc4idFunwbhNkqyMjgGvVKo72Qz0tkPwtTLbxJdC8/s1600-h/franksjacob.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396291708648435090" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 117px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXVjXbUvOSEUiGelWJdLVSf893ViENunxgTqMbvdJCmbTmQGiAivWtzGYYxg9lgd3qMWHm0Se_0Z1prazm4Ud-mnupufx1ivDbpcSc4idFunwbhNkqyMjgGvVKo72Qz0tkPwtTLbxJdC8/s400/franksjacob.JPG" border="0" /></a> (Pictured: Jacob M. Franks, father of Bobby Franks)</div><br />In those days, as today, the South Kenwood neighborhood was a neighborhood of elites, “the Lake Forest of the South Side”, where large and stately mansions lined the avenues that led south to John D. Rockefeller’s University of Chicago. Kenwood was particularly a magnet for wealthy Chicago Jews; The Franks family was of Jewish extract, although Mrs. Franks had lately taken an interest in Christian Science. North of 47th street were to be found the more modest homes of the servants who worked in South Kenwood, and in the 1960s and 1970s, North Kenwood would deteriorate into one of the city’s poorest and most blighted districts, while South Kenwood largely retained its stature as a home for the gentility, in part due to the vigorous policing and political efforts of the University.<br /><br />But in May, 1924, Jacob Franks, his wife, Flora, and their three children, lived in peace at their large home, which towered over the corner of Ellis and 51st Street, also known as Hyde Park Blvd. The trouble started on Wednesday, May 21, 1924. Bobby Franks, then 14, was a small, thin boy, but active in sports, and on that afternoon, he had volunteered to serve as an umpire at a baseball game among his schoolmates at the all-boys Harvard School, located on Ellis, north of 48th street.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-GwpHOHxCn80NwQpD8Obfe_9pz1xe4Vakefutrg7jOZAUm83rWvOL65FbX4cNgDQjyRCcGq9aL8fcBk8ZnSPBfz2IY7p4FmLGYMd9LEBscbos70fXqB-Q7fIMFlXmqphSqI-bnMhZzR4/s1600-h/frankshome.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396291565007977986" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 250px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-GwpHOHxCn80NwQpD8Obfe_9pz1xe4Vakefutrg7jOZAUm83rWvOL65FbX4cNgDQjyRCcGq9aL8fcBk8ZnSPBfz2IY7p4FmLGYMd9LEBscbos70fXqB-Q7fIMFlXmqphSqI-bnMhZzR4/s400/frankshome.JPG" border="0" /></a> (pictured: The Franks Home at 5052 S. Ellis, at it appeared in 1924)</div><br />Around 5:15 p.m., Bobby Franks left the baseball game and began walking the three blocks south to his home. About the time he reached 49th street, he was hailed by a friend, Richard Loeb, who was sitting in a car with <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/09/nathan-leopolds-home.html">Nathan Leopold</a>. Loeb, a frequent tennis partner for Bobby Franks, called out to him, asking him to get in the car so they could talk about a certain racquet Loeb was interested in.<br /><br />It was the wrong place, and the wrong time, for Bobby Franks. Leopold and Loeb, who had been planning to kidnap and murder a neighborhood boy since the previous year, hadn’t settled on a particular victim until Bobby Franks walked by their car that afternoon. Within minutes, Franks was dead, suffocated and traumatized by sharp blows to the head.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbw3_7svtyNQe1Yp7aY5A4T8UvAe8VvTzbAhfXK4MU333Un4i9avwaSCgjxpr5hIQtMRhY_GWrRkGZ07VZQqbpkaOrkC5I7jm2DfJlLhTP9yn626MlsBzklzjVzaqm-S8cyy8NZ38iSIc/s1600-h/franks.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396291561256443362" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 212px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbw3_7svtyNQe1Yp7aY5A4T8UvAe8VvTzbAhfXK4MU333Un4i9avwaSCgjxpr5hIQtMRhY_GWrRkGZ07VZQqbpkaOrkC5I7jm2DfJlLhTP9yn626MlsBzklzjVzaqm-S8cyy8NZ38iSIc/s400/franks.JPG" border="0" /></a> (Pictured: Bobby Franks at age 14)</div><br />When he didn’t arrive home for dinner, Jacob and Flora Franks became worried. They had scolded Bobby before for coming home after 5:00 p.m. At 9:00, Mr. Franks called a close friend, former state senator and Chicago corporate counsel Samuel Ettelson, and the two walked back to the Harvard School, and finding a window open, searched the classrooms thoroughly for the boy.<br /><br />While they were gone, Mrs. Franks fretted at home. Around 10:30 p.m., the telephone rang, and she picked it up.<br /><blockquote>“This is Mr. Johnson. Of course you know by this time that your boy has been kidnapped. We have him and you need not worry; he is safe. But don’t try to trace this call or to find me. We must have money. We will let you know tomorrow what we want. We are kidnappers and we mean business. If you refuse us what we want or try to report us to the police we will kill the boy. Good-by.”</blockquote><br />Mrs. Franks dropped the telephone and fainted, and lay unrevived until her husband returned home. “Mr. Johnson”, of course, was Leopold, and Franks had been dead for hours by the time he called, his body thrown into a ditch in a remote area off Burley Ave., north of 122nd Street, between Lake Calumet and Wolf Lake.<br /><br />Believing now that their boy had been kidnapped, but was still alive, the Franks, along with family friend Ettleson, discussed their options until late in the evening. At 2:00 a.m., Mr. Franks and Ettleson decided to approach the police for help. Ettleson was close friends with Chief of Detectives <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/political-banquet-for-obanion.html">Michael Hughes</a>, and expected to find him when the two men arrived at the Detective Bureau. But Hughes was out that evening, and in his place they found Acting Lieutenant Robert Welling. Franks told Liet. Welling about the situation, but swore him to secrecy until the morning, afraid that a police report would lead to publicity, which would cause the kidnappers to harm Bobby. Ettleson also got in touch with the telephone company, and asked them to trace all future calls placed to the Franks’ home.<br /><br />At 9:00 a.m. on Thursday, a worker for the American Maize Company was walking near the Pennsylvania railroad tracks and spotted the body of Bobby Franks half sunk into a culvert. With his fellow employees, they dragged the body onto dry land, and called for police from the East Side station. Since Welling had filed no police report, the East Side officers had no inkling that a boy from Kenwood matching the physical stature of their victim had been kidnapped. Instead, they assumed the boy they found was likely an accidental drowning. They searched the area around the scene, finding a single sock and a pair of horn-rimmed glasses they assumed belonged to the boy, and had all transported to the morgue.<br /><br />Back in Kenwood at around the same time, a special delivery letter from “Mr. Johnson” arrived at 5052 S. Ellis, hand-addressed to Mr. Jacob Franks. Highly unusual among ransom notes for its lucidity and clear prose, it was obviously the work of a lettered mind:<br /><div align="left"><blockquote><div align="left">Dear Sir:</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">As you no doubt know by this time, your son has been kidnapped. Allow us to assure you that he is at present well and safe. You need fear no physical harm for him provided you live up carefully to the following instructions and such others as you will receive by future communications. Should you, however, disobey any of our instructions, even slightly, his death will be the penalty.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">1. For obvious reasons, make absolutely no attempt to communicate with either the police authorities or any private agency. Should you already have communicated with the police, allow them to continue their investigations, but do not mention this letter.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">2. Secure before noon today ten thousand dollars ($10,000). This money must be composed entirely of OLD BILLS of the following denominations:$2,000 in twenty dollar bills.$8,000 in fifty dollar bills.The money must be old. Any attempt to include new or marked bills will render the entire venture futile.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">3. The money should be placed in a large cigar box, or if this is impossible in a heavy cardboard box, SECURELY closed and wrapped in white paper. The wrapping paper should be sealed at all openings with sealing wax.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">4. Have the money with you prepared as directed above and remain at home after 1 o’clock p.m. See that the telephone is not in use.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">You will receive a future communication instructing you as to your future course.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">As a final word of warnings – this is a strictly commercial proposition, and we are prepared to put our threat into execution should we have reasonable grounds to believe that you have committed an infraction of the above instructions. However, should you carefully follow out our instructions to the letter, we can assure you that your son will be safely returned to you within six hours of our receipt of the money.</div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Yours truly,</div><div align="left">George Johnson<br /></div></blockquote></div><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgmixkk-uNm8WH8qAoGlfl5kNZiXmNIljZ9nemHb4EciPQX5SQM86kMkxjmDwr4V7qJrRyxrU2-CF9bvfenIbCjmqpNH2LxN_4B2_kNtdlURn1hmxamS7Pe91xThRYVghkls-hG7P9IGc/s1600-h/franksletter.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396291555774238514" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 397px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgmixkk-uNm8WH8qAoGlfl5kNZiXmNIljZ9nemHb4EciPQX5SQM86kMkxjmDwr4V7qJrRyxrU2-CF9bvfenIbCjmqpNH2LxN_4B2_kNtdlURn1hmxamS7Pe91xThRYVghkls-hG7P9IGc/s400/franksletter.JPG" border="0" /></a> (Pictured: Hand-lettered envelope in which ransom note arrived)</div><br />Believing he had only to follow the directions in the letter to recover his boy, Jacob Franks set out for the bank immediately. The writer of the letter certainly seemed like a rational man. Franks insisted there be no mistakes in following the orders he had been given, no opportunities for the kidnappers to harm Bobby. When Ettleson told him he had received word that telephone operators were gossiping about the tracing hold on his phone, Franks called off the tracing. No publicity was to get in the way of the ransom payment.<br /><br />At 1:00, Jacob Franks sat by the telephone, waiting for the next call. Time dragged until 3:15, when the phone finally rang, and “Mr. Johnson” indicated that a Yellow cab would soon arrive at the Franks home, and Mr. Franks was to enter the cab, with the money, and order the driver to take him to the drug store at the corner of 63rd St. and University Ave. There he would receive another call.<br /><br />Leopold’s plan was to call Franks at the drug store, and tell him to immediately board a south-bound train from the nearby South Shore line. On the train was a note indicating the money should be thrown from the train at a certain point where Leopold and Loeb would be waiting to collect it. It was a cinematic, but practically perfect, plan.<br /><br />When the cab arrived at his home a few minutes later, Mr. Franks rushed out with the money. Entering the car, he asked the driver to take him, as quickly as possible, to the drug store at the corner of 63rd St. and – where? Was it Kimbark Ave.? Woodlawn Ave., maybe? He couldn’t remember. Panicked, Mr. Franks ran back inside his home to find the pad where he had written the kidnappers’ instructions. Just then, the telephone rang. It was his brother-in-law, Edwin Gresham. News about the dead boy found in the culvert on the far south side had made its way back to Lieut. Welling, who immediately saw the implication, and Gresham had been asked to go to the morgue to check whether it was Bobby. It was, of course, and just then he called the Franks residence with the terrible news. The cab driver was sent away. At the drug store, Leopold called twice, asking whether Jacob Franks had arrived, before realizing the scheme wasn’t going to work.<br /><br />The police, now investigating a murder, immediately turned their attention to the teachers at the Harvard School. Then, as now, male teachers were seen with some suspicion, and the writer of the ransom note was clearly well-educated. The police questioned students at the school. “Instructor Mitchell, the English teacher, is he…friendly with you? Does he ever put his arm around you? Do you ever feel odd around him?”<br /><br />The police brought in for questioning three teachers at the school, and their names were printed in the paper, ruining their reputations. Reporters at the stationhouse yelled pointed questions, pointedly asking each if they had girlfriends or wives. Walter Wilson, math teacher at the school, was grilled especially closely. The previous year, he had taken Bobby and his brother Jack with him for a trip to Riverview Park in Dolton, and owing to a missed train, hadn’t gotten them back home until 1:00 a.m. Asked whether he had a sweetheart, he replied “No, I don’t know any young ladies around Chicago”. The <em>Tribune</em> reported ominously, “He was attired in a bathrobe and appeared nervous.”<br /><br />The police continued to focus their attention on Bobby’s teachers until the big break in the case. When shown the horn-rimmed glasses, found near the body and assumed to be Bobby’s, Jacob Franks indicated that his son had perfect vision and never wore glasses. Through a tedious process, detectives learned that the hinges on this particular pair of Almer Coe & Co. spectacles, were quite unusual, and only three such pairs had been sold in Chicago. Coincidentally, one of those pairs belonged to Nathan Leopold, who lived in North Kenwood, just around the block from the Franks home.<br /><br />Under intense interrogation, Leopold stood up well, but Loeb finally cracked when the pair’s alibi was contradicted by a reliable witness. Once Loeb admitted the crime, Leopold did too, knowing that the key to avoiding the noose was to paint Loeb as the brains of the operation. Both pled guilty to the murder of Bobby Franks, and with the help of superstar attorney Clarence Darrow, both narrowly escaped the death penalty in favor of life sentences.<br /><br />Shortly after the verdict, Jacob Franks moved his family out of the home at 5052 S. Ellis Ave. Besides a desire to leave the place where they were constantly reminded of their lost son, ghoulish tourists took photographs and knocked on the door at all times. The home was sold and the family moved into a large suite at the luxurious Drake Hotel on N. Michigan Ave.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZRyDXGie9nQTJMpBjSWX6ZcFnlrelaDO_ob8kAgZwmRt8tbZUfw4h7hgR91jIH1t8DO1uJ4xwkcA9UtdB24EKtFY_YBT8xnwm9EQzmUfZoT73P-HVUPkCdekhnM91E1KBcG9hVZmJ2Ns/s1600-h/franksauction.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396291558174892146" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 291px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZRyDXGie9nQTJMpBjSWX6ZcFnlrelaDO_ob8kAgZwmRt8tbZUfw4h7hgR91jIH1t8DO1uJ4xwkcA9UtdB24EKtFY_YBT8xnwm9EQzmUfZoT73P-HVUPkCdekhnM91E1KBcG9hVZmJ2Ns/s400/franksauction.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Franks home auction notice from September, 1924) </div><div align="center"><br /> </div><div align="left">Jacob Franks died in 1928, and Flora remarried Albert Louer, a Chicago attorney, in 1933, remaining at the Drake Hotel until her death in 1937. At the time of his death in 1928, Jacob Franks’ estate was worth $6 million, and in his will he bequeathed $1,000 annuities to 15 nieces and nephews, plus a large sum to his wife, with the remainder going to his children. The Great Depression took a toll on the estate’s investments, however, and in 1938, when Jack Franks died suddenly, only $1 million was left in the estate. After paying off the promised annuities, the remainder, divided between Jack’s estate and his sister Josephine, was practically nothing. Jack Franks’ will bequeathed his share to a charitable foundation in his name, but Josephine, now married with the surname of Glaser, sued to have the money transferred to her, and won the suit.</div><div align="left"><blockquote></blockquote></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">The home at 5052 S. Ellis Ave. was bought from the Franks for $60,000 by Joseph Trinz, a theater magnate and principal at Lubliner & Trinz, which operated 27 Chicago area houses (including the famous <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/kill-dillinger-here.html">Biograph Theater</a>). Upon his death in 1926, just two years after purchasing the home, it was again sold to Harry Manaster, president of the meat-packing firm Manaster & Bros. The Manaster family moved in 1936, and the home was renovated for use as a school.</div><div align="left"><blockquote></blockquote></div><div align="left"></div><div align="left">Through the 1940s and early 1950s, the Ffoulkes School for Boys and Girls held classes between Kindergarten and High School. By 1959, the old building had become the DeLena Day School, which began as a nursery and grew to offer classes through 8th grade. The DeLena School remained open until December, 1991. Since then, the building has remained empty. The 7,000-square foot mansion was sold by the De Lena School at auction in 2008 for $484,000, a strikingly low price for the neighborhood, but indicative of its decay. The building is currently in a serious state of disrepair, with overgrown landscaping and crumbling steps. </div><div align="left"><br /> </div><div align="left"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyaJ1GigUu3XIJtMjUJTm32tOEKozK2ae4vd7DZ_xW-uiYhsH3Cg2OupjI9tTsiZQkC7FWJYRYbcXdsBEagaGlrcQcn4HscDFLdt6wf8nZuTpDChYTtBai8gL58sX5kLwlE1wb3zO5LVA/s1600-h/Hyde_Park_and_Woodlawn_013.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5396291550957044418" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyaJ1GigUu3XIJtMjUJTm32tOEKozK2ae4vd7DZ_xW-uiYhsH3Cg2OupjI9tTsiZQkC7FWJYRYbcXdsBEagaGlrcQcn4HscDFLdt6wf8nZuTpDChYTtBai8gL58sX5kLwlE1wb3zO5LVA/s400/Hyde_Park_and_Woodlawn_013.jpg" border="0" /></a></div>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com106tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-59054331288488960552009-10-17T13:02:00.006-05:002009-10-17T15:02:05.886-05:00Tony D'Andrea Assassinated<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUAsgvXBOCuuEFbV0q5gpJ2q8g-B8XTnPBKgnZoKi4q6waY-Gj6m-5cZAcP4ZfuWtNYDN4sLfkZvwNz39U6WfzxyCLLvce9VUr7Qv61x6YcE-yy2QHIeSzpj8SivMHHBXFRkMEFrlrQPE/s1600-h/MBRB+UIC.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393631084554120258" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUAsgvXBOCuuEFbV0q5gpJ2q8g-B8XTnPBKgnZoKi4q6waY-Gj6m-5cZAcP4ZfuWtNYDN4sLfkZvwNz39U6WfzxyCLLvce9VUr7Qv61x6YcE-yy2QHIeSzpj8SivMHHBXFRkMEFrlrQPE/s400/MBRB+UIC.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />Tony D’Andrea got his start in the dark corners and alleys of the Levee. Through hard work, muscle, and not a little violence, he rose to become Chicago’s leading Italian politician. He met his end in the bloodiest political feud in the city’s history, shot to death on the front steps of his home here at 902 S. Ashland Ave.<br /><br />Born in Sicily in 1872, D’Andrea showed an early gift for languages, and graduated at the University of Palermo before making his way to the United States in 1896. He disembarked at Buffalo, New York, then found his way down to Baltimore, where he entered St. Mary’s Academy, a seminary where he trained for the priesthood. After three years at St. Mary’s, and with additional training at St. Bonaventura’s Academy in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, D’Andrea was appointed to a pastorship at St. Anthony’s Italian Catholic Church on the far south side of Chicago in June, 1899.<br /><br />The clerical collar fit poorly. Six weeks after his appointment, D’Andrea fell in love with a woman, Lena Wagner, who he met in the barbershop of a friend on W. Grand Ave. The two eloped to Milwaukee and married there. D’Andrea was subsequently excommunicated from the church, and maintained a distant relationship to Roman Catholicism throughout the rest of his life. At his death, he was refused a church funeral.<br /><br /><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_qH6zFIiecMvfLDNZYN8LvBkC4QTGWV-qg9CuMsRF3cE3EKpOUBtDLkFsDD48K54TwlMcH8odwTW49iKK1f5E2LCQCYnpIIcITXBPqAgqn26uS7uA8gZWtvpMiVI8w3FCyuXmvDFqXA/s1600-h/dandrea99.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393631079601669874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 306px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgM_qH6zFIiecMvfLDNZYN8LvBkC4QTGWV-qg9CuMsRF3cE3EKpOUBtDLkFsDD48K54TwlMcH8odwTW49iKK1f5E2LCQCYnpIIcITXBPqAgqn26uS7uA8gZWtvpMiVI8w3FCyuXmvDFqXA/s400/dandrea99.JPG" border="0" /></a> (Pictured: Antonio D'Andrea, dressed in clerical uniform in 1899)</div><div><br />After leaving the priesthood, D’Andrea became a private language tutor, and also held part ownership in a macaroni factory in a warehouse district on the South side. To be close to the factory, he settled with his new wife in an apartment at 2125 S. Archer Ave., in what is today Chinatown. At the time, Mayor Carter Harrison was leading a political attack on the old <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/custom-house-place.html">Custom House Place</a> red light district, and so this formerly-quiet neighborhood where the D’Andreas lived was quickly growing into the city’s premier red light district, soon to be known throughout the world as “the Levee”. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div> </div><div></div><div>Around the same time, another couple, future mob-founder <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/11/colosimos-home.html">Jim Colosimo</a> and his young wife <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/12/victoria-morescos-childhood-home.html">Victoria Moresco</a>, opened the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/colosimos-first-brothel.html">New Brighton brothel</a> just a block north on Archer Ave., and the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/everleigh-club.html">Everleigh Sisters</a> opened their famed house of ill-repute a block north of that. Criminal enterprise surrounded the D’Andreas, and the underworld opportunities were endless.</div><div></div><div>While vice was the preferred get-rich-quick scheme for those around him, D’Andrea’s religious leanings may have disinclined him from such pursuits. Instead, he took up counterfeiting. </div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Around 1900, D’Andrea traveled to New York, and there purchased a large quantity of phony dimes. It’s a testament to subsequent inflation that counterfeiting such small currency could have been profitable, but at the time, a dime could buy two “tubs” of beer at <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/hinky-dinks-place.html">Michael Kenna’s</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/workingmans-exchange.html">Workingmen’s Exchange</a> saloon. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The Secret Service, today best known for their work protecting the President, was originally established as an agency of the Treasury Department, tasked with investigating counterfeiters. In 1902, Capt. Thomas I. Porter of the Secret Service literally “followed the money” directly to a macaroni factory on the south side of Chicago, where he went undercover as a state tax agent to gain D’Andrea’s confidence. After he had collected sufficient evidence to prosecute, a squad of Secret Service agents and Chicago police arrived at the D’Andrea home on Archer with arrest warrants. While Mr. D’Andrea was being taken into custody, Mrs. D’Andrea, looking a little fuller-figured than usual, attempted to leave the house through the back exit. Captain Porter commanded an officer to stop her, at which point a bag full of counterfeit specie fell out from under her dress and scattered across the floor. The jig was up.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>D’Andrea had little choice but to plead guilty, and federal prosecutors offered a deal by which he could avoid jail in return for turning state’s witness against the men who sold him the counterfeits. D’Andrea was taken to New York state to testify at their trial, but upon arrival, he refused to testify. Likely word had gotten to him that his life was in danger if he opened his mouth on the stand. Without D’Andrea’s testimony, that case failed, and the deal to save him from prison was off. In April, 1903, Antonio D’Andrea entered Joliet prison (the federal government at the time frequently placed criminals in state facilities), where he served 13 months. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>It is an indication that D’Andrea already had powerful friends in the Chicago Italian community that, at the end of his prison sentence, he received a “civil pardon” from President Theodore Roosevelt, which restored his civil rights, though it did not clear his record or spare him from serving any of his time. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>There is some evidence that, after release, D’Andrea continued activity in the counterfeit money racket for some time, but he certainly continued building his language tutor and macaroni-production businesses, both of which were successful. He was also able to help his Sicilian family come to Chicago, and several of his brothers and nephews also became successful. His brother Joseph D’Andrea became involved in organized labor, and rose to become president of Sewer and Tunnel Miners’ Union Local #4. In those days, as today, there were severe battles between unions, frequently organized along ethnic lines, for major work contracts. Joseph D’Andrea was involved in just such a struggle over the West Side site where Union Station was then under construction, and he was shot and killed there under mysterious circumstances in the fall of 1914. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>He may have been the victim of some agent of a rival union, or his death may have been from a disgruntled member of his own union. Joseph D’Andrea had organized a system by which laborers had to pay $5 in dues to the union every time they took a new job; given the level of turnover in the construction industry, this was a frequent occurrence, and a source of some bitterness among the rank-and-file. In any case, upon his death, his brother, now going by the Americanized name “Anthony” to distinguish himself from his former life as “Antonio”, took over the presidency of the largely Italian union, a position he used to propel himself into politics. Through his work with the union, he also became close friends with “Diamond Joe” Esposito, who was working as a business agent for the sewer and tunnel miners, and who would one day also become an important political and underworld figure in Chicago. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>By this time, Tony D’Andrea and his wife had moved from the Levee district into the Little Italy neighborhood, located in the 19th ward, taking up residence at 745 S. Halsted St. In 1914, he first dipped his toe into Chicago politics, running for county commissioner as a Democrat. Though he lost the race, his was clearly a political star on the rise. The following year, he was appointed the ward leader for Democrat Robert Sweitzer's 1915 mayoral campaign. In a bruising primary against the incumbent, Carter Harrison, Sweitzer emerged victorious, with a large margin of victory among Italian voters in the 19th ward. Sweitzer was ultimately defeated in the general election by Republican <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/mrs-william-hale-thompson-mayors-wife.html">William Hale Thompson</a> (the last Republican mayor of Chicago), but 19th ward alderman <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/alderman-john-powers-home-bombed-by.html">John “Johnny De Pow” Powers</a>, who had led the Harrison campaign in the ward, began to see D’Andrea as an important political rival. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Powers, an Irishman representing an increasingly Italian constituency, was an astute tactician, and offered his support to D’Andrea for various political offices (other than alderman), including county commissioner. But the ex-priest had his eyes on a bigger prize, and in 1916, he ran for alderman from the 19th ward. In those days, each ward had two aldermen, with staggered terms. In 1916, Powers’ acolyte in the 19th, James Bowler, was up for re-election, and the Democratic primary battle between Bowler and D’Andrea promised to be fierce. Bowler had Ald. Powers on his side, and D’Andrea was supported by Rocco de Stefano, a close confidant of vice-magnate and Levee heavyweight <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/colosimos-cafe.html">“Big Jim” Colosimo</a>.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>February, 1916 found D’Andrea courting votes among the ward’s residents. In one case, he volunteered to be a character witness in court for a fellow Sicilian who was seeking naturalization. When the Superior Court clerk sought to verify D’Andrea’s own citizenship, however, he looked under “D” instead of “A”, and when he found nothing in the state’s records, suspicions began to circulate that the aldermanic candidate was not a U.S. citizen. This led others to dig into D’Andrea’s past, where they uncovered the case of a very similar-looking man, also named D’Andrea, an defrocked priest who had served 13 months at Joliet for counterfeiting.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The news hit the papers, and Ald. Bowler hired <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/11/allan-pinkerton-sets-sting-operation.html">Pinkerton</a> detectives to investigate D’Andrea’s past. They quickly surmised that Anthony D’Andrea, the labor leader and pillar of the Italian community, and Antonio D’Andrea, the passer of phony dimes, were one and the same man. Speaking to reporters the next day, D’Andrea admitted as much, but offered a stirring – if not quite believable – defense:</div><div><blockquote><p>The facts were that when a counterfeiter was trailed by the government official to my house and placed some counterfeit money in our pantry during my absence, Mrs. D’Andrea, a most lovable and charitable woman, in order to remove the stain of suspicion from the sacredness of her own home and family, discovered that in some inconceivable manner the money was hidden in her pantry, took it out for the purpose of reporting her findings to me, and to remove the odium of guilt from my happy and cheerful home. </p><p>In the meantime, as she was about to leave the house, the government officials arrested her and kept her in custody for many hours, before I was allowed to see my wife, who had already become a human wreck from anguish, sorrow, and disgrace. With the most profound love for her and with the hope that not a stain should be placed against her character nor the character of our little girl, and with the promise that if I took the blame, my wife would be liberated, under the most inscrutable circumstances that could be imagined, and with the promise that if I gave to the government officials information regarding the gang of counterfeiters and plotters that I would be released, I remained silent, so as to shield them who had already threatened my life and that of my family if I spoke. </p><p>As a result of which I was forced to keep within my bosom the secret which, if exposed, would mean my immediate death, and I became a victim of the most unparalleled conviction that was ever had in the federal court.</p></blockquote></div><div>At the time, it was pointed out that an Illinois statute forbade anyone convicted of a felony of holding public office, but D’Andrea’s civil pardon from Pres. Roosevelt apparently allowed him to remain in the race, though he was now scandal-ridden. Essentially the only quality that recommended D’Andrea to the office was the fact that he was an Italian, running in a ward that was, by this time, almost 80% Italian residents.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Thus, D’Andrea and his supporters took it personally when some of their fellow countrymen failed to support him. And some of D’Andrea’s supporters were rather violent men, including the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">Genna family</a>, who in a few years would spill innumerable gallons of blood while running the city’s bootleg distillery business. On the evening of February 21, 1916, Frank Lombardi, an Italian immigrant and a major supporter of Ald. Bowler, was in the saloon he ran on Taylor street when two friends arrived. The three men raised their glasses in a toast, and at that moment, one of Lombardi’s “friends” pulled a revolver and shot him in the gut, an injury he eventually died from.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Lombardi’s death further cast the pallor of the underworld over D’Andrea’s candidacy, and on March 1, with the votes counted, James Bowler defeated Anthony D’Andrea, 4,163 votes to 1,753. D’Andrea was disappointed, but he had only just begun to fight. There would be many more opportunities to come. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>D’Andrea focused on continuing to build support among the ward’s Italian residents, making <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">his headquarters on Taylor Street</a> the “Italian-American Educational Club”. He also became president of the Unione Siciliana, the chief social and political organization of Sicilians in Chicago; future leaders of the organization include such criminal luminaries as <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/angelo-gennas-violent-life-and-death.html">Angelo Genna</a>, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/death-in-barbers-chair-rise-and-fall-of.html">Sam “Samoots” Amatuna</a>, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/antonio-lombardo-killed-in-loop.html">Antonio Lombardo</a>, and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/aiello-co-bakery.html">Joe Aiello</a>. D’Andrea’s business and political success is reflected in the fact that he was able to purchase a large home at 902 S. Ashland Ave., where he lived with his wife on the second floor, and rented out the first floor.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>In 1919, D’Andrea ran to be a delegate to a constitutional convention in Illinois to be held in 1920. When the votes were counted, the official record on the night of the election showed D’Andrea had lost by 82 votes; however, a later recount showed D’Andrea the victor. A court inquiry into the election turned up substantial evidence of fraud, with many of the additional so-called “voters” having not actually voted, or in the great Chicago tradition, having died years earlier. The extra votes were thrown out, and D’Andrea was again the loser.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Nevertheless, D’Andrea was still considered an important political figure in the district. So much so, in fact, that in order to dissuade him from running for alderman against him in 1921, Ald. Powers supported D’Andrea for the position of ward committeeman, a position that held at least as much, if not more, power than the aldermanship itself. In April, 1920, with Powers’ help, D’Andrea was elected to the position; however, voter irregularities again sandbagged the count, and a court threw out the results.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>At this point, as described in <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/alderman-john-powers-home-bombed-by.html">this post</a>, Ald. Powers dramatically recanted his support for D’Andrea, and chose to fill the ward committeeman position himself. Soon after, Powers’ home was the target of a bombing. As the incident suggests, D’Andrea and his supporters were increasingly turning from away from the ballot and towards violence. In 1921 D’Andrea announced he would run against Powers in the next aldermanic election, and the campaign between the two was the bloodiest in Chicago history, with dirty tricks and intimidation on both sides.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>In February, a bomb exploded outside a D’Andrea rally near Blue Island and Taylor. When reporters approached D’Andrea, he practically admitted a role in the earlier bombing of Powers’ home:</div><div><blockquote>I wouldn’t care if they threw a bomb at my house. That’s all in the game, and it wouldn’t hurt any one else but me. But to throw one into a meeting where there are a lot of workingmen, that’s another thing.</blockquote></div><div>In retaliation for the bombing, D’Andrea’s supporters, which likely included the wildest of the Genna clan, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/angelo-gennas-violent-life-and-death.html">Angelo Genna</a>, and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/death-in-barbers-chair-rise-and-fall-of.html">Sam Amatuna</a>, organized a violent hit on two Italian precinct captains for Powers, as described in <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/angelo-gennas-violent-life-and-death.html">this post</a>. Election day was a complete fiasco, with kidnappings of election workers, and widespread violence and intimidation of voters, but at the end of the day, the old “gray wolf,” John Powers had defeated his rival by the narrow margin of 381 votes.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>With another lost election, D’Andrea declared “I’m through with Nineteenth Ward politics for good.” Asked for comment, Ald. Powers sarcastically replied, “Very magnanimous of him, I’m sure.”</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>But D’Andrea’s word was accurate. His political life was at an end – if only because the rest of his life was, too. D’Andrea had taken to carrying a pistol with him everywhere, and had been arrested for carrying a concealed weapon on several occasions; the violence associated with the election had likely warned him he was a marked man.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>On the evening of May 10, 1921, he was out late, enjoying dinner with his old friend and political compatriot, “Diamond Joe” Esposito, at a local Italian restaurant. At 2:00 a.m., his bodyguard and driver, Joseph Laspisa, dropped him off in front of his home at 902 S. Ashland, and sped off, while D’Andrea climbed the stairs to his second-floor apartment. The first floor apartment was empty at the time, though the D’Andreas had hired decorators to paint and refurnish the flat for rental. The previous residents of the first floor had left at the beginning of the month, after receiving a threatening note, indicating that D’Andrea’s rivals were planning to dynamite the building.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>In any case, the first floor apartment was unoccupied, but there had been some activity there all afternoon, which the neighbors attributed to the decorators. But no decorators had been on the site that day. As D’Andrea climbed the steps of his building, a sawed-off shotgun peaked through the window from the first floor, and fired off seven shots, five of which hit their mark. D’Andrea reached for his pistol and fired back, but quickly collapsed on the steps as his assassin escaped out the back and into a waiting car in the alley. Hearing the shots, Mrs. D’Andrea arose from bed and hurried down to where her wounded husband lay. “Lena, Lena, I’m dying, I’m dying,” he cried out to the woman he had left the church for.<br /><blockquote></blockquote></div><div> </div><div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVbluoKzvMu_yS6SILFpvmLW4B4UCsnk7wyi9AdaMX_NyPdC4N1FAM0fqGNBNAxU8og6yk-N_xTiEATBbf5dudoLiUAmMPabyEBc3Gyy-4seDJsMfZwMLIy9pOHXXHOQpKxSMbX18jO0/s1600-h/dandrea+murder+scene.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5393631070201711122" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 321px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKVbluoKzvMu_yS6SILFpvmLW4B4UCsnk7wyi9AdaMX_NyPdC4N1FAM0fqGNBNAxU8og6yk-N_xTiEATBbf5dudoLiUAmMPabyEBc3Gyy-4seDJsMfZwMLIy9pOHXXHOQpKxSMbX18jO0/s400/dandrea+murder+scene.JPG" border="0" /></a> (Pictured: Illustration of D'Andrea's home on S. Ashland Ave., where he was shot)</div><div><br />When police arrived, they found two clues in the first-floor apartment assassins’ nest: a soft brown hat, size 7, with the initials “S.P.” inscribed inside, and a $20 bill in the hat band, along with a card reading “For Flowers”. Police also found a handprint in some freshly laid paint, presumably left by the killer. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Suspicions immediately turned to Ald. Powers and his supporters, although Powers disowned the killing: “I do not believe it was politics. D’Andrea has had a good deal of trouble and it hasn’t been all political. He has been mixed up in labor matters and there may be some race feud back of it.” </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Asked for comment, “Diamond Joe” Esposito, D’Andrea’s dinner companion that night and also a political figure in the ward simply responded, “So they shot him, eh?” Political violence had made killings in the 19th a fact of life.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>D’Andrea hung on to life for a few days in the hospital, but finally succumbed on May 12. Refused a church burial due to his excommunication in 1899, a service was held on the steps of his home on Ashland Ave., right where he was shot, and 8,000 attended, flooding the street with people for three blocks around.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The bloodletting in the 19th did not, however, end with D’Andrea’s death. Ten days later, Michael Licari, a D’Andrea partisan, was murdered, and the following month, Joseph Laspisa, D’Andrea’s bodyguard and his driver on the night of his death, was killed while driving down Oak St. in <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/little-hell.html">Little Sicily</a>, near "<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/death-corner.html">Death Corner</a>", shot by a back seat passenger. Eventually, over 30 murders were attributed to the Powers/D’Andrea fight, most of them, including D'Andrea's, never solved.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>The dream of an Italian alderman to represent Little Italy also died with D’Andrea that night. In July, 1921, with pressure from Ald. Powers, the 19th ward was redrawn and broken up into parts of the 20th, 25th, 26th, and 27th wards, none of which had an Italian majority.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>After his death, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">Genna brothers</a> took over D’Andrea’s political headquarters and turned his political bailiwick into the massively dispersed distilling organization that supplied a large portion of the illegal liquor in Chicago during Prohibition. Several of D’Andrea’s relatives were closely involved with the Gennas and their partners in bootlegging, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/johnny-torrio-shot.html">Torrio</a>-<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/capones-chicago-home.html">Capone</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/johnny-torrio-and-al-capones-account.html">organization</a>. One nephew, also named Anthony D’Andrea, was Capone’s manager for his Depression-era <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/12/capone.html">soup kitchen on S. State st</a>. Later, he became the president of the powerful hod-carriers union, and was a defendant in a federal antitrust case in the 1940s, accused of restraining the use of ready-mix concrete in Chicago, which would have eliminated a large number of union jobs. </div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>Another nephew, Philip D’Andrea, got his start as a bodyguard for <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/four-deuces-and-hotel-metropole.html">Al Capone</a>, and was later a key member of The Outfit, the mob organization constituted of Capone’s men, after Capone went to prison in 1931. Philip D’Andrea served three years in prison in the 1940s on charges of extortion, along with Outfit luminaries Paul “The Waiter” Ricca, Louis “Little New York” Campagna, and Charles “Cherry Nose” Gioe.</div><div></div><div><blockquote></blockquote></div><div>D’Andrea’s home at 902 S. Ashland stood into the 1980s, when it was demolished to make way for the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Molecular Biology Research Building, completed in 1995. The building is notable for a large <a href="http://www.uic.edu/orgs/mbrb/staircase.htm">staircase</a> inside that mirrors the shape of a double helix.</div>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-14235595444180217672009-10-04T20:47:00.006-05:002009-10-04T21:11:07.093-05:00Dillinger’s Plastic Surgery on Pulaski Rd. (or Crawford Ave.?)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGhrRD-8kTCmewqBi6XjGn5_Iulgqp0MB2bZOZTWbMKOVRwCLl2X5Exl8tWxEnxb7Ax4-3jn2F_IzHHM_YFL2OYp2iMbUGUBmLy3FBNfoN0GzfYEnAp142o0OTl_EliJXHTaiVlV3vIZ8/s1600-h/Probasco+004.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGhrRD-8kTCmewqBi6XjGn5_Iulgqp0MB2bZOZTWbMKOVRwCLl2X5Exl8tWxEnxb7Ax4-3jn2F_IzHHM_YFL2OYp2iMbUGUBmLy3FBNfoN0GzfYEnAp142o0OTl_EliJXHTaiVlV3vIZ8/s400/Probasco+004.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5388928389229328946" border="0" /></a><br />By the end of May, 1934, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/kill-dillinger-here.html">John Dillinger</a> was hiding out in Chicago. Having robbed innumerable banks and broken out of jails twice during the last 12 months, he had become an internationally-known superstar criminal. Besides local and state authorities, almost the entirety of the newly-formed Division of Investigation (later, the FBI) was involved in efforts to hunt him down, dead or alive (but better dead). As “Public Enemy #1”, it was increasingly difficult to find friendly (or unsuspecting) help in evading the law. Dillinger knew he couldn’t continue dodging J. Edgar Hoover’s agents forever; drastic measures were necessary. The great bank robber’s most desperate attempt to evade capture took place here, at 2509 N. Crawford Ave. (now Pulaski Rd.), where he went under the knife to permanently change the face everyone in America now recognized.<br /><br />January of 1934 saw most of the Dillinger gang wintering in Tuscon, Arizona, on the lam from a serious bank job in East Chicago, Indiana, where Dillinger himself is believed to have killed a police officer. Caught by local police, the famous criminal was extradited to Indiana and placed in jail at Crown Point, Indiana. It was there that he first hired Louis P. Piquett, a Chicago attorney known for close ties to the Chicago mob organization known as the “<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/search/label/The%20Outfit">Outfit</a>,” the remainder of <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/capones-chicago-home.html">Al Capone’s</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/johnny-torrio-and-al-capones-account.html">organization</a>. Probably Piquett’s name was familiar among the crowd Dillinger ran with, or it may be that Piquett offered his services at a cut rate for this high-profile defense. Other have suggested that Dillinger was in some loose way connected with the Outfit, and may have met Piquett previously.<br /><br />In any case, Piquett, who had no formal legal training but had passed the Illinois bar, became Dillinger’s counsel and best source of assistance after he broke out of Crown Point in March, 1934. Piquett’s presence may have been what drew Dillinger back to Chicago, instead of hiding out in his native Indiana or escaping into the Far West. Piquett’s law office on Wacker Drive was a common meeting place for the Dillinger Gang, although Piquett always denied that Dillinger hid out there while a fugitive.<br /><br />It was Piquett and his co-counsel, Arthur O’Leary, who connected Dillinger with the makeshift operating room on Crawford Ave. In April, Piquett approached a low-level crook and bar owner, James “Cabaret” Probasco, about finding trained surgeons willing to perform the operation. Probasco, then in his 60s, had been a boxer and a liveryman in his youth and was trained in veterinary science. He had also been a major part of a serious diamond theft ring in the 1920s, serving as the main “fence” for stolen jewels. In 1924, his own wife, Clara, had testified against him to police, probably because her husband’s partner-in-crime was also his mistress, Florence. Despite Clara’s testimony, the case against Probasco fizzled thanks to the work of his attorney Louis Piquett, and he walked on charges of possession and sale of stolen property. Divorcing Clara, he remarried Florence, and went into the tavern business, opening up shop in Rogers’ Park, on Howard St. near Rogers Ave.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVSnnZbuvDT3BRKL-EKedbKPi3_nPBYacq7zGhSquoOqVJ8YiN4EeQZ-FXZ20-NYU2QxNU7SCc7olZvYyyD2tqLS61h3HFcnXl0mMzna09HtSQoog8mQxfCHB_ZThaZQnusKDGGCVpWYg/s1600-h/probasco.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 199px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVSnnZbuvDT3BRKL-EKedbKPi3_nPBYacq7zGhSquoOqVJ8YiN4EeQZ-FXZ20-NYU2QxNU7SCc7olZvYyyD2tqLS61h3HFcnXl0mMzna09HtSQoog8mQxfCHB_ZThaZQnusKDGGCVpWYg/s400/probasco.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5388927276401564994" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: James Probasco)<br /></div><br />When Piquett approached Probasco about helping his new client, John Dillinger, dollar signs flashed in Probasco’s eyes. He told Piquett he could find the surgical talent and the location, but for a high price, $5,000 (over $80,000 in today’s dollars). It took some convincing by O’Leary, but Dillinger finally agreed to the proposal, and went to work in early May, robbing banks to “earn” the fee.<br /><br />To perform the surgery, Probasco looked for men with medical training, but who were also acquainted with the underworld. In Dr. William Loeser, he found his man. Loeser, a German immigrant, had trained at Northwestern University and ran a successful surgical practice until his arrest for violation of the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Act of 1914, the first federal law restricting the manufacture and sale of cocaine and heroin in the U.S. Dr. Loeser was paroled in 1932, at which point he fled to Mexico, where he developed a technique to remove fingerprints, becoming his own first patient for the procedure, which involved acid treatment.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwSIByebm8kxWbEvsryTA2i3eD1A7x4aJa34FtJJIb01QF0nXwDWJaKbNl2au3-kjKsSjYdP0BO5_Vz9abbuLnaOnbRuyrC6Rq1atwkZ5wpn8zPWw3MlAklUwDxGOcmGluwOcG3FkBEko/s1600-h/loeser.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 195px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwSIByebm8kxWbEvsryTA2i3eD1A7x4aJa34FtJJIb01QF0nXwDWJaKbNl2au3-kjKsSjYdP0BO5_Vz9abbuLnaOnbRuyrC6Rq1atwkZ5wpn8zPWw3MlAklUwDxGOcmGluwOcG3FkBEko/s400/loeser.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5388927262966491330" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Dr. William Loeser)<br /></div><br />To assist Dr. Loeser, Probasco found another surgeon, Dr. Harold Cassidy, who had a less shady past, but who was unable to pass up the opportunity to make a quick buck. Probasco promised $1,700 to Dr. Loeser and $1,200 to Dr. Cassidy. All that was left was to find an operating room. Legitimate hospitals were obviously out of the question, and neither of the two doctors was willing to use his own offices. Instead, Probasco opted for the least expensive option – his own apartment at 2509 N. Crawford Ave. Probasco’s wife and former jewel thief, Florence, had died young the year before, and he was currently living with a girlfriend, Margaret Doyle, but he felt she could be misled about the operation. So, on the evening of May 27, John Dillinger arrived at Probasco’s home and prepared for surgery the next day. Dillinger handed Probasco $3,000 in cash up front, with the remaining $2,000 to be paid after the operation.<br /><br />The following evening, Piquett’s assistant Arthur O’Leary picked up the two doctors, and drove them to Probasco’s home, where they instructed Dillinger to remove his shirt and lie down in the bedroom. Dr. Loeser offered Dillinger the option of a local or a general anesthetic, and Dillinger chose the latter. While Loeser washed his hands in an adjoining bathroom, Dr. Cassidy administered the ether. Suddenly, Dr. Cassidy began yelling for help. Returning to the bedroom, Loeser saw that Dillinger had received too much anesthetic too quickly, and was choking on his own tongue. Quickly, Loeser located his forecepts and freed the blocked airways, saving Dillinger’s life.<br /><br />But after that experience, Dillinger decided on the local anesthetic, which meant he was largely awake and in excruciating pain, for most of the procedure. For several hours, the two doctors removed a mole from his forehead, a dimple from his cheek, and changed shape of face, smoothing out the famous cleft in his chin, and erasing the seams in his cheeks using implanted kangaroo tendons. They also employed Loeser’s acid method to burn out his fingerprints.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiNeDvoiK6tUp5AaDE1lk1jb9xSR4zEtYgcplTR0_awlKi3NRltFZuLgac1wH6Qm3Ze-_3jfnEA19ilJcA6ue-7LYyvpCM0LEHgAgFlIkgliJsl9afGwe-uyMFAGtx2xWMCUDOQAD6ZZA/s1600-h/2509crawford.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 389px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiNeDvoiK6tUp5AaDE1lk1jb9xSR4zEtYgcplTR0_awlKi3NRltFZuLgac1wH6Qm3Ze-_3jfnEA19ilJcA6ue-7LYyvpCM0LEHgAgFlIkgliJsl9afGwe-uyMFAGtx2xWMCUDOQAD6ZZA/s400/2509crawford.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5388927255018410386" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Probasco's home at 2509 N. Crawford Ave. (now Pulaski Rd.) with a crowd of curiosity-seekers outside after Dillinger's death).<br /></div><br />With the surgery a success, Dillinger returned to Probasco’s home on June 3, this time bringing with him a fellow gang member, Homer Van Meter, who also went under Drs. Loeser and Cassidy’s knives. Over time, however, Dillinger became unsatisfied with the operation. The science of plastic surgery was still in its infancy, the two doctors were not leading experts, and the circumstances under which they operated were primitive. Thus, Dillinger was still completely recognizable. After his death at the hands of Division of Investigation and East Chicago police officers (see <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/kill-dillinger-here.html">this post</a> for further details), an autopsy found identifying traces of his fingerprints remained, despite Dr. Loeser’s best efforts.<br /><br />Anna Sage, the famed “woman in red” (she actually wore orange and white, but appeared to be in red under the glare of the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/kill-dillinger-here.html">Biograph Theater</a> marquee) who turned in Dillinger to the feds, was most likely also the source of their information about James Probasco. A few days after Dillinger’s death on July 22, 1934, J. Edgar Hoover’s men picked up Probasco and took him for questioning to their offices on the 19th floor of the <a href="http://www.emporis.com/application/?nav=building&lng=3&id=116900">Banker’s Building</a> at Clark and Adams streets. In a search of his apartment, agents found the evidence of the surgery: sleeping potions, acids, gauze, surgical scissors, and cotton were still in the medicine cabinet (likely, Probasco expected more work from other members of the Dillinger Gang).<br /><br />Agents no doubt questioned Probasco intensely for hours, seeking information on Dillinger companions such as Van Meter and Baby Face Nelson, who were still at large. On July 24, lead investigator Melvin Purvis left Chicago for Washington to brief J. Edgar Hoover about Dillinger’s death and the continued investigations, leaving agent Samuel Crowley in charge of the work in Chicago. Crowley was known as a tougher interrogator than Purvis, and was willing to bend the rules (or worse) to get information out of suspects. In a case a year earlier, agents in the very same room where Probasco was being held, had dangled a mob suspect out the window by his ankles, 19 floors off the ground, in an attempt to make him talk.<br /><br />In any case, July 26, 1934 saw James Probasco under questioning at the Bankers’ Building, and mysteriously, just a few minutes after agents left him alone in the interrogation room, Probasco stepped up from a chair to the window sill in the room, three feet off the ground, and leapt out the window, falling to his death on the pavement below. Because of the reputation of his interrogators, there has always been a strong suspicion that Probasco did not defenestrate willingly – at worst, Probasco would have faced no more than 30 months in jail for harboring Dillinger, hardly a sentence worth dying over – but the coroner’s jury ultimately ruled the death a suicide. At the time of his death, Probasco held over $72,000 in life insurance policies, with his sister the chief beneficiary, but almost all of the payout was void in the case of suicide.<br /><br />Nevertheless, the feds apparently got enough information to locate Dr. Loeser, who turned state’s witness against Dr. Cassidy and attorney Louis Piquette. Piquett went on trial in a widely covered case for harboring a fugitive – Dillinger – but was ultimately found not guilty. Unfazed, prosecutors immediately put Piquett on trial for harboring Homer van Meter, using Piquett’s testimony at the Dillinger trial to trap him into contradictions on the stand. In 1936, Piquett was found guilty and sentenced to two years in federal prison. He was also fined $10,000 and disbarred in Illinois. In 1950, President Harry S Truman pardoned Piquett, and he applied for reinstatement to the bar, but died before a decision was made in 1951.<br /><br />As a reward for his part in the prosecution of Piquett, Dr. Loeser was sentenced to only one day in prison for his crime. However, he also had to serve 18 additional months for leaving the country after his parole in the narcotics case. Dr. Cassidy received only probation, and served honorably in the army medical corps during World War II; however, after the war, however, he had a nervous breakdown and committed suicide in 1946.<br /><br />Probasco’s apartment building at 2509 N. Crawford was demolished, and an extension was built from the building next door into the lot, numbered 2511 N. Pulaski. Even the name of the street has changed; within Chicago city limits, Crawford is now known as Pulaski Rd. The story of the name change is an interesting one.<br /><br />On October 1, 1933, while Dillinger was languishing in jail in Lima, Ohio (from which he would soon be freed at the hands of his gang), Cook County civil service commissioner and former president of the Polish Women’s Alliance of America, Miss A. Emily Napieralski, appeared before Mayor Edward J. Kelly, petitioning him to support a change in name for Crawford Ave. to recognize the bravery of Polish general and American Revolutionary War hero Casimir Pulaski. Poles have a long history in Chicago -- Napieralski’s family had arrived as pioneers in the 1830s – and the 1930s saw their political influence growing. Miss Napieralski told the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span>,<br /><blockquote>My purpose is to bring about a closer brotherhood of man. Count Pulaski came to America and offered his services to George Washington. In giving distinguished service in the revolutionary war he lifted himself above any particular nationality, and his name should be remembered by all.</blockquote>Neither Mayor Kelly nor the city aldermen wanted to be seen as anti-Polish, so there was strong support on the city council for the proposal. Understandably and unsurprisingly, however, businesses along Crawford Ave. were nearly uniformly opposed. They had spent heavily advertising their addresses, investments which would be lost if the name change was granted. Some businesses, such as Crawford Laundry and Crawford Grill, would clearly face serious problems.<br /><br />Also opposed were grandchildren of Peter Crawford, the pioneer Chicago farmer for whom the street was named. Crawford had arrived in Chicago in 1844, and, for $15/acre, purchased the plot of land now bounded by Pulaski Rd., Kostner Rd., Cermak Rd., and 26th Street; his farmhouse home was at what is now 2230 S. Pulaski Rd. Crawford was one of the founders of the township of Cicero in 1857, and as early as 1863, the dirt path abutting the east side of his property, connecting Ogden and Archer Aves., was known as Crawford Ave. Chicago city street signs indicating the name of the street were posted in 1913. At the 1933 meeting of the city council where the name change was under consideration, Crawford’s grandchildren, John H. Crawford and Nettie Ferenson appeared, along with Chicago Historical Society leader Edward P. Brennan, who argued<br /><blockquote>“We have no Bowling Green, as has New York, no Commons, as has Boston; no Independence Hall, as has Philadelphia. All of our landmarks were wiped out by the fire. All we have left of historical significance is names, and the Historical Society is opposing the wiping out of the names of the families which helped build Chicago.”<br /></blockquote>Nevertheless, in December, 1933, the city council approved the name change to Pulaski Rd. by a vote of 34-12, rejecting compromises offered by the Crawford business group, such as renaming Augusta Blvd. in honor of Pulaski. You might expect that the business group would be bitter over the loss, but you probably wouldn’t expect them to wage an intense fight over the street’s name for the next 18 years, which in fact they did.<br /><br />The Crawford business owners first took the city to court, arguing that over 75% of the owners of property along the street opposed the name change, and that the council’s actions flew in the face of Illinois’ home-rule precedent, by which decisions were localized to the greatest degree possible. The group won a temporary injunction in January, 1934, but an appeals court eventually sided with the city, and “Pulaski Rd.” street signs began to be erected in the summer of 1934. Most of these were immediately stolen by upset property owners.<br /><br />The Crawford business group did not give up so easily, however. For three years, they continuously lobbied state lawmakers in Springfield, and in 1937, they got their wish: a state law was passed indicating that if the deed-holders of 60% of the frontage on any street petitioned city government to change the name of that street, their petition would be granted.<br /><br />Polish groups that supported Pulaski Road immediately saw the implications and devised an ingenious solution. They found a tiny one-block street, Haussen Court, on the north side, where the majority of the property owners were of Polish descent, and petitioned the city to change the name of that street to Crawford. In doing so, they would effectively block any attempt to revert Pulaski Rd. to the name Crawford, since that would cause duplication in street names.<br /><br />Mrs. Eda Haussen Bartels, an elderly lady who lived on one corner of Haussen Ct., and after whose father, pioneer farmer Fred Haussen, the street was named, was blindsided by the new plan and vigorously opposed it. The following year, in 1938, she passed away, and her physician loudly told the newspapers that her death “probably” resulted from worry about the name of her street.<br /><br />The city corporation counsel took both petitions – for changing Pulaski back to Crawford, and for changing Haussen to Crawford – under advisement, and undertook a painstaking and lengthy survey of property on both streets to learn the precise boundaries of each owner’s lot. In 1939, the city announced the failure of both petitions. Pulaski Rd. had 147,207 feet of frontage within Chicago city limits, and the Crawford business group’s petition was short by 9,727 feet. Similarly, the Haussen Ct. petition would require 1,264 feet of frontage to pass, but was short by 90 feet.<br /><br />The Crawford business group immediately went back to work, and managed to find additional Pulaski Rd. frontage property owners, more than enough to push them over the 60% mark, but the city refused to accept the supplementary petition, causing a return to court for all parties.<br /><br />During this time, most Chicagoans continued to refer to Pulaski Rd. as Crawford Ave., despite the change. In 1944, a streetcar conductor who called out “Crawford” was attacked by a Polish rider, Michael Orzschkwsk, who grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the ground, yelling invective in Polish (a sympathetic court fined Orzschkwsk $1 and ordered him to pay the conductor’s tailoring bill).<br /><br />The advent of World War II put the Crawford-Pulaski debate on hold for a few years. Nevertheless, the animosity between the groups was never far below the surface. A rather nasty 1945 letter to the editor in the Tribune, signed “Old Timer,” was symptomatic:<br /><blockquote>The wailing that is going on among the Polish groups of Chicago with regard to the establishment of the Curzon line as the eastern boundary of Poland arouses little sympathy among thousands of Chicago people who recall that these same Poles have made no move to restore Crawford avenue to the American public since they unlawfully annexed it in 1933 and changed its name to Pulaski road.<br /></blockquote>In 1950, the Crawford business group again sued the city, indicating they had a petition signed by owners of 60.4% of all the owners of Pulaski Rd. frontage supporting a return to the Crawford name. They asked the court to force the city to follow the 1937 state law. In 1951, Superior Court judge <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/sbarbaros-funeral-parlor.html">John Sbarbaro</a> did just that, and so, after 18 years, Pulaski Rd. became once again Crawford Ave.<br /><br />An intense battle between the two sides then took place, with Polish groups who supported the Pulaski name attempting to lure or threaten Crawford Ave. business owners to withdraw their names from the petition. The petitioners responded by pressuring these property owners to remain on the petition. Several petition signers filed withdrawals, and then withdrawals-of-withdrawals over the next year.<br /><br />However, the return to Crawford Ave. was short-lived. On appeal in November, 1952, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the 1937 state law creating the 60% margin for a street name change was unconstitutional, reversing Sbarbaro’s ruling, and handing the property right to street names back to the city council, which swiftly ordered Crawford Ave. to once again become Pulaski Rd., the name it holds to this day. Outside of the city limits, however, such as in Lincolnwood and Skokie, the continuation of Pulaski Rd. is still marked as Crawford Ave.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-3593128894337620492009-09-26T15:52:00.005-05:002011-02-18T12:01:54.998-06:00Nathan Leopold's Home<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaXyltYRnam-r_DRyZ4SHIRWv0q7RItrPXqtsninPDTMQRqhZwFsR5J7sZoN-zpQ7763hwjOYGj3DF71f_sWQQlgen4UZzTOJOH3jClHeTwkPVnNE9ts-m1jaMzbUL7ZmVUWT_gZZnRLY/s1600-h/Blog+Pics+026.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385882641158208290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaXyltYRnam-r_DRyZ4SHIRWv0q7RItrPXqtsninPDTMQRqhZwFsR5J7sZoN-zpQ7763hwjOYGj3DF71f_sWQQlgen4UZzTOJOH3jClHeTwkPVnNE9ts-m1jaMzbUL7ZmVUWT_gZZnRLY/s400/Blog+Pics+026.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />In general, I’m not much interested in serial murderers or “thrill” killers. But you can’t have a website about the history of crime in Chicago without some mention of Nathan Leopold, one half of the famous Leopold and Loeb duo, whose atrocious murder of 14-year old neighbor Robert Franks in 1924 captured the morbid fascination of newspaper readers throughout the world. Leopold, son of a shipping and paper magnate, lived in the mansion at 4754 S. Greenwood Ave., in the South Kenwood neighborhood.<br /><br />After the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/oleary-cottage-where-great-fire-began.html">Great Fire</a>, the Kenwood neighborhood became home to many of the city’s business and cultural elite, desirable for its proximity to the Loop, the meatpacking district (the Armours and Swifts were residents), and the University of Chicago. The home at 4754 S. Greenwood was built in 1886 by Charles B. Van Kirk, one of the founders of the Chicago Board of Trade. After World War I, Kenwood’s tree-lined boulevards became especially attractive to wealthy Chicago Jews, including Nathan F. Leopold, Sr. Leopold, Sr.'s parents, Samuel and Babette, had emigrated to the U.S. from Germany after the failed revolution of 1848 in that country, settling first in Michigan, where Nathan was born. After the Civil War, the Leopold family moved to Chicago, and young Nathan Leopold, Sr. went into the business of organizing the burgeoning shipping business through the Great Lakes. He first found success as a principal founder of the firm Leopold & Austrian, but he later started several other businesses, including the Manitou Shipping Company and a copper mining interest in Michigan. Later, he became a major player in paper mills as well, forming the Fiber Can Corporation, and operating a paper mill at suburban Morris, Illinois.<br /><br />Leopold was active in the community, serving as president of the Young Mens’ Hebrew Association in Chicago, forerunner of the modern Jewish Community Center organization. In 1892, he married into one of the city’s wealthiest Jewish families, taking Florence Foreman as his wife. Foreman’s father, Gerhart, was a Chicago pioneer, and one of the city’s earliest bankers; her sister later became Mrs. Julius Rosenwald. The Leopolds had three children: Foreman, Samuel, and Nathan, Jr.<br /><br />Nathan F. Leopold, Jr., was born in 1904, and was early recognized for intellectual brilliance, as well as his cruel mind. Fascinated by birds throughout his life, Leopold’s nurse was horrified by the callousness the boy showed towards birds, killing them for specimens in his collection. Ironically nicknamed “babe” by his family and friends, no expenditure was spared in the young scholar’s education, and after high school, he attended the nearby University of Chicago and the University of Michigan, becoming the youngest graduate in the history of the U of C at age 19 in 1923. In the fall of 1923, Leopold re-enrolled at the University, seeking a degree from the Law School.<br /><br />It was in November of that year that he began plotting a perfect murder with friend Richard “Dickie” Loeb, another child savant who had graduated at the University of Michigan the previous year at age 18, and was then enrolled in a masters’ degree program in History at the University of Chicago. Years of speculation by researchers about whether Leopold or Loeb originally hatched the murder plan have never turned definitive, but Leopold’s cruelty and lack of conscience, and Loeb’s fascination with crime and detective stories mean it easily could have been either. Both were students of epicurean and nihilist philosophies, with Leopold a master of medieval erotic literature and an avowed atheist.<br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVT4cYu4BBP-UZ6zuv2YjV7k8gSQXR2MP4A4EtSEe5zEfCI_6CoUD3vcqRwhm0GneU4ShKitjJ9sHZbNaPGGzUvXQuE0-3qaejZd_1kkHcpQxfmUhVlPuDN9pYzxcsLOJQK5Rz4Ob2mKQ/s1600-h/leopold.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385882648538655122" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 289px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVT4cYu4BBP-UZ6zuv2YjV7k8gSQXR2MP4A4EtSEe5zEfCI_6CoUD3vcqRwhm0GneU4ShKitjJ9sHZbNaPGGzUvXQuE0-3qaejZd_1kkHcpQxfmUhVlPuDN9pYzxcsLOJQK5Rz4Ob2mKQ/s400/leopold.bmp" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Nathan F. Leopold, Jr.)<br /></div><br />In any case, for adventure and thrills, the two first hatched a plan to kidnap the son of a wealthy Chicago family for ransom, puzzling for months over the question of how to collect the ransom without capture. Finally, they pieced together a complex and daring plan. The father of the kidnapped boy would be directed by taxicab to a 63rd street drug store, where he would receive a telephone call telling him to immediately catch a southbound train from the nearby station, presumably before police could be notified. On the train, he was to find a note telling him to throw the bag containing the money from the train at a certain point between two stations, where Leopold and Loeb would be waiting to receive the loot.<br /><br />The kidnapping and murder itself were no less carefully planned. Leopold planned to rent an automobile, by which the victim would be spirited away. However, then as now, rental service companies demanded reliable credit before allowing a borrower the keys. Leopold filled out an application at the car rental company under a false name (“Martin D. Ballard”), and indicated employment with a certain Mr. Mason, giving a work telephone number associated with a local lunch counter. When the rental company checked on the number, Loeb jumped out of his seat at the restaurant and picked up the phone before the waitress could reach it, confirming that he was “Mr. Mason,” and yes, Mr. Ballard certainly did work for him – and was one of his best employees.<br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapKUuinfT-p0kMYLR7l4oOmRRmG16b6CQNqN4VCvyaCkpbIdtUSJ7L27aEB2s-WkPZ3JFmJ9aJxth5c7NOvdTE1Yl-SSThAnDtz8gr5qztG1XAtvqQ9C8iiK5iXNPPiYrHNF2-8_C3Yo/s1600-h/leopoldcar.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385882657342806946" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 398px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjapKUuinfT-p0kMYLR7l4oOmRRmG16b6CQNqN4VCvyaCkpbIdtUSJ7L27aEB2s-WkPZ3JFmJ9aJxth5c7NOvdTE1Yl-SSThAnDtz8gr5qztG1XAtvqQ9C8iiK5iXNPPiYrHNF2-8_C3Yo/s400/leopoldcar.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: The rented Willys-Knight car used for the kidnapping)<br /></div><br />With the maroon-colored Willys-Knight car, purposely chosen as the same model as Leopold’s own vehicle, in their possession, Leopold and Loeb agreed on an alibi if questioned. The two agreed that after classes on Wednesday, May 21, 1924, they would say they went to the north end of Lincoln Park to look for a particular bird Leopold was hunting, a heron-gull. Their story would continue with the two drinking gin and wine in the park, with the younger Loeb becoming mildly drunk. Since Loeb’s family disapproved of alcohol, the two would claim they went to dinner at a Kenwood tavern, the Cocoanut Grove, at 53rd and Ellis Ave., afterwards cruising around Washington Park, picking up two girls they met and taking them to the Jackson Park golf course. Eventually, they would claim, the two returned to Leopold’s home on Greenwood at 11:00 p.m., with Loeb returning home at 2:00 a.m. after his family was asleep, to sleep off the day’s drinking.<br /><br />With their story straight, Leopold and Loeb drove around the neighborhood on the afternoon of the 21st, looking for a victim. At the Harvard School, a private primary school for wealthy children on Ellis Ave., just around the corner from Leopold's home, Loeb spotted a family friend, 14-year old Robert “Bobby” Franks, who had been umpiring a youth baseball game at the school’s sporting field. Loeb and Franks were not close friends, but they had frequently played tennis together, so Franks came over to the car at once when Loeb called to him, “Hello, Bob! Come in a minute, I want to ask you about a tennis racket.”<br /><br />Bobby Franks entered the car, sealing his doom. Later at trial, Loeb would claim that he was driving while Leopold delivered the fateful blow to the victim in the back seat; Leopold claimed the opposite, and it was never determined who actually killed Franks. In any case, a taped-up chisel blow to the head rendered Franks unconscious just minutes after he got in the car, and a gag placed in his mouth quickly suffocated him. Leopold and Loeb drove around for around four hours afterwards, waiting for dusk, then dumped Franks’ body in what was then a sparsely-populated prairie and lagoon area, near the Pennsylvania railroad tracks at 119th Street.<br /><br />The two then returned to Kenwood, parking the car near Leopold’s house, and burned their blood-stained clothes in Loeb’s basement. They played cards until late that night.<br /><br />The next day, they telephoned the Franks home, making a ransom demand for $10,000, and also had a ransom note delivered, which had been prepared before the kidnapping and addressed on the way home from the murder. On the phone, Leopold, referring to himself as “George Johnson,” threatened to kill the boy if the Franks family contacted police. Of course, Bobby Franks was already dead, and the family did in fact contact police, but the police chose not to file a formal report immediately in order to keep the supposed kidnappers in the dark while detectives followed up leads.<br /><br />Thus, without a police report of the kidnapping, when Franks’ body was discovered by a railroad worker the day after the killing, he was not immediately identified. The unidentified boy was found naked except for his eyeglasses, strewn a few feet away in the mud, and one stocking. The railroad man who found him placed the glasses back on his face and called for backup in moving him to the morgue.<br /><br />Meanwhile, at the Franks home, the murdered boy’s father was waiting at his home for the taxicab Leopold and Loeb had arranged to take him to the drug store near the train station, from which he would depart and throw the ransom money out of the window. Just before the taxi arrived, however, word came by telephone: Bobby Franks had been identified as the likely identity of a boy's body found near the railroad tracks. Instead of following the ransom note’s demands, the Franks family drove to the morgue, where they sadly confirmed that it was, in fact, their boy. Just one thing was wrong: whose eyeglasses were those? Bobby Franks had perfect eyesight and never wore glasses.<br /><br />Hence, the famous clue that would finally break the case.<br /><br />Leopold had dropped the glasses, which he wore only rarely, at the crime scene, and hadn’t noticed it until later. The police found the optician who had sold the glasses, Almer Coe & Co., and asked them to search their sales records, a task which was simplified by the fact that this particular pair employed a rare type of hinge, produced only by the Bobrow Optical Company in Brooklyn, New York. This fact narrowed the list of suspects to just three in the Chicago area, one of whom was Nathan F. Leopold, Jr., of 4754 S. Greenwood Ave., just a few blocks from the Franks home. The attention of the police, which had initially focused on various teachers at the Harvard School where Franks attended, and a suspicious druggist who had recently attempted suicide, turned completely to Leopold.<br /><br />In the early morning of May 30, 1924, Leopold was brought into State Attorney Robert Crowe’s office for interrogation by Crowe and Chief of Detectives <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/political-banquet-for-obanion.html">Michael Hughes</a>. Questioned about the location where the body was found, Leopold answered confidently, “Yes, I have been there fifty times. You see, I am interested in ornithology [study of birds]. I frequently go there with classes and with companions.”<br /><br />Shown the glasses, he denied they belonged to him, but admitted he owned a similar pair. Detectives were even then searching his home, where they found an empty Almer Coe & Co. glasses case, but no spectacles. Confronted with this evidence, State’s Attorney Crowe asked Leopold whether it was possible he had lost his glasses at the scene of the crime.<br /><br />“I told you I had been there frequently. I believe I was there either the Friday or the Saturday just before the murder. I might have dropped them on that occasion,” replied Leopold.<br /><br />But had the glasses lain in the dirt for a week, as Leopold claimed, they would have been covered with dirt and streaked with rain, when in fact they were found completely clean. Next, Crowe showed Leopold the ransom note, which had been published in the newspapers during the past week. “This letter was written by an educated man. Do you think that you could have written such a letter?”<br /><br />“Yes, I could easily duplicate it, if I couldn’t write a better one. There is one mistake in the letter. The word kidnapping is spelled kidnaping. I noticed it at the time.” Likely, Leopold had purposely misspelled the word to mislead investigators.<br /><br />Police detectives searched Leopold’s home, and found his typewriter, but it was not of the sort that was used to create the note. Leopold confidently repeated the alibi he and Loeb had agreed upon, describing their travels to Lincoln Park to look for birds, the drinking, the girls they met in Washington Park, and so on. When questioned, Loeb first claimed he was too drunk to remember the events of the day, but eventually foggily repeated a story similar to Leopold's. The police began to believe that Leopold was in fact innocent, the victim of an unusual and coincidental set of circumstances. During 30 hours of questioning, Leopold held court with detectives and reporters, demonstrating his superior intellect on any subject proposed. Claiming that his heroes were Oscar Wilde, Nietzsche, and Epicurus, he was asked, “What about Socrates?” “I never thought a lot of that old bird,” Leopold rakishly replied.<br /><br />Police very nearly released him. Finally, however, someone thought to question the Leopolds’ chauffeur, Sven Englund, who lived in the family’s garage. When asked about Leopold’s maroon Willys-Knight, Englund indicated that it had been in the garage all day. Englund’s wife confirmed seeing it at home – and thus, not in Lincoln Park, not at the Cocoanut Grove Inn, not cruising around with two boy geniuses and their new girlfriends, and not at the Jackson Park golf course. When confronted with Englund’s statement, Loeb was the first to crack. He demanded to speak with Crowe and District Attorney <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/sbarbaros-funeral-parlor.html">John Sbarbaro</a>, and began confessing the true story of the murder.<br /><br />When told that Loeb was confessing, Leopold realized the jig was up and admitted his role in the killing. In a chilling statement related later to reporters, the young nihilist told one officer, “If I’d have only known that Loeb was preaching [confessing], if I’d known that I would have killed myself there in my room. Do you recall when I was standing at my desk? I had my hand on my gun. But before I killed myself I’d have put a few policemen out of the way. Yes, I’d have got you.”<br /><br />Over the next two days, while housed in separate rooms at the Windermere Hotel on 56th and Hyde Park Blvd. (which still stands next door to my former dormitory, the Broadview), Leopold and Loeb led detectives around the south side of Chicago, pointing out precisely where they had disposed of Franks’ clothes, as well as the typewriter used in the ransom note, a second machine owned by Leopold, which he had dumped into the Jackson Park lagoon after the murder. A few days later, divers would find the typewriter, essentially closing the case on the two killers.<br /><br />An early notion to plead not guilty on defense of insanity was quickly rejected by their counsel, world-famous attorney Clarence Darrow (who had defended the indefensible in Chicago <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/mont-tennes-king-of-gamblers.html">before</a>). The boys were too intelligent for anyone to believe they didn’t understand the difference between right and wrong, the M'Naughten Rule standard for insanity accepted in Illinois. Instead, Darrow convinced the boys and their families to plead guilty, and try to avoid the death penalty. A hearing before a judge began in late August, 1924, and concluded on September 10. Primarily on the basis of their age, the judge in the case denied the state’s motion to impose the death penalty, instead imposing sentence of life plus 99 years on each. Both were assigned to Joliet penitentiary.<br /><br />Loeb, initially the more popular in prison, and the less aloof of the two, was murdered in the shower room in 1936 by a fellow prisoner who claimed Loeb had made homosexual advances toward him. Leopold served a minimum required third of his sentence and was released in 1958, living the rest of his life as a hospital worker in Puerto Rico, where he died in 1971.<br /><br />The story of the two brilliant young murderers who killed for adventure and pleasure was irresistible to newspaper publishers throughout the world. Typical of the editorials was the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tribune</span>, which asked rhetorically, “Were they bored by a life which left them nothing to be desired, no obstacles to overcome, no goal to attain? Were they jaded by the jazz-life of gin and girls, so that they needed so terrible a thing as murder to give them new thrills?”<br /><br />The publicity was obviously difficult to handle for the families involved; curiosity-seekers gawked at them in front of their homes at all hours. After the trial, in October, 1924, Nathan Leopold, Sr., sold the home at 4754 Greenwood and moved to Lakeview, living on Roscoe St., near Belmont Harbor, where he died in 1929. His two other sons, Foreman and Samuel, changed their names to “Lebold,” continuing their father’s business and community interests until their retirements in the 1960s.<br /><br />The Leopold mansion was destroyed in the late 1960s. The large home pictured at the top of this post was built on the site, but the photo below shows the home as it looked in the 1920s.<br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0eG0GXtN8l-cuINObJ4iuVOQCWXayoBfEfPqINhwKrjShBq28YX0_IDQEiCXNl-ozpYed7TAyqld32k6g3krMrbiwibKEhGXIkrLK9aOcUf71gcE2m9RhcpG2edQ-ZQ7Mrw8YtTJ5yv4/s1600-h/4754+Greenwood.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5385882642445610194" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 392px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0eG0GXtN8l-cuINObJ4iuVOQCWXayoBfEfPqINhwKrjShBq28YX0_IDQEiCXNl-ozpYed7TAyqld32k6g3krMrbiwibKEhGXIkrLK9aOcUf71gcE2m9RhcpG2edQ-ZQ7Mrw8YtTJ5yv4/s400/4754+Greenwood.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Nathan Leopold mansion, circa 1924) </div>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-33291710927109945492009-09-05T13:33:00.005-05:002009-09-05T19:14:26.535-05:00Gangs of Chicago: Thomas "Buff" Higgins Leads the Wright Street Gang<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqsIi_bBA3PF0mxKUH29bZ4IPuYS6Ba77LTRNmcmigz1X-RyPNagBgvId5HTDQFlqbjkn-8T20dw01BxWb3nf7yDqh5PU8rmwiPhK_qDnRCYPCAoRJqpVJmMv-vMIJm6nFY7USYHw3CNY/s1600-h/2009+pictures+%28January-August%29+253.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqsIi_bBA3PF0mxKUH29bZ4IPuYS6Ba77LTRNmcmigz1X-RyPNagBgvId5HTDQFlqbjkn-8T20dw01BxWb3nf7yDqh5PU8rmwiPhK_qDnRCYPCAoRJqpVJmMv-vMIJm6nFY7USYHw3CNY/s400/2009+pictures+%28January-August%29+253.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378055205983103346" border="0" /></a>By most accounts, 1893 was a banner year in Chicago. The World’s Fair exhibited the very best the city had to offer, including magnificent architecture, a harmonious blending of cultures, and a beautiful physical landscape, to millions of visitors. But in the shadow of the “white city” was a very dark city. Just a mile or two from the sparkling waters of Lake Michigan lay the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/bloody-maxwell.html">Maxwell Street district</a>, a neighborhood teeming with the most incorrigible criminals, young desperadoes scurrying through the filthy streets and rotting tenement buildings like vermin. Then as now, poverty and hopelessness bred desperation and hedonism, and young men with little to live for would die over even less. The most vicious of these men formed into street gangs which terrorized 14th Place, in those days known as either Wright Street). The leader of one of these gangs was Thomas “Buff” Higgins, who at age 23 was already a notorious figure and had been in and out of jail over 100 times. In the early morning of September 3, 1893, in a Peoria St. home, Higgins wrote the final chapter in his life in a frantic moment, igniting a city-wide debate on poverty, crime and punishment in Chicago.<br /><br />“Buff” was a nickname, short for “Buffalo”, and possibly styled after the wild-west gunslinger star of countless dime novels, “Buffalo Bill”, whose human incarnation in William Cody had captivated Chicago in a series of performances at the World’s Fair that year. Born in Ireland in the early 1870s, Buff Higgins immigrated with his parents to Chicago at the age of 2. Like many of their countrymen, the Higgins settled in the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/bloody-maxwell.html">Maxwell street district</a>, where poor workingmen could afford a few square feet of space. Conditions in the neighborhood were poor, and it was no place to raise a family, but it beat starvation and religious strife in Ireland.<br /><br />As a boy, Higgins attended the notorious <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/walsh-school.html">Walsh School</a>, which still exists today, where Irish schoolboys banded together against newer immigrant groups from Germany, Russia, Poland, and other Eastern European regions. Knives and even guns were commonplace in these schoolyard battles, and through them, Buff Higgins came to be an expert fighter; as the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> later described his upbringing, "Fighting came to him easily, and nature had given him a body well adapted for physical combat. Experience supplemented his natural ability as a fighter and it was not long before 'Buff' Higgins was a man to be feared by each and every one who happened to come into contact with him."<br /><br />By age 14, Higgins had dropped out of school, and he descended into a life of crime, naturally falling in with some of the tough Irish street gangs that controlled 14th Place (then known as Wright St.), near the intersection of Sangamon Street, which was the location of so many battles with police that it became known as <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/11/dead-mans-corner.html">“Dead Man’s Corner”</a>. Higgins’ first recorded arrest, at age 14, was for stealing grapes from a neighborhood fruit merchant. From that ignominious beginning, the following ten years saw Buff back in the city jail – or the “Bridewell”, as it was known – countless times for disorderly conduct, drunkenness, vagrancy, larceny, and assault. In 1891, Higgins was even implicated in the murder of a neighborhood laborer, George Scott, and the entire Wright Street Gang, in which he had become a chief member, was hauled into court.<br /><br />Finally, in 1892, Higgins was sent to the state penitentiary at Joliet to serve a one-year prison sentence for robbery. When he finished his term in September, 1893, he returned to the neighborhood and shortly found himself in need of money. With two fellow members of his Wright Street Gang, Higgins planned a midnight robbery of an irresistible target.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZsybTSgoy63-JW7NAGOxeGG_Pu4yKuvfGKJeSy8_amdz0cuQiXe-3Sc-UpbP2mojJBugjvGkqF9U749b3jKu3vbznYzkIUd10kdwFq0OBwNtB_xpWS4rQX7Se5CGBM9ifWbMG4BhoXpY/s1600-h/buffhiggins.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 347px; height: 396px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZsybTSgoy63-JW7NAGOxeGG_Pu4yKuvfGKJeSy8_amdz0cuQiXe-3Sc-UpbP2mojJBugjvGkqF9U749b3jKu3vbznYzkIUd10kdwFq0OBwNtB_xpWS4rQX7Se5CGBM9ifWbMG4BhoXpY/s400/buffhiggins.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5378055194323601714" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Thomas "Buff" Higgins. The Tribune described him as "low browed and repulsive in features")<br /></div><br />February of 1893 had seen the bankruptcy of one of the nation’s largest railroads, the Philadelphia and Reading, and other railroad companies were believed to be on the verge of collapse. Nowhere was the shock of these insolvencies greater than in Chicago, the heart of so many rail systems. In those days before federal deposit insurance, banks invested more conservatively, but were also more vulnerable to “runs” by depositors, who, hearing rumors of a bank collapse, all rushed to withdraw their savings, possibly exacerbating the feared collapse (see earlier posts <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/07/saga-of-jesse-binga.html">here</a> and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/kill-dillinger-here.html">here</a> for more details on banking before FDIC).<br /><br />Among those who withdrew their savings in cash during the “Panic of 1893”, as it was later called, was Mrs. Bridget McCooey, the wife of a <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/cranes-alley.html">Crane Bros.</a> elevator factory laborer, and a resident of a hardscrabble working-class neighborhood west of the Loop, just north of <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/bloody-maxwell.html">“Bloody Maxwell”</a>, where Higgins and company ran the streets. Mrs. McCooey withdrew the family’s life savings, around $400, and stored it in cash in their home at 153 Johnson St. (now 230 S. Peoria St., pictured above). Adjusting amounts for inflation over such long periods is difficult, since the quality and types of goods available for purchase have changed so tremendously (most people would rather have $1,000 to spend in the 2009 Best Buy catalog than $1,000 in the 1901 Sears catalog, even though the $1,000 in 1901 would in principle be “worth” much more than $1,000 in current dollars). Nevertheless, using ordinary measures of inflation, $400 in 1893 is the equivalent of around $10,000 in today’s dollars.<br /><br />Perhaps Mrs. McCooey mentioned the withdrawal to a friend or neighbor, or perhaps a bank clerk had noted the unusually large withdrawal. In any case, word quickly spread around that a sizeable sum of cash was hidden somewhere in the McCooey home. Buff Higgins had found his target.<br /><br />Around 2:00 a.m. on September 3, 1893, Higgins, joined by two fellow Wright Street Gang members, Harry “Sheeney Joe” Feinberg and Edward “Red” Gary, approached the McCooey home on Peoria St. The three men thoroughly rummaged through the home, overturning every cabinet and drawer, in search of the $400. Unknown to the robbers, Mrs. McCooey had decided a few days earlier that her bank was solvent, redepositing the cash they sought. Finally, there was only one place the trio had yet to look, the McCooeys' bedrooms.<br /><br />Feinberg and Gary waited at the bedroom door, prepared for a quick getaway, while Higgins alone tiptoed into the bedroom of Bridget’s 42-year old husband, Peter. Higgins was opening a bureau drawer in the bedroom when he accidentally knocked over a chair, awakening the sleeping Mr. McCooey. What happened next would be replayed countless times in court. The <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> describes the scene:<br /><blockquote>Springing to his elbow, half awake, [McCooey] was dazzled by the light of a lamp shining full in his eyes. The lamp was in the hands of a man who stood near the bed. Two other men were in the room near the door. A child would have known their errand -- robbery. As McCooey was in the very act of springing from his bed the man with the lamp flashed a revolver and fired. McCooey, checked in the midst of his spring, fell back beside his wife with a groan. The man with the pistol set the lamp on the floor and the three men ran out of the bedroom. Mrs. McCooey screamed her husband's name. He made no reply. She turned to him. His face and nightdress were covered with blood which was flowing from a wound in his left eye. Then she ran screaming from the house, crying: "Murder! They have killed my husband. Murder!"</blockquote>A neighbor, awakened by Mrs. McCooey’s screams, ran the two blocks to the police station, and a squad of officers was sent out to search the slums for a killer. They knew it was more than likely that their murderer hailed from the Maxwell street district, so they began combing the streets around 14th Pl. and Sangamon carefully. At 5:00 a.m. four officers from the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/maxwell-street-police-station.html">Maxwell Street Police Station</a> were patrolling that <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/11/dead-mans-corner.html">infamous corner</a> (another source says it was at 14th Place and Jefferson) when they heard a noise coming from the gutter below one of the vaulted sidewalks. The officers peered into the gutter and found Buff Higgins (apparently, Buff was one of the city’s clumsier criminals), lying on his back with revolver in hand.<br /><br />Knowing Higgins had been released from Joliet just a few days earlier, and recognizing the robbery-gone-wrong as typical of the work of his ilk, the officers hauled Buff into the stationhouse for questioning. And it’s there that the writers of Higgins’ biography diverge regarding what happened next.<br /><br />Under intense interrogation by police Captain Blettner, Higgins denied being a part of the crew that ransacked the McCooey home. Thinking he might react to the crime scene, officers brought Higgins back to the McCooey home, and had him face the forlorn family:<br /><blockquote>"Look at your work", scorned Capt. Blettner<br />"I did not do it, I do not know anything about it", replied Higgins, trembling.</blockquote>Mrs. McCooey then rushed for Higgins, yelling "Is that the man who killed my husband? I shall kill him if he remains in my sight."<br /><br />Officers subdued the distraught wife, but Higgins did not admit his guilt. Returning to the police station, however, under continued questioning, Higgins finally broke down and confessed, signing his name to a statement indicating he had committed the murder of Peter McCooey:<br /><blockquote>"I went in the house with two other men for the purpose of getting that $400 which I knew McCooey had. I was the first to go in, and the other two followed close behind. When we got inside we searched all the places where we thought the money might be, but we could not find it. I then went into the room where the man and his wife lay asleep and searched his clothes. There was only $1.65 in the pockets of his trousers. I was about to go out of the room when I made a noise which awoke the man. I saw him open his eyes and when he tried to get out of bed I fired the shot at him. I knew I hit him, because he groaned once and then all was still. The men with me heard the shot and jumped out of the window and ran away. I was not long in following, as I heard the man in the next room [a boarder at the McCooey home] getting out of bed. I went under the sidewalk at Jefferson and Fourteenth streets and staid there until the police arrested me."</blockquote>Higgins’ own account of the confession, which he later gave in court, was quite different. In his version of the story, after returning from the McCooey home, the police stripped him naked and threw him into a basement cell at the stationhouse, where he remained for four days without food or drink. When he requested the presence of his attorney, A.J. Hanlon, the police refused. Finally, after four days, when Higgins was famished and devoid of all hope, the police captain appeared at his cell with a favorite Irish beverage, saying<br /><blockquote>"Buff, it is an outrage for you to be treated like this. You must be feeling pretty slim. Don't you want a bottle of whiskey?"</blockquote>Higgins told the captain there was $0.50 in his clothes that he would happily trade for the liquor, and the captain complied, giving a bottle of whiskey to a man who hadn’t had a bite to eat in days. Buff Higgins was quickly in a state of delirious drunkenness. It was at this point, Higgins claimed, that the captain offered him his freedom. All he had to do was sign a statement declaring his innocence, and he would be free to go. Therefore, when the captain put a pen in Higgins’ hand, and pushed a sheet of paper in front of him, Buff was happy to sign, even though he was likely illiterate and had no attorney present.<br /><br />In fact, the statement was a confession, and Buff Higgins had just signed away his life.<br />The police disputed this account, and claimed as evidence the fact that Higgins had similarly confessed to the coroner’s jury on the day after he signed his confession at the police station. But the Chicago police in those days were known for their brutal tactics, especially in crime-ridden immigrant wards like the Maxwell street district, so we cannot know for certain.<br /><br />On November 29, 1893, just under three months after the crime took place, a jury returned a verdict of first-degree murder against Buff Higgins, and sentenced him to death. It was one of only three death sentences levied in Cook county that year. The others were against a Chinese laundryman, Junk Jack Lin, who allegedly murdered his cousin, and, far more famously, Patrick Prendergast, the assassin of Chicago mayor Carter Harrison. Prendergast was initially scheduled to meet the hangman’s noose on the same day as Higgins, March 23, 1894, a fact that sickened Higgins: Buff would be the first to admit he was a street gang member and a robber, but Prendergast was a lunatic. Higgins told a New York Times reporter, “When it comes my turn to shuffle off, I want Irish hemp and a green shroud [like Higgins, Prendergast was of Irish origin], but I draw the line on being compelled to pass out with Prendergast."<br /><br />But Buff Higgins had one more ace up his sleeve. His attorney, A.J. Hanlon, petitioned the court for another trial based on new evidence, and on January 16, 1894, the court heard the motion. At this hearing, Higgins’ counsel placed into evidence the affidavit of one Joseph Kauper, an 18-year old neighbor of the McCooeys. Kauper’s affidavit indicated that he saw three men flee the McCooey home on the night of the crime, and that Buff Higgins was not one of them.<br /><br />The prosecution in the case was stunned, but suspicious. Kauper was a dull boy (the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> indicated that “his answers to questions on the witness stand yesterday showed him to be dull of comprehension,” suggesting mild retardation), and why hadn’t he come forward with his story earlier? Under intense cross-examination at the hearing, Kauper broke down and admitted the affidavit was fraudulent. A friend of his, one Tim Collins, who was a politically-connected leader of a street-sweeping union, had apparently convinced him to sign the affidavit in order to “give Buff a lift”. Likely Higgins’ friends in the Wright Street Gang had put the screws to either Collins or Kauper -- or both -- to try to free Buff. But Kauper’s confession to perjury ended the last of Higgins’ hopes. "All right, I guess the jig's up with me now," he was heard to mutter in the courtroom after his motion for a new trial was denied.<br /><br />Attorney Hanlon appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court for a stay of execution, which was denied on March 22. On hearing the news, the prisoner sighed,<br /><blockquote>Well, that's just what I expected. So my neck will crack Friday -- I'll hang. No use to tell me the Governor will interfere. Gov. Altgeld is out of the State. So is Lieut.-Gov. Gill, I understand...I haven't any money or influential friends behind me. Father Dore was with me this morning and gave me the consolation of the Catholic Church, of which I am a member.</blockquote>In fact, Lieutenant Governor Joseph Gill did consider the case, but refused to interfere with the execution, and at noon on March 23, 1894, Buff Higgins was led onto the platform and a noose placed around his head. Prendergast’s execution had been stayed until July, so Higgins did receive one final wish, not to share the stage with the famed assassin.<br /><br />Two Roman Catholic priests, including the aforementioned Father Dore, accompanied the Irishman in his last moments, placing a crucifix on his lips just before the hood was lowered over his head. The city’s newspapers delivered pages of purple prose describing the lurid death scene in the following day’s issue. Part of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span>’s description depicted the final moment for the terror of 14th Place: "Then there was a fall, as the rope stretched to its full tension with a sound like that from the heaviest string on the bass viol, 'Buff' Higgins had paid the penalty for murder."<br /><br />Buff Higgins was only the third man executed in Cook County since the Haymarket defendants seven years earlier, but at least one hanging would take place every year in the county through the end of the decade. The rapidly-rising crime rates of the period inclined Chicagoans to take a sterner view regarding capital punishment. Perhaps the most remarkable fact of Higgins’ experience was the expediency with which his execution took place. Just three months passed between the crime and the conviction, and from thence it was less than another four months before all appeals were exhausted and the criminal was hanged. While capital punishment is still practiced in the U.S. today, the time between the crime and the execution typically stretches into decades. Even in Texas, the state where executions are most common, the average time between conviction and execution (not including time between the crime and the trial) is nearly 11 years. In California, the average prisoner under sentence of death waits 20 years before execution.<br /><br />The last execution in Illinois took place in 1999. In 2000, then-Governor George Ryan (now federal inmate 16627-424) commuted the sentences of all prisoners then on death row after several were exonerated based on DNA evidence, suggesting widespread errors in policing and sentencing. Ryan’s successors in the governor’s office, Rod Blagojevich and Pat Quinn have maintained the moratorium.<br /><br />Higgins' companions in the McCooey robbery eventually were caught. The police found Feinberg around the same time they arrested Higgins, while "Red" Gary managed to elude the law until 1895, when he was arrested for stealing the blanket off a horse. At his arraignment, he gave a false name, but an experienced detective recognized him. Both Feinberg and Gary served terms in jail for the robbery, and both continued criminal careers into the mid-1900s. <br /><br />Peter McCooey’s home, pictured at the top of this post, is long gone, replaced by a condominium complex. The Maxwell Street slums where boys like Buff Higgins went bad is essentially gone, too, replaced largely by upscale condominiums and the University of Illinois at Chicago campus.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-42425107520939976832009-08-29T18:33:00.005-05:002009-08-29T19:03:45.092-05:00Death in the Barber's Chair: The Rise and Fall of Sam Amatuna<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jeZuL68QQ1K8ksfOAVYlY_c0zzLZwYBx07FOKmwfdKJVwcbIYenG3Eiu8cukZNe9Sit9eL7Q0NGzOL7QPhQUeZrSJKsY8DSSsCe_inPejDhjHXwDQ6vKy1W4MMX3t5NpUNFuVtEyCkI/s1600-h/2009+pictures+%28January-August%29+265.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7jeZuL68QQ1K8ksfOAVYlY_c0zzLZwYBx07FOKmwfdKJVwcbIYenG3Eiu8cukZNe9Sit9eL7Q0NGzOL7QPhQUeZrSJKsY8DSSsCe_inPejDhjHXwDQ6vKy1W4MMX3t5NpUNFuVtEyCkI/s400/2009+pictures+%28January-August%29+265.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5375535325230668322" border="0" /></a><br />Unione Siciliana president Mike Merlo had kept the peace between rival alcohol-production organizations in Prohibition-era Chicago through his death in 1924. Over the next year, the violent war between the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">“Bloody” Genna</a> brothers, operators of a gigantic dispersed distilling operation in Little Italy, and the Northside Gang headed by <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/obanions-flower-shop.html">Dion O’Banion</a>, heated up, and news of assassinations filled the city’s newspapers. Into this tinderbox stepped the dapper Don of the Maxwell Street district, Salvatore Samuzzo Amatuna (frequently known as Sam or even “Samoots”). As head of the powerful Unione, the young Amatuna struck a pose as a political kingmaker and gadabout in the Sicilian community, but he couldn’t bring peace to the underworld, and the bloody beer wars escalated until they claimed Amatuna himself as a victim, as he sat in a barbershop here, at 804 W. Roosevelt Rd.<br /><br />Amatuna was born in the seafaring town of Pozzallo, Sicily, at the far south end of that island, in 1899. As a teenager, he found his way to Chicago, settling in the “Little Italy” district along Maxwell Street in the early 1910s. Like many young Sicilians in the neighborhood at the time, he found his calling in politics, providing the street-level muscle in the increasingly violent war over the aldermanic seat in the 19th ward, which included Little Italy. <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/alderman-john-powers-home-bombed-by.html">John Powers</a> had held the seat since 1888, when the 19th was predominantly populated by Irish, but by the 1910s, Powers was presiding over an increasingly-Italian ward, and the new immigrants had their own rising political stars, including “Diamond Joe” Esposito and former Roman Catholic priest and convicted counterfeiter, Anthony D’Andrea.<br /><br />D’Andrea ran against Powers’ right-hand man, James Bowler in the aldermanic election of 1916 (in those days, each ward had two aldermen), and the race was close, despite pre-election revelations about D’Andrea’s criminal past. Not all Italians in the 19th supported D’Andrea, however; Powers had made a career out of incorporating potential Italian rivals into his organization over the years. In fact, one of Bowler’s chief political advisors was a Sicilian, Frank Lombardi.<br /><br />Nothing irked D’Andrea’s supporters more than the defection of Lombardi and other fellow countrymen – Italians constituted a substantial majority in the ward by that time, and easily could have elected one of their own, had they united behind D’Andrea. Just days before the election, Lombardi met two friends in a saloon on Taylor street. As the trio raised their glasses in a traditional Sicilian toast, one of the “friends” drew a .38 caliber revolver from his hip pocket and shot Lombardi dead.<br /><br />The police advanced the theory that Lombardi was the victim of a <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/death-corner.html">“Black Hand”</a> extortion scheme, a common occurrence among well-heeled Italians of the era, but Lombardi’s wife and just about everyone else blamed supporters of D’Andrea. The accusations among those in the know in Little Italy led directly to a hot-headed 17-year old from Sicily, Sam Amatuna.<br />Amatuna was questioned in Lombardi’s death, but with little evidence and most eyewitnesses unable to “remember” the scene accurately, no charges were ever filed. The murder may even have been counterproductive, as it revived voters’ recollections of D’Andrea’s sordid past, and<br />James Bowler won the election of 1916.<br /><br />Regardless of his real guilt or innocence, Amatuna’s reputation as a man to be feared on Maxwell Street was established. Through his connections in D’Andrea’s organization, he also became a close ally of the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">Genna brothers</a>, especially the toughest and most violent of that clan, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/angelo-gennas-violent-life-and-death.html">Angelo</a>. Both <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/angelo-gennas-violent-life-and-death.html">Angelo Genna </a>and Sam Amatuna were fearsome characters in the district, but unlike Genna, Amatuna was able to separate business from social concerns, and when not cracking skulls for D’Andrea, he was widely known for his generosity and sunny personality, even gaining the moniker of “Smilin’ Sammy Samoots” in some quarters.<br /><br />But behind the smile remained a man talented with a gun, and one fearless in using it for his own advancement. As one friend told reporters later, "Sure, if he wanted a guy knocked off, he'd have him knocked off, 'what the hell?' But he was a good guy just the same."<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinAKxZar7ezIhnxP3g2wpKVDMIyPzH0Kf1IUod0t-Ipy3RLUISNqDPX8zvOnbcsZ9R20ej7bUKJ9WUblWunqqorqyM0VE-2Qz1OC8lJZ9xK-u6d1a-1GOnOiDGpwQluJM9lYJ2lLJfSvU/s1600-h/samoots.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 192px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinAKxZar7ezIhnxP3g2wpKVDMIyPzH0Kf1IUod0t-Ipy3RLUISNqDPX8zvOnbcsZ9R20ej7bUKJ9WUblWunqqorqyM0VE-2Qz1OC8lJZ9xK-u6d1a-1GOnOiDGpwQluJM9lYJ2lLJfSvU/s400/samoots.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5375535330615104002" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Sam "Samoots" Amatuna)<br /></div><br />In 1921, D’Andrea again ran for alderman, this time directly challenging the incumbent Powers. Once again, D’Andrea relied on the force and violence doled out by toughs like Amatuna to help get out the vote, and once again, Italians supporting Powers were a major target (for his part, Powers was never afraid of dirty political tricks either). During May of that year, Paul Labriola and Harry Raimondi, lieutenants in the Powers organization, both met their ends at the hands of a five-man assassin crew, widely believed to have been headed by Angelo Genna and Sam Amatuna. Genna was arrested and put on trial, but walked when the prosecution’s lead witness changed his story on the last day before the jury convened.<br /><br />Again, D’Andrea was unable to capture a seat on the city council, losing the election by 435 votes. Shortly after the election, D’Andrea was murdered, and the Genna brothers took over his organization, turning it from a political enterprise to a criminal one. With their base of Sicilian supporters, they produced massive quantities of (rot-gut) liquor in small stills in basement apartments throughout Little Italy, in the process becoming the key part in the supply chain that ended in the blind pigs and speakeasies run by <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/johnny-torrio-shot.html">Johnny Torrio</a> and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/capones-chicago-home.html">Al Capone</a>. The Gennas employed Amatuna as the enforcer for their network of family-run microbreweries. It was “Smilin’ Sammy” who visited those who failed to meet their promised quotas of booze, and few suppliers fell behind the production schedule twice.<br /><br />Violent and superstitious, the Gennas began butting heads with rival booze gangs, especially the Northside gang, run by the equally-superstitious <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/mcgoverns-saloon.html">singing-waiter</a>-turned-<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/obanions-flower-shop.html">florist</a>, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/obanion-homes.html">Dion O’Banion</a>. O’Banion’s reckless hijacking of Genna deliveries, plus his general disrespect for his Italian competitors, made the blood of Angelo Genna and Sam Amatuna boil. The only factor keeping O’Banion from meeting the same fate as Lombardi, Labriola, and Raimondi, was the word of Mike Merlo, chief of the most powerful Sicilian social and political organization in the city, the Unione Siciliana.<br /><br />But Merlo’s days were numbered. In 1924, he died of natural causes, and a few days later, O’Banion was dead in his floral shop, shot dead by three men, believed to include the Gennas' masterful assassins Scalisi and Anselmi, plus a third man, who the police believed to be either Angelo Genna or New York-based Unione president, Frankie Yale. When the police brought Yale in for questioning, it was Sam Amatuna who provided an alibi – Amatuna and Yale had been dining at the Palmer House hotel at the time, he claimed. No one was ever charged with the crime.<br /><br />With the mediating influence of Merlo gone, the bullets flew in Chicago, and in the coming months, three Genna brothers met the same fate as O’Banion. <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/johnny-torrio-shot.html">Johnny Torrio was nearly assassinated</a> as well, and he and the remaining Gennas fled the city.<br /><br />Into the consequent void of power in Little Italy stepped Sam Amatuna. After Angelo’s death, he took two bodyguards and walked into the headquarters of the Unione Siciliana, informing everyone that he was now president. In his attempt at changing from a mere street tough to a powerful political force, he began acting the part of neighborhood Don, dressing in snappy clothes (it was said he owned 200 embroidered silk shirts – the newspapers repeatedly referred to him as the “Beau Brummel of Little Italy”) and buying haircuts and shaves for the teenagers hanging around the barbershop whenever he went in for a trim.<br /><br />But make no mistake – under the silk shirt beat the cold heart of a killer. A story frequently passed around about Amatuna said that when a certain dry cleaners damaged his clothes, the enraged dandy retaliated by ripping out the stairs connecting the laundry from the street, and put a bullet through the head of the proprietor’s horse.<br /><br />With the wealth he had amassed from his work with the Gennas, Sam Amatnua purchased a jazz club, the Bluebird Cafe, at Halsted and Taylor, for $40,0000, where he himself often performed, gaining a reputation as an excellent singer and violinist. He also acquired a beautiful home on Lexington Ave., near Damen Ave. (the street has since been vacated in that block). And most important of all, he was engaged to wed Miss Rose Pecaroro, sister to Mike Merlo’s widow. The marriage would make Amatuna peerless as a Sicilian community leader.<br /><br />It was on a visit to the barber that Sam Amatuna met his end. On the evening of November 11, 1925, Amatuna walked into his favorite local barbershop at 804 W. Roosevelt Rd. He and Pecaroro were to see the opera Aida at 8:00 that evening at the Auditorium building on S. Michigan Ave. Isidor Paul, who had owned and operated the barbershop since 1918, threw a hot towel over Amatuna’s face and sharpened his razor. By coincidence, Amatuna was without his usual bodyguards that evening, and as a show of power, he never carried a gun personally any more.<br /><br />At that moment, two olive-skinned men, one short and one tall, walked into the shop and drew guns. Paul screamed, and Amatuna jumped out of the barber’s chair, hiding behind it. The <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> describes what happened next:<br /><blockquote>Two men walked in as he left the chair in which he had been shaved and massaged in preparation for an evening at the opera, and without waiting opened fire. Eight times their weapons cracked. One bullet took effect and Amatuna dropped: the others went wild as barbers and customers fell to the floor or ran for cover. Then the attackers backed out, ran to a car parked at the curb and escaped.</blockquote>Two friends helped the bleeding Amatuna into a taxicab. Their first destination was not the hospital, but a cigar shop owned by Amatuna, around the corner at Taylor and Halsted Streets. There, Amatuna briefly met with his brother, Luigi, who had recently arrived from Sicily, likely informing him of the names of his attackers. From there, the trio left for the hospital.<br /><br />For two days, doctors at Jefferson Park Hospital tried to revive Amatuna, but to no avail. With her planned elaborate wedding just weeks away, his bride was doubly stricken, and Amatuna agreed to a bedside ceremony in case he was unable to recover. With the physicians’ negative prognoses in mind, a priest was called and the arrangements made for just such an event. But before the ceremony could take place, Amatuna fell unconscious, and died at 2:00 a.m. on November 13.<br /><br />As was <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/sbarbaros-funeral-parlor.html">customary</a> for gangsters in his time, Amatuna’s funeral was lavish. At his fiancée, Rose Pecaroro’s home on the North side, $20,000 in flowers filled the home, the yard, and several neighbor’s yards. The casket was made of silver and cost a reputed $10,000. The funeral procession to Mt. Carmel cemetery, where Amatuna’s body was held in a vault for several days before being shipped back to Sicily, stretched for over a mile, snaking through the city past his home, his businesses, and stopping at the barbershop where he died – a visible indication of future retribution. At the gravesite, Luigi Amatuna threw himself on the coffin, beating his fists on it and swearing an oath of revenge in his native tongue.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKfO7EM_AUFis-78y0XAPvqp2YjYraMk9jvwQZnu2NMv3N1xb7hAyFbANolqB6AXcfci2ta3FZDTZhL8e2VV3W6RgJ_Tsa4yzPdKobPCFl0WNkHm77pyCavKvtrjA4L_foJh38MeIxtYI/s1600-h/2128Seminary.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 281px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKfO7EM_AUFis-78y0XAPvqp2YjYraMk9jvwQZnu2NMv3N1xb7hAyFbANolqB6AXcfci2ta3FZDTZhL8e2VV3W6RgJ_Tsa4yzPdKobPCFl0WNkHm77pyCavKvtrjA4L_foJh38MeIxtYI/s400/2128Seminary.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5375535346145539810" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: The scene outside Amatuna fiancee, Rose Pecaroro's home, where Amatuna's funeral procession began)<br /></div><br />Indeed, the bloodshed was far from over. Within a week, both of Amatuna’s absent bodyguards were killed – one of them on the way home from the funeral ceremony. Next in line for the presidency of the Unione Siciliana was Tony Lombardo, Al Capone’s personal friend. <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/antonio-lombardo-killed-in-loop.html">Lombardo was assassinated</a> in the middle of the day at Madison and Dearborn Streets in the loop. The three succeeding Unione presidents, Pasqualino Lolordo, Joseph Giunta, and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/aiello-co-bakery.html">Joe Aiello</a> met similar fates. The bloodshed of the 1920s sealed Chicago’s worldwide reputation as <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/07/138-years-of-murder-in-chicago.html">the country’s crime capital</a>.<br /><br />Who killed “Samoots”? The chief theory is that his death was merely another part of the spiraling bloodshed between the Genna-Torrio-Capone organization and the Northside gang. Most historians believe that Amatuna’s assassins were <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/12/schemer-drucci-killed-by-police-officer.html">Vincent “Schemer” Drucci</a>, one of the leaders of the Northside group, and Jim Doherty, a key member of the allied Westside O’Donnell gang. It appears Al Capone blamed Drucci and Doherty. A few months later, when Doherty and Assistant State’s Attorney William McSwiggin were seen drinking and gambling in Cicero at the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/pony-inn.html">Pony Inn</a>, Capone ordered a hit on crew, in which McSwiggin died, a major factor in turning public opinion against Capone and raising his profile with Chicago police.<br /><br />An plausibly, though less likely alternative theory is that Amatuna had fallen out with the Gennas in the months before his death, and that Capone ordered his murder in order to make way for his friend, Lombardo, to control the Unione and the Genna distillery network. In Chicago’s gangland, today’s allies frequently became tomorrow’s enemies, and vice-versa.<br /><br />The barbershop where Amatuna met his fate continued in operation, run by Isidor Paul, until his retirement in 1956. Today, like much of the old Little Italy neighborhood, the building is gone, razed to make way for the facilities of the University of Illinois at Chicago. Until recently, the site was a baseball field for the UIC team, but is currently marked for the construction of a new condominium complex, <a href="http://www.rooseveltsquare.com/">Roosevelt Square</a>.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-65690106062570403862009-08-22T17:06:00.005-05:002009-08-28T14:42:27.408-05:00Woodlawn Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjDAvKAzwrQgclby2C0_LuaE2JzrFgs6ShhfLe65QSvryiVoEn3uFaKZzESKNgtI4c4ERUL-CmizN7qKrn0DLXlRvQLflPuv_Vikk11xMHhR3K9yktTxbu0F28NfkxDWAqztWL3fLufG8/s1600-h/Hyde+Park+and+Woodlawn+002.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372905511219433570" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjDAvKAzwrQgclby2C0_LuaE2JzrFgs6ShhfLe65QSvryiVoEn3uFaKZzESKNgtI4c4ERUL-CmizN7qKrn0DLXlRvQLflPuv_Vikk11xMHhR3K9yktTxbu0F28NfkxDWAqztWL3fLufG8/s400/Hyde+Park+and+Woodlawn+002.jpg" border="0" /></a>A <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeff-fort-founds-black-p-stone-nation.html">previous post</a> discussing the history of the Blackstone Rangers street gang during the 1960s and early 1970s illustrated the perverted genius of gang founder and leader, Jeff Fort, in subverting social and community organizations to help cartelize criminal activities in the Woodlawn neighborhood.<br /><br />One of the earliest of these efforts was a close relationship with Ed Woods, extension director of the Woodlawn Chicago Boys Club. Together with Fort and gang co-founder Eugene Hairston, Woods searched for a space where the gang could create a supervised teen hang-out. They found their first location here, at Woodlawn Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church, 6401 S. Kenwood Ave. The lot where the church edifice once stood is now an empty lot.<br /><br />The early 1960s were a time of increasing racial strife in Woodlawn. For the past decade, the neighborhood, which was previously majority-white, had seen an influx of black residents from residential areas to the west, plus additional black immigration from southern states. “White flight” out of the neighborhood was increasing rapidly, and the economic prospects for Woodlawn seemed poor. In 1964, median family income in Woodlawn was $4,199 (roughly $30,000 in 2008 dollars) – not poverty-level, but well below the city average, and on a downward trend.<br /><br />Hyde Park, just to the north of Woodlawn across 60th Street, remained primarily white, as students and faculty from the University of Chicago dominated the housing market there. Hyde Park residents were increasingly concerned about the changing nature of Woodlawn (as well as Kenwood to the north and Washington Park to the west), and the University feared a growing inability to attract students from wealthy families into the city if conditions in the neighborhoods surrounding it did not improve.<br /><br />Thus, the U of C began floating ideas about building a “south campus” between 60th and 61st Streets, and sought city support for a massive urban renewal campaign intended to demolish much of the decaying housing stock between 60th and 63rd. The effort would have undoubtedly improved the condition of these blocks, but understandably, the program also raised the ire of some poor residents of Woodlawn, who feared losing their homes. Into this political minefield stepped the Industrial Areas Foundation, an organization headed by the famed radical, Saul Alinsky, “to unite dispossessed peoples into power groups”. The IAF worked with the pastors of two Woodlawn churches, Rev. Charles T. Leber of First Presbyterian, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/rev-jeremiah-porter-chicagos-first.html">oldest congregation in the city</a>, and Rev. Arthur Brazier, pastor of the Apostolic Church of God at 63rd and Kimbark, to found the Temporary Woodlawn Organization (T.W.O.) (after the new group proved not to be temporary – it still exists today – it was renamed “The” Woodlawn Organization, keeping the same initials).<br /><br />T.W.O. spearheaded the opposition to the U of C south campus plans, and also began attempting to consolidate power in Woodlawn, promoting itself as the singular representative of the community. T.W.O. organized “rent strikes” against slum building landlords, picketed in front of the homes of school principals who they accused of facilitating back-door segregation, and attempted to change the zoning laws to rid 63rd street of saloons.<br /><br />Given that T.W.O. was founded by church leaders, it is unsurprising that the Greater Woodlawn Pastors’ Alliance held a membership position in the organization. Nevertheless, not all Woodlawn-area churchmen supported the group’s efforts and radical political positions. Associate pastor Otto Sotnak at Woodlawn Immanuel Lutheran Church criticized Alinsky’s role in T.W.O., arguing that black residents saw him as patronizing and an interference. He described Alinsky’s IAF as “an agency whose organizing tactics are based on the cultivation of fear, hatred, and useful antagonism.” Along with five other Woodlawn pastors, he resigned from T.W.O. because, as he wrote to me in recent correspondence, “we realized the philosophy of the organization was essentially totalitarian, and therefore our ideas didn't matter.”<br /><br />Woodlawn Immanuel was founded in 1899 with 25 members, styling itself as “Immanuel English Evangelical Lutheran Church”. At that time, most Lutheran services were confined to the historically-Germanic north side, but, as the new church’s name suggested, it offered services on the south side in English. The original meeting place was at 43rd St. and S. Champlain Ave, and the church built its first edifice at that site in 1903. In 1917, the Lutheran General Synod (forerunner of the modern United Lutheran Church) was seeking an opportunity to build a congregation close to the University of Chicago, in order to support Lutheran students at that institution. Immanuel English Evangelical answered the call in 1921, and moved to Woodlawn, meeting at the Masonic Temple at 64th St. and University Ave. for three years while a new edifice at 6401 S. Kenwood was under construction. At that time (also the congregation’s 25th anniversary), the church added “Woodlawn” to its name.<br /><br /><div style="TEXT-ALIGN: center"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIatGzPBEeu7EAelruIYBy9-LV4yirFHVxXDS6Perpug0OedfH7TMhRM1JHdHBSXleTYsonkKHuZAja62hK7U_8_fZlj2gUnq9DMfJ_lO7s_wqrMIw9qOULBkC35vBuGOTAVivBgQyRs0/s1600-h/WoodlawnImmanuel.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5372905502104778658" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 285px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIatGzPBEeu7EAelruIYBy9-LV4yirFHVxXDS6Perpug0OedfH7TMhRM1JHdHBSXleTYsonkKHuZAja62hK7U_8_fZlj2gUnq9DMfJ_lO7s_wqrMIw9qOULBkC35vBuGOTAVivBgQyRs0/s400/WoodlawnImmanuel.jpg" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Woodlawn Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church)<br /></div><br />The church that had begun with 25 members grew quickly under the skilled ministry of Rev. Dr. Clarence E. Paulus, who had found his way to the congregation as a guest minister in 1914, and remained at the church until 1951. By 1948, when the church paid off its debt for the building in a “mortgage burning ceremony,” the membership stood near 750. The church served the community continuously in those years, offering its sanctuary for use by Boy and Girl Scout groups, women’s clubs, youth groups, and other civic organizations. In 1960, the church offered free polio innoculations for Woodlawn residents.<br /><br />As the neighborhood changed during the 1950s and 1960s, Woodlawn Immanuel responded to residents’ concerns regarding crime. Already by 1952, crime in the neighborhood was serious enough to warrant a mass meeting of neighborhood groups at the church to discuss the problem. At that meeting, Woodlawn Immanuel’s new pastor, Rev. Carl H. Berhenke (who had recently succeeded Rev. Paulus) argued that the solution to growing street crime was to “help the people to realize they are not standing alone in their demand for a good, clean, and decent community, and that by working together we can bring it about.”<br /><br />Woodlawn Immanuel and T.W.O. were not the only organizations growing in size during the early 1960s. Juvenile delinquents Jeff Fort and Eugene Hairston<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeff-fort-founds-black-p-stone-nation.html"> founded the Blackstone Rangers</a> in the late 1950s, and by the summer of 1963, their control over the streets of eastern Woodlawn was complete, with purse snatchings, robberies, fights, and bloody turf wars with the Cobras, Disciples, and other gangs becoming increasingly commonplace.<br /><br />Ed Woods, extension director of the Woodlawn Chicago Boys’ Club, worked assiduously to develop a rapport with Fort and Hairston, and in 1964, fearing another vicious summer, he approached Rev. Sotnak at Immanuel Lutheran about opening a youth center at the church where gang members could play basketball, pool, car games, ping pong, and checkers under adult supervision. In an email to me regarding a previous post, Rev. Sotnak described the origins of the Rangers’ hang-out at Immanuel Lutheran:<br /><blockquote>In the summers of 1963, -64 and -65, gang activity had become a growing threat to residents and business people in South Chicago, which included Englewood and Woodlawn. I remember a block club meeting held in our church basement when we invited a youth officer from the Woodlawn Police Station to speak to us. Afterward, he begged me to do anything I could to get those “kids” off the street.<br /><br />By coincidence Ed Woods, who was director of a detached worker program at the Chicago Woodlawn Boy's Club, stopped at my office to ask if they could use our church facilities to open a center for the Blackstone Rangers, since the Boy's Club building was in rival gang turf at that time, and the Rangers wouldn't go there. I agreed, and that was how my church and I got involved.<br /><br />We had about a dozen gang members the first night we opened. After that we had over 100, and the number grew ever larger after that. The Chicago Woodlawn Boy's Club got funding to hire detached workers to mingle with the gang members, gain their confidence and encourage them to leave the gang and either get into school or some kind of legitimate career that, "Put money in their pockets," since most of the gang members, given a choice, would rather not hustle.<br /><br />We had several success stories. One gang member said he always wanted to be a chef. Mr. Woods found him a job at Passavant Hospital in the kitchen. To the best of my knowledge, the fellow left the gang, at least for a time. However, we learned that leaving any gang is difficult. It's like going AWOL from the army.</blockquote>Employment was a key part of the program. At the time of his work with Rev. Sotnak and Immanuel Lutheran, Ed Woods told reporters, “In the past, social workers were sent here when trouble was brewing,” but argued that employment would provide a more permanent solution to the gang problem: “If a man has pride it can make him a king, and a job can give the boy the necessary pride.” Jeff Fort himself found himself employed through Woods’ efforts, earning $1.25 per hour.<br /><br />In 1965, Rev. Sotnak left Woodlawn Immanuel, and the collaboration with Woods and the Rangers ended. As Rev. Sotnak described it to me,<br /><blockquote>In 1965, I left Chicago and moved to Minneapolis, where I became pastor of Lake of the Isles Luth. Church. That summer was also a long hot summer on the streets of Woodlawn. Pastor John Fry became pastor of First Presbyterian Church at 64th. & Kimbark. The interim pastor at Woodlawn-Immanuel was afraid to get involved with the gang, so Pastor Fry invited the gang to use his church facilities (just a block west of Woodlawn-Immanuel).</blockquote>First Presbyterian’s previous pastor had been a founder and charter member of T.W.O., so when the Rangers moved their headquarters, they also came into contact with T.W.O. leadership. By 1967, T.W.O. was working together with the Rangers in running a federally-funded job training program, in which the gang leadership (most of whom were high school drop-outs) would administer classes in reading and arithmetic. As preposterous as it may sound today, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission supported the effort to the tune of nearly $1 million between June, 1967 and June, 1968. Like Rev. Sotnak, Rev. Fry, the EEOC, and the community of Woodlawn were facing desperate problems of poverty, crime, and racial strife, and they were willing to adopt unconventional approaches where traditional ones had failed.<br /><br />The relationship between the Rangers, T.W.O., and First Presbyterian can only be described as a total debacle. The police accused Rev. Fry at First Presbyterian of not only offering space to the Rangers, but actively participating in and supporting their criminality, blessing their attempts at extortion, and passing information about “hits” between gang members. The gang-operated training centers turned out to be a complete farce, with a Chicago Tribune investigation revealing that eight of the program’s top administrators, including Fort and Hairston, were either awaiting trial (for crimes including rape and murder) or had lengthy rap sheets. Police surveillance of the “classes” found no textbooks, rulers, paper or lectures, but dice-throwing, sleeping, and discussions focused on women and sports. The only books available were of the comic variety.<br /><br />For their part, T.W.O. blamed the bad publicity the programs received on Mayor Richard J. Daley, who, they claimed, despised T.W.O. for the fact that the job training programs they and the Rangers administered were the only government monies in Chicago not directly under city control.<br /><br />Nevertheless, between June, 1967, and June, 1968, when the EEOC chose not to renew T.W.O.’s grants, two program trainees and one instructor had been charged with murder, three other staff members were arrested for assault and robbery of a youth who had refused to join the program, and one teenager was shot during a class. A subsequent congressional investigation found that the Blackstone Rangers had demanded kickbacks of nearly 50% of the federal checks that students in the program received. Gang leader Jeff Fort eventually went to prison for three years starting in 1972 for his role in defrauding the government.<br /><br />Perhaps, given his experiences with T.W.O. and the Blackstone Rangers, Rev. Sotnak could have predicted some of these problems. In a speech to a church group shortly after he left Woodlawn Immanuel, he called claims that T.W.O. was improving conditions in the neighborhood “absolutely pathetic”. In recent correspondence, he wrote to me, “As I see it, Mr. Woods and the Chicago Boy's Club completely lost control of the Blackstone Rangers in the summer of 1965. Given the duplicity of the gang's leadership, it was an inevitable development.”<br /><br />Woodlawn Immanuel Lutheran Church closed in 1973. By that point, the neighborhood had completely changed from the one in which the church had been built in 1924, and there were other Lutheran congregations in Hyde Park and elsewhere that could serve the University community. The edifice at 64th and Kenwood was sold to a Baptist congregation, which worshipped there for a decade, until the building was destroyed. It remains an empty lot today.<br /><br />The Woodlawn neighborhood continued to deteriorate into slum conditions in the 1970s and 1980s; however, over the last fifteen years, real estate values have improved substantially and crime has declined. The green line elevated tracks, which once darkened 63rd street, were demolished in 1996, and the street which once primarily served as a one-stop shop for liquor, drugs, and prostitutes, is now overwhelmingly empty lots. Since 2001, University of Chicago police have extended their patrols down to 64th St., and the area between 60th and 63rd is increasingly populated again by University students and faculty. Many beautiful and expensive new homes and townhome complexes have been constructed where the dilapidated buildings the U of C once sought to demolish once stood. The recent recession notwithstanding, continued gentrification in Woodlawn seems likely.<br /><br />It is difficult to imagine a similarly close relationship developing today between street gangs and community and church leaders. Partially that is due to the increasing violence of gangs and their role in retailing crack and other illegal drugs. It is also a reflection of the differences between that time and ours. Then, rioting in ghetto neighborhoods threatened to destroy the city, and radicalism bordered on revolution. As Rev. Sotnak wrote in recent correspondence:<br /><blockquote>Would I do what I did again? I probably would. Just because life is fraught with danger doesn't mean one should shrink from it. "Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead."<br /><br />I suppose those of us who tried to "straighten-out" gang members were naive, but we were also desperate. Someone ought to do something, so we did what we could. As theologian Reinhold Niebuhr said, "Politics is the application of proximate solutions to insoluble problems."<br /><br />Those were indeed the days.<br /></blockquote>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-11340951385165564712009-08-16T15:14:00.004-05:002009-08-16T15:43:59.388-05:00Leona Garrity's Brothel<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit4iJudxecbzL2zY3q_ldZBMwkxZYyt9HZJa8_y8hCoCEcVD3b7zJdER0e6ecdsdwGGrXQ71N1cHzNlZGybMbA4d27WaySKH-z1b0YxvKvHDWcj_sSsGIwP3zBx9Nz5RMHALfCmjNo-Nc/s1600-h/IMG_1013.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit4iJudxecbzL2zY3q_ldZBMwkxZYyt9HZJa8_y8hCoCEcVD3b7zJdER0e6ecdsdwGGrXQ71N1cHzNlZGybMbA4d27WaySKH-z1b0YxvKvHDWcj_sSsGIwP3zBx9Nz5RMHALfCmjNo-Nc/s400/IMG_1013.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370660202631146002" border="0" /></a>In 1905, Mr. and Mrs. Lemuel E. Schlotter moved into a large home in the north shore village of Glencoe. He was a jeweler, and she appeared to be the scion of a wealthy family, though the family background was never fully clarified to the neighbors. Over the next year-and-a-half, the Schlotters and their 15-year old son, George, developed social ties among the moneyed clans of that suburb, and Mrs. Schlotter was well-known in the ladies’ clubs and community organizations. But on June 5, 1907, the truth finally came out. The Schlotter family wealth did not derive from Lemuel’s jewelry business, nor was it inherited from some patrician ancestor; it was the underworld that funded the big house on Green Bay Road. And Mrs. Schlotter was not a society woman, but a sex trafficker, with a vicious trade in young girls.<br /><br />The spring of 1907 in Chicago portended a vigorous mayoral contest between the incumbent Democrat, Edward Dunne, and his Republican challenger, Fred Busse. Dunne’s administration was hopelessly corrupt, and the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span>, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Daily News</span>, and other Chicago broadsheets repeatedly hammered readers with stories of open vice conditions in the city. In February, a county grand jury returned a set of indictments against a wide range of underworld figures, including gambling king <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/mont-tennes-king-of-gamblers.html">Mont Tennes</a> and saloon-keeper and red-light district political figure, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/12/andy-craigs-life-of-crime.html">Andy Craig</a>. The jury’s scathing pronouncements indicated that the police and politicians were doing little or nothing to “keep the lid on” vice in Chicago. Disorderly houses in the south side Levee district and west side slums advertised with partially or fully-nude women in the windows, handbooks offered sports gambling to women and children, and saloons remained open far past the city’s 1:00 a.m. “last call”. <br /><br />John M. Collins, the Chief of Police, played dumb to reporters in an act that fooled no one:<br /><blockquote>There is exceedingly little gambling in Chicago now…as to saloons, there may be a few in the levee district where women come in, drink a glass of beer with a man, and perhaps do a little soliciting…If any saloons were keeping open after 1 o’clock my men would know it. </blockquote>When public ire over vice conditions in the city bubbled over, Collins could always make a show of reassigning a few officers from this station to that one and busting a few high-profile resorts with newspapermen looking on until the uproar passed. But in the end, city Aldermen had almost full control over the appointment of police captains in their wards, and the political connections of <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/first-ward-ball.html">some aldermen</a> with the underworld meant that these periodic police “reforms” usually amounted to little.<br /><br />However, Busse was running on a strong campaign to clean up the city and eliminate city hall corruption, and there was a palpable sense that public opinion was moving in his direction. In league with Mayor Dunne, Chief Collins ordered officers out to all the resorts in the skid row districts of Chicago. Get campaign contributions, he told them; if they won’t pay, make life difficult for them. And if you see any Fred Busse placards posted in or around your beat, make sure they find their way to the incinerator post haste.<br /><br />Despite these desperate efforts, election day, April 4, 1907, saw Busse trounce Dunne, and after his inauguration, one of Mayor Busse’s first acts was to replace Chief Collins with his own man, George Shippy. In June, Chief Shippy ordered police into all of the city’s cheap brothels, looking for “white slaves”.<br /><br />The concept of white slavery had been a bugbear for anti-crime and temperance groups since the 1890s, but the mid-1900s saw the concept gain widespread publicity. Black slavery, the rhetoric went, had disappeared with the Civil War, but now an even more vile form of human bondage was being practiced in the nation’s large cities. Teenage girls, some as young as 13, were being lured away from their homes by young men promising marriage or helpful girlfriends with news of profitable employment prospects. Once away from their families, the ingénues were taken to dance halls or saloons, frequently drugged, and then taken advantage of by their male companions. When these girls regained consciousness, they realized their honor and social reputations were gone, and with no way of going home, they submitted to a life of permanent prostitution. Houses of ill-repute throughout Chicago, it is said, were filled with these unwilling inmates, who though they saw scores of clients per week, had their wages garnished to an extreme degree by their keepers, never allowing them enough to pay for a train ticket home.<br /><br />Or so the story went. No doubt some instances of white slavery existed, but in many other cases, it frequently turned out that the girls had left unhappy homes and willingly entered the sex trade. Prostitution, as much misery as it caused its purveyors, was better than the other options available to some women, including abusive family situations, impoverishment, imprisonment, or starvation. Nevertheless, as 1907 began, white slavery already had a hold on the popular imagination, and Chief Shippy’s investigations would propel it into a national obsession.<br /><br />The most prominent white slave case in Chicago that year was the Mona Marshall case, which I have already discussed <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/harry-balding.html">here</a>. But another story that received similar coverage opened on June 5, when a grand jury handed down an indictment for harboring a 15-year old girl in a disreputable house against one Leona Garrity, the owner of record for the flophouse at 75 Peoria street (pictured above, now numbered 14 S. Peoria), and Bessie Lee, the keeper of the house. The near west side at that time (and for many decades after) was a skid row where thrills came cheap: gentlemen callers paid $0.50 for the privilege of time with Garrity’s girls.<br /><br />That there were call flats on the west side surprised no one, even ones that housed young girls. What was surprising, and what made the her trial the talk of the town that summer, was that the true identity of Leona Garrity was none other than Mrs. Lemuel E. Schlotter, the society maven of Glencoe. Twice a week, Mrs. Schlotter would board the train into Chicago, slip into the west side, and collect her profits from Ms. Lee before returning to the north shore. Stories like these are irresistible in the press, because they implicitly ask: "could your next-door neighbor also be a sex trafficker?"<br /><br />After the indictment was made public, the Schlotter family began receiving anonymous letters, undoubtedly from her neighbors, kindly suggesting that her continued presence in Glencoe was besmirching the village's good name. On June 21, 1907, Mrs. Schlotter (Garrity), out on bail, took the hint.<br /><blockquote>Mrs. Schlotter, who has been keeping up appearances in Glencoe while at the same time proprietor of the Peoria street resort, came to Chicago in the morning and sold the furniture of her suburban residence to a second hand dealer. Then she returned, discharged her Japanese servant, packed her own belongings, and departed.<br /></blockquote>It would be difficult to believe that Mrs. Schlotter’s dark secret was completely unknown to her husband, but regardless, the marriage appeared to be over, as Mr. Schlotter and their son, George, decamped for California while his wife remained in Chicago to face trial and possible imprisonment.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihSGRHgubPVodYFxYd22nzKXCf7UfztTiQC-RzjZRVqMBlAm6PrbMxAJwfY9s2pefScjMuZAqOqe-Obnk6TA2jXeJow9FlRBvMcC-4V4Y_wdvOtzOHtRDRoKsTGP1gy-m0Xsyd8dshyphenhyphenfE/s1600-h/schlotterhome.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 322px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihSGRHgubPVodYFxYd22nzKXCf7UfztTiQC-RzjZRVqMBlAm6PrbMxAJwfY9s2pefScjMuZAqOqe-Obnk6TA2jXeJow9FlRBvMcC-4V4Y_wdvOtzOHtRDRoKsTGP1gy-m0Xsyd8dshyphenhyphenfE/s400/schlotterhome.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5370660191396687426" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: the Schlotter residence in suburban Glencoe)<br /></div><br />Glencoe in those days was the residence of many of Illinois’ wealthiest families, as it still is today. The most serious crime most village residents had witnessed was speeding. The “hobby” of automobile driving was new at the time, and Sheridan Rd. north of Evanston was a popular place for drivers to prove the mettle of their machines, which could often reach speeds in excess of 20 mph – considered extremely dangerous in a world unaccustomed to motor vehicles. Glencoe residents erected the first speed bumps seen on Northern Illinois roads, and turned their operation into the town’s chief amusement, as described in an August, 1908 article:<br /><blockquote>Amid the gleeful cheers of hundreds of Glencoe residents, scores of automobilists yesterday jolted and jarred over the first of the “bumps” erected by order of the authorities of the suburb as a check to “scorching.” Then many of them were arrested and fines shaken out of their pocketbooks.<br /><br />The first of the “bumps” completed was across Sheridan road at Central avenue [now Beach Rd., just south of Dundee Rd.], and here the crowds gathered at noon and spent the afternoon and evening enjoying the result of the jolting on the speeding autoists. Although the obstruction is only a few inches high, the effect was plainly apparent, and many automobile caps, goggles, and hairpins were gathered up by the Glencoeites as souvenirs. <br /><br />It was a gala day in the suburb. As each automobile approached the “bump” the crowd cheered and asked the occupants how they liked the experience. Although severely jolted, the autoists took the jeering good naturedly and waved their hands to the spectators.<br /></blockquote>The story of Leona Garrity did not fit in this world. The trial of Ms. "Garrity" and Bessie Lee began on July 8, 1907. Clifford Roe, an assistant state’s attorney who made a career out of prosecuting white slave cases in Chicago, described the two women vividly:<br /><blockquote>Hers [Garrity's] was not a vicious face. Her eyes were large and they looked at one openly and almost frankly. In a public place she would have been taken for a quiet matron, with love for her neighbors and scorn for acts that were immoral. She was dressed in a tailor-made suit of blue; her hat was modestly trimmed. No one would take her for an outcast who buys and sells girls. Bessie Lee, who sat beside her, looked the part of a procuress. She was thin lipped, cold featured, with a complexion the color of a faded straw hat, and eyes that were black enough to spot the wings of a crow. She flashed them too as she almost couched in the big armchair given her by the bailiff. In her countenance was written the story of days spent in sorrow and nights in utter shame.<br /></blockquote>On July 13, the underage girl in question, 15-year old Miss Belle Winters, was scheduled to testify against her slavers. Her story, while plausible, was hardly an open-and-shut case of malfeasance. She told investigators that a few months earlier, she and a school friend had run away from her South Shore home near 71st and Greenwood Ave., and boarded a lake boat bound for Benton Harbor, Michigan. While on the boat, she was befriended by a young man who gave his name as Harry Mansfield. Mansfield, she said, had convinced her to return to Chicago with him, but then had delivered her, in return for payment from Bessie Lee, to Schlotter’s brothel, where she was a prisoner to her keepers, under threat of violence.<br /><br />The fact that she admitted running away from home, and that neither “Harry Mansfield” nor the young friend Miss Winters claimed had accompanied her on the boat, were ever found, casts a shadow of fabulousness over the story, and indeed, at trial, Schlotter and Lee’s counsel claimed that Winters had entered employment willingly and prevaricated about her age.<br /><br />But by July, the public was in no mood for excuses on the issue of white slavery, and Schlotter and Lee faced the imminent prospect of lock-up at Joliet. Likely it was Schlotter who decided to make one last attempt to silence the state's chief witness. During the trial, Belle Winters was under the protection and purview of a minder from the state’s attorney’s office – likely, they realized Miss Winters’ potential to again run away from home, as well as her precarious status as a witness against a wealthy and desperate defendant. The day before her testimony, Winters and her guardian, a Mrs. Amigh, made a visit to Marshall Field’s downtown. When Mrs. Amigh turned away for a moment, Belle disappeared, and before the two found each other, a man approached the young girl, telling her he was from the State’s Attorney’s office, and that she was needed at trial immediately.<br /><br />She went with him, but before reaching court, he suggested they duck into a nearby saloon for a quick drink. Realizing this was highly suspicious behavior for court-appointed personnel, she pulled away from her would-be kidnapper and ran through the streets of Chicago, finally begging her way onto a street car headed towards her family home, where the police caught up with her.<br /><br />The next day, Belle Winters testified in open court against “Leona Garrity” and Bessie Lee, and her words clinched the case. On July 17, the jury returned a verdict of guilty against both women, and after appeals were exhausted, Mrs. Schlotter was sentenced to serve 1-5 years at Joliet in May, 1908. Bessie Lee, who had always argued that she was merely a pawn in Mrs. Schlotter’s sex trafficking ring, had her sentence commuted, and in December of 1908, the Illinois Supreme Court reversed the trial court verdict, making her a free woman.<br /><br />I have found no record, in census or newspaper records, of Mrs. Schlotter or her family after the events of 1907. Her brothel on Peoria street was torn down in 1914 and replaced with a cheap lodging house for seasonal laborers and others with no other place to stay. Rates were 5-10c per night, with a 9c dinner available, and all guests were required to bathe before bed – a rare practice among such flops which was intended to prevent the spread of lice and disease. The house was the first of the Dawes Hotels, which later opened similar establishments in other cities, begun by Evanston resident and future U.S. Vice-President, Charles Dawes, in honor of his son, Rufus, who had drowned in a swimming accident in 1912.<br /><br />The Dawes Hotel building continued serving the tough streets of the near west side into the 1970s, when it also housed an alcohol treatment center known as Haymarket House. As the neighborhood gentrified in the 1980s and 1990s, most of the old housing stock was removed, including the Dawes Hotel. On the site where Leona Garrity’s brothel once stood is today a condominium building (pictured at the top of this post).<br /><br />Despite his initial attempts to find and prosecute white slavers, police Chief Shippy was ultimately no more successful in curbing vice in Chicago than his predecessor, Chief Collins. With his health fading, Shippy resigned his post in 1909. Nevertheless, the public clamor against vice was unstoppable, and the era of segregated vice (red light districts) <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/maj-funkhouser-and-inspector-dannenberg.html">ended in Chicago in the 1910s</a>. Based largely on evidence introduced in white slave cases in Chicago – especially the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/harry-balding.html">Mona Marshall</a> trial – the U.S. Congress passed the Mann Act (originally known as the White Slave Act) in 1910, which made it a federal crime to transport women across state lines for sexual purposes. Today the Mann Act is best known as a standard for prosecuting immoral – though not coercive – behavior, including African-American boxer Jack Johnson’s interracial affairs and marriage, and Charlie Chaplin’s supposed paternity of an out-of-wedlock child (and his left-wing politics).Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-82256553828264517762009-08-09T15:18:00.008-05:002009-08-09T19:36:04.556-05:00Aiello & Co. Bakery<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJEZR3aNtAJ31yCjqezIIEL4N2IlC0IhnSu76etkWM_n11VxC8FkVKcbvnq80TIbon94nya7p6OvVSZVqgexuCNU_Y_NTHpen9VGsKksjt95BroZk1BJOLouoCocsQAsIUe_YTuraebrM/s1600-h/Northside+May+09+001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJEZR3aNtAJ31yCjqezIIEL4N2IlC0IhnSu76etkWM_n11VxC8FkVKcbvnq80TIbon94nya7p6OvVSZVqgexuCNU_Y_NTHpen9VGsKksjt95BroZk1BJOLouoCocsQAsIUe_YTuraebrM/s400/Northside+May+09+001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368063009875978370" border="0" /></a><br />Joe Aiello had broken troth with his former business partner, Antonio Lombardo, and was actively scheming to kill Lombardo and his colleague in crime, Al Capone. On May, 28, 1927, Aiello’s bakery, located here at 473 W. Division St., took the brunt of Lombardo and Capone’s ire when it was riddled with over 200 machine gun bullets from in a gangland drive-by shooting.<br /><br />Giuseppe Aiello, known as “Joe”, was born in 1890 in Sicily, into a very large family. Most accounts claim he was the oldest of seven brothers, but others indicate up to ten Aiello brothers, plus an unknown number of cousins, uncles, and nephews. Most of the family emigrated to the United States in the first decade of the 1900s, including Joe, who arrived at New York in 1907, then moved west to Chicago shortly after.<br /><br />Food was the family business, and Joe operated first as a cheese-maker and grocer in the Little Sicily enclave on the near North side (also known as <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/little-hell.html">“Little Hell”</a> for the poverty and violence that infested its streets). With his brothers, he also opened a wholesale bakery specializing in supersized wedding cakes and Italian breads, Aiello & Co., at 473 W. Division, near the corner of Clybourn Ave. He also held part ownership in a candy shop near Oak St. and Cleveland Ave. (then known as Milton St.), the original <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/death-corner.html">“Death Corner,”</a> a popular Black Hand meeting (and “disposal”) ground.<br /><br />At the onset of the 1920s, the Aiello clan was already prominent in the Sicilian-American community. National alcohol prohibition raised their profile further. During Prohibition, grocers played a particularly important role in the production of bootleg alcohol, since they could purchase and store large quantities of important distilling ingredients, such as sugar and grapes, without arousing the suspicions of police. Joe Aiello used his position as one of the neighborhood’s top grocers to become deeply involved in the business of illicit booze.<br /><br />He joined forces with another prominent Sicilian grocer, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/antonio-lombardo-killed-in-loop.html">Antonio Lombardo</a>, and the two opened an import business on Randolph Street and purchased property on the west side at Kinzie and Halsted for an even larger operation. At the time, Lombardo was also president of the Unione Siciliana, the primary Italian organization in Chicago, a position that made him the most respected man in the immigrant community, and a political “fixer” with connections in city government and law enforcement. The Unione was a key element in organizing the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">massive, dispersed network of tiny home distilleries</a> that supplied the low-quality liquor that was eventually retailed through <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/capones-chicago-home.html">Al Capone’s</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/11/capones-cicero-headquarters.html">syndicate</a>.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtU9Op2pDdVcqF9FvrpaTnKMSzCop6G8WUO2R-lK5cEutdU_Cm90KyyT0uvywiC-vgpu3S2Ocw0NxT_9MUdo0yKJ96mffs70tZBur_W2hcyoRMXS2154rAMNAdO8iMVA7BVt5yq2n6jDA/s1600-h/joeaillo2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 194px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtU9Op2pDdVcqF9FvrpaTnKMSzCop6G8WUO2R-lK5cEutdU_Cm90KyyT0uvywiC-vgpu3S2Ocw0NxT_9MUdo0yKJ96mffs70tZBur_W2hcyoRMXS2154rAMNAdO8iMVA7BVt5yq2n6jDA/s400/joeaillo2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368062996811294770" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Giuseppe "Joe" Aiello)<br /></div><br />Together with Lombardo and Capone, Joe Aiello ruled Chicago’s illegal alcohol trade into early 1926. The decline and fall of their fellow Sicilian booze entrepreneurs, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">“Terrible Genna”</a> brothers, in 1925 gave Aiello and Lombardo an even more important role to play in this business. But Aiello was too ambitious to be just one important part of the machine. He needed to control it all. He was especially jealous of Lombardo’s position at the Unione and the respect it earned him among their countrymen. And he despised Capone, a non-Sicilian he considered untrustworthy and undeserving of his wealth. Aiello’s constant attempts to control more of the alcohol syndicate eventually led to a break with Lombardo in 1926, and an all-out war for the control of the Unione and the Little Sicily neighborhood.<br /><br />Aiello began working closely with the Northside Gang run by George “Bugs” Moran and Jack Zuta, while Lombardo remained close with Capone. Both Lombardo and Aiello keenly courted Sicilian grocers, demanding their loyalty and supply capacity. For his part, Aiello openly put price tags on the heads of Lombardo and Capone, offering up to $50,000 each to a series of hitmen in return for their lives.<br /><br />In one important case, Aiello made a $35,000 deal with a cook at the “Little Italy” restaurant, located at 22nd and Cicero Ave., in the suburb of Cicero, to spice Capone and Lombardo’s soup bowls with prussic acid. The cook wisely decided against fulfilling the task and confessed the deal to Capone.<br /><br />Other Aiello family members were also involved in warfare with Capone and Lombardo. Tony Aiello, Joe’s brother, was positively identified by a boy eyewitness as the murderer of Antonio “The Cavalier” Spano, a Capone associate operating out of Chicago Heights, who met his end just a block away from the Aiello brothers’ bakery on Division St. Tony managed to beat the rap despite the witness’ identification.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdr_gXNz8vj2GQAyWqOf3zehRN7Z24BO1yazk423uXDWtuM10nMnWw6blRxRenWS8Nhe3RVP0Ogk6yX4ZsfYrbJKeYTGp3Xq8TQNK2b6WN5KlthXjgiL4SJFpmHAlXZyhIawcxgNW_rQ/s1600-h/tonyaiello.bmp"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 185px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxdr_gXNz8vj2GQAyWqOf3zehRN7Z24BO1yazk423uXDWtuM10nMnWw6blRxRenWS8Nhe3RVP0Ogk6yX4ZsfYrbJKeYTGp3Xq8TQNK2b6WN5KlthXjgiL4SJFpmHAlXZyhIawcxgNW_rQ/s400/tonyaiello.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368062999665365042" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Tony Aiello)<br /></div><br />Joe Aiello also attempted to hijack the Unione from outside, sending a gaggle of his brothers and nephews to St. Louis in an attempt to build a rival organization that he could eventually bring to Chicago. Their attempts to consolidate power in that city led to a dozen murders in 1927, including the deaths of two Aiello brothers while sitting in a restaurant in Springfield, Illinois.<br /><br />Lombardo and Capone realized that Aiello would stop at nothing to gain control of the Unione and the alcohol business in Chicago. On the evening of May 28, 1927, just after nightfall, a curtained touring car filled with four Capone gangsters cruised past the Aiello bakery on Division St., produced machine guns, and carpeted the building from side to side with a tremendous fusillade. By the end of it, over 200 bullets had lodged in the roof, floor, and walls.<br /><br />At the time, Joe was in the bakery with his brothers, Dominic and Tony, along with two employees. Tony was hit in the neck, and dropped to the floor screaming “I’m dead,” while one of the employees was also shot in the side. Dominic and Joe were upstairs and managed to dodge<br />the bullets. As soon as their assailants departed, Joe and Dominic helped Tony out of the building and into surgery under the care of a friendly family physician (Tony survived). By the time the police arrived, only one employee remained in the bakery to tell the tale. Officers were unsurprised to find that Aiello & Co. was one of the city’s most well-armed cupcake retailers – a case filled with shotguns was discovered in a back room.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHbGjQt35XsxT2Zp340RSrXp5Pj2pFmzc5aqLQucnRxueBKkDUzWddk9uAG5PSjNCDwmcE-cdPntapI74N0Mq8NtvYJ6HSeelSZrsO1PdbjPYiHzIWkaWISh-_z3PYDB6lgHY50q0iepU/s1600-h/aiellobakery.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 194px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHbGjQt35XsxT2Zp340RSrXp5Pj2pFmzc5aqLQucnRxueBKkDUzWddk9uAG5PSjNCDwmcE-cdPntapI74N0Mq8NtvYJ6HSeelSZrsO1PdbjPYiHzIWkaWISh-_z3PYDB6lgHY50q0iepU/s400/aiellobakery.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368062992595785698" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: interior of the Aiello bakery, facing the mirrored back wall, which was shattered by bullets)<br /></div><br />One Joseph Paglisia was arrested for the crime a few days later, as he was spotted driving through Little Sicily with a Florida license in a car similar to that from which the bombardment of the Aiello bakery had originated. It was a custom with the Capone organization for particularly spectacular hits to be performed by <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/colosimos-cafe.html">gunmen imported from outside Chicago</a>. Nevertheless, the police were unable to find any further evidence against Paglisia, and he was released. No one else was ever fingered for the crime.<br /><br />The attack at Aiello & Co. raised the stakes in the feud over the Unione, and that summer, nine Italian grocers were found dead, likely caught in the war between Aiello and Lombardo. Aiello also stepped up his attempts to kill Lombardo. Instead of attempting to procure a hit, he decided to organize one himself. Police discovered machine gun nests across the street from Lombardo’s home on W. Washington Blvd. (an event that caused Lombardo to move his family out to Cicero), and across the street from <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/workingmans-exchange.html">Michael</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/hinky-dinks-place.html">“Hinky Dink”</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/workingmans-exchange.html">Kenna</a>’s cigar shop on S. Clark St., a common meeting place for Capone and Lombardo.<br /><br />In retaliation, Aiello and his Northside Gang allies saw bombs explode at several of the businesses, including a brothel located at Adams and Halsted – Capone territory – and a disorderly hotel at Madison and Western. The violence in the city produced by the feud in late 1927 was tremendous. The police organized roving groups of officers, armed with automatic weapons and with orders to kill on sight any known gangsters. Chief of Detectives William O’Connor (who took over that position after <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/political-banquet-for-obanion.html">Michael Hughes</a> was demoted for being too chummy with gangland figures), took an especially hard line on crime:<blockquote>The machine gun is a much better weapon than the law to fight gangsters with. If we would hold more murder trials in the street rather than trust timorous juries to convict killers, Chicago would not now be facing a gang crisis.</blockquote>1927 also saw Joe and Dominic Aiello build a beautiful new home for themselves and their wives, far from the Little Sicily slums where they grew up, in Rogers’ Park, overlooking Indian Boundary Park. That building, 2553 W. Lunt Ave., is still there, though it has since been<br />subdivided into flats.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YuITU2pFay9jIBXJ8IZnOqWMyR13h5qOfGf3WYUXMNguP8P9L1vvzVJBUpTKZ6NNqHFX4Fn5uoGOQFFdt2UBcgUW5p1xQzvnS4ZNgmVmXxAWRP6dYMOY8pwjICMiazzT1ZfxbCe8qp0/s1600-h/lunt+003.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_YuITU2pFay9jIBXJ8IZnOqWMyR13h5qOfGf3WYUXMNguP8P9L1vvzVJBUpTKZ6NNqHFX4Fn5uoGOQFFdt2UBcgUW5p1xQzvnS4ZNgmVmXxAWRP6dYMOY8pwjICMiazzT1ZfxbCe8qp0/s400/lunt+003.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368124426924930402" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtSRO17V-DTJHL3Gi6oPxryUBhl-S0PH4h83R3tt0Q8uFanJ9vs3redY6Vn3F7qaqDQPPMlydE2WYtBKiIyTRhOVIGSlBRujTVhwmucj_zhh6_kFYZZGt90jE809jgbsrwjgqPxtUSF1g/s1600-h/2553lunt.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtSRO17V-DTJHL3Gi6oPxryUBhl-S0PH4h83R3tt0Q8uFanJ9vs3redY6Vn3F7qaqDQPPMlydE2WYtBKiIyTRhOVIGSlBRujTVhwmucj_zhh6_kFYZZGt90jE809jgbsrwjgqPxtUSF1g/s400/2553lunt.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368126745321784834" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: 2553 W. Lunt Ave., as it stands today (above), and in 1930 (beneath). During the 1920s, this was the home of Joe and Dominic Aiello. The building appears to have changed little over the past 80 years, although the landscaping has improved).<br /><br />In January, 1928, the Aiello bakery was again targeted. This time, it appears that Dominic was the target of an assassination plot. On the evening of Jan. 5, two men, armed with pistols and shotguns, walked into the building on W. Division, expecting to see Dominic at his usual post. In fact, Dominic had left the business at 4:00 that afternoon, but one of the bakers was still there, and began walking towards the door to greet them. Suddenly, the two opened fire, pouring all of their ammunition into the walls and ceiling, particularly the place where Dominic usually stood. They took no consideration of the baker, who was now cowering behind a glass case, though in full sight. Having emptied their guns, the men dropped their weapons and left the building as quickly as they had arrived. Likely they did not know that, while Dominic had left for the day, his wife, Grace, and their three children were just in the adjoining room. All escaped injury.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAiYNcBFFm8Tb2orosIpmR5MueusPTSmZ-sJbk1EA8pmofNl6rmgVuSOyMe1y0NUpDN_u4pcP4Js7FIPW_cGVRrrooIACjN02hbQAESrTDtPQvEGdgdshriPJ9PQSOK5_CGP1l6OaHWco/s1600-h/aiellobakery2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 264px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAiYNcBFFm8Tb2orosIpmR5MueusPTSmZ-sJbk1EA8pmofNl6rmgVuSOyMe1y0NUpDN_u4pcP4Js7FIPW_cGVRrrooIACjN02hbQAESrTDtPQvEGdgdshriPJ9PQSOK5_CGP1l6OaHWco/s400/aiellobakery2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368062985571541570" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: interior of the Aiello bakery after the Jan., 1928 shootout there. Arrows point to bullet holes in the walls and ceiling)<br /></div><br />The summer of 1928 saw continued warfare between Aiello and Lombardo. In June, the bullet-riddled corpses of two Capone henchmen, John Oliveri and Joseph Salamone, were discovered at <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/death-corner.html">Death Corner</a>, a half-block from the Aiello confectionary on Oak St. A month later, one of Aiello’s bodyguards, Anthony “Tough Tony” Califura, met his end in a drive-by shooting at North Ave. and Wells St. Four days later, an Aiello uncle was murdered in his Little Sicily grocery store, just south of Death Corner.<br /><br />Finally, on September 7, 1928, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/antonio-lombardo-killed-in-loop.html">Antonio Lombardo was murdered</a> in broad daylight near the corner of Dearborn and Madison, in the full view of thousands of pedestrians. His killers escaped, but no one doubted that the Aiellos were behind the hit.<br /><br />After the death of Lombardo, Joe Aiello saw an opportunity to finally gain control of the Unione Siciliana, but Capone and other allies managed to install Pasqualino Lolordo, a Lombardo associate, as president instead. To Joe Aiello, this simply meant one more bullet was needed, and in January, 1929, Lolordo was killed by three assailants while sharing drinks at his North Ave. apartment. At police headquarters, Mrs. Lolordo, who was preparing dinner in the adjoining kitchen at the time of the murder, was shown a photo lineup of potential assassins. She screamed when she saw Joe Aiello’s picture. While he was likely not one of the actual assassins (later evidence suggested the three assailants were Northside Gang members Frank and Peter Gusenberg, plus James Clark – all three later died in the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/st-valentines-day-massacre.html">St. Valentine’s</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/lookout-nest-for-st-valentines-day.html">Day Massacre</a>), there was no doubt that Joe Aiello had organized the hit.<br /><br />Finally, in 1929 and early 1930, most sources indicate that Joe Aiello finally did fulfill his long-time dream of becoming Unione Siciliana president. During this time, Al Capone was incarcerated in Philadelphia on weapons violations charges (he likely entered prison under his own volition as a way to protect himself from the spiraling violence on the streets of Chicago). For his part, Aiello spent much of his term as president hiding out in Northwest Indiana, a fugitive from police who wanted him for questioning regarding the Lolordo murder.<br /><br />By late 1930, Aiello had returned to Chicago, but so had Capone, and old rivalries die hard. Joe Aiello was killed in an ambush on the far west side, near the Cicero border, on October 23 of that year. The rest of the Aiello family remained active in the underworld, eventually mending fences with the remnant of Capone’s organization, the Outfit, in the 1930s. In New York, the Aiellos are associated with the Bonanno organization, one of the “Five Families” in that city.<br /><br />The old Aiello bakery remained in the family into the 1940s, serving as the headquarters for the San Giuseppi di Bagheria society, an Italian community organization focused on Bagherian immigrants (the locale in Sicily where the Aiellos originated). The building was destroyed in the early 1950s to make way for the Cabrini housing projects. In the 1990s, most of the major Cabrini-Green projects were razed, and replaced by upscale condominiums and mixed-income public housing. Where Aiello & Co. once baked wedding cakes and planned a takeover of Chicago’s bootlegging industry, a condominium building has recently been constructed.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com22tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-44233390583236824052009-08-04T23:22:00.004-05:002009-08-04T23:28:45.535-05:00Publicity This WeekA few days ago, I was interviewed in <span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><a href="http://chicagojournal.com/">Chicago Journal</a>, a neighborhood paper serving the Near West and Near South sides. You can read the interview <a href="http://www.chicagojournal.com/Blogs/Near-Loop-Wire/08-03-2009/The_Chicago_Crime_Scenes_Project">here</a>.<br /><br />I will also be on the radio program <a href="http://outsidetheloopradio.com">"Outside the Loop"</a> this Friday on <a href="http://www.wluw.org/">WLUW</a>, 88.7 FM. The program starts at 6:00 p.m., though I'm not sure what time my segment will air.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-5205459603571598992009-08-04T22:59:00.002-05:002009-08-04T23:21:26.899-05:00August Spies' Home<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkXVPnbJM4n04n4D4eljEC6PK4eQSpbvUCnrk0DGHGL19hyphenhyphenPcitmlQ1mRaJwb52uKq_JNtTNC43hmcPUonNYVcEsGVR8GAIpJjTF4VWVfpZrYK3Zb-dxjN4-Gd-94Q7Dcg4Qj9-bISybU/s1600-h/Northside+May+09+007.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkXVPnbJM4n04n4D4eljEC6PK4eQSpbvUCnrk0DGHGL19hyphenhyphenPcitmlQ1mRaJwb52uKq_JNtTNC43hmcPUonNYVcEsGVR8GAIpJjTF4VWVfpZrYK3Zb-dxjN4-Gd-94Q7Dcg4Qj9-bISybU/s400/Northside+May+09+007.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366325360798090066" border="0" /></a><br />August Vincent Theodore Spies, father of American anarchism, hanged for his role in the Haymarket riot, lived here in Wicker Park, at 154 Potomac Ave. (now 2132 W. Potomac).<br /><br />Born the oldest of five children in a middle-class family in Friedewalde, Prussia (now Germany) in 1855, August Spies’ [pronounced Speeze] childhood was a happy one. As a teenager, he attended college in Kassel, training to be a forest ranger like his father. However, Spies’ life changed course in 1872 after the death of his father. Without the family breadwinner, Spies was forced to drop out of school, and he decided to seek his fortune in the United States. He arrived at New York later in 1872, where he apprenticed to an upholsterer for a few months. From New York, he traveled to Chicago, finding work in an umbrella and parasol factory on the west side, near Madison and Halsted.<br /><br />He was a hard worker and was more entrepreneurial than most of his fellow immigrants, so much so that by 1876, he was able to open his own upholstery shop before his 21st birthday. The shop was a success and Spies was soon earning enough to bring his family from Germany to Chicago, including his three brothers, Christian, Ferdinand, and Henry, plus his mother and sister. The entire family resided at the home on Potomac.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIWr1nE69sXUoq_Wyi1-v2A2CNZ-PPtjCSH1tKiQnqUaQCcCd1mejaR3Nw4dFc3HI1JAnHexY7318m_ZI5qKB9tK8ChdcV_xM9a1IYTvIiKKRHvYgNPyoRBRkLCTWB0Xzl16fdv_Ayt2Q/s1600-h/spies.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 174px; height: 168px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIWr1nE69sXUoq_Wyi1-v2A2CNZ-PPtjCSH1tKiQnqUaQCcCd1mejaR3Nw4dFc3HI1JAnHexY7318m_ZI5qKB9tK8ChdcV_xM9a1IYTvIiKKRHvYgNPyoRBRkLCTWB0Xzl16fdv_Ayt2Q/s400/spies.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366325353039316498" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: August Spies)<br /><br />While the American Dream was a reality for August Spies, he was haunted by the terrible conditions in which the poorest Chicagoans, including many immigrants, lived. Sensitive souls of the 1870s were burdened with the knowledge that, throughout the city, multiple families piled into tiny, dilapidated flats in slums overrun with vermin and other pests, and without access to proper cleaning or bathing facilities. Even for those who escaped the worst conditions, hours were long – a typical worker spent 10 hours per day, six days per week on the job – and work was tedious and repetitive (surfing the web and chatting around the water cooler were unheard of in the workplace of 1880). From this hard life, socialism promised better wages, reduced hours, and less division of labor, meaning more variety in tasks on the job.<br /><br />Spies first heard of socialism about 1875, and began studying the works of Karl Marx and whatever other literature he could get his hands on. He was immediately attracted to the philosophy, and his adherence was strengthened by the injustices he perceived during the nationwide strike of 1877, in which police and private militias dispersed demonstrators through extreme force and brutality. Like other socialists at the time, he felt the primary means by which workers could even the odds against the political power of the wealthy was by arming themselves, and so he joined the burgeoning <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/07/lehr-und-wehr-verein-and-second.html">Luhr-und-Wehr Verein</a>, a group of labor militants who were expected to be the first line of attack during the expected socialist revolution.<br /><br />During the late 1870s, Spies came to be well-known in Chicago’s radical circles. He was an excellent orator and an even better writer. He never minced words, and was willing to confront and challenge unfriendly audiences. In an address to a meeting of Congregational ministers, who had invited him to speak on the subject of socialism, he mocked the attempts of Christianity to help the poor with its “little prayer book,” and insisted that only socialism could truly improve society. When one of the ministers replied, “So your remedy would be violence?”, Spies responded<br /><blockquote>Remedy? Well, I should like it better if it could be done without violence; but you, gentlemen, and the class you represent, take care that it cannot be accomplished otherwise….Besides, what does it matter if some thousands, or even tens of thousands, of drones are removed during the coming struggle? These are the very ones who yearly destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of proletarians – a fact which you don’t seem to know.</blockquote>Spies was growing increasingly radical, even relative to other socialists. The final straw was in 1880 when Spies ran for the office of west side tax collector under the banner of the Socialist Labor Party. After losing the race, he rejected the power of the ballot to change society and turned fully towards anarchism. That same year, he left his work as an upholsterer to become the full-time business manager for the German radical daily publication, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/arbeiter-zeitung-chicagos-red-rag-moves.html">Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung</a>. His influence was immediately felt, as the publication began taking a radical turn from socialism to anarchy. Spies’ radicalism was eventually too much for the publication’s editor, Paul Grauttkau, who remained a moderate socialist and left the paper in 1884, after which time, Spies became editor-in-chief.<br /><br />Through Spies’ tireless work, often amounting up to 16 hours per day, the Arbeiter-Zeitung’s circulation grew, reaching a peak of 20,000 by 1886. At the time, Chicago’s entire population was only 500,000, most of whom did not speak German, the language in which the newspaper was printed. Chicago also became the center for anarchist activity in the United States, led largely by August Spies. The first national anarchist assembly was held in Chicago in 1881, with Spies as the secretary of the congress. While sparsely attended and largely unsuccessful, that event’s promise was fulfilled in a similar conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1883. Spies was also the secretary of the Pittsburgh Congress, where the delegates championed the “Chicago idea,” namely that anarchists should both promote armed insurrection and support trade unions as an organizing idea of society. Spies was crucial in founding the first American anarchist organization, the International Working People’s Association, and in drafting the Pittsburgh Manifesto, which included the following six aims of anarchism:<br /><blockquote>1. Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means<br />2. Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative organization of production<br />3. Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the productive organizations without commerce and profit-mongery<br />4. Organization of education on a secular, scientific and equal basis for both sexes<br />5. Equal rights for all without distinction of sex or race<br />6. Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between the autonomous (independent) communes and associations, resting on a federalistic basis</blockquote>While equal rights and widespread education are understandable and laudable goals, the antagonism of anarchists against profit is both puzzling and self-defeating. Profits, after all, serve as signals for where resources should be directed. When the demand for steel increases, profits of steel producers rise, which incentivizes these firms to increase production and signals others to consider entering the steel industry. These reactions allow the increased demand to be met. Without profit, there is no means by which firms know what to produce, how much to produce, or what production technologies to employ. Instead, these decisions tend to be made politically, with tyranny a frequent result. Nothing could be more crucial for individual autonomy and freedom, those keynotes of anarchism, than profit.<br /><br />The “International”, as the new party was known, quickly dwarfed the less-radical Socialist Labor Party, largely as a result of August Spies’ persistence and hard work. At its pre-Haymarket height, the International claimed 5,000 members nationwide. The success may have gone to his head. In January, 1886, a <span style="font-style: italic;">Chicago Daily News</span> reporter interviewed the 31-year old anarchist leader. In the interview, Spies indicated that the revolution was nigh. As evidence of the strength of the movement, he even gave the reporter an empty dynamite shell casing, saying “Take it to your boss and tell him we have nine thousand more like it – only loaded” (<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/arbeiter-zeitung-and-alarm.html">dynamite was an obsessio</a>n for many anarchists in those days).<br /><br />It was a statement that struck fear into Chicagoans and hatred for these violent men who sought the overthrow of the government and their way of life. Spies would live to regret saying it when he sat in jail accused of murder by dynamite after the Haymarket riot.<br /><br />Throughout the spring of 1886, Spies was particularly active, nearly exhausting himself in support of the movement for an eight-hour workday (see the discussion of that movement <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/haymarket-speakers-wagon.html">here</a>). May 1 was the designated day on which workers would walk off the job unless the demand for reduced hours was met, and many expected May 1, 1886 to be the start of a great conflagration between capital and labor which would dwarf the violence of the 1877 railroad strike. The <span style="font-style: italic;">Chicago Mail</span> editorialized<blockquote>There are two dangerous ruffians at large in this city; two sneaking cowards who are trying to create trouble. One of them is named [Albert] Parsons [another anarchist leader]. The other is named Spies. Should trouble come they would be the first to skulk away from the scene of danger, the first to attempt to shield their worthless carcasses from harm, the first to shirk responsibility….Parsons and Spies have been engaged for the past six months in perfecting arrangements for precipitating a riot today. They have taken advantage of the excitement attending the eight-hour movement to bring about a series of strikes and to work injury to capital and honest labor in every possible way….Mark them for today. Keep them in view. Hold them personally responsible for any trouble that occurs. Make an example of them if trouble does occur!</blockquote>Instead, however, May 1 passed with a tense quiet in Chicago, as did May 2. On the afternoon May 3, Spies was invited to speak to a meeting of the lumber-shovers' union on 22nd and Blue Island Ave. During the meeting, violence between striking workers and “scabs” broke out nearby at the McCormick Reaper Works at Blue Island and Western Ave., and a confrontation with police led to the deaths of two workers. Spies witnessed the aftermath of the violence, and enraged, rushed back to his office at the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/arbeiter-zeitung-and-alarm.html">Arbeiter-Zeitung</a>, where he penned a circular that inspired the Haymarket meeting the following day.<br /><br />At the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/haymarket-square.html">Haymarket Square</a> rally on the evening of May 4, 1886, Spies was scheduled to speak second. He and his brother left their home in Wicker Park and walked down Milwaukee Ave. towards the Haymarket, at Randolph and Desplaines Streets. When they arrived around 8:15 p.m., they found the meeting, which had been scheduled to begin at 7:30, was missing its initial speaker (Albert Parsons). With the crowd thinning, the weather worsening, and the evening growing later, Spies moved the group around the corner onto Desplaines Street, and stood atop a nearby <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/haymarket-speakers-wagon.html">wagon</a>, addressing the crowd in English. He was followed by two other speakers. Near the end of the third lecture, given by Samuel Fielden, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/black-jack-john-bonfield.html">Inspector Jack “Black Jack” Bonfield</a> and the Desplaines St. police arrived on the scene, gave the order to disperse, and at that moment, the fatal bomb was thrown. At trial, two witnesses would claim that, during the subsequent speeches, Spies had met the bombthrower in <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/cranes-alley.html">Crane’s Alley</a>, handing him the famous weapon which he later used to wreck havoc. At the time the bomb was thrown, Spies was climbing down from the wagon, responding to the police order. During the riot, he was very nearly killed, but was saved by his brother Henry, who shoved a rifle barrel aimed at Spies out of the way. Spies managed to escape to <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/zepfs-hall.html">Zepf’s saloon</a>, and then found his way home.<br /><br />After the riot, Spies was the first of the Haymarket defendants to be arrested by police. At 9:00 a.m. on May 5, Captain Bonfield arrived at the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/arbeiter-zeitung-and-alarm.html">offices of the Arbeiter-Zeitung</a> and arrested both August Spies and his brother Christopher, who also worked at the paper. In their search of the offices, the police uncovered a cache of dynamite, supposedly in a closet adjacent to Spies’ office. It was nothing like the 9,000 shells Spies had claimed to control, but its existence convicted him in the public eye. The “red scare” that followed the Haymarket riot, plus the natural dislike and suspicion many Chicagoans felt for German immigrants in their city, led to a show trial and conviction of Spies and his fellow defendants for murder, although Spies was demonstrably not the bomb-thrower, and the testimony that indicated he brought the bomb to the event was contradicted by several other witnesses.<br /><br />Every day during the period of their appeals after the trial, newspapers reported on the condition of Spies and the other defendants in prison. One humorous take in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune </span>described a fretful Spies:<br /><blockquote>Two men were pacing up and down the corridor, a guard on either side. They kept their eyes on the ground and said never a word. They were August Spies and his brother, Anarchists by profession and fools by nature. They were pale, and wore that frightened, expectant look that one often sees on the face of a married man riding home on the owl-car.</blockquote>Another day’s commentary provided an interview with the supposedly forlorn prisoner, in which he seemed to be in good spirits, though apparently without a sufficient quantity of "spirits": "We live like princes here in jail. The only drawback to life in this bastille is that it is impossible to get anything to drink!"<br /><br />Besides the usual family visitors, Spies had a large number of female attendants. As a single man and a martyr for his cause, he was irresistible to some. Spies was also known to be quite handsome, with bright blue eyes, a light brown moustache, waxed at the tips, and always in peak physical condition. During the trial, the newspapers said the 31-year old Spies appeared no older than 26.<br /><br />A particularly frequent visitor was an attractive 20-year old scion to a wealthy family, Nina Van Zandt. She had met August Spies a few years earlier, when he kindly published a classified lost-and-found ad in the Arbeiter-Zeitung after Van Zandt’s beloved poodle went missing. They reconnected during the trial, and Nina Van Zandt attended court every day. During Spies’ time in prison, she visited on every occasion possible, but was limited in her access to Spies since she was not an immediate family member.<br /><br />Spies and Van Zandt, who had fallen deeply in love, decided to remedy that problem by marrying. When word got out of the proposed jailhouse wedding, the city was in an uproar. Van Zandt’s parents strenuously opposed the marriage, but to no avail. Public comment was uniformly negative, and not a little condescending towards the would-be fiancée. Typical was a damning letter in the Tribune, which stated<br /><blockquote>What is to be thought of a woman who is willing to bear children to a convict and send their innocent little souls into the world bearing the mark of Cain on their brows as their very birthright?</blockquote>Van Zandt was an instant celebrity. She was even portrayed for tourists as a wax sculpture in several dime museums in the city. When the prison warden objected to the marriage plans, the wedding was performed by proxy, with Henry Spies taking the vows for his brother. Despite the questionable legal status of this marriage, Van Zandt took Spies’ last name (which she kept for the rest of her life), and remained married to him until his execution date.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinar33BrZ2qzGvQL9ELTpJSfURndymN01lFRHHG4dZUNNmQw4OsYGadbXtKfw4l4ci-7EWyp-l-yDPFhLo1M_a3i_0ZDUatw6P6UVNvPN-zMq1m0Zt91AUyMKtUn2edV-XKoG36JIyrL0/s1600-h/vanzandt.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 397px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinar33BrZ2qzGvQL9ELTpJSfURndymN01lFRHHG4dZUNNmQw4OsYGadbXtKfw4l4ci-7EWyp-l-yDPFhLo1M_a3i_0ZDUatw6P6UVNvPN-zMq1m0Zt91AUyMKtUn2edV-XKoG36JIyrL0/s400/vanzandt.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5366325347551013218" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Nina Van Zandt)<br /><br />August Spies initially signed his name to a letter requesting clemency from the Governor – a request that likely would have been accepted – but then immediately withdrew his signature, refusing to admit guilt or to shame his fellow anarchists. He was hanged with four other Haymarket defendants, who constituted the core leadership of the anarchist movement, on November 11, 1887. Anarchism in the U.S. was never again so prominent.<br /><br />Nina Van Zandt remained active in the anarchist movement. She remarried in 1895, then divorced this second husband in 1903. She operated a boarding house on Halsted St., near Adams St., until her death in 1936. In her will, she left most of her small possessions, around $3,000 worth, to the care of her eight dogs and one cat.<br /><br />August Spies’ Wicker Park home is still standing.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-39025049404362196762009-07-21T14:27:00.006-05:002009-07-21T16:47:40.542-05:00138 Years of Murder in Chicago<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTqP8aRL3BybSah6dlm4xjaXvxbnmySxw-HySepbxI0ID6Ck_Y51lByt5fRGGWcJagaCLM2IPvhCZTmdpCBbDtfE3mqSH9lmLK-kZnqdTg2tpizBIi8Idwy8iCdcbShVl9HAXHzPiXqZ4/s1600-h/murderrate.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5361033042222140754" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 274px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTqP8aRL3BybSah6dlm4xjaXvxbnmySxw-HySepbxI0ID6Ck_Y51lByt5fRGGWcJagaCLM2IPvhCZTmdpCBbDtfE3mqSH9lmLK-kZnqdTg2tpizBIi8Idwy8iCdcbShVl9HAXHzPiXqZ4/s400/murderrate.JPG" border="0" /></a> Unlike other posts on this site, this one focuses not on a single crime scene or an historical account of one or two individuals, but instead summarizes the facts on over a century of murder in Chicago. One of the main purposes of this blog is to understand Chicago's historic and modern reputation for crime, and comparisons over time can be illuminating. <div><br /><div>The figure above shows the city's murder rate, expressed as murders per 100,000 residents, between 1870 and 2008. This gives a long-run summary view of homicide in Chicago over the last 138 years. I focus here on murder because, unlike rape, larceny, and other crimes, the likelihood of unreported victims is less severe with murder. The cops will eventually notice every corpse lying in the street, although it is true that some "accidental" deaths may actually have been murders, and some bodies are never found.<br /></div><div>Data from 1931 to the present is drawn from the FBI's annual Crime in the United States, and is based on reports from local police agencies. Figures from 1870 - 1930 are based on Chicago police department data processed by <a href="http://homicide.northwestern.edu/">Homicide in Chicago</a>, a project hosted at <a href="http://www.law.northwestern.edu/">Northwestern University School of Law</a>. All figures include both murders and non-negligent manslaughter.</div><br /><div>Between 1870 and 1920, Chicago's crime rate grew at an essentially steady pace, reaching a peak of 10 per 100,000 in 1919. During this period, Chicago was growing in population and density. High population density is typically associated with greater crime rates for several reasons. First, in small towns, every face is familiar, but in large cities, criminals are less likely to be recognized by witnesses. Realizing a lower likelihood of being caught, criminals commit more crimes. Second, crime pays better in cities, because there are more people to rob -- there's no point in becoming a robber in the first place if you can't hit lots of targets. Finally, and especially relevant to Chicago during this period, big cities attract large communities of poor immigrants with few prospects for legal employment. Criminal, on the other hand, is a profession open to all.</div><br /><div>With the onset of national Prohibition in 1919, many of these immigrants gained lucrative employment in the bootlegging field, and for the first few years of the 1920s, at least, murder rates fell by nearly 50%. But as the various parts of <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/johnny-torrio-shot.html">Johnny Torrio</a>'s syndicate began falling apart in 1924, culminating in the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/obanions-flower-shop.html">murder</a> of Torrio's north side associate <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/obanion-homes.html">Dion</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/dion-obanions-birthplace.html">O'Banion</a>, likely at the hand of his south side associates, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">Genna brothers</a>, Chicago's "Beer Wars" began, and the murder rate skyrocketed by 250% between 1923 and 1928. Also around the same time, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/lookout-nest-for-st-valentines-day.html">notoriously-violent</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/al-capone-murders-joe-howard.html">Al Capone</a> took over full control of <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/johnny-torrio-and-al-capones-account.html">Torrio's organization</a> in 1925.</div><br /><div>Even as Prohibition ended in 1931, murder rates remained high throughout the early 1930s, the worst years of the Great Depression, before falling below 5 per 100,000 in 1943. No doubt the massive mobilization of American men out of Chicago and into military companies in army barracks and overseas locations played no small role in the low murder rates of the early 1940s -- men have traditionally constituted the vast majority of both murderers and murder victims.<br /><br />After WWII, Chicago's murder rate again began to climb as the city continued growing in size until around 1950. The city's demographics also changed during this period, as increasing automobile ownership and better highways allowed families seeking larger homes to commute from the suburbs, while younger cohorts without children remained in the city (most murderers are drawn from the ranks of 17-24 year olds).</div><br /><div>Between 1943 and 1965, Chicago's murder rate rose at a roughly constant rate, increasing by 1 per 100,000 about every three years. However, between 1965 and 1970, the murder rate rose much more dramatically, increasing from 11 per 100,000 in 1965 to 24 per 100,000 in 1970.</div><br /><div>Why did the murder rate rise so quickly in the late 1960s? Some point to stricter standards for policing and stronger rights for accused criminals during this period, symbolized by the Miranda case in 1966, in which the Supreme Court ruled that the police must inform arrested persons of their rights before interrogating them. Criminals facing a lower probability of punishment rationally commit more crimes.</div><br /><div>There is also some evidence that the generation born after World War II had substantially poorer family formation rates, with an increasing share of children growing up in single-parent households. As <a href="http://www.toddkendall.net/UFRCrime.pdf">I've written elsewhere</a>, as these children reached their late teens and early adulthood -- when offense rates are highest -- in the late 1960s, the quantity of violent crime rose proportionately.<br /></div><div>Another potential factor in the growth of crime during this era was the changing consumption patterns and legal status of drugs. The use of heroin and psychodelic drugs increased during the 1960s as production and transportation costs fell, and these drugs also become especially popular among enlisted men and counterculture communities. The pharmacological effects of increased drug consumption -- at least among the class of drugs popular during this period -- on violence are debatable. However, increased usage also led to substantially greater levels of enforcement. Federal prohibition on heroin stretches back to the 1910s, but LSD only became illegal in 1966. Arrests for drug crimes, which were exceptionally rare before 1965, skyrocketed afterwards. With prohibition comes incentives for violence between customers, dealers, and suppliers, who can no longer depend on the courts and police to enforce contracts and mitigate violence.</div><br /><div>The war on drugs continued through the 1970s and 1980s. Especially prominent as a source of crime is the arrival of crack cocaine in the mid-1980s. Crack was an immediately and immensely popular drug, and its arrival in Chicago kicked off massive and bloody turf wars among rival <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/el-rukn-temple.html">drug-selling organizations</a> (primarily street gangs) for control of retailing markets in the city.</div><br /><div>While crack consumption has not waned much since the 1980s, boundaries between rival sellers have largely been settled. Thus, the end of the "crack epidemic" coincided with big declines in Chicago's murder rate. In the mid-1990s, the murder rate in Chicago (and nationwide) fell dramatically, declining below 50% of its 1992 peak by 2004. Besides the end of the crack epidemic, there are potentially several causes for this remarkable turnaround. </div><br /><div>In other cities, such as New York, declines in crime have been attributed to substantial increases in the number of police on the street and to creative policing strategies. Chicago, however, saw little change in the size of its police force, and "broken windows" and other techniques were slow in gaining acceptance at the CPD, although greater efforts towards community engagement, such as the CAPS program, did begin in the early 1990s. </div><br /><div>Imprisonment rates also increased during this period, with Illinois holding 27,516 prisoners in 1990 and 45,281 in 2000. With more criminals behind bars, there are fewer on the street committing crime. In addition, an increased likelihood of a lengthy prison sentence likely deters some would-be criminals.</div><br /><div>Finally, and most controversially, <a href="http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/DonohueLevittTheImpactOfLegalized2001.pdf">some researchers</a> have recently pointed to the role of legalized abortion in the evident decline in crime during the 1990s. While some states legalized abortion procedures before 1973, Illinois and most other states saw legalization after the Supreme Court's famous Roe v. Wade decision that year. A large share of women seeking abortions do so because they feel unprepared to raise a child -- and no doubt many of them in fact are poorly prepared for motherhood. After the legalization of abortion, this theory argues, many children, who would have been raised in high-risk environments, were never born. This "missing cohort" would have reached their late teens and early 20s during the early 1990s; thus, the decline in murder rates in the 1990s may be partially due to the fact that many would-be murderers were never born.</div><br /><div>The statistical evidence regarding this theory is controversial and, in many places, contradictory. Nevertheless, it is difficult to doubt that at least some of the decline in Chicago's murder rate during the 1990s is due to legalized abortion.</div><br /><div>By 2008, Chicago's murder rate was 18.03 per 100,000, roughly the same as it was in 1967. Nevertheless, the city's rate is substantially higher than some other large cities, including New York City (6.3 per 100,000) and Los Angeles (10.0 per 100,000). On the other hand, Chicago is relatively safe compared with Philadelphia (23.0 per 100,000), Detroit (33.8 per 100,000), and Gary, Indiana (73.2 per 100,000).</div></div>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-18543165490641467192009-07-14T00:28:00.007-05:002009-07-23T00:02:09.019-05:00The Saga of Jesse Binga<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji96BecYAE4UcjKVxEts2SXiGJxTGxFMkllZkYpV8aHRb0gtTJARoJK2QS7r9RV0zR5Q_SXb-Z1IUiQL83tK78UqsOkhXaUbrnuZ4_942yyXM5v3xUYyMnxayIH-So7aVSggyJ3TbM1sM/s1600-h/February-April+2009+009.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358184775701461762" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 300px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji96BecYAE4UcjKVxEts2SXiGJxTGxFMkllZkYpV8aHRb0gtTJARoJK2QS7r9RV0zR5Q_SXb-Z1IUiQL83tK78UqsOkhXaUbrnuZ4_942yyXM5v3xUYyMnxayIH-So7aVSggyJ3TbM1sM/s400/February-April+2009+009.jpg" border="0" /></a>The cinematic arc of Jesse Binga’s life story – his humble arrival in Chicago with $10 in his pocket, the genius and hard work that took him to the pinnacle of business and social success, and his courage in challenging and overcoming racially-motivated attacks, followed by a stunning bankruptcy, imprisonment, and a pitiful, penniless death – mirror in exaggerated terms the failed hopes of black Chicagoans in the first half of the 20th century. Most of the events in Binga’s life took place here at his home, 5922 South Parkway Blvd. (now 5922 S. Dr. Martin Luther King Dr.)<br /><br />Jesse Binga was born at Detroit in 1865, one of ten children. His father was a barber, but his mother, Adelphia Powers Binga, was a serial entrepreneur, and became her son’s inspiration throughout his life. As a housing developer, she built “Binga row” houses in the city’s slums. She also operated a food shipment business – the first Great Lakes-caught whitefish ever tasted south of the Mason-Dixon line were transported there by the Bingas.<br /><br />With ten children in the home, the family was never wealthy. Jesse Binga dropped out of high school and apprenticed to his father as a barber and also worked briefly for a Detroit attorney before setting out to seek his fortune. He worked off and on in barbershops throughout the Midwest, then headed to California, where he found employment as a Pullman porter. In 1893, Binga came to Chicago to attend the World’s Fair that took place that year, arriving with no more than $10 to his name. Remaining in the city after the Fair, Binga spent a few years working at odd jobs before starting a real estate business on south State St., near 33rd street in about 1896.<br /><br />With his mother’s experience in real estate as an inspiration, Binga threw himself into the business, saying:<br /><blockquote>Well, I'm going to give it a fair test, and if integrity counts for anything, I'll win. I felt that only prejudice could beat me and I determined that if it did beat me I would go to South America and start life in one of those republics where a man's color is not his crime.<br /></blockquote>Jesse Binga’s audacious success and rapid climb into the highest echelons of Chicago society meant that he never saw the Andes mountains.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX78yHeKIRaLmfbzyxKZtfTxY2ZA8JNNkY1vzRQouzYrOq5tf5fFP4u1gE0JLDF1KYvMFQaNtFIUmScJ0oy9fUnSfodXK8m1qXflYFdXTZDnr8hRJcsc-pGAK5ERBB-kECRkSr6A6k1Gw/s1600-h/Bingaportrait.bmp"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358184781344159650" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 239px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgX78yHeKIRaLmfbzyxKZtfTxY2ZA8JNNkY1vzRQouzYrOq5tf5fFP4u1gE0JLDF1KYvMFQaNtFIUmScJ0oy9fUnSfodXK8m1qXflYFdXTZDnr8hRJcsc-pGAK5ERBB-kECRkSr6A6k1Gw/s400/Bingaportrait.bmp" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Jesse Binga)<br /><br />At the turn of the century, only around 20,000 African-Americans called Chicago home, less than 2% of the city’s population. Most of these were concentrated in the so-called “Black Belt” district, which stretched a few blocks on either side of State street south from 22nd street down to 35th street. Chicago was not unusual in its racial homogeneity at the time; most African-Americans in the U.S. lived in southern states, several of which in fact had majority or near-majority black populations. Starting in the 1880s, and especially in the first decades of the 20th century, Jim Crow segregation in much of the South, plus racial persecution by the Ku Klux Klan and other white groups and poor agricultural employment opportunities sent millions of southern Blacks into northern cities, including Chicago. The widespread circulation of the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Chicago Defender</span>, the city’s chief African-American newspaper, made Chicago a particular magnet for those seeking jobs and inexpensive housing.<br /><br />It was these new migrants who made up the core of Jesse Binga’s clientele. When he opened his real estate business in 1896, he paid $10 per month in office rent and bought a battered old desk for $1.50. He ordered 1,000 cards from a printer, but finding himself unable to pay the bill, convinced the printer to let him have 25 proofs as “samples,” which he used until he was able to pay in full. His first profitable project was renting an apartment in the same building where he had his office, then fixing it up and subletting it at a premium.<br /><br />As black migrants flooded into Chicago, the borders of the Black Belt expanded into historically-white neighborhoods. White residents in these districts were eager to leave as blacks moved in, and Jesse Binga was the city’s major broker between white sellers and black buyers. Binga would buy or rent property from departing white residents, then fix up or subdivide these buildings into smaller apartments demanded by poor southern blacks arriving in the city. In this way, he was able to demand upwards of 50% premia over the purchase price of many properties. Binga placed the advertisement below in the Tribune in 1905:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivxXLh_nrfEo8z8uCX2ttPhUxD3oYGt9tqn2MBcjQhKh2jiVIGCRfliKAQXCpWUTbmNbIZKAd4wA_mNlK4XHKmwAg68S99FHkUhrj3f1_igIWbYepvfBAC3jcB9q9DQzSjTEm8yAzswAY/s1600-h/bingaad.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358184787567643618" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 358px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 54px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivxXLh_nrfEo8z8uCX2ttPhUxD3oYGt9tqn2MBcjQhKh2jiVIGCRfliKAQXCpWUTbmNbIZKAd4wA_mNlK4XHKmwAg68S99FHkUhrj3f1_igIWbYepvfBAC3jcB9q9DQzSjTEm8yAzswAY/s400/bingaad.JPG" border="0" /></a>By the middle of the 1900s decade, Binga was the city’s top black real estate broker, a position he continued to hold for the next twenty years. Explaining his rapid success to a reporter in later years, he emphasized his expertise in construction, and underestimation of his intelligence by business partners, as the twin bases for his success in real estate:<br /><blockquote>I could do the repair work myself. I could do everything from digging a posthole to topping a chimney. I knew. Many a night I've worked all night on boilers and plumbing, and wiping joints, and mending stairs, and hanging paper. I knew materials and I knew when work was right…<br /><br />My greatest asset in business -- I won't say that it was altogether my integrity. It was partly the disposition of the average white man to underestimate my knowledge of real estate values. They wouldn't believe that a colored man could take almost any old building and whip it into shape.</blockquote>Due to discrimination, as well as other factors, many blacks in Chicago faced difficulties in gaining access to adequate credit to finance houses and other large purchases. As with real estate, Jesse Binga realized he could turn racism into profit. Opening his own bank, he would serve customers other banks would not – and this lack of competition meant big revenues. When the white-owned McCarthy Bank at 35th and State failed in 1907, Binga purchased the building and chartered his Binga Bank, a private credit institution.<br /><br />The bank was an immediate success, and such was Binga’s growing stature in the community that he decided to dabble in politics, running for County Commissioner in 1910. That run failed, and Binga largely turned away from politics for the rest of his life, finding business a much more profitable pursuit. Later, he would explain his disdain for political life: "the double crossing, the knife in the back one day and the handshake the next -- I never took to that. I vote but I don't know today what ward I live in."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhksSaYfr0GZAljnxZomvtlBSum_C2IZGitSlORC2edmgHe7fM39lNMpiSgNLVO1kZK5bGX7wNpc_huoUF-C3bYCoUAibANUYw2Qxk3bWElyLZrQ8cBWqyQQiNbcelfKlq02w90nZfMWx8/s1600-h/bingacommissioner.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358184788935512242" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 142px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhksSaYfr0GZAljnxZomvtlBSum_C2IZGitSlORC2edmgHe7fM39lNMpiSgNLVO1kZK5bGX7wNpc_huoUF-C3bYCoUAibANUYw2Qxk3bWElyLZrQ8cBWqyQQiNbcelfKlq02w90nZfMWx8/s400/bingacommissioner.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: political advertisement which appeared in the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Chicago Defender</span> in 1910)<br /><br />In 1911, the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Defender</span>, referring to Binga as “Our Only Banker,” sang his encomium:<br /><blockquote>He was the pioneer in securing good houses and flats for the race and the beginning of his remarkable business along that line has been one of the main factors in the wonderful growth of the citizens of color in Chicago.</blockquote>The next year, Binga married into the city’s wealthiest and most prominent African-American family, the Johnsons. His bride, Eudora Johnson, was a daughter of famed gambling king John “Mushmouth” Johnson, owner of the massive <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/mushmouth-johnsons-emporium-saloon.html">Emporium Saloon</a> on <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/satans-mile.html">"Satan’s Mile</a>" (S. State St.) and the upscale <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/colosimo-and-mushmouth-work-side-by.html">Frontenac Club</a> on W. 22nd (some sources claim Eudora was a sister, not a daughter of Mushmouth; as <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/mushmouth-johnsons-sister-breaks-color.html">I’ve noted before</a>, the relationships between various Johnson family members were complicated). Supposedly, Eudora inherited over $200,000 from her father, which added to the Binga Bank’s capitalization, making it not only the biggest bank in the Black Belt, but a serious competitor for the business of white depositors as well.<br /><br />Some have even suggested that Binga married Eudora Johnson exclusively for her money (she was apparently not exactly the picture of pulchritude); more than likely, though, such rumors originated out of jealousy from rival businessmen and renters who resented their landlord. In any case, the Binga-Johnson wedding was the city’s most lavish that year, and, befitting Binga’s growing national stature, even Booker T. Washington sent a letter of congratulations to the newlyweds.<br /><br />During the next fifteen years, Chicago’s black population, which had already been growing by leaps and bounds, quadrupled in size. Jesse Binga was one of the chief beneficiaries; both his real estate and banking businesses prospered tremendously. Between 1921 and 1924 alone, the bank’s deposits grew from $300,000 to over $1,100,000, and then to nearly $1,500,000 by 1929, a period when real estate values were stagnant and bank failures were not uncommon (through suspensions and closures, the number of banks in Illinois fell from 1,969 in 1920 to 1,806 in 1929).<br /><br />Binga was Chicago’s leading black citizen, and among its leading citizens of any color. During this period, he opened a “business school” of sorts, the Associated Business Club, wherein black entrepreneurs heard lectures from the city’s top business owners, black and white. He also purchased the home pictured above, at 5922 South Parkway Blvd., in 1917, for the sum of $30,000 (the equivalent of around $500,000 today). The home, located in what was a strictly white neighborhood, overlooks Washington Park, a beautiful and grand park covering more than 70 city blocks.<br /><br />Jesse Binga’s prominence as a black Chicagoan of means, his activities in “block-busting” – drawing black residents into previously white neighborhoods, and his own purchase of a large home in a white district, made him a target for animosity among whites. Starting during the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/ragens-colts.html">Chicago Race Riots of 1919</a>, his home on South Park Blvd. was bombed seven times over the next two years. His businesses also suffered repeated bombings. Each time dynamite exploded on his front porch, there would be offers to buy his home, but Binga refused, rebuilt, and remained on South Park Blvd. He placed a private security officer on 24-hour guard for months at a time, and even publicly offered a $1,000 reward for the conviction of the bombers, but none were ever caught. He told the Defender (partially in response to criticism from blacks that he had moved out of the Black Belt),<br /><blockquote>I am an American citizen, a Christian and a property owner. No man can make of me a traitor or a coward. No power on earth can change my faith in God. I will defend my home and personal liberty to the extent of my life….I have just as much right to enjoy my home at Washington Park as any one else to go there and play tennis or baseball or enjoy other advantages of the district. It is a personal privilege. I went there to live because I liked the house and I had a chance to buy it....I do not want to get away from anybody, but absolutely refuse to live in a neighborhood inhabited by the lower class of white trash.</blockquote>Despite his dislike of politics, Binga consistently went on the record in favor of greater state regulation of private, unincorporated banks like his own. At first blush, it may seem unusual for a businessman to favor greater regulation of his own industry, since the costs of complying with regulations can be high. However, regulatory costs are largely fixed costs – that is, independent of the size of the business – which means only the largest and best-capitalized firms will be able to remain in business. In banking, for instance, most regulations require higher levels of capitalization and more layers of accounting. By 1920, the chief threat to the Binga Bank’s profitability wasn’t greater regulation; it was competing black bankers. State regulation was a way to cripple the competition, and in that year, Binga, along with other major Chicago bankers, succeeded in eliminating private banks. After 1920, all banks had to have state or federal charters, and no less than $100,000 in capital. The Binga Bank – renamed Binga State Bank – was the only Black Belt bank able to meet such requirements.<br /><br />Binga also associated his bank with the Chicago Clearing House, an association of local banks that could – but were not obligated to – supply cash on demand to a member bank if that bank suffered a run on its deposits. In those days before federal deposit insurance (FDIC), although banks were generally more conservative as investors, they were at greater risk of devastating bank runs (see the more extensive discussion of banking before FDIC in <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/06/kill-dillinger-here.html">this post</a>), so Clearing House membership added a degree of assurance to depositors. And because a potential run could become quite expensive, only the city’s top banks were allowed to become Clearing House members.<br /><br />In 1926, Binga purchased property at the center of the Black Belt, on the northwest corner of 35th and State, on which he built a new $120,000 structure to house the Binga State Bank. It was the most expensive single building in the district. Constructed of marble and bronze, the exterior reflected a rich Ionic architecture, and the interior featured walnut paneling and a massive steel vault. 50 bank employees, all African Americans, were skimmed from the top of the community’s talent pool, and featured college degrees from the University of Chicago, the University of Michigan, and Oberlin College, among other institutions. Behind a massive glass and marble desk overlooking them all was Jesse Binga, the high-school drop-out and former barber and Pullman porter.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJYCSKbLgCvFM7NrCrfAO0OkZEFnwO2DMBvHIOEGJYbF0MaDGeFb70XyKUVSUZZPdUZ65cf3SfVwiuRmQXYIAP5nFMGyh_zfDzC_7lQqCG5i2JyMx__CeX3myX_Hson7FaR6ME2DpggbQ/s1600-h/bingabank.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358184796139646882" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 355px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJYCSKbLgCvFM7NrCrfAO0OkZEFnwO2DMBvHIOEGJYbF0MaDGeFb70XyKUVSUZZPdUZ65cf3SfVwiuRmQXYIAP5nFMGyh_zfDzC_7lQqCG5i2JyMx__CeX3myX_Hson7FaR6ME2DpggbQ/s400/bingabank.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: The Binga State Bank building at 35th and State streets)<br /><br />In 1927, Binga purchased more property at 35th and State, and built an even grander structure, the Binga Arcade, a $500,000 5-story modern office building, which would house all of the Binga empire, as well as offices for other black-owned businesses. There was no building anything like it south of Van Buren St. in the Loop.<br /><br />During this period, income among African Americans in Chicago was growing substantially, and Jesse Binga was a leading symbol of the community’s hopes. His success made him a celebrity. He wrote weekly columns on business and real estate for the Defender, and published a book entitled “Certain Saying of Jesse Binga,” which included such pearls of wisdom as<br /><blockquote>Nothing is so easy or so wasteful as the work of hating -- except hating work.<br /><br />You can be a menial or a man of business. But to get out of the menial place requires the thrift that produces property. And property enlarges life. Work, then, not for gain alone but for the enlarged life that honest gains create.<br /><br />Life is pretty much what you make it -- and making it big means using every day of it.</blockquote>In 1929, at the height of his success, 64-year old Jesse Binga began soliciting funds for a second bank, this one with a federal, instead of a state, charter. It was to be his crowning achievement, his lasting legacy to Chicago before retirement. Binga purchased property on South Parkway Blvd., near 46th Pl., for the new bank building, and sold shares in the business to investors. He had little trouble finding eager subscribers to the new bank. What could go wrong, after all? There was no better bet in Chicago than Jesse Binga.<br /><br />Unfortunately, no one, least of all Binga himself, foresaw the end of the prosperity of the 1920s. In late October, 1929, the great stock market crash eliminated millions of dollars of industrial value. At around the same time, Congress passed the Smoot-Hawley tariff act, which limited imports and exports, destroying well-established businesses and isolating the U.S. from the world economy. Failing businesses had difficulty servicing their loans, and so undercapitalized banks began to fail throughout the country. At the same time, many depositors, fearing the insolvency of banks and needing additional cash to cover income lost in the broadening downturn, removed money from banks. Banks were caught in a vice.<br /><br />In 1928, 18 Illinois banks had their operations suspended by the state; 1929 saw that number rise to 30, but these were not especially high numbers relative to the previous years of the 1920s. The middle of 1930, however, saw Chicago’s banking industry begin to crater, and the Binga State Bank was the “canary in the coal mine.” By July, the bank was facing serious shortages of capital and had suspended lending. Binga lent much of his own personal fortune in an attempt to keep the bank afloat, but to no avail. On July 31, 1930, Illinois bank auditors closed the Binga State Bank, alleging insolvency and accounting improprieties. As the shock of the event rippled through the city, thousands of worried depositors congregated at 35th and State, and two policemen had to maintain 24-hour watch to protect the building. A pall hung over the crowd, many of whose members had entrusted their life’s savings in the bank. Worse still was the crushed pride of seeing the African-American community’s leading citizen forced out of his commanding business position.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXcDY-0-LKxhSsthPZKKorykeEKkLlLmuR82Dt55DGURBjt3UilkOxWTQaeqS7tnBpmsxYV-PrWBBWmjBG9xE60NrAXaVwHk7B5Clpr4XZ8foyzT7oIXL74gRT3Sn8YWHpiptQBKFd7Gk/s1600-h/bingabankfailure.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5358185032568293570" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 305px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXcDY-0-LKxhSsthPZKKorykeEKkLlLmuR82Dt55DGURBjt3UilkOxWTQaeqS7tnBpmsxYV-PrWBBWmjBG9xE60NrAXaVwHk7B5Clpr4XZ8foyzT7oIXL74gRT3Sn8YWHpiptQBKFd7Gk/s400/bingabankfailure.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: depositors milling around outside Binga State Bank on July 31, 1930)<br /><br />Behind the scenes, auditors were also preparing a criminal case against Jesse Binga. In their audit of Binga State Bank, the funds that had been subscribed for the new national bank, announced in 1929, were found missing. Authorities gave the bank’s board of directors a few days to raise $400,000 needed to make the bank solvent, and the directors were amenable to the request – but only if the tarnished president, Jesse Binga, stepped down. Binga refused to do so, clinging to the bank he had built up from a single $10 bill, the bank he had poured his entire life savings into in an attempt to forestall its failure.<br /><br />Next, the Chicago Clearing House, of which Binga State Bank was a member, met to decide whether to supply it with sufficient funds to re-open. Likely other banks in the association were suffering under similar distress, and so the Clearing House members were not keen on taking the risk to prop up Binga State Bank, especially if the rumors of embezzlement by Binga were true. Perhaps, too, racism played a role. Later, one member would describe a conclave of Clearing House members in which the meeting chairman said that Binga State Bank was “a little n----- bank that does not mean anything.” It was the first closure of a Clearing House member bank in twenty years.<br /><br />In any case, by October, 1930, Binga State Bank had failed, and thousands of depositors’ savings were completely gone. December saw Binga forced into personal bankruptcy and hounded by creditors. Even his wife, Eudora, turned against him, filing suit in court, charging him with incompetency in managing the family’s financial affairs and asking that the court appoint a conservator to handle what little money was left.<br /><br />The failure of the Binga Bank kicked off a massive string of bank failures in Chicago. From 30 Illinois bank suspensions in 1929, 1930 saw an uptick to 125. Another 238 banks suspended operations in 1931, then 209 more in 1932 and an additional 245 in 1933. The number of banks in the state fell by more than half in four years. If the state regulations of 1920 that shut down the private banking business were intended to protect depositors, they failed miserably. If Chicago Clearing House members thought allowing Binga State Bank to fail would not lead to further runs on banks in the city, they were completely wrong.<br /><br />In April, 1931, a court handed down an indictment against Jesse Binga for embezzling $39,000 in pledges for the proposed national bank on South Park and 46th, which had never opened. Over 80 witnesses testified at trial against Binga, but Binga’s attorneys argued that a state law precluded capital funds for a national bank from being held in a state bank – thus explaining why Binga had held these funds in his own personal account, but not explaining where the funds had gone. The jury was hung, and the judge decreed a mistrial.<br /><br />The state’s attorney immediately began preparing a second trial, which, after a long series of continuances, began in May, 1933. Two months before, in March, Eudora Binga died, likely from stress due to the stress of financial dissolution and personal antagonism with her husband.<br /><br />At the second trial, the state added to its list of witness the #2 officer at the Binga State Bank, Mrs. Inez Cantey. When asked about the events precipitating the closure of the bank and the misappropriation of funds, she repeatedly admitted wrongdoing – “with the permission of Mr. Binga”.<br /><br />With his chief lieutenant turned against him, Jesse Binga likely knew he was headed for a conviction. He took the stand in his defense, breaking down in tears as he exclaimed,<br /><blockquote>They're persecuting me. They have killed my wife and now they're trying to kill me. I've lost all I owned; now they're persecuting me. Stop this thing or I'll go mad!" </blockquote>A few days later, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. In November, 1933, Binga was sentenced to serve 1 – 10 years in state prison. He managed to remain free while awaiting an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court, but when that court denied the appeal, a 70-year old Jesse Binga entered Joliet prison in April, 1935. He was immediately transferred to the hospital ward for treatment of a heart condition, and most observers fully expected him to die in prison.<br /><br />11 months later, at his first parole hearing, Chicago’s – and the nation’s – most famous attorney, Clarence Darrow, appeared on behalf of Jesse Binga. "I have known Binga for thirty years and he is a man of fine character. He lost a fortune trying to keep his bank open."<br /><br />The appeal was denied, but his next parole hearing in February, 1938 was a success. At that hearing, prison officers were presented with a list of 10,000 signatures from Chicago residents, requesting the release of Binga. Many of the signatories were among those who lost money in the failed Binga State Bank.<br /><br />After being released from prison, Binga moved back into his home on South Parkway Blvd. Completely broke and in poor health, he nevertheless managed to keep creditors from taking his home by working as a janitor at his church, St. Anselm’s on S. Michigan Ave., near 60th St.<br /><br />In April, 1941, Jesse Binga received some belated relief in the form of a pardon from Illinois Governor Dwight Green. But it was too little to salvage much of his tarnished reputation. Soon after, Binga finally sold his home and moved in with a nephew, Albert Roberts (the Bingas had no children). Jesse Binga died in 1950.<br /><br />The Binga State Bank, formerly the emerald of the Black Belt, remained closed until 1943, when it was reopened as the Phoenix National Bank under new ownership. Together with the Binga Arcade, the bank building was demolished in the 1970s, replaced by an Illinois Institute of Technology building.<br /><br />Binga’s home on South Parkway Blvd., however, still stands (though apparently renovated extensively), though the street was renamed Martin Luther King Dr. in the late 1960s. In fact, it is even for sale. The formerly all-white neighborhood where Jesse Binga courageously stood against dynamite attacks in 1919-1921 is now almost entirely populated by black residents.<br /><br />[Update: See the interesting additional information below in the comments from a Binga nephew]Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-49268391853061996322009-07-08T19:02:00.007-05:002009-07-08T23:05:35.242-05:00The Lehr-und-Wehr Verein and the Second Amendment<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3bXBx1ZBrZqNkuxZT7XpQ1l_-VrmhLBfLZTKU_FfEUKnMERkMb_u20EK2YoU_M14HgutDBNAlPAMG561TVTG9UnPuqM4D3SqXDE1naFTRY3rkroOCEOmgwxOjYYdRPAvIvSTRuPXOIdk/s1600-h/Northside+May+09+004.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3bXBx1ZBrZqNkuxZT7XpQ1l_-VrmhLBfLZTKU_FfEUKnMERkMb_u20EK2YoU_M14HgutDBNAlPAMG561TVTG9UnPuqM4D3SqXDE1naFTRY3rkroOCEOmgwxOjYYdRPAvIvSTRuPXOIdk/s400/Northside+May+09+004.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356295028032826114" border="0" /></a><br /><div>The 1870s were a period of increasingly violent clashes between workers and employers in Chicago and throughout the U.S. The eight-hour workday movement was emboldened by weak economic conditions prevailing throughout most of that decade, and anarchists began publicly advocating resistance against industrialists and strike-breakers. Employers hired armed guards, including <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/11/allan-pinkerton-sets-sting-operation.html">Pinkerton detectives</a>, to defend their personal and business interests, and state governments began forming organized militias to put down insurrections. In response, German socialists and anarchists in Chicago formed the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein.<br /><br />A rough translation of Lehr-und-Wehr Verein is “Education and Resistence Association,” and the group’s state charter, signed by the governor of Illinois in April, 1875, indicated<br /><div><blockquote>The Association is formed for the purpose of improving the mental and bodily condition of its members so as to qualify them for the duties of citizens of the Republic. Its members shall therefore obtain in the meetings of the Association a knowledge of our laws and political economy, and shall also be instructed in military and gymnastic exercises. </blockquote>There were four Lehr-und-Wehr Verein companies in Chicago which met weekly for drill exercises and instruction. Once each month, all four groups converged at Neff’s Hall, a saloon and assembly hall located at 58 Clybourn (now numbered 1265 N. Clybourn Ave.), which is the building pictured above. Their marching uniforms consisted of blue shirts, black hats, and white rucksacks, paired with light-colored linen pants. At socialist picnics, outings, and conventions, they held shooting contests and mock battles, and marched in columns four men wide, carrying a variety of firearms, everything from squirrel pellet guns to .45 caliber rifles and .44 caliber revolvers. Besides support they received directly from socialist political parties, the organization held fundraisers throughout the year, using monies raised to purchase additional armaments.</div><div> </div><br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5356244550750365938" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; width: 400px; height: 245px; text-align: center;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0lG8JWo5JruPC4yUmpJpPx3GQgc4Rukyqk2cKoScfin_1LoH-sToZYG6_s3VjsOnj_8tveQVV5hcW_sBXNorCiEmOY56avWBCKl4CqBklE412LyvHyfgkCNgIwr5iPgyHmMCAa68kJzU/s400/LehrundWehrVerein.jpg" border="0" /></div>(Pictured: a Lehr-und-Wehr Verein drill. Image courtesy of <a href="http://homicide.northwestern.edu/pubs/anarchy/">Northwestern University Law School</a>).<br /><div> </div><br /><div>While socialists and anarchists had long argued that working men needed to arm themselves to enforce their rights, the formal organization of the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein may have been precipitated by the establishment of the Illinois National Guard in 1874. Though privately financed (primarily by wealthy Chicagoans) the Guard was the first organized militia in the state. In March, 1875, one month before the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein was chartered, the first regiment of the Illinois National Guard mustered with arms at a socialist riot in front of city hall.<br /></div><br /><div>While the Verein’s state charter was anodyne, its obvious purpose was to protect socialist interests in battles with business interests, police, and the National Guard. In a letter to the Tribune, Hermann Chilz, secretary of the organization wrote explicitly:</div><div><blockquote>The preparations of the workingmen…are simply a necessity in order to protect themselves against future murderous attacks like the one which was made by the police last year against peaceably assembled workingmen.</blockquote>Likely Chilz is referring to an infamous case during the Great Strike of 1877 in which, during negotiations between Furniture Workers’ Union members and their employers on W. 12th Street, Chicago police broke down the door and began shooting and beating workers as they tried to escape.<br /></div><br /><div>Similarly, Chicago’s socialist newspaper the <em><a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/arbeiter-zeitung-chicagos-red-rag-moves.html">Arbeiter-Zeitung</a></em> wrote in June, 1875,</div><div><blockquote>Inasmuch as the bourgeoisie of this place are building up a servile militia with its powers directed against the working man, the workingmen, man for man, should join the … organization and willingly give the few dollars necessary to arm and uniform themselves. When the workingmen are on their guard, their just demands will not be answered with bullets.</blockquote>The sight of armed groups of socialists marching through the streets of the city alarmed many Chicagoans, especially the wealthy, who had more to lose should a general insurrection arise. They perceived the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein as a threat against law and order, and against their life and property. The aforementioned Great Strike of 1877, although it had lasted only a week, showed that collaborative protest by the working classes was possible and could bring the country’s economy to a standstill. During the strike, Marshall Field and other merchants armed their employees and George Pullman organized a “Law and Order League,” which roamed through the city’s neighborhoods armed with rifles. Armed vigilante groups and private and battalions of Civil War veterans also worked to disperse assemblies of striking workers. Labor historian Paul Avrich writes that for business leaders,</div><div><blockquote>…the chief lesson of the strike was the need for a stronger apparatus of repression. Along with press and pulpit, they called for a reorganization of the military forces, so that in the future they might be able to deal more effectively with popular outbursts. The erection of government armories in the centers of American cities dates from this period. State militias were reorganized and strengthened. Special manuals on riot duty and street fighting became prescribed reading for local and federal forces. In Chicago, a Citizens’ Association, spurred by Marshall Field, was established “to fight communists.” The police began to conduct themselves in the matter of an army, drilling regularly in street maneuvers and learning to “handle themselves like soldiers.” [<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Haymarket-Tragedy-Paul-Avrich/dp/0691006008">The Haymarket Tragedy</a>, p. 35]<br /></blockquote>The fear of armed socialist groups is reflected in the following poem, printed in an 1878 weekly version of the A<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/arbeiter-zeitung-and-alarm.html">rbeiter-Zeitung</a>:<br /></div><br /><div align="center"><strong>Our Dear Police </strong></div><div align="center">(by Gustav Lyser)<br /></div><div align="center"> </div><br /><div align="center">They say our dear Chicago police</div><div align="center">Are pretty sore these days,</div><div align="center">It seems the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein</div><div align="center">Has led their minds astray<br /></div><div align="center"> </div><br /><div align="center">It teaches constitutional truths</div><div align="center">For all – not just th’ elite,</div><div align="center">And that no one the right to assemble</div><div align="center">May trample under his feet!<br /></div><div align="center"> </div><br /><div align="center">It teacher what is guaranteed,</div><div align="center">And read it each man might</div><div align="center">To liberty, life, pursuit of happiness</div><div align="center">We have a common right!<br /></div><div align="center"> </div><br /><div align="center">It teaches how we must defend</div><div align="center">‘Gainst tyrrany’s reckless flood;</div><div align="center">That freedom much from us demands – </div><div align="center">May e’en demand our blood!<br /></div><div align="center"> </div><br /><div align="center">That’s why our dear Chicago police</div><div align="center">Are pretty sore these days;</div><div align="center">For such a Lehr-und-Wehr Verein</div><div align="center">Has set their fears ablaze.<br /></div><div> </div><br /><div>As the poem suggests, the issue quickly become a constitutional question. The <a href="http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am2">second amendment to the Constitution</a> reads:</div><div><blockquote>A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</blockquote>In the 19th century, the “militia”, as defined in both federal and state code, included all (white male) citizens; hence, one reading of the the second amendment is that it precludes the government from disarming its citizens, who have the right use force to defend their freedom from tyrants or foreign invaders. This is certainly how the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein read the amendment. At the same time, courts of the era also interpreted the Bill of Rights to apply narrowly to the federal government exclusively; thus, the U.S. Congress could make no law infringing the right to bear arms, but the states could.<br /></div><br /><div>In May, 1879, Illinois did just that, passing the Militia Bill, sections 5 and 6 of which read:</div><div><blockquote>Sec. 5 It shall not be lawful for any body of men whatever, other than the regular organized volunteer militia of this state, and the troops of the United States, to associate themselves together as a military company or organization, or to drill or parade with arms in any city or town of this state, without the license of the governor thereof, which license may at any time be revoked….Provided, that nothing herein contained shall be construed so as to prevent benevolent or social organizations from wearing swords.<br /><br />Sec. 6. Whoever offends against the provisions of the preceding section, or belongs to, or parades with, any such unauthorized body of men with arms, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding the sum of ten dollars, ($10,) or by imprisonment in the common jail for a term not exceeding six months, or both.<br /></blockquote>The statute, with most of the same language (including the amusing bit about wearing swords), is still on the Illinois books today (See Sections 94 and 101 <a href="http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs5.asp?ActID=315&ChapAct=20%26nbsp%3BILCS%26nbsp%3B1805%2F&ChapterID=5&ChapterName=EXECUTIVE+BRANCH&ActName=Military+Code+of+Illinois">here</a>; 130 years later, the original $10 fine has been increased to “not less than $20 nor more than $100”).<br /></div><br /><div>The 1879 Militia law was specifically aimed at armed socialists groups like the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein, the membership of which had grown dramatically since the Great Strike. While no reliable sources exist, the total number of Lehr-und-Wehr Verein members likely exceeded 1,000 at its peak, and may have been as high as 3,000. Verein members saw in the law’s provision for licenses granted by the governor an attempt by the state to monopolize the use of force, and to direct it against groups with little political power, especially workers.<br /></div><br /><div>On July 2, 1879, the new law was put to the test when a group of Lehr-und-Wehr Verein, led by their captain, Frank Bielefeldt, marched with arms through Chicago. Bielefeldt was arrested and charged with violation of the militia law. The case was heard in Cook County Criminal Court in late July, and Bielefeldt triumphed. The court held that the right to bear arms was an inherent, inalienable right, independent of any law passed in Illinois or elsewhere, and that arming oneself is “an unconditioned and undeniable right, militia or no militia.”<br /><br />The Judge in the case also argued that, while the Second Amendment (and other aspects of the Bill of Rights) had not applied to state laws before the Civil War, this was no longer the case after the passage of the <a href="http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am14">14th amendment</a> in 1868, the text of which reads (in part): “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The right to bear arms being one of the privileges accorded to U.S. citizens by their constitution, the states were thus restricted from abridging that right.<br /></div><br /><div>The court further agreed with the socialists that the militia law unnecessarily politicized self-defense, arguing that the statute “empowers the Governor in the granting or withholding of licenses to make odious discriminations based on politics, religion, class interests, nationality, place or similar considerations repugnant to the genius of our institutions and subversive of constitutional equality.”<br /></div><br /><div>The case, which was decided 2-1, was a startling victory for the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein, and inspired the conservative <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> to attribute to the decision epithets including “irrelevant” and “puerile;” nevertheless, its effect was to be short-lived. In the fall of 1878, the Illinois Supreme Court judged in a separate case that the Illinois National Guard, not the public at large, was the state militia; as a consequence, Governor Shelby Cullom announced that the militia law would be sternly enforced against the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein: no one but the militia would be allowed to parade with arms without the Governor's permission. However, since the ultimate question of constitutionality had still not been decided by the courts, the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein prompty offered an opportunity for them to do so.<br /><br /></div><div>On September 24, 1879, Hermann Presser, mounted on horseback, led a march in Chicago of 400 Lehr-und-Wehr Verein members carrying firearms. Presser was arrested, convicted in circuit court, and fined the statutory $10. The case was appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, which confirmed Presser’s conviction, at which point the case was again appealed the U.S. Supreme Court.<br /></div><br /><div>The Court took its time, and did not hear oral arguments until 1885. In the mean time, the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein continued to hold meetings and drills, but did not march publicly without permission (in one instance in 1880, the Governor did grant permission to the group for a public display). The growing anarchist movement intertwined with the Verein’s membership, and many of the city’s foremost firebrands, including those advocating revolution, were members. One of the most zealous of the future Haymarket defendants, Adolph Fischer, was a member. The pages of the Arbeiter-Zeitung persistently urged workers to arm themselves, especially with dynamite, to assist in the coming war with the industrialist elite.<br /><br />At the Supreme Court, former U.S. Senator Lyman Trumbull represented Presser, arguing in terms similar to those that had been issued in the earlier Bielefeldt case, a de-politicization of the militia:<br /></div><div><blockquote>“To bear arms,” then in the constitutional sense, means to bear the weapons of civilized warfare, and to become instructed in their use. But this is drilling, officering, organizing; therefore, these are claimed to be part and parcel, of the same impregnable right, and placed by the supreme law of the land, beyond the reach of infringement by the provisions of any military code or, the precarious will, and license of whoever may happen to be Governor.</blockquote>In January, 1886, the Supreme Court released its ruling in the case of <span style="font-style: italic;">Presser v. Illinois</span>. The constitutionality or lack thereof of the Illinois National Guard, which had played a substantial role in the defense's case, was irrelevant, the justices argued; only sections 5 and 6 of the militia law, under which Presser was convicted, were relevant. Turning the Court’s attention to these sections, the decision affirmed that the Bill of Rights did not apply to state laws:<br /></div><div></div><blockquote><div>We think it clear that the sections under consideration, which only forbid bodies of men to associate together as military organizations, or to drill or parade with arms in cities and towns unless authorized by law, do not infringe the right of the people to keep and bear arms. But a conclusive answer to the contention that this amendment prohibits the legislation in question lies in the fact that the amendment is a limitation only upon the power of congress and the national government, and not upon that of the state.<br /></div><br /><div>…[T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms is not a right granted by the constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government…</div></blockquote><div>The Court further opined that states need the ability to regulate free assembly and firearm ownership in order “to suppress armed mobs bent on riot and rapine.”<br /></div><br /><div>After the ruling in <span style="font-style: italic;">Presser</span>, the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein would never again exercise in public, and the anarchist movement in the United States went into the decline. Just four months later, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/haymarket-speakers-wagon.html">Haymarket riot</a> led to the imprisonment (and, for some, death) of most of the city’s anarchist leaders. Coincidentally or not, the judge who presided over the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/02/cranes-alley.html">trial of the Haymarket defendants</a> was the one dissenting member of the panel that ruled in favor of the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein in the Bielefeldt case.<br /></div><br /><div>A decade after <span style="font-style: italic;">Presser</span>, U.S. courts began developing the doctrine of “incorporation,” essentially the same argument as the Cook County Criminal Court made in the Bielefeldt case – that the 14th amendment implies that the Bill of Rights applies to state laws as well as to the federal government. Over the next hundred years, most of the Bill of Rights was so "incorporated," including the first amendment rights of freedom of speech, religion, and assembly, and the fifth amendment protections against double jeopardy and self-incrimination. Notably, however, the Supreme Court has never ruled that the second amendment applies to the states; hence, <span style="font-style: italic;">Presser v. Illinois</span> is still a standard citation in cases throughout the country upholding local ordinances banning handgun ownership.<br /></div><br /><div>That is likely to change soon. The <span style="font-style: italic;">Presser</span> case was recently denigrated as outmoded by Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority in its <a href="http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/07-290.pdf">ruling</a> (see p. 48, n23) last summer against the Washington, D.C. handgun ban. That case, however, did not decide the question of whether the second amendment applies to the states since the District of Columbia is not a state. Nevertheless, barring unexpected changes in the Court’s membership, most observers expect a decision in the next few terms will extend “incorporation” to the second amendment. Will we then see a return of the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein?<br /></div><br /><div>Neff’s hall, where the Verein once met for their general assembly and military drills, still stands on Clybourn Ave. While the Verein were active, it was commonly used by anarchists to store dynamite and other weapons. It was frequented in particular by Louis Lingg, the most violent of the Haymarket defendents, who committed suicide in jail before his execution. Known as Thueringer Hall in the 1880s, the building was later home to a hosiery shop in the 1950s. Today, it appears to be vacant.<br /><br />[Several of the quotes in this post (particularly the poem from the Arbeiter-Zeitung and the clippings from the defense brief in Presser) were found in Stephen P. Halbrook's Summer 1999 article in the University of Detroit Mercey Law Review, "The Right of Workers to Assemble and to Bear Arms: Presser v. Illinois, One of the Last Holdouts Against Application of the Bill of Rights to the States".]<br /></div></div>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-21110832858550605382009-07-04T17:38:00.006-05:002009-07-04T23:51:11.015-05:00Conservative Vice Lords, Inc.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF7xUmnbg5YD_Fl6cc7V4fN3b_FxGiVSABJyCFpTj0DCSRp86rblYXc_-hOZ_tpVcSwYapoHKlzZ2hNjFmd844fYOR_QjfR0b8fCZKqJCKuIGlw7KGMTmAUYX40CKEySeUIqVKBVVQmRY/s1600-h/IMG_0550.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF7xUmnbg5YD_Fl6cc7V4fN3b_FxGiVSABJyCFpTj0DCSRp86rblYXc_-hOZ_tpVcSwYapoHKlzZ2hNjFmd844fYOR_QjfR0b8fCZKqJCKuIGlw7KGMTmAUYX40CKEySeUIqVKBVVQmRY/s400/IMG_0550.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354739749460599298" border="0" /></a>Can a group of street gang members with long police records, high school dropouts for whom drunkenness and violence were the core of daily life, one day decide to found a community development organization and become successful businessmen? Between 1967 and 1970, the Vice Lords, once the west side’s most feared gang, attempted just this. Their surprising successes and ultimately, crushing failure, symbolized the cycle of ghetto idealism during that period. At their peak, the Lords owned and operated five businesses in the 3700 block of W. 16th Street (pictured) alone, plus several others nearby.<br /><br />Founded in the late 1950s by a group of seven juvenile delinquents, the leader of whom had been rejected by other street gangs, the Conservative Vice Lords’ reign of terror in the North Lawndale neighborhood between 1957 and 1964 was singularly violent. Other gangs in the area, like the Imperial Chaplains, Cobras, Morphines, Clovers, and Continental Pimps, were primarily social societies, holding parties and dances, although fights frequently broke out. The Vice Lords, in contrast, were primarily a fight club where members boxed and wrestled each other during the day, then went out at night and used knives, Molotov cocktails, and pistols to take control of turf from other gangs and terrorize residents. <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/10-cent-killing.html">I have already written of one example</a> of the extreme violence of which the Vice Lords were capable during this period.<br /><br />By 1964, the Lords had 28 “sets” – micro gangs controlling a particular block or two – and up to 10,000 members, and they patrolled the vast majority of the territory between Pulaski and Western Aves., and from Lake St. south to Ogden. But by this point, some of the founding members, who were 16-18 years old when the gang began, were reaching maturity and had families. With the broader view maturity brings, they saw the destruction their activities had brought upon the neighborhood and the attraction of power and money that would continue to draw disaffected youth into the gang. They were also afraid of some of the younger Vice Lords.<br /><br />Among these leaders were Edward Perry, sometimes known as “Pep” or “Peppilow,” the founder of the gang, his second-in-command (and cousin of Eugene Hairson, founder of the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeff-fort-founds-black-p-stone-nation.html">Blackstone Rangers</a>), Leonard Calloway, Alfonso Alford, a former construction worker who took over Perry’s spot at the top of the gang that year, plus Bobby Gore, an early member who would later become the public face of the group. In July, 1964, this group was hanging around getting drunk on the corner of 16th and Lawndale, when a younger gang member approached them to propose a violent attack on a rival gang. Realizing the cycle of violence they had started (and possibly also realizing they might no longer be able to control it for their own purposes), Alford suggested the group do something constructive by opening businesses in the neighborhood.<br /><br />The idea of opening a business wasn’t immediately feasible – while the gang held control over the streets of North Lawndale, they had little money, and no business experience – but Perry, Calloway, Alford, Gore, and other leadership members began looking for ways to use their street power for positive change. Turf wars with rival west side gangs diminished during the mid-1960s, and the Lords began meeting with the police, especially the new, black commander of the nearby Fillmore Street station, George Sims. Of course, the Lords were still a violent gang, but they realized that in order to grow further, they would need the support, not merely the fear, of residents.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxxh9WPH1vM1obFbnAZ_uOB5RD3ewohOUf9aIIsGVKpgB6fzfBsTaqwkWPk9aqSfxLEBHnPqpxkTZ7T_kF5TcfFLhZGrrYKVhJZ7ehah5n8KaeVxAy6BakL1eW7EF63J3pFUAtU91PQl4/s1600-h/vicelordscancer.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 272px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxxh9WPH1vM1obFbnAZ_uOB5RD3ewohOUf9aIIsGVKpgB6fzfBsTaqwkWPk9aqSfxLEBHnPqpxkTZ7T_kF5TcfFLhZGrrYKVhJZ7ehah5n8KaeVxAy6BakL1eW7EF63J3pFUAtU91PQl4/s400/vicelordscancer.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354738984613674578" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Conservative Vice Lord members at a fundraising drive for the American Cancer Society)<br /><br />The nascent civil rights movement was also critical in the Lords’ attempts to break from their violent past. As one Lord later put it,<br /><blockquote>The militants came in and say why be a gangbanger and kill each other when you can kill the honky, and we began to see that the enemy was not black. Elzy, who was about twenty and had been on the streets for eight years as a Royal Knight and junior Vice Lord, felt that “we were scared of the honkies, but this awareness thing has kicked all that b---s--- aside and made you think of what you really are.” (Dawley, David. <span style="font-style: italic;">A Nation of Lords: The Autobiography of the Vice Lords</span>, Waveland Press, 1973).<br /></blockquote>Many impoverished black residents of Chicago were inspired by the Watts riots of 1965, and during the summer of 1966, the west side erupted in rioting after the police released a white man who had attacked and killed a black man with a baseball bat. Vice Lord members were heavily involved in the rioting and looting that followed. Media attention paid to the impoverished area brought greater awareness by police and politicians, as well as efforts by national black organizations, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to bring peace to Lawndale. Everyone especially wanted to find a way to reach and reform the “hard core” youth who had been at the center of the riots, and who would likely continue to make trouble.<br /><br />Martin Luther King, Jr., even moved into the neighborhood, living in an apartment on 16th street at Hamlin for a few months. He specifically attempted to work with the major street gangs of the city, inviting the Vice Lords, Blackstone Rangers, and Gangster Disciples to a Soldier Field rally, and reaching out to their leadership for cooperation. While the Vice Lords were flattered by the attention, they were also suspicious of King’s intentions as an outsider, and the relationship was generally cool. As one Lord said,<br /><blockquote>Gangbangers were involved [in rioting] because young dudes just didn’t have any other way to go. This was just a helluva way to let go of the frustrations and depression. The civil rights organizations that came to Chicago were not working with the hard-core people anyway. They were supposed to have been for the grass root but the middle class was running them. They didn’t know the people. The people who wouldn’t mind being in a riot were never touched. They were still out there standing on the corners, laying in the alleys, and in the summertime sleeping in the park at night. (Dawley, ibid)<br /></blockquote>During a heavy snow storm in the winter of 1967, the police were unable to penetrate the streets of Lawndale, and the Vice Lords again led looting efforts of white-owned stores on the west side. There were also rumors that the Black Panther Party was heavily recruiting in the neighborhood, and was attempting to foment rioting. Everyone predicted that the summer of 1967 would be even more violent than 1966, and so special efforts to reach out to the Vice Lords’ leadership were made by city politicians, Commander Sims, and west side business owners.<br /><br />24th ward Alderman George Collins pledged that if there were no serious rioting or gang violence incidents during the summer, the Alderman would help the gang open a restaurant that fall. Commander Sims’ efforts to befriend gang leaders began to show fruit when, in August of 1967, one Lord set, the Albany Vice Lords, turned over to him one of their members who had been implicated in a slaying. The <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> reported:<br /><blockquote>The gang leaders also tipped police as to the location of the murder weapon which was found in a garbage can in the rear of 1116 S. Whipple st. Sgt. John Hawkins said that since the gang began cooperating with the police more than 12 guns have been surrendered. Hawkins said the 16-year old was surrendered because the gang leaders feared Sims thought the shooting was a gang slaying and would “put the heat” on he neighborhood. In return for their cooperation , Commander Sims has been finding jobs for gang members and has met frequently with them to seek solutions to their problems, Hawkins said. One gang member, who declined to identify himself, said the group was aiding police as “a matter of self-survival”.<br /></blockquote>Another article around the same time noted:<br /><blockquote>The commander attributes his success to the belief that he has offered the young men in the community an alternative to the black power militants, to whom they would otherwise be attracted and the white social workers, whom they reject. Since he took over the district in June, 1965, he and his four plainclothes intelligence men have been meeting regularly with the gang members, “not just as police, but as men who know the score and talk the same language.”…. Sims’ major objective is to eliminate the gangs as warring factions but retain their top men as leaders in the community.</blockquote>Major west side businesses, including retailer Carson, Pirie, & Scott and Sears Roebuck, afraid of the losses they would incur if rioting erupted, formed a cooperative group called Operation Bootstrap with the Vice Lords and two other west side gangs, the Roman Saints (a Vice Lord derivative gang) and the Cobras, long-time Lord rivals. The group held meetings throughout late summer 1967 to organize constructive dialogue between gang members and business leaders.<br /><br />Another momentous event that summer was the arrival in the neighborhood of a highly unlikely prospective Vice Lord member, David Dawley. Dawley, a self-described “tenth generation WASP whose ancestors landed at Newburyport, Massachusetts and later moved by ox sled to Bath, New Hampshire,” grew up in Westminster, Mass., where he became an Eagle Scout, then graduated at Dartmouth College in 1963. After college, he joined the Peace Corps and spent two years in Honduras helping communities organize banks and health clinics. Upon his return to the United States in 1965, he became involved in community organizing, radical politics, and civil rights, marching through Mississippi with Stokely Carmichael in 1966. In 1967, Dawley took a summer job with the TransCentury Corporation, a non-profit Washington DC survey firm which had a government grant to evaluate urban youth attitudes towards federally-funded social programs. TransCentury sent Dawley to Lawndale to conduct surveys, and he took up residence at the Kedzie YMCA.<br /><br />In those days, the west side was not a safe place for whites. As gang leader Bobby Gore later wrote,<br /><blockquote>…this guy had come over on Kedzie and Madison at night during the Black Power era. And he came by himself – nobody brought him. With all the bad press we were getting, I thought he was a gutsy guy for being there. (Dawley, ibid)</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXR91FtndcxDCcHPMTXBr3HLNS2RMynlPI2030g6idnebC8t7aQ0nDNuH6_-XGKc5IscJcV8qx6mNrbXEyeGXYLNOJbkBX1Km6nZoqvYP8ltsIrhhhHeIr6SMjfCuOOckYwtiJbak-FmA/s1600-h/Dawley.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 180px; height: 260px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXR91FtndcxDCcHPMTXBr3HLNS2RMynlPI2030g6idnebC8t7aQ0nDNuH6_-XGKc5IscJcV8qx6mNrbXEyeGXYLNOJbkBX1Km6nZoqvYP8ltsIrhhhHeIr6SMjfCuOOckYwtiJbak-FmA/s400/Dawley.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354738982081098482" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: David Dawley)<br /><br />Dawley quickly learned that the Vice Lords ran the west side, and anyone who wanted to understand conditions among youth there needed to deal with the Lords. He started telling people he wanted to meet with the gang leaders and putting himself in places where Vice Lords congregated. One of the Lords’ major charitable efforts that summer was a series of fundraisers to help poor blacks in Mississippi, the plight of whom had recently been highlighted by civil rights efforts there. Black power slogans and threats of mayhem and revolution were a regular part of these fundraising events, and police in riot gear typically attended. Early in the summer, Dawley attended one such event at the Senate movie house, and was the only white person in the packed 3,000-person auditorium. During the speeches, he felt a hand touch his shoulder and a voice tell him to go to the lobby if he wanted to meet Vice Lords leadership.<br /><br />Dawley complied and a brief meeting with Perry and Gore led to a more extensive conversation at Vice Lords headquarters in the pool room at 3720 W. 16th. Dawley hired Gore and several other Lords as interviewers and consultants, and kept in constant touch with the gang, slowly gaining their confidence. During that summer, he lived in Lawndale and, if not for his close links with the Vice Lords, likely would not have lived through the season. As he put it,<br /><blockquote>Out of thirty friends, I was the only one who two years later hadn’t been shot, cut, wounded or killed. My first apartment was set on fire; I had a gun pointed to my head and my car was shot, but when the West Side rioted after Martin Luther King was killed, I walked through the flames with tape recorder and camera. (Dawley, ibid)<br /></blockquote>At the end of the summer, Dawley returned to Washington and finished his report for TransCentury, then loaded up his old Volkswagen and returned to Lawndale in November to continue working with the Vice Lords, this time with an eye to turning the gang into a serious political and social force in Chicago.<br /><br />With Dawley’s help, the gang incorporated as a non-profit organization in September, 1967: Conservative Vice Lords, Inc. They then applied for, and received, a $15,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, which was matched with an equal amount from the corporate members of Operation Bootstrap. This was followed by $25,000 from the Field Foundation, $130,000 from the Ford Foundation, $36,000 from the Department of Labor, and $60,000 from philanthropist W. Clement Stone. These groups saw partnership with the Vice Lords as a way to reach those most desperately in need. As Bobby Gore, gang spokesperson, put it, “We are of the same community and on the same level as community people. The average man in the street can’t articulate to people wearing ties.”<br /><br />With these funds, Dawley and CVL, Inc. turned the north side of the 3700 block of W. 16th St. (pictured above), which had previously been a strip of dilapidated, mostly abandoned buildings, into a thriving business and community center. Between the fall of 1967 and 1969, the gang opened:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Teen Town</span>, an ice cream parlor catering to youth, opened with the help of Ald. Collins and Operation Bootstrap, at 3700 W. 16th.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The African Lion</span>, an afro-centric clothing shop, at 3702 W. 16th. Behind the African Lion, a garden was planted underneath a large mural depicting black history in the United States.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kpc5wSZnstOjsqy0Vnde3BKvY1aDnH5D-Xd5-vKs2op07ikp88hV3uNFCp7q5upVoiED68Qz3mgmZJ5KhozhibMw7-8MvOLPK93Y7C13J2gb3FWl-cdShyphenhyphen-6enOqMVO21qHoKoMUXzc/s1600-h/africanlion.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 343px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5kpc5wSZnstOjsqy0Vnde3BKvY1aDnH5D-Xd5-vKs2op07ikp88hV3uNFCp7q5upVoiED68Qz3mgmZJ5KhozhibMw7-8MvOLPK93Y7C13J2gb3FWl-cdShyphenhyphen-6enOqMVO21qHoKoMUXzc/s400/africanlion.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354738967886920914" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: the interior of The African Lion, clothing store run by CVL, Inc.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The House of Lords</span>, a recreation center for teens with ping-pong, jukeboxes, books, and card tables, at 3724 W. 16th (a second House of Lords was later opened at 3414 W. 15th).<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Art and Soul</span>, a free, open-door facility for community members to paint and engage with art, opened in conjunction with the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Illinois Sesquicentennial Commission, and the University of Illinois – Circle Campus (now known as University of Illinois – Chicago), at 3742 W. 16th.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4At2V9lbUa6mOgb132QpxfQZdRBpdc5wXKhIXbBpKD12oQrxLNdZvqpDLsoF36_5fVg6vAIZzDjmmKbPHghnqgk-MRkJPSOY7yDmrTCwsAHm9vKTvb0RUW1xLdjfPcPR2nl-dR2-KlXE/s1600-h/cvl1.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 361px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4At2V9lbUa6mOgb132QpxfQZdRBpdc5wXKhIXbBpKD12oQrxLNdZvqpDLsoF36_5fVg6vAIZzDjmmKbPHghnqgk-MRkJPSOY7yDmrTCwsAHm9vKTvb0RUW1xLdjfPcPR2nl-dR2-KlXE/s400/cvl1.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354738978313613218" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: an onlooker watches a young artist during a CVL "open house" at Art and Soul)<br /><br />CVL, Inc., also opened two Tastee Freez franchises, one at 18th St. and Pulaski Rd., and the other at California Ave. and Fluornoy St. In Vice Lords headquarters at 3720 W. 16th, the gang used Department of Labor funds to start a management training institute to develop business skill. They also planned an Avon-like cosmetics line called “Simone,” with color tones made especially for black women, and marketed the product in conjunction with entertainer Sammy Davis, Jr., although it seems that Simone never actually got off the ground.<br /><br />During the summer of 1968, the Catholic School Board awarded CVL, Inc. 100 neighborhood youth jobs to clean and beautify public areas. The gang also organized a tenants’ rights pressure group which assisted neighborhood residents in negotiations with landlords. There were also July 4th and Christmas dinners open to the public at gang headquarters. In 1969, the Vice Lords, along with other major Chicago street gangs, including the Gangster Disciples and the Black P. Stones, worked together with civil rights groups to demand more jobs for blacks in Chicago’s traditionally white labor unions. The gangs disrupted scores of building sites on the south and west sides, including the University of Chicago’s new school of social work, and McCormick Place. CVL was becoming not only a community organization but a major political force in Chicago.<br /><br />With the help of CVL, Inc., the crime rate in Lawndale actually fell in 1969, while it rose substantially throughout most of the rest of the city. Thus, in 1968, the future seemed practically unlimited for the former violent gang members and their community; however, a number of factors led to the decline and fall of CVL, Inc., eventually returning it to its former status as a tough street gang.<br /><br />First, with the exception of Dawley, CVL leadership were high-school drop-outs, not MBAs. Maintaining a successful business is difficult for anyone, and most new business fail; the gang’s lack of management skill compounded this problem. In addition, unlike other business-owners, CVL chose the locations for their retail shops not based on proximity to customers, visibility, or liklihood of profit, but a desire to invest in a particular neighborhood. The group was explicitly protectionist, believing that operating businesses in Lawndale instead of other areas “kept the money in the neighborhood”. As one Lord put it,<br /><blockquote>I want to be able to run our own community. If we get this to rollin’, we don’t need that honky. I want out own black banks, our own black currency exchange – I don’t want no honky to take my check and take forty or fifty cents: I want a brother to take it. I know when them honkies take it, its goin’ back out to Oak Park or Lake Forest; it ain’t doin’nothin’ for the black community. (Dawley, ibid)<br /></blockquote>In general, this type of “local self-sufficiency” is the route to poverty (Cuba and North Korea also have only their own banks and currency exchanges and do not rely on trade with neighboring countries, and they have failed to become rich for it). For all of these reasons, even if nothing else had gone wrong, the economic deck was stacked against the long-term success of CVL, Inc.<br /><br />Moreover, while Vice Lord leadership were using these programs to remake themselves into a bona fide community and political powerhouse, many of the thousands of rank-and-file Lords members, who were still facing conditions of poverty and blight (CVL, Inc., leaders took yearly salaries between $10,000 - $15,000; Dawley never revealed his own salary), continued to act as violent criminals. Traditionally, leadership of a street gang goes to the biggest, strongest, and most violent members, and these leaders must constantly be on guard against newer, younger members, who attempt to prove themselves even more violent than their leaders. This is how the Vice Lords had always operated, and now Perry, Alford, Gore, and others, who by the late 1960s were in their late 20s, faced thousands of power-hungry teenagers bent on rising in the gang hierarchy, especially a subgroup of young Vice Lords calling themselves the Black Aces. Thus, violence was difficult to avoid.<br /><br />October, 1967, saw inter-gang warfare between the Vice Lords and the Cermak Boys over turf. More shootings involving Lords occurred in May and November, 1968, the latter of which involved the death of a 5 year-old boy. In July, 1968, CVL President Alfonso Alford was arrested and charged with murder, though he was acquitted two months later. In May, 1969, gang member Robert Weatherall (brother of one of the original Vice Lords), was shot and killed point blank in front of Teen Town, and the shooter then entered Vice Lords headquarters next door, where he shot and wounded Alford. When questioned, Alford refused to identify the shooter (who was likely a young Vice Lord), saying only “We’ll take care of it ourselves.” In October, 1969, a Vice Lord allegedly kidnapped two women off the street and raped them repeatedly inside the African Lion.<br /><br />At the same time, 1969 saw Mayor Richard J. Daley and State’s Attorney Edward Hanrahan declared a “war on gangs.” Gang members would always claim that Daley feared the Lords and the concentration of black political power they were developing. In any case, November, 1969, saw the arrest for murder of Bobby Gore, who had served as the primary spokesperson for the gang, and later took on most of the role of CVL president, after Alfonso Alford suffered health problems in early 1969. Gore eventually ended up serving 11 years in prison.<br /><br />At the same time as the leadership of CVL was facing trouble with the law, the gusher of money from the government and philanthropic organizations petered out. This was partially linked to the group’s legal troubles. At Gore’s indictment, State’s Attorney Hanrahan told reporters “We think these brutal acts should cause foundations and others to intensify their scrutiny of persons seeking money from them to make certain their funds are not used to arm street gangsters or for other idleness.”<br /><br />Another reason for reduced funding levels after 1969 was a major scandal involving the misuse of government grant money by another Chicago street gang, the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/jeff-fort-founds-black-p-stone-nation.html">Black P. Stones</a>, which eventually led to Stones leader Jeff Fort’s imprisonment. While there is no evidence that CVL was similarly misappropriating funds, the notion of philanthropic organizations working with street gangs was irreversibly tarnished. At the same time, the radical political atmosphere of the late 1960s was changing, and movements that presented a serious threat of revolution and anarchy in 1967 and 1968 were on the decline; it was their power that had inspired in many philanthropic organizations attempts to use such unconventional means as investing in street gang businesses. The foundations that had once competed over who could give the most money to CVL now moved on to new and more fashionable pursuits, such as environmental causes and nuclear non-proliferation.<br /><br />Finally, 1969 also saw the departure of the gang’s grant-writer, David Dawley, who returned home to Massachusetts that year.<br /><br />With their leadership gutted by retirement and prison, violent intra-gang battles over succession and reduced operating income from the government and philanthropists, the gang’s once-proud set of businesses on 16th street slowly closed during 1970 and 1971. During the 1970s, the Vice Lords returned to their past as a notoriously violent street gang. Their position of dominance on the streets of Lawndale positioned them perfectly for the rise of cocaine and crack, and the Lords controlled drug supply and retailing operations throughout the west side, as they do up to the present day.<br /><br />Between 1975 and 1985, the population of North Lawndale dropped by 30,000 and the share of residents receiving welfare rose by 45% as manufacturing and retail jobs left the community. To today’s Chicagoan, the idea that Sears and Carson Pirie Scott once had retail locations in Lawndale seems absurd.<br /><br />The buildings that once housed the African Lion, the House of Lords, and Teen Town have long since either turned into vacant lots or reverted to the dilapidated, mostly abandoned state they were in before CVL, Inc. operated them.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi155eR0nw2m06YDADRyXn7ThuKHKZas6O6-A3GNKGO08MhTIk2Uh-t14hO7aSQssESc6sVOMdaG61YQ325VhkqBWIxjx9dSN1rI4AuK-iE4hveyRnS0b-3I219eFHNYduGb1tR9Qxf-Kg/s1600-h/IMG_0551.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi155eR0nw2m06YDADRyXn7ThuKHKZas6O6-A3GNKGO08MhTIk2Uh-t14hO7aSQssESc6sVOMdaG61YQ325VhkqBWIxjx9dSN1rI4AuK-iE4hveyRnS0b-3I219eFHNYduGb1tR9Qxf-Kg/s400/IMG_0551.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354739753727354050" border="0" /></a>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-5608926329791734272009-06-24T18:51:00.006-05:002009-07-08T23:08:11.718-05:00Kill Dillinger Here<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5nU6qCPfsFtVwX_gTrCFQwW8kMxIYMG68SDjT00_B8_7uLFFMxNhHpc3pbl9DqSrrhU32bEzI4Y4RHvpibcAeXb8_2u5nwXJrNvbQtHGhRYZIEd-iHYMyUWh234KD-zvePLLLoHFUVq4/s1600-h/Mar+14+007.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5nU6qCPfsFtVwX_gTrCFQwW8kMxIYMG68SDjT00_B8_7uLFFMxNhHpc3pbl9DqSrrhU32bEzI4Y4RHvpibcAeXb8_2u5nwXJrNvbQtHGhRYZIEd-iHYMyUWh234KD-zvePLLLoHFUVq4/s400/Mar+14+007.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351047850336595394" border="0" /></a>It’s the ultimate Chicago crime scene: The Biograph Theater at 2433 N. Lincoln Ave., where John Dillinger’s fifteen-month crime spree across the Midwest, which turned him into one of the 20th century’s most famous criminals, ended in a nearby alley with two shots to the chest and one in the back of the neck.<br /><br />Dillinger, an Indiana native of rural extract, had a hard-knock childhood after his mother died when he was only 3. As a teenager in the 1910s, he was a school-boy terror, and by 1924, he landed in jail under lengthy sentence for his part in a mugging. His partner in the crime, Ed Singleton, sold the 21 year-old Dillinger down the river, bargaining for a light sentence while Dillinger, who was not well represented at trial, got a stiff 10 to 20 years. For the next nine years, most of which was spent at the notoriously vile prison in Michigan City, Dillinger stewed in resentment over what he saw as an unfairly harsh punishment. At the same time, he studied hard at “crime school,” building knowledge and contacts among the hardened crooks surrounding him, including future partners in crime “Handsome” Harry Pierpont, Homer VanMeter, and John “Three Fingered Jack” Hamilton. Finally paroled in May, 1933, Dillinger’s next fifteen months would take him from Indiana farm boy to international celebrity.<br /><br />Four months after winning his freedom, Dillinger helped smuggle a cache of weapons back to his colleagues in the Michigan City prison, who then used them to break out of the hated facility, where new, untrained guards had been recently installed as a part of a change in gubernatorial administration in Indiana. Just days before the breakout, Dillinger, who had spent the summer using his new-found criminal expertise to lead a bank robbing gang on expeditions in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio, was captured and sent to jail in Lima, Ohio. His friends Pierpont and Hamilton, newly on the lam from Michigan City, returned the favor by leading a brigade to break Dillinger out, in the process killing the county sheriff, Jess Sarber, who lived in the prison complex (Pierpont would later meet his fate on the electric chair for the murder).<br /><br />Dillinger and his gang, which included at various times not only the aforementioned Pierpont, VanMeter, and Hamilton, but also other criminal luminaries such as Harry Copeland and Lester “Baby Face Nelson” Gillis, would take a dollar where they could find it, but their primary targets in 1933-34 were banks. Their basic modus operandi was to leave a getaway driver on the street in a fast car, then enter the bank and calmly order everyone to the ground while they loaded up bags with cash. Surrounding themselves with human shields, they would then exit the bank, enter the car, and position their hostages on the sideboards as they drove off, making it extremely difficult for sharpshooting police to take a clear shot. In most of the rural and suburban locales they targeted, the police were armed with pistols, which were no match for the WWI-surplus Thompson submachine guns the Dillinger gang preferred. In addition, the police in these sleepy towns generally drove older model cars that were left in a cloud of dust by Dillinger’s 1933 and 1934 Ford Terraplanes, which could easily hit 80 mph. In those days before in-car radios, the police had little chance to catch up, and could not easily call a roadblock ahead (purportedly, Dillinger avoided banks in Michigan because police there were equipped with radios).<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvQbTA6kNR3KoWa0tzN6zH2MYlm23TnUlf8NgRo0teHEj9_tfh9suaOCgM-7otUonOncrFzar1F9xGSBNXj6ZyX-c25z1Y_2dbRldFohVQSOnCsvpS09Yo9Eot_0Yep9InDgOBIIp3-k/s1600-h/dillinger.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 269px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUvQbTA6kNR3KoWa0tzN6zH2MYlm23TnUlf8NgRo0teHEj9_tfh9suaOCgM-7otUonOncrFzar1F9xGSBNXj6ZyX-c25z1Y_2dbRldFohVQSOnCsvpS09Yo9Eot_0Yep9InDgOBIIp3-k/s400/dillinger.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351046427196206258" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Three poses of John Dillinger. The description accompanying this series in the newspaper read: "The center picture, particularly, is characteristic of the killer's disdain of the law, his sneering, unchanging hate of the public and its institutions.)<br /><br />Dillinger’s criminal career coincided with the nadir of the Great Depression. During 1933 and 1934, the national unemployment rate soared to over 25%. Real gross domestic product, a measure of the nation’s annual economic output, had fallen for four consecutive years, there of which were by double-digit percentages (by contrast, as of 2008, GDP has only declined in four years out of the last 34). Then, as now, the public recognized the downturn as a monetary phenomenon, and much blame and ire landed at the feet of bankers. Many Americans had suffered the humiliation of losing their homes and businesses to bank repossession, or had been turned down for additional credit, so Dillinger’s focus on banks gave him the aura of a robin hood figure, despite the fact that he spent most of his ill-gotten gains on himself and his girlfriends, not the downtrodden masses queued up at soup kitchens.<br /><br />But despite his hardscrabble upbringing, his ability to make bankers tremble, and his almost supernatural ability to avoid police capture, it is doubtful Dillinger would have achieved much public acclaim without a particular legislative accomplishment of the New Deal – federal deposit insurance.<br /><br />The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or FDIC, was created as a part of the Glass-Steagall Act, passed by congress in June, 1933, and implemented as of January 1, 1934. Before FDIC, “runs” were a common feature of the banking system in the United States. When a rumor started that the local bank might be in financial trouble, some depositors would exercise caution by withdrawing cash. The sight of people withdrawing their deposits would further fuel the rumors of financial problems at the bank, leading others to take their money out of the bank. This process could quickly create a vicious circle, by which rumors of distress, which might not even be true initially, created a self-fulfilling prophesy as panic spread among depositors racing to the bank to get their deposits out before the bank’s reserves ran out.<br /><br />By insuring deposits, FDIC broke the circle. Even if a bank truly was in distress, those withdrawing their deposits late would lose nothing; hence, there was no reason for a rush to withdraw first, no panic, and no bank run. For this reason, bank runs have been exceedingly scarce since 1934. But at the same time FDIC solved the problem of runs, it also created a set of perverse incentives for bankers, who no longer faced the disciplining force of possible financial ruin in making risky loans and other investments. Before FDIC, banks typically kept relatively high levels of reserves – currency on hand – and competed with each other for customers by advertising their high reserves and other conservative practices. After FDIC, there was no reason to hold more reserves than required by law, and most banks today hold less then 5% of depositors’ money in cash. The consequently high level of leverage in the banking system creates instability, and many commentators blame the S&L crisis of the 1980s, as well as the panic of 2008, on excessive risk-taking by bankers.<br /><br />An additional unintended consequence of federally-mandated deposit insurance was to make depositors essentially indifferent towards robbery. Before FDIC, the robbery of a small town bank could create serious losses for depositors and a major contraction in local credit, but with a federal assurance that depositors could lose nothing, the incentive to protect banks waned and the desire to glorify robbers like Dillinger grew. Some historians believe that many Dillinger gang bank hits were, in fact, inside jobs, with bankers using the famous criminal as a cover-up for their own malfeasance.<br /><br />While Dillinger’s gang was never afraid to use violence to avoid capture, Dillinger himself was a relative pacifist. The only known case in which he killed anyone was during a January, 1934 robbery at the First National Bank in East Chicago, Indiana, where he machine-gunned a police officer who had shot him during his escape. It was this killing, however, that would eventually come to be closely linked with Dillinger’s own death at the hands of the East Chicago police force.<br /><br />After the First National Bank job, Dillinger and his crew decamped for Tucson, Arizona, where they tried to lay low until the nationwide manhunt that was following them passed. But it was difficult to disguise these high-rolling gangsters and their big-spending girlfriends in dusty Tucson, and eventually the local police rounded up Dillinger, Pierpont, and several other gang members. Pierpont was shipped back to Ohio to stand trial for the murder of Sheriff Surber during the Lima breakout, while Dillinger ended up in jail at Crown Point, Indiana.<br /><br />It was at Crown Point where Dillinger made his most famous prison escape, one that would rocket him from a prolific, but regional, bank robber, to international superstardom. On March 3, 1934, prison handyman Sam Cahoon accidentally opened the main cell block door before the prisoners were safely locked back in their cells. Within seconds, Dillinger perceived the opportunity and jumped into action. Out of nowhere, he brandished a pistol, which he shoved into Cahoon’s side, forcing the handyman to assist him as he slowly made his way out of the facility, using the gun to take additional hostages as he went. Highlighting the audacious escape was the fact that, as later revealed, Dillinger’s “pistol” was really a wooden washboard slat, painted black and carved into the shape of a gun barrel.<br /><br />Overnight, Dillinger became “the man no prison could hold.” But was Dillinger’s escape really so miraculous? Conspiracy theorists have always pointed to the utter unlikelihood of so many stars lining up at once, especially for such a high-profile inmate who should have been under especially high scrutiny. Moreover, Cahoon and other hostages at Crown Point that day swore to their graves that Dillinger’s gun was no fake. In these highly speculative, but fascinating, conspiracy tales, Dillinger was slipped a real pistol (and, possibly, the decoy as well) by corrupt members of the East Chicago police force, who may have visited Dillinger during his initial days at Crown Point, since his most recent robbery had been the First National job in East Chicago.<br /><br />Lending some mild credence to these theories is the fact that the East Chicago police department in those days was notoriously corrupt. Situated just across the state line from the south side of Chicago, the town of East Chicago was an ideal spot for vice operations, and had for years been home to a myriad of gambling, prostitution, and (during Prohibition) booze operations. These resorts operated under protection from the East Chicago city government and police, who received a cut of the profits. In 1929, indictments were handed down against the mayor, police chief, and many other city officials for participation in this graft, and the top figures in the pay-for-play scheme served two years in prison, after a circus-like trial in which one of the prosecution’s chief witnesses, an East Chicago police officer turned state’s witness, was murdered. Among those who served time was East Chicago chief of detectives Martin Zarkovich, who would later play a critical role in the death of John Dillinger.<br /><br />Another curious fact is that, just a month before Dillinger’s death on May 24, 1934, two other East Chicago police officers, Martin O’Brien and Lloyd Mulvihill, were found dead in their service vehicle. Most historians blame members of the Dillinger gang, and while some members of the gang were certainly capable of such violence, there was never evidence tying any of them to O’Brien and Mulvihill; conspiracists insist that the two policemen knew too much about the relationship between Dillinger and the East Chicago force, and met their fate at the hands of their fellow officers.<br /><br />While these facts add up to make the theory that East Chicago officers helped Dillinger break out of Crown Point (perhaps in return for some of his loot) at least plausible, the case must be considered suggestive and circumstantial at best.<br /><br />In any case, after the breakout, Dillinger rejoined VanMeter, Baby Face Nelson, and John Hamilton in St. Paul, Minnesota, where they continued their reign of terror. Later the gang spent time in upper Wisconsin, narrowly avoiding capture at the hands of the newly-formed Division of Investigation (forerunner of the FBI) in a botched police raid. By June, 1934, Dillinger was back in Chicago. His face was as recognizable as any movie star’s, and five states plus the federal government had put a total $15,000 bounty on his head. Even Dillinger realized his crime spree couldn’t go on much longer. Biding his time, he disguised himself by dying his hair black, wearing a moustache, and sporting gold-rimmed glasses, and began slowly, tentatively, venturing out onto the streets of Chicago. He also underwent primitive plastic surgery to change his facial features, and took acid treatments on his fingertips to make his prints unidentifiable.<br /><br />The disguise seemed to work well, but Dillinger nevertheless made plans to escape to Mexico. Here and there, he and his gang would reunite to hit a bank, but generally Dillinger kept a low profile during the summer of 1934, building his cash holdings and preparing for a trip south of the border, which was to depart on July 23. During the meantime, though, he began enjoying the Chicago nightlife, posing as “Jim Lawrence,” a fun-loving Chicago Board of Trade employee.<br /><br />One night, he found himself at the Barrel of Fun nightclub on Wilson Ave., between Elston and Cicero Aves. Introducing himself as Jim Lawrence, he asked for and received the telephone number of a dark-eyed brunette named Polly Rita Keele (nee Hamilton). At the time, Polly was living with a friend and former employer, Anna Sage, in an apartment building on Halsted, just north of Fullerton.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaonh9kMqixdtx5qG7lP5a3sFMUz2S2rrxwG27yRIPjn3M-la7F6xTOt8dlPLRv-aH_EiwZ_nayC2-QuLT80_TZaCHFSSW_RrOzmGR-prBaSlQg3Les4aOixUDYW2ECL0DnshhcNOrOEQ/s1600-h/pollyhamilton.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 201px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaonh9kMqixdtx5qG7lP5a3sFMUz2S2rrxwG27yRIPjn3M-la7F6xTOt8dlPLRv-aH_EiwZ_nayC2-QuLT80_TZaCHFSSW_RrOzmGR-prBaSlQg3Les4aOixUDYW2ECL0DnshhcNOrOEQ/s400/pollyhamilton.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351046432193920898" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Polly Keele)<br /><br />Keele and Sage had become acquainted while both lived in Northwest Indiana, and Sage was operating a brothel where Keele sometimes worked. Polly, who had run away from home in Fargo, North Dakota, at age 13, wound up at Anna Sage’s “People’s Hotel”, a house of ill-repute in Gary. There, she met her husband, Roy Keele, a Gary police officer, and they married in 1929. By the spring of 1933, however, the couple was divorced and Polly sought out her old employer, who had by that time moved into Chicago. It’s possible that Anna Sage knew Dillinger from her Lake County days, and set up the meeting with Polly at the Barrel of Fun, or it may be that the encounter between Polly and Dillinger was by chance, and Polly introduced her new beau to her landlady at some point later. In any case, Dillinger and Polly Keele became lovers and were frequently at Anna Sage’s house, with some reports indicating that Dillinger even lived there himself during some parts of the summer of 1934.<br /><br />With Sage, however, Dillinger’s luck had finally run out. He did not know that the reason Anna Sage was in Chicago was that, as a convicted proprietor of a house of prostitution and a foreign national, she was facing the threat of deportation back to her native Romania. Thus, she was looking for opportunities to redeem herself in front of immigration authorities at the very moment that Uncle Sam’s most wanted man walked into her life. Dillinger also did not know that one of Anna Sage’s boyfriends during her time in Northwest Indiana was East Chicago chief of detectives, Martin Zarkovich.<br /><br />Arriving in the U.S. in 1909, Anna Sage and her husband, Mike Chiolak separated in the late 1910s, and by the early 1920s, Anna Sage was one of Northwest Indiana’s top madams. A patrol officer at the time, Zarkovich, who was married with children at the time, became a frequent visitor, and the affair with Sage was cited by his wife in divorce proceedings shortly after. A flashy dresser, fellow officers referred to Zarkovich as the "police sheik", and after his divorce, he was able to quickly advance in the East Chicago police hierarchy. During the 1920s, Zarkovich's power kept the police heat off of Sage’s properties, but after he went to jail in the graft case mentioned earlier, Anna Sage was convicted four times for running disorderly houses. When he was released from prison, Zarkovich managed to get his old job back, and did his best to erase the damage, helping Sage to receive two pardons from Indiana governor Harry Leslie, but immigration authorities pressed their case against her due to the other two convictions, causing her to flee into Chicago.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5J2dvgTH1fONtn7uHkKYM-kjnC3I5grWpsWrHz_xhigYfdjeMl8roUFO4NLxWgSuzYNdPgmIy2FoZWg-RPmhX1KPcMAy4lCBR7eN5z0R2PdsfXMxVXwxMiOFVjvat2vOQmD7EUVY131U/s1600-h/sagechiolak.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 297px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5J2dvgTH1fONtn7uHkKYM-kjnC3I5grWpsWrHz_xhigYfdjeMl8roUFO4NLxWgSuzYNdPgmIy2FoZWg-RPmhX1KPcMAy4lCBR7eN5z0R2PdsfXMxVXwxMiOFVjvat2vOQmD7EUVY131U/s400/sagechiolak.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351046440465116354" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Anna Sage with her son, Steve Chiolak)<br /><br />During June and July, John Dillinger and Polly Keele frequently double-dated with Anna Sage’s adult son, Steve Chiolak, and his girlfriend. Chiolak later described the fun times with “Jim Lawrence”, which included many summer evenings at the movies: “If he was the man they said he was, he was an all around fellow. He didn’t act tough and he didn’t talk tough. He didn’t drink hard liquor either; just mild gin fizzes.”<br /><br />Chiolak did notice scars on his new friend’s face, ones that seemed out of place for a sober securities trader, but felt it wasn’t his place to ask. “I don’t like to ask a guy about his face. I’d get mad if some one asked me about mine,” he told reporters later.<br /><br />While it’s unclear whether Chiolak was truly unaware that Jim Lawrence was really Public Enemy #1, Anna Sage either was already aware of it, or quickly figured it out after he started hanging around her house. She contacted her old friend from East Chicago, Det. Zarkovich, and the two arranged a meeting with the Division of Investigation’s top G-man in Chicago, Melvin Purvis. Later, when Sage continued to face deportation proceedings after the death of Dillinger, she told reporters:<br /><blockquote>I was told that I could stay. The men who wanted Dillinger so bad told me it would be a small thing to stop my going away. When it was first suggested that I help in getting Dillinger, I said I was not interested in rewards – all I wanted was permission to stay in this country. Shouldn’t the government keep its promises, when I believed them?<br /></blockquote>Purvis, Zarkovich, and Sage arranged for a take-down a few days later, on the evening of July 22, 1934, when Dillinger, girlfriend Polly Keele, and Sage were all planning to attend a movie. It hadn’t yet been determined precisely which movie or which theater, but a signal was agreed upon: if the destination was to be the Biograph Theater, just behind Sage’s home, she would wear no hat; if Dillinger decided to take the women to the Marboro Theater on the Westside, Sage’s head would be covered.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVeCCm9Q2mWeUcCG_YZcd_qDG0kjy2BnaD2zdn2gF0SYp5YyXnWTNRcejrSyFEJt-P8IOT1aVO7Y4VJark6oz6smsVNp17ItlCUO3JIE4fPEWC34O6tDF6pUriNztdn4Qy84mjhES0N_c/s1600-h/zarkovich.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 263px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVeCCm9Q2mWeUcCG_YZcd_qDG0kjy2BnaD2zdn2gF0SYp5YyXnWTNRcejrSyFEJt-P8IOT1aVO7Y4VJark6oz6smsVNp17ItlCUO3JIE4fPEWC34O6tDF6pUriNztdn4Qy84mjhES0N_c/s400/zarkovich.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351046444682624898" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Martin Zarkovich of the East Chicago police force)<br /><br />Just after 8:00 p.m. on the evening of the July 22, John Dillinger and the two women left the house. Dillinger sported a white silk shirt, gray linen trousers, and a straw hat, but as it had been a hot day, he decided against wearing a coat, which would have helped conceal the pistol he always carried with him. Instead, he tucked the gun into his belt, where it was slightly more difficult to retrieve. As they left the house, Anna Sage, who wore a white blouse and an orange skirt, stopped the trio and asked Dillinger if they were going to be traveling far for the movie that night. If so, she needed to take her hat.<br /><br />No, Dillinger said, we won’t be going far. Sage left her hat at home, and the team of police officers staking out the Sage home on Halsted signaled Purvis with the news: Dillinger’s last stand would be at the Biograph.<br /><br />The group assembled to take down Public Enemy #1 included ten federal agents, plus four East Chicago officers, including Martin Zarkovich, who had gotten the tip from Sage. The deal worked out was that, after Dillinger was killed or in custody, the East Chicago team would receive the $15,000 reward money, while the feds, who were ineligible for the monetary prizes, would get all of the glory and publicity. They truly needed it, as the fledgling Division of Investigation, headed by J. Edgar Hoover, had gained a reputation for bumbling during their long and fruitless quest to end Dillinger’s crime spree.<br /><br />Walking arm-in-arm, Dillinger, Keele, and Sage walked down the alley between Halsted and Lincoln Ave., and headed up the block and into the Biograph Theater, where they sat down to enjoy <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025464/">“Manhattan Melodrama,”</a> a gangster film starring Clark Gable.<br /><br />The Biograph, which was built in 1914, advertised itself as the “best ventilated theater in Chicago,” a feature the value of which would not have been lost on Chicago audiences, who couldn't forget the Iroquois Theater disaster a decade before, in which poor ventilation led to the deaths of hundreds. When it opened, the Biograph was one of the city’s first film venues, offering an augmented orchestra and large pipe organ to accompany silent pictures. By 1934, of course, “talkies” had arrived, as had air conditioning, and the Biograph’s cool environs were perfect for a hot summer evening. Even before Dillinger’s famous date with death there, the Biograph had been subject to various crooks, including a bookie running a handbook there, which was raided in February, 1933, and a smash-and-grab robber named George Genovese, who specialized in ripping off theater ticket counters; Genovese was finally caught after robbing the Biograph in March, 1933.<br /><br />While Dillinger enjoyed the movie, Purvis wandered up and down the aisles of the theater, looking for the man whose name would forever after be linked with his. Unable to locate Dillinger in the dark, he waited impatiently in the theater lobby for the two hours duration of the film. The theater’s management, unaware that a major police operation was underway, became suspicious of the plain-clothes officers lingering in and around the building, and telephoned the Sheffield Ave. police station. When Chicago police arrived on the scene, the federal agents and East Chicago officers had to inform them of the plan to avoid being hauled back to the stationhouse.<br /><br />Finally, at 10:40 p.m., John Dillinger walked out of the Biograph, with Polly and Anna on either side, and turned south on Lincoln, likely heading back to Sage’s apartment. The next building to the south of the theater was a tavern called the Goetz Country Club, and Melvin Purvis stood directly in front of it. Dillinger and Purvis’s eyes met, but Dillinger’s showed no sense of recognition that a setup was underway. As Purvis later described it, “It was a good job the surgeon did, but I knew him the minute I saw him. You couldn’t miss if you had studied that face as much as I have.”<br /><br />Dillinger continued walking passing the Goetz until he was in front of the next building to the south, a National Tea Company retail store. At that moment, Purvis lit his cigarette, a signal to his team of officers that now was the time to strike. Again, Purvis describes the action:<br /><blockquote>“He saw me give a signal to my men to close in. He became alarmed, reached into a belt and was drawing the .38 caliber pistol he carried concealed when two of the agents let him have it. Dillinger was lying prone before he was able to get the gun out and I took it from him.”</blockquote>In the mouth of the alley south of the National Tea Store, Dillinger fell to the ground, hit twice in the chest and once in the back of the neck. Of the three bullets, two ricocheted and hit bystanders: Etta Natalsky, mother-in-law of the owner of the Goetz tavern, and Theresa Paulus, a theater-goer. Neither was seriously injured, but Dillinger was fatally shot. Crowds turned and gasped, and word spread quickly that the man lying in the pool of blood on Lincoln Ave. was the world’s most famous criminal.<br /><br />In statements to reporters, Purvis claimed Dillinger had attended the movie alone, per his agreement with the East Chicago police that all credit for the take-down would go to the feds, but witnesses consistently mentioned two women, including one whose bright orange skirt, under the harsh lights from the theater marquis, appeared red. Hence, the newspapers began searching for the famous “Lady in Red,” Anna Sage.<br /><br />Returning to the conspiracy theories mentioned earlier, some speculate that if caught alive, Dillinger might have revealed the corruption within the East Chicago department, and hence, Zarkovich and his fellow officers always intended to kill, not capture, him. Confirming this aspect of the theory, a Chicago police officer who was near the scene at the time of the shooting told a reporter:<br /><blockquote>…[O]ne of the [federal] agents told him after it was over that he was among the luckiest of men. “When we got the signal, you were close to Dillinger,” said the agent. “You looked like Dillinger and I was about to shoot you when the other fellows let loose and killed the right man.”</blockquote>The crumpled form of John Dillinger was rushed to Alexian Brothers Hospital, but he died on the way. When the ambulance arrived at the hospital, it was refused admittance on the grounds that the body was already dead. Four officers accompanying the medics stood on the grass in front of the hospital, surrounding Dillinger’s body, until the deputy coroner arrived and approved its removal to the county morgue. While Dillinger had taken in over $300,000 in cash from his bank robberies during the previous 15 months, at his decease, only $7.70 was found on his person – either because he had spent the rest on the trip to Mexico he was planning to begin the following day, or, as some suspect, because the officers who accompanied Dillinger to the hospital helped themselves to his loot. Dillinger also wore a ruby ring, given to him by Polly Keele, and a pocket watch with an inset photo of her.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUn6nPGuOz-4qEEamg4uK7EkGfeiwZSxLxrwbjAbawlkYmqJ-FWHu_TJ2EhYOV-aymWjaCq4L3tEnpprFoWmwriYX85-jvLDGkiXu5Ze-iMH40DGZbZZpW3LsAF-BmTuyrV_t0rEplmI/s1600-h/killdillingerhere.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 352px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsUn6nPGuOz-4qEEamg4uK7EkGfeiwZSxLxrwbjAbawlkYmqJ-FWHu_TJ2EhYOV-aymWjaCq4L3tEnpprFoWmwriYX85-jvLDGkiXu5Ze-iMH40DGZbZZpW3LsAF-BmTuyrV_t0rEplmI/s400/killdillingerhere.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351046430233864690" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Headline and story in the July 23, 1934 <span style="font-style: italic;">Chicago Tribune</span>)<br /><br />Dillinger’s death led above the fold in newspapers around the globe, and when the coroner’s inquest ended, his body was put on public display at the morgue, where thousands of curiosity-seekers filed past to get a look at the man no prison could hold. As Dillinger biographer Dary Matera put it:<br /><blockquote>To get an indication of Dillinger’s comparative fame today, imagine Charles Manson – after committing his mass murder, Helter Skelter atrocity in California – getting arrested, escaping prison, killing a second batch of Hollywood celebrities, getting arrested again, escaping again, killing a third and fourth gaggle of celebrities, then being gunned down on the streets of Los Angeles by the FBI. And after all that, having Manson’s bullet-riddled body put on public display for tens of thousands of people to parade by.</blockquote>Dillinger’s life and death meant changes in the way many police departments operated, with upgrades to faster cars and better equipment, including in-car radios, following his crime spree. It also meant a much stronger role for the federal government in policing – Congress approved the right of federal officers to make arrests during the time Dillinger was on the loose. It is not a stretch to say that the modern FBI owes much of its power to John Dillinger.<br /><br />After Dillinger’s death, Polly Keele left the city and hid out at her family home in Fargo, later returning to Chicago and working in hotel hospitality until her death in 1969. Dillinger’s fellow gang members John Hamilton, Homer VanMeter, and Baby Face Nelson were soon gunned down in separate incidents by federal agents (Hamilton, in fact, was already dead). Melvin Purvis faced intense jealousy from J. Edgar Hoover for taking so much of the credit for Dillinger’s end, and he quit the Division of Investigation in 1935, intending to write his memoirs. He lived until 1960, when he committed suicide, apparently over poor health.<br /><br />After the shooting, Anna Sage ran back to her apartment, changed clothes, and returned to the scene of the crime, blending in with the growing crowd. She was able to avoid deportation for two years, and during that time ran a beauty parlor at Fullerton and Orchard. However, when Purvis left his position in 1935, there was no one left to fulfill the promise he had made to Sage, and in 1936, she was deported back to Romania, where she remained until her death in 1947. Her only consolation was $5,000 she received from the reward money, though she would much rather have had a U.S. visa.<br /><br />Martin Zarkovich, who also received a sizable portion of the reward money, was promoted in the East Chicago police department, eventually making chief in 1947. Just three years later, however, he was again indicted for graft associated with casinos operating openly in Northwest Indiana under his protection. Demoted from the chief position, he retired in the late 1950s and died in 1969.<br /><br />The Biograph Theater continued operation as a movie theater until 2004, frequently showing “Manhattan Melodrama”, the film Dillinger saw the night of his death, particularly on the anniversary of the incident. For the last five years, the Biograph has offered live theater instead of movies.<br /><br />The spot in the alley where Dillinger was shot is pictured below. The building that housed the Goetz Country Club still stands (it appears to be abandonded); the National Tea Company building is gone, replaced by a Qdoba restaurant.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhArTP-jbd3RtrbqEO5qwstlIMnpMY2cZkIrXyyYtWb4RszPtDbIX02q9xXLnHB5Gp8_OQcgNxABSKyp0VYulGMrUfysF1Z8-6IaMRVIe6us-oFZeFpZSlas1p_NfAOr_3Br17jW41NwfM/s1600-h/Northside+May+09+012.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhArTP-jbd3RtrbqEO5qwstlIMnpMY2cZkIrXyyYtWb4RszPtDbIX02q9xXLnHB5Gp8_OQcgNxABSKyp0VYulGMrUfysF1Z8-6IaMRVIe6us-oFZeFpZSlas1p_NfAOr_3Br17jW41NwfM/s400/Northside+May+09+012.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351047848257474786" border="0" /></a>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-49680316369708502702009-06-03T22:26:00.004-05:002009-06-04T00:43:52.005-05:00Angelo Genna's Violent Life and Death<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPrQdLwpJFotSreUkT-76TPypqZEr9c0Tp9rEbEgO5qDGG0eF_mwjSIi60RpfuVbahPOCklkG6Qi_-2eOYpw0UEC9O8yD5O3vmZy8jwY9GK8mVxGzAjnoR5Vyz9EYw4kb_ldxFItMADoQ/s1600-h/Northside+May+09+018.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPrQdLwpJFotSreUkT-76TPypqZEr9c0Tp9rEbEgO5qDGG0eF_mwjSIi60RpfuVbahPOCklkG6Qi_-2eOYpw0UEC9O8yD5O3vmZy8jwY9GK8mVxGzAjnoR5Vyz9EYw4kb_ldxFItMADoQ/s400/Northside+May+09+018.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343311033002780802" border="0" /></a><br />Angelo Genna was the toughest, meanest, and most violent of the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">Genna brothers</a>. Hot-headed superstitious, and quick with a trigger, the Chicago police were so afraid of him, they refused to serve warrants for his arrest. But Angelo Genna got his on May 27, 1925, when he was driving south on Ogden Ave., at the intersection of Hudson Ave. and Menomenee St.<br /><br />Angelo, who was born in Sicily, came to Chicago with six of his brothers about 1910. The family became involved in running <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/death-corner.html">"Black Hand"</a> style extortion plots, in which prominent businessmen, especially Italians, were forced to pay ransom or be killed, and Angelo was the muscle that made certain the payments came in. His ability to make others do his bidding through force made him especially fit for politics, and Angelo and the other Gennas became street-level recruiters for Tony D'Andrea in his ongoing political battle with long-time incumbent 19th ward alderman <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/alderman-john-powers-home-bombed-by.html">John "Johnny De Pow" Powers</a>. As discussed in greater detail in <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/alderman-john-powers-home-bombed-by.html">this post</a>, the 19th was primarily an Irish neighborhood in the 1880s when Powers was elected, but by the 1910s, was occupied primarily by Italians (especially Sicilians).<br /><br />While Powers was largely successful in maintaining his hold on power, Tony D'Andrea sought to use the demographic shift in the ward to build a winning coalition of Italian voters. In 1921, he very nearly defeated Powers, but lost by the slimmest of margins. The election was a bloody one, with <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/alderman-john-powers-home-bombed-by.html">bombs exploded at Powers' home</a> and at a mass meeting of D'Andrea supporters. The Gennas, who supported D'Andrea, were upset by his loss. They blamed Powers for the election violence, but more so, they hated their fellow Italian countrymen who had voted for him. <br /><br />A few weeks after the election, on May 6, 1921, one of Ald. Powers' precinct captains and a long-time municipal court bailiff, Paul Labriola, who was Sicilian, left his home on W. Congress St., and walked west towards Halsted St. Labriola had been receiving disturbing telephone and mail threats ever since the election, but considered it all part of electoral politics in Chicago. He had dined with the victorious Ald. Powers just a few days before, and looked forward to enjoying further political spoils.<br /><br />Before Labriola had walked more than fifty feet from his home, he was greeted by two men coming around the corner. Labriola recognized the men and words were exchanged. Suddenly, three more men came up from behind Labriola, and pistol shots rang out as all five began firing heavy-caliber lead at him. As Labriola fell to the ground, one of the men stood above him and fired three more gratuitous bullets into the bailiff's body, then the assailants dropped their weapons and fled down an alley.<br /><br />Initially, the police believed Sam "Samoots" Amatuna and Frank Gambina, two prominent D'Andrea supporters, were among the shooters. They could find no solid evidence against the two, however. But then they found an eyewitness who fingered Angelo Genna, the wild gunman of Taylor Street.<br /><br />The police arrested Angelo, and brought him to trial in October of 1921. The prosecution brought their eyewitness, Peter Eliopulas, to the stand:<br /><br />"He killed him; Genna killed him!," Eliopulas exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "I was standing near the corner of Halsted and Congress streets when I heard a shot. Running to Congress street, I saw Labriola lying on the ground. A man, Genna, was standing over him. He shot him three times as he lay on the ground."<br /><br />Eliopulas, who was neither Sicilian nor involved in 19th ward politics, seemed a believable witness, and whispers went around that Genna would be spending the 1920s behind bars. Until, that is, a teenager named Nick Ginopvolous, took the stand for the defense. Ginopvulos explained to a patient jury that Alderman Powers had offered a $2,500 reward for information leading to the capture and conviction of Labriola's killer. Eliopulas had approached Ginopvulos, he claimed, and offered him a share of the reward if he could provide a second eyewitness account of Genna's presence at the murder scene.<br /><br />The court was in an uproar. Was Eliopulas just an opportunist, or were the Gennas behind Ginopvulos' testimony? The prosecution tried to staunch the hemmorage in their case by bringing other witnesses to the stand who could testify that Angelo had been in the neighborhood that day, but the damage was done. The jury returned a verdict of not guilty, and Angelo walked out of court a free man.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv47sQ67zjh3jYGlXqUYcctniiuEEMxr8eufAaY-7o1kbUYmsv6QkN6cUJO7ko8aE4mAKJqvximvF_flhsBDOg2aJJ_1vP-s2P7jFmi_g-pGxbKdPrWO7ai2TLN3UWQUzkeGJDLB4wYJE/s1600-h/angelogenna.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 135px; height: 281px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv47sQ67zjh3jYGlXqUYcctniiuEEMxr8eufAaY-7o1kbUYmsv6QkN6cUJO7ko8aE4mAKJqvximvF_flhsBDOg2aJJ_1vP-s2P7jFmi_g-pGxbKdPrWO7ai2TLN3UWQUzkeGJDLB4wYJE/s400/angelogenna.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343311035792118306" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Angelo Genna, who stood 5'6" and 195 lbs.)<br /><br />The death of Labriola, however, set off a blood vendetta between warring Italian political factions in the 19th, which eventually claimed 30 lives over the following three years. One of the earlier victims of this war of attrition was a close friend of the Genna family, Nicola Maggio. Again, Angelo Genna was very upset.<br /><br />On March, 16, 1922, Paul Notte, a stockyards saloon-keeper who was believed to be close to Maggio's killer, left his home and began walking the half-block to his workplace. In front of his new bride, who was expecting, his wife, and his sister-in-law, Notte was approached by a short, stout man, and a few words were exchanged. Then the stranger drew his revolver and fired five shots and Notte, dropping him to the street before running off.<br /><br />Notte was rushed to the hospital, where Chicago detective Edward Murphy questioned him.<br /><br />"You know who shot me," croaked the dying Notte.<br /><br />"No, I don't, Paul. Who was it?"<br /><br />"The youngest one of those three brothers who run a poolroom in Taylor street."<br /><br />"Genna?"<br /><br />"I don't know the name."<br /><br />Lieut. Murphy rushed to Angelo Genna's home on Blue Island Ave., and not finding him there, went to the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">Genna headquarters on Taylor street</a>, where he found his suspect. Murphy arrested Angelo and brought him to Notte's bedside, where, in front of his family, doctors, and police, Notte identified Angelo Genna as his attacker. A few hours later, Notte was dead.<br /><br />Angelo's brothers, Anthony and James, were also arrested, but only Notte's death-bed testimony was considered strong enough to prosecute, so again, Angelo Genna alone stood for trial on murder charges. This time, Genna's attorney cross-examined the attending physicians at the hospital where Notte had died. Were any drugs given to the patient before he died? Yes, of course. Could any of those drugs have clouded his judgment, or made it difficult for him to remember the facts of his case? I suppose, under the right circumstances.<br /><br />With the dead man's testimony in question, prosecutors decided to nolle prosse the case. Again, Angelo Genna was a free man. After two murder indictments and no convictions, Angelo's legend grew in the Sicilian community. "Angelo the Immune" replaced "Bloody Angelo" as his street nickname. But Angelo's luck, in court and in life, would run out soon enough.<br /><br />In August of 1922, two Genna family friends, Henry Penna and Philip Maltese stood accused in the sexual attack of a 15-year old girl, Genevieve Court. When it became clear that Court would testify against the two, they kidnapped her and took her to Milwaukee, where they raped her ("mistreated her," in the language of the newspapers of the day) and left her alone in a boarding house with no way to get home. Eventually, a search party conducted by Court's parents located her, and she returned to Chicago. <br /><br />Again, she was more than willing to testify against her attackers in open court. In criminal court, she fingered Maltese and Penna as her attackers, and each was sentenced to one year in the state penitentiary, plus a $1,000 fine, a relatively minor punishment for a horrific crime. Maltese and Penna considered themselves lucky.<br /><br />But then, the two were unexpectedly dragged into federal court to be charged with violations of the Mann Act, the 1910 "white slavery" law inspired by the Chicago case of <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/08/harry-balding.html">Mona Marshall</a>, which enforced heavy sentences on those convicted of transporting women across state lines for sexual purposes. If convicted, Maltese and Penna would face serious hard time in federal penitentiary.<br /><br />Again, young Genevieve Court was willing to testify in court. Having done so already, Maltese and Penna realized she would certainly do so again. Two days before her date in court, Maltese, who was out on bail while awaiting the federal trial, and his close family friend, Angelo Genna, paid a visit to Miss Court, threatening her and her family with death if she should testify in the Mann Act case.<br /><br />On the day of her hearing, Genevieve Court showed up before U.S. Commissioner Lews F. Mason, and walked to the stand. She opened her mouth, but then she looked out over the audience. In the first row, staring directly at her, was Angelo Genna. One look into his dark, terrifying eyes, and a wave of visible fear ripped through Miss Court. She began to sob. It was all a lie, she said: There was no attack, no rape, no kidnapping; Penna and Maltese were completely innocent.<br /><br />A dumbstruck prosecutor quickly wised up to what had happened. After the hearing, he grilled Genevieve. Had anyone threatened her if she testified against her attackers in this case? With the redoubtable Genna out of sight, Genevieve's courage slowly returned. She admitted that Genna and Maltese had intimidated her.<br /><br />When the prosecutor brought this fact to the attention of the judge in this case, he signed a federal arrest warrant for Angelo Genna's capture. First, he tasked the Chicago police with serving the warrant, but they knew how dangerous Angelo was, and they "didn't want to take any foolhardy chances" with a police invasion and manhunt in the 19th. With local police officers unable to serve the warrant, a team of U.S. deputy marshals was tasked with instructions to "go into the Nineteenth ward and bring him in."<br /><br />Within a few days, they did, and in November of 1922, Angelo Genna suffered his first conviction in court, for intimidating a witness (the Mann Act case against Penna and Maltese was not prosecuted further, however). With the "Terror of the 19th Ward" soon to be behind bars, Chicago police chief Fitzmorris held a celebratory dinner, with the marshals who had served Genna's warrant as the guests of honor.<br /><br />Angelo Genna, free on bail before sentencing, began an attempt to flee the country and return to Italy to avoid prison, but when word of his plans leaked, each witness in the trial was given a personal bodyguard until the sentencing hearing, and the federal judge in the case issued a writ of attachment for "Angelo Genna or his body." Again, a squad of fearless U.S. marshals, armed to the teeth, invaded the 19th ward and captured Genna. A few days later, "Angelo the Immune" was sentenced to one year plus one day at Leavenworth prison.<br /><br />Prison appears to have slightly cooled the temper of the young Genna, and when he emerged from the penitentiary, he returned to Chicago in a mood to make money and mostly avoid trouble. Helping his brothers operate the massive dispersed Sicilian distilling network throughout Little Italy, which supplied the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/johnny-torrio-shot.html">Torrio</a>-<a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/capones-chicago-home.html">Capone</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/johnny-torrio-and-al-capones-account.html">syndicate</a> with a major share of the booze they retailed, Angelo Genna was able to move out of the poverty-stricken 19th ward and up to a cozy $400/month hotel condo overlooking the Lake at Belmont Ave. <br /><br />In January, 1924, the young vice entrepreneur married into one of the city's wealthiest and most prominent Italian families when he wed Lucille Spignola, sister to Henry Spignola, a top attorney of the time, who was a long-time Genna family friend. The wedding was one of the largest in Chicago history, with 3,000 guests, and offered the biggest cake anyone could remember, tipping the scales at just over 1 ton.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOQNcw9PYap0el5xjIBLDCrc8qrUNlq2juTFtZlbbypUMJsB2ijn0n8gYYA5Xw12Op1cpcENOAUVBRgiAUW59JY49tDRNf09yPs1AL2c-r8A5Ksvp46pfoxMo4t2vp3J6_zuZl6aOrY8/s1600-h/lucillespgnola.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 133px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBOQNcw9PYap0el5xjIBLDCrc8qrUNlq2juTFtZlbbypUMJsB2ijn0n8gYYA5Xw12Op1cpcENOAUVBRgiAUW59JY49tDRNf09yPs1AL2c-r8A5Ksvp46pfoxMo4t2vp3J6_zuZl6aOrY8/s400/lucillespgnola.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343311050710512690" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Lucille Spignola, Mrs. Angelo Genna)<br /><br />In May, 1925, Angelo Genna and his wife were making plans to move to ritzy new home in suburban Oak Park. Genna left his Belmont harbor home, drove south on Sheridan Rd. in his roadster coupe, and turned southwest on Ogden Ave., which at that time extended all the way to Lincoln Park.<br /><br />As he approached Hudson Ave., a large black touring car carrying four "characteristically 'unknown' assailants," as the <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> described them, sped up next to Genna's car. The passengers fired a dozen shotgun bullets into Angelo Genna's car, causing him to lose control and crash into a lamppost. As his attackers gunned the engine and escaped, Angelo began to lose consciousness.<br /><br />Rushed to the hospital, the life was draining out of Angelo's eyes. Police Sgt. Roy Hessler came to his deathbed.<br /><br />"You're going to die, Angelo. Tell us who bumped you off," he pleaded noirishly.<br /><br />But Angelo just shrugged his shoulders, and closed his eyes. In his last moments, he continued to adhere to the gangsters' code of silence, the same one that had shielded him from prison throughout his life. The <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> noted,<br /><blockquote>...the folks who seem to be in the know about Taylor and Halsted streets, reiterate, quite simply, the formula that has worked in so many of the recent murders since the days of bootlegging.<br /><br />"You'll know who murdered Angelo when the next big guy in the neighborhood is murdered."<br /></blockquote>But the next "big guys" murdered were all of Angelo's family members. Brother Mike was killed in a shootout with police just three weeks later. A month after that, brother Tony was gunned down on a West side street corner. Brother-in-law Henry Spignoli was killed the following year, and the Genna reign of terror was over as the remaining brothers wisely fled back to Sicily.<br /><br />Who was killing the Gennas? The most likely theory is that Angelo Genna's death was one of vengeance for the death of <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/obanion-homes.html">Dion O'Banion</a> in November, 1924. Angelo was considered one of the prime suspects in that case, in which the Northside mobster and bootlegger O'Banion, who had <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/sieben-brewery.html">famously feuded with the Gennas</a>, was gunned down inside his <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/obanions-flower-shop.html">N. State Street flower shop</a> and headquarters. In this theory, the shooters in the touring car were O'Banion's followers, most likely including <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/12/schemer-drucci-killed-by-police-officer.html">Vincent "Schemer" Drucci</a>, Frank Gusenberg, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/lookout-nest-for-st-valentines-day.html">George "Bugs" Moran</a>, and Earl "Hymie" Weiss.<br /><br />A more speculative theory, but one that has a certain ring of believability to it, was that Johnny Torrio and Al Capone, putatively partners in crime with the Gennas, were afraid of their growing power, and wanted their own man, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/antonio-lombardo-killed-in-loop.html">Tony Lombardo</a>, to hold political control over the city's Sicilian population and their basement stills. Consistent with this theory, Lombardo appears to have taken over the presidency of the main Sicilian political organization, the Unione Siciliana, in 1925 after the death of its previous president, Angelo Genna. Also, the car used in the attack turned out to have been stolen from a resident at 5742 W. 22nd Street in Cicero, just a few blocks from <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/ralph-capones-home.html">Ralph Capone's</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/cotton-club.html">Cotton Club</a>, in the town where Al Capone was practically mayor.<br /><br />Nevertheless, Angelo Genna's funeral, like his wedding, was one of the grandest in Chicago history. Refused a church burial by Roman Catholic Cardinal Mundelein, he was buried at Mt. Carmel cemetary in Hillside in a vault said to cost $10,000, encased in a $6,000 casket which weighed 1,200 lbs and nearly broke through the back porch of the funeral parlor. The flowers for the funeral were believed to have cost upwards of $75,000, including a grand 8-foot tall piece, heavy on lilies, sent by Al Capone, and a huge vase full of pink and white carnations, courtesy of Johnny Torrio, who was <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/sieben-brewery.html">incarcerated in Lake County</a> at the time (this proves little regarding the two's potential culpability, since it was common for gangsters to send flowers to the funerals of both their friends and their enemies). At the funeral, which was attended by thosands, a quartet of police officers from the Gennas' local <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/maxwell-street-police-station.html">Maxwell Street station</a> frisked everyone for weapons before they could near the gravesite.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYvMQ4fCfp3rF6dLnXR_S51QlfxyYdw6V8utS8t1XFAaWCh7ghF2quHvfj_nDSSYWlEl4mbIBjeGPqmGzEh-gXXq1cZqRcJ-AwPUaFiXVrQy51HKuEHS6CZ5UYfuIS9_j3qGjvw_sEus/s1600-h/angelogennafuneral.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 263px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRYvMQ4fCfp3rF6dLnXR_S51QlfxyYdw6V8utS8t1XFAaWCh7ghF2quHvfj_nDSSYWlEl4mbIBjeGPqmGzEh-gXXq1cZqRcJ-AwPUaFiXVrQy51HKuEHS6CZ5UYfuIS9_j3qGjvw_sEus/s400/angelogennafuneral.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343311046464325410" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Angelo Genna's 1,200 lb. casket at his funeral)<br /><br />The <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span>, for its part, used the opportunity of Angelo Genna's death to opine on the inferior traditions and weak-mindedness of southern Europeans, in relation to northern Europeans and "native" Americans (probably not a reference to Navajos).<br /><blockquote>The funeral of Angelo Genna provides an interesting commentary on our city. This crude yet costly glorification of a man of blood is a straight transplantation from Sicily or Sardinia, where to a simple folk the bandit leader is the prince of heroes. The American of native or northern European tradition must observe such a pageant with a new realization of the gulf which lies betwen his mind and moral system and those of Genna's colony.<br /><br />That is, in fact, what the gathering at Genna's obsequies represents, not America but a foreign colony imported virtually intact and representing a stage of old world history centuries gone save among the mountain peoples of southern and eastern Europe. Considered as a graphic illustration in the argument for our new immigration policy, the Genna funeral is admirable.</blockquote>For some reason, the <span style="font-style: italic;">Trib</span> editors seemed to have forgotten the equally-if-not-more-ostentatious funeral thrown for mobster Dion O'Banion, an Irishman, just a few months before Angelo Genna's.<br /><br />Ogden Ave., where Angelo Genna was driving when he was killed, has been completely vacated on the north side. At the corner of Hudson and Menomenee, where Ogden would have cut through, the diagonal sidewalk through the park (pictured below), harkens back to the road that was once there. For more on the history of Ogden Ave., see <a href="http://forgottenchicago.com/features/chicago-infrastructure/the-extension-and-removal-of-ogden-avenue/">here</a>. <br /><br />At the corner where the most violent of the "Terrible" Gennas was shot, today stands a beautiful and peaceful <a href="http://www.midwestbuddhisttemple.org/">Buddhist temple</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHwI3fgMG2TacJF84sxtSQ9ZiMHsp4XGiBwlTeOUTDG6rtgfZ0h6kZq3Pq0YzWPb4rTb8afIkobksjPSIRyMVusBGDKABJ6XWHjPXour1ArOIY0EY7IPkF6o69qqWTVo_vg39jiF5mqc/s1600-h/Northside+May+09+017.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqHwI3fgMG2TacJF84sxtSQ9ZiMHsp4XGiBwlTeOUTDG6rtgfZ0h6kZq3Pq0YzWPb4rTb8afIkobksjPSIRyMVusBGDKABJ6XWHjPXour1ArOIY0EY7IPkF6o69qqWTVo_vg39jiF5mqc/s400/Northside+May+09+017.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5343311030217778034" border="0" /></a>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-39768444926937130722009-05-30T17:50:00.003-05:002009-05-30T18:04:41.238-05:00Antonio Lombardo Killed in the Loop<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgINZrYWdI1eDlLDy21vJDqGb_g83l9eSkNfQ8pMyroCQVgEX4sxdA7wS2Z1ALx0JhLruwNFktjEf1c6EHv6gZuw4mv_AbOJ49FL5fpA8BGAY4eayE1CaRKEdLmpRwrJoG0TLo1SSa0Rc/s1600-h/Lombardo+006.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgINZrYWdI1eDlLDy21vJDqGb_g83l9eSkNfQ8pMyroCQVgEX4sxdA7wS2Z1ALx0JhLruwNFktjEf1c6EHv6gZuw4mv_AbOJ49FL5fpA8BGAY4eayE1CaRKEdLmpRwrJoG0TLo1SSa0Rc/s400/Lombardo+006.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341753423140269602" border="0" /></a><br />In 1925, Antonio Lombardo became president of the Chicago chapter of the Unione Siciliana, a community and political organization of immigrants. In those days, the presidency of that organization was one of the most profitable -- and dangerous -- jobs in the world, and danger caught up with Lombardo on September 7, 1928 near the corner of Madison and Dearborn Streets in one of the most spectacular mob hits of all time.<br /><br />Tony Lombardo was born in Sicily in 1891, and came to Chicago as a teenager. He built a successful grocery business as a young man, and in so doing, elevated his political profile in the impoverished neighborhoods of his countrymen, including <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/little-hell.html">Little Sicily/Little Hell</a> on the north side and the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/05/alderman-john-powers-home-bombed-by.html">19th ward</a> on the west side. Lombardo was an associate of the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/terrible-genna-headquarters.html">"Terrible" Genna family</a>, which controlled the dispersed network of home distilleries, mostly operated by Sicilians, which supplied the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/johnny-torrio-shot.html">Johnny Torrio</a> – <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/10/capones-chicago-home.html">Al Capone</a> syndicate with product during the Prohibition years. Lombardo's wholesale grocery had the lucrative position of supplying bulk sugar (one of the main ingredients in home “alky-cooking” for the Genna network.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7qMdNifCNr6L7pZGfACrIekxh1n_UTNlsNmizX6gyiOwWBhFgpjH6ZMSmJKeHh0Q2YBxx9itDz1g0gg7NvRGRhAZ2jQyyy-8gUXA11bMz5YN9hJue7V0EfZ-SOwh_VvdeKJGzLTFPEL0/s1600-h/lombardo.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 197px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7qMdNifCNr6L7pZGfACrIekxh1n_UTNlsNmizX6gyiOwWBhFgpjH6ZMSmJKeHh0Q2YBxx9itDz1g0gg7NvRGRhAZ2jQyyy-8gUXA11bMz5YN9hJue7V0EfZ-SOwh_VvdeKJGzLTFPEL0/s400/lombardo.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341753417072674690" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Antonio Lombardo)<br /><br />Lombardo’s partners in the grocery business included Joseph Ferraro and Joseph Aiello. Aiello, one of a large family of brothers that ran a bakery and a candy shop in Little Sicily, was particularly ambitious in growing the enterprise. Lombardo and Aiello operated a major wholesaling operation on Randolph Street near Aberdeen, of which Lombardo made Aiello president.<br /><br />In 1926, the two, along with Ferraro, purchased land on Kinzie St., between Halsted and Green streets from an old steel yard, intending to open a fruit market. By that time, Lombardo was known as a major figure in the underground liquor trade, having been recently involved in a high-profile case involving abuse of licenses granted to synagogues for sacramental wine. The Tribune reporter included a wink and a nod in the story noting the real estate transfer:<br /><blockquote>A wholesale fruit market, with an accent on grapes (what does this mean, Watson?), is to be opened by Giuseppi Aiello, Antonio Lombardo and Joseph Ferrara, on an irregular shaped piece of property fronting seventy-six feet on Halsted street, 125 feet on Green street, 252 feet on Kinzie street and 252 feet on a paved court.</blockquote>The three bought the property, which is now covered by the Kennedy Expressway, for $176,799, with a down payment of $45,000. It was shortly after this that Aiello and Lombardo fell out over Aiello's ambitions for greater control in the business (later, a lien would be placed on the property when Aiello failed to pay his share of the mortgage). Aiello also coveted the presidency of the Unione Siciliana, a position Lombardo held at that time.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaS0Xx6_Wzh7wdIFPJ6vBtKMxKx8prhf3WX6zFBF4UE2rXsm3ZPK3x4bzok8kfj3lrCxfhj6DpTr0QehjYeMgFw08wYX_ZqcbGh5joNfMlH4XqCXgs3E28X_hq2T6roNXtHH5ZxawPf4A/s1600-h/lombardoletterhead.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 67px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaS0Xx6_Wzh7wdIFPJ6vBtKMxKx8prhf3WX6zFBF4UE2rXsm3ZPK3x4bzok8kfj3lrCxfhj6DpTr0QehjYeMgFw08wYX_ZqcbGh5joNfMlH4XqCXgs3E28X_hq2T6roNXtHH5ZxawPf4A/s400/lombardoletterhead.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341753413676084226" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Letterhead for Lombardo grocery concern on Randolph St., with Aiello listed as president)<br /><br />The death of Unione president Mike Merlo in 1924 led to the <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/obanions-flower-shop.html">assassination of Dion O’Banion</a>, likely at the orders of Capone and Torrio, and in the subsequent bloodshed, the city’s bootlegging business was divied between rival gangs, with Capone and Torrio controlling the south side and Cicero, and O’Banion’s followers “Hymie” Weiss, <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/lookout-nest-for-st-valentines-day.html">George “Bugs” Moran</a>, and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/12/schemer-drucci-killed-by-police-officer.html">Vincent “Schemer” Drucci</a> taking hold of the north side. Lombardo and the Gennas worked with the Torrio-Capone syndicate, with Angelo Genna succeeding Merlo to the presidency of the Unione.<br /><br />When Angelo Genna was killed in 1925, Sam “Samoots” Amatuna became president of the Unione, but only for a brief period before he, too, was assassinated. Then, it was Lombardo who became “Don” to the city’s Sicilian population. The presidency of the Unione Siciliana, which claimed 15,000 members, involved substantial political influence over an important voting bloc, and so it created the opportunity for the one who held that position to become a “fixer” with connections in city hall. Control of the Unione was thus highly important for the Capone bootlegging business, which relied not only on the network of Sicilian amateur distillers which pledged their loyalty to the Unione president, but also on Unione-connected politicians and police officers to look the other way, or even work proactively against competitors. The Unione presidency was also an position of great community esteem, prominent in resolving disputes and feuds among Sicilians, including <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/death-corner.html">“Black Hand”</a> extortion plots, which were especially problematic at that time. Thus, Lombardo was a real-life Chicago version of Vito Corleone.<br /><br />However, the connection between the Unione and organized crime had become fixed in the public’s mind, and Lombardo sought to change this impression by renaming the Chicago chapter as the "Italo-American National Union" and allowing non-Sicilian Italians to join. The name change angered some, including the president of the New York branch of the Unione, powerful mobster Frankie Uale.<br /><br />The Italo-American National Union also contributed prominently to charities, including, for example, hurricane relief in Florida in 1926. It attempted to raise its profile as a leading civic organization by inviting important Italian politicians to Chicago. At the time, Benito Mussolini had recently consolidated control of that country, and so Lombardo brought Mussolini’s U.S. ambassador to Chicago for a prominent series of speeches promoting fascism:<br /><blockquote>God sent Benito Mussolini to an imperiled Italy and did, thereby, a service to all the world, Baron Giacomo de Martino, Il Duce's ambassador to this country, yesterday declared three times during the first day of his three day visit to Chicago. And three times yesterday groups of the ambassador's countrymen, once at the Italian Chamber of Commerce luncheon at the Drake, again at the Italo-American union massmeeting at the Coliseum, and last at the union's dinner at the Palmer house -- jumped to their feet and cheered mightily as they shot out their right arms in the Roman salute of Fascism.</blockquote>After his falling out with Lombardo, Joseph Aiello allied himself with the Northsiders, Weiss, Moran, and Drucci. Aiello knew that, with control of the Unione, the North side gang could take control over the entire Chicago alcohol business, and reap hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. He also coveted the social standing that Lombardo held in the Sicilian community, and the jealousy made him murderous.<br /><br />In one instance, Aiello allegedly offered $35,000 to a chef to poison Lombardo and Capone. In another case, he offered Torrio-Capone ally Ralph Sheldon $50,000 for each of the heads of Capone and Lombardo. Capone offered peace to the north side gang by offering to divide the city along Madison street, which led to a brief ceasefire, but before long, Aiello’s ambitions on the Unione presidency, and Lombardo’s ruthlessness in maintaining it, led to more bloodshed.<br /><br />Early in 1927, police uncovered a stash of weapons and ammunition in a sniper nest across the street from Lombardo’s home on W. Washington St., near Cicero Ave., and a similar one at the Atlantic hotel, across from Alderman <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/workingmans-exchange.html">Michael</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/hinky-dinks-place.html">“Hinky Dink”</a> <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/workingmans-exchange.html">Kenna</a>’s post-Volstead headquarters on Clark St., where Capone and Lombardo were frequent visitors. When Lombardo realized the extent of Aiello’s bloodlust, he moved his family out to a more easily guarded single-family home on S. Austin Blvd. in Cicero. But he knew that eventually either he or Aiello would meet an early grave.<br /><br />After the discovery of Aiello’s weapons caches, the police arrested him on weapons charges and placed him in a cell at detective headquarters. In the adjoining cell they placed three Capone gunmen who had also been caught with illegal weapons while searching for Aiello, and a police officer who spoke Italian hid nearby, listening in on the conversation. The officer’s report refers to Capone’s frequent alias, Al Brown:<br /><blockquote>"Can't we settle this thing?" Aiello then pleaded with the trio. "Give me fifteen days, just fifteen days, and I will sell my stores and my house, and leave everything in your hands. Think of my wife and my baby, and let me go."<br /><br />The Brown [Capone] gangsters gazed at their subdued foe scornfully and replied, according to the listening policeman:<br /><br />"You dirty rat, you started this thing. We'll end it. You're as good as dead now."</blockquote>Nevertheless, Aiello did manage to escape after the incident, and fled to New York, where he remained for a year, no doubt spending plenty of time commiserating with Frankie Uale about their shared dislike for Lombardo.<br /><br />With Aiello out of town, Lombardo relaxed his guard, and even helped Capone go on the offensive. When, in November, 1927, the gang discovered north side gambling operations on Monroe St., two blocks south of the Madison Street border, bomb explosions there served as a "final warning." When questioned by a reporter about the bombings, Lombardo replied:<br /><br />"Me, a bomber? Go to the people who know me best. Ask the Italians of Chicago if I am a bomber. Find one of them who will say I am a criminal. You can't do it."<br /><br />It’s unclear whether this was supposed to be exculpatory, or simply a statement of Lombardo’s absolute power in the Sicilian community.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFAD0y712jr8V1TwwZk1PQkJY2fCV5FAC09L0XxL9khJg9qNnfBgdU0EndxeRFvwdXyX2TBf04o7oaWbq5COHXeZtPltdU1IAaXtEyqiYW1nVPPVhcBlpqBdC40T8bl1BfoCH1Z3c2wg/s1600-h/lombardo2.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 168px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiFAD0y712jr8V1TwwZk1PQkJY2fCV5FAC09L0XxL9khJg9qNnfBgdU0EndxeRFvwdXyX2TBf04o7oaWbq5COHXeZtPltdU1IAaXtEyqiYW1nVPPVhcBlpqBdC40T8bl1BfoCH1Z3c2wg/s400/lombardo2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341753410099658818" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Antonio Lombardo)<br /><br />By 1928, Joseph Aiello was back in Chicago, and again plotting a takeover of the Unione Siciliana. Lombardo still stood in his way, but not for long. On September 7, 1928, at 4:30 p.m., Lombardo, his long-time business partner Joseph Ferrara, and a bodyguard, Joseph Lolordo, stepped out of the offices of the Italo-American National Union in the Hartford Building at 8 S. Dearborn St. They walked north towards the corner of Madison St., where a large crowd had gathered. Across the street at the Boston dry goods store, an airplane was being dragged up the side of the building up to the 11th floor by ropes, and into a window, for a store promotion. Practically everyone on the scene was focused on the unusual sight -- everyone except two mysterious men from out of town, dressed in dark gray suits.<br /><br />50 feet west of Dearborn, on the south side of Madison st., at the corner of the Hartford building, and just in front of a Greek restaurant, Tony Lombardo turned to his bodyguard.<br /><br />“Look at the airplane,” he pointed across the street.<br /><br />At that moment, the two men in gray appeared out of the doorway of the Greek restaurant, ran up behind Lombardo, and unloaded their revolvers into the Unione president’s head, also shooting Ferrara in the back, before dropping their guns at the scene and running east on Madison. Lombardo’s bodyguard, Joe Lolordo, took off running after them, while the panicked crowd of bystanders scattered.<br /><blockquote>Gunmen and policemen ran here and there with waving guns, men and women in the crowded street jumped first one way and then another, wondering from which direction the next bullet might come. People in stores ran out, then ran back in. Which way safety lay they could only guess.</blockquote>A police officer tackled Lolordo, thinking he was one of the assassins, while the real assassins ducked into a nearby shoe store, exiting out the back and escaping the chase. Antonio Lombardo, president of the city’s largest Italian group and a major underworld figure, died on the street, shot to death in broad daylight in front of thousands of witnesses at one of the city’s busiest intersections. In the photo at the top of this post, the spot of the shooting is on the sidewalk, roughly at the right-hand end of the wooden scaffolding.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNx_YEC0tPmUjSGf86gkHS-m4SDYp42f_BwscQRjXOtU_Ka91YBxlcpAQSRLe8JuYuOMuAOKLWF7sFcTFIlFg09SH_1K1Nc-49pvtbgwZLQYK_zr2bBAJBxHJtW9cACL2WKtM26xOogmA/s1600-h/lombardoassassination.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 277px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNx_YEC0tPmUjSGf86gkHS-m4SDYp42f_BwscQRjXOtU_Ka91YBxlcpAQSRLe8JuYuOMuAOKLWF7sFcTFIlFg09SH_1K1Nc-49pvtbgwZLQYK_zr2bBAJBxHJtW9cACL2WKtM26xOogmA/s400/lombardoassassination.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5341753399238505874" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: scene on the street at the site of Lombardo's shooting)<br /><br />A week later, Ferrara also died of his wounds. Following underworld protocol, he refused to cooperate in the police investigation of the shooting before his decease, but based on identification by another eyewitness, Frank Marco, a New York hoodlum and a known acquaintance of Aiello’s, was charged with the crime. Marco wasn’t located, however, until his bullet-riddled body was found on E. 19th street in New York City in February, 1930. No one else was ever charged with the crime, but everyone assumed the hit must have been ordered by Aiello, possibly with the assistance of Frankie Uale’s gunmen from New York.<br /><br />After Lombardo’s death, his bodyguard's brother, Pasqualino Lolordo, took over the presidency of the Unione, until Lolordo, too, was shot and killed at his home in January, 1929. According to most sources, Aiello finally did become president of the Unione Siciliana for about a year while Capone was in prison in Philadelphia on weapons charges. But when Capone returned to Chicago in 1930, Aiello made plans to flee the country; however, a sniper's bullet found him first.<br /><br />The Hartford building, where Tony Lombardo’s Unione Siciliana headquarters were on the 11 floor, and in front of which he was killed, was built in 1893. Standing at 14 stories, it was one of the city’s tallest. It was destroyed, along with all other buildings on the same block, in 1965 to make way for the First National Bank Building, now called Chase Tower.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-8929775779242411312009-05-26T19:19:00.010-05:002009-11-04T12:41:55.477-06:00Jeff Fort Founds the Black P. Stone Nation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMamaO_PVHUcgde7wfdGR_Dw3AkE77h0XX9YAjIAJpD9Cz6E9Ae5JAy3X6bcwh9m9hrc_MfOdGomJYSRRBevoDqEvGPRmeDuq-tY9D83SmXHZ16puObCf7Yfe_w_sETm1qz8VE7MjdYqg/s1600-h/February-April+2009+013.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340292553741924722" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMamaO_PVHUcgde7wfdGR_Dw3AkE77h0XX9YAjIAJpD9Cz6E9Ae5JAy3X6bcwh9m9hrc_MfOdGomJYSRRBevoDqEvGPRmeDuq-tY9D83SmXHZ16puObCf7Yfe_w_sETm1qz8VE7MjdYqg/s400/February-April+2009+013.jpg" border="0" /></a><span style="FONT-WEIGHT: bold">UPDATE</span>: Rev. Otto Sotnak, previously associate pastor at Woodlawn Immanuel Lutheran Church, and who is mentioned briefly below, wrote to me after reading this post, and his thoughts provide further insight into the relationship between the Blackstone Rangers and Woodlawn community organizations. Rev. Sotnack gave me permission to reprint his letter, and I have done so in a <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/08/woodlawn-immanuel-evangelical-lutheran.html">new post</a>.<br /> ----------<br /><br />Intelligence tests indicated that Jeff Fort had an IQ between 48 and 58, a score indicating moderate mental retardation; however, Fort possessed exceptional leadership skill, organizational genius, and a magnetic personality. He misused these qualities to found and lead what was once Chicago’s largest street gang, the Blackstone Rangers, and to consolidate a gang cartel that endures to the present day. While building that empire during the 1960s, he lived here, at 1504 E. 66th Pl. (townhome on the right in the photo above), near the corner of Blackstone Ave.<br /><br />The neighborhood of Woodlawn was developed as a middle-class alternative to the higher-rent Kenwood and Hyde Park districts to the north. The World’s Fair of 1893, which took place in nearby Jackson Park, brought the demand to house thousands of workers associated with that event, and many of these remained after the Fair. Up through the 1940s, Woodlawn was a white, though not ethnic, neighborhood, but in the 1950s and 1960s, black residents from the Grand Crossing and Washington Park districts to the west began moving in. White flight to the suburbs, plus continued migration into Chicago by southern Blacks fleeing racial strife added to the flow, including Jeff Fort’s family, which arrived in Woodlawn from Mississippi in 1955. After the rioting following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, most of the remaining white residents moved out, with the exception of a few University of Chicago students and faculty huddled at the north end of Woodlawn between 60th and 62nd streets. The neighborhood remains almost entirely black to this day. (Personal story: in 1995, as a college freshman at the U of C, I attended an orientation session in which University Police presented us with a street map of the south side and told us never to go south of 60th street (or north of 47th); the primary effect of this talk was to generate great curiosity and frequent “forbidden” visits to Woodlawn).<br /><br />Jeff Fort was a troublemaker as a boy, and in the late 1950s, found himself in a juvenile detention camp at suburban St. Charles. There, he befriended a fellow Woodlawn delinquent, Eugene Hairston. Upon returning home, the two dropped out of school and founded the Blackstone Rangers, a street gang named after Blackstone Ave., which runs north-south through the heart of Woodlawn.<br /><br />Most street gangs are principally businesses -- businesses that offer extra-legal security services not provided by the police and a range of prohibited products, including narcotics, high-interest loans, prostitution services, and so on. These organizations operate in market niches created by unintended consequences of legislation; they are arbitrageurs of government policy. Like all businesses, however, their profitability is a function of competition, and a successful cartel can reap huge rewards.<br /><br />Cartels, however, are inherently unstable, as each conspiring business has an incentive to overproduce at the higher market prices created by the cartel, and the resultant glut of product causes prices to fall and breaks up the conspiracy. Thus, a cartel can only be maintained if the participants are able to closely monitor each other and punish those who chisel on the agreement. Efforts to do so are complicated by the fact that meetings of business managers for this purpose are prohibited by vigorously enforced federal and state antitrust laws.<br /><br />But for those businesses already ducking the law to provide illegal products and services, the additional cost of avoiding prosecution under the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Act">Sherman Act</a> is low. Low IQ or not, Jeff Fort intuitively understood the tremendous profits to be made by cartelizing Chicago street gangs. Throughout his life, he showed a genius for subverting legitimate community and government institutions to reduce competition on the streets and consolidate power. He was also a master marketer and manipulator, using the noble image of the civil rights movement to deflect criticism and enforce his power in maintaining the cartel.<br /><br />A 1965 <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tribune</span> article, which appears to be the first mention of Fort in print, found him working with Edward Woods, head of the Woodlawn Chicago Boys Club and Rev. Sotnak of the Woodlawn Immanuel Lutheran Church to create a “meeting place for teens” where they could defuse tensions and find help in obtaining work. Fort quickly learned that the image of a reformed gang member who just wanted to help his community was incredibly seductive to credulous do-gooders, and he took full advantage. The police were more suspicious of his motives:<br /><blockquote>Youth Officer Julius Frazier of the Grand Crossing police district is not as confident of the Rangers’ rehabilitation as Woods and the Rev. Mr. Sotnak. “Wait until nice weather comes again, and then we’ll see how good the boys are,” he said.</blockquote><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsT77FLMnWdo2uHcRRN11IEW4QWPj7PaCoSFzYA9geD4L4ljNUNzNGZDNyjZFF6N-mM30fHzTy_9a_eB86GYmK0tv9KjWb7-zZCmXl5VXj1C25cg6UvWPRZIDu3U2ZfF2jQ7ZAWgBIaqA/s1600-h/forthairston.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340304347858557586" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 315px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsT77FLMnWdo2uHcRRN11IEW4QWPj7PaCoSFzYA9geD4L4ljNUNzNGZDNyjZFF6N-mM30fHzTy_9a_eB86GYmK0tv9KjWb7-zZCmXl5VXj1C25cg6UvWPRZIDu3U2ZfF2jQ7ZAWgBIaqA/s400/forthairston.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Edward Woods, extension director of the Woodlawn Chicago Boys Club, with Jeff Fort at age 19 (center) and Eugene Hairston (right))<br /><br />The following year, in 1966, Fort convinced Woodlawn police superintendent Orlando W. Wilson to broker a very public “truce” between the Rangers and their longtime rivals, the Gangster Disciples. Wilson trumpeted his supposed achievement in the press, criticizing those who said he should be arresting these hoodlums, not engaging them, and these statements hamstrung Supt. Wilson in responding to the subsequent wave of violence unleashed by the Blackstone Rangers. Within 12 hours of the agreement, five rival gang members were shot. A month later, the president of the East Side Disciples, the local Gangster Disciples chapter, was dead on the street.<br /><br />Similarly, Fort convinced the Rev. John Fry, pastor of First Presbyterian Church at 64th and Kimbark, to allow the Rangers to use the edifice for their headquarters. First Presbyterian, the oldest congregation in the city, and with <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/03/rev-jeremiah-porter-chicagos-first.html">a long history of anti-crime organizing</a>, had moved to Woodlawn in 1928 from its previous locations in the Loop and the Prairie Avenue district). The newspapers reported Fry’s disputes with the police, who were shocked to learn that the Reverend had made a pact with the devil:<br /><blockquote>The Rev. John R. Fry, pastor of the First Presbyterian church, 6400 Kimbark av., said yesterday that he is attempting to hold together the Blackstone Rangers, a teen-age gang, and that he is considering a court injunction to stop police efforts to break up the gang...."The Rangers is the only organization that offers safety from hostile forces at home, in school, and on the streets," he said. The gang has learned that violence solves nothing and is working for the betterment of the Woodlawn community, he said.</blockquote>In fact, the Blackstone Rangers were becoming increasingly violent. In September, 1966, gang members yelled “almighty Blackstone Rangers” before opening fire on a group of boy scouts leaving a meeting at the Essex Community Church at 74th and Blackstone. The following month, twenty Rangers invaded the lunchroom at South Shore High School during school hours, creating chaos by throwing furniture around and breaking glasses, dishes, and silverware, while assaulting twelve students there.<br /><br />During this time, Fort used his ability to subvert community organizations to consolidate a cartel of south side street gangs, forming the Black P. Stones in 1967. Obviously a play on the original Ranger name, the separation of “Black” and “Stone” in the name of the new group made the gang less location-specific and added racial and religious overtones. The “P.” variously indicates “People” or “Power,” depending on the context. The Stones were led by a council called the “Main 21,” chaired by Fort and Hairston, with representatives of different gangs working together to organize extortion, narcotics, and other rackets.<br /><br />In the civil rights movement and the country’s increased awareness of the slum conditions inhabited by many blacks, Fort saw an opportunity to milk government and charitable organizations for funds to support gang activities. Fort was not alone in this endeavor (on the west side, the Conservative Vice Lords were doing the same), but his audacious success brought him national fame.<br /><br />At the end of 1966, The Woodlawn Organization (“TWO”), a major community group, applied for a federal government grant amounting to over $950,000, in which the Blackstone Rangers would administer job training programs to young gang members in the community. It is difficult to imagine now how anyone could have thought that a known criminal organization would have the ability to run such a program and to avoid corruption, but government officials were as interested as anyone in appearing to be supportive of black community interests (not to mention buying black votes).<br /><br />The grant was accepted, and Fort personally oversaw the funds. Trainees (selected by the gang) received federal checks for $45 for every week they attended the Rangers’ programs. In fact, the Rangers demanded kickbacks of $10-$20 from each check, or sometimes just cashing the checks directly while forging attendance records. When training sessions did occur, participants learned little of value, but “played cards, rolled dice, or talked about women and sports,” according to one “student”. In one case, Fort held a dogfight during a government-supported job training session.<br /><br />While collecting a hefty salary from TWO, plus the kickbacks, Jeff Fort continued the violent business of running a street gang. In April, 1968, he used the opportunity presented by the riots after the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination to sell millions of dollars in protection services. Store owners purchased placards to place in their shop windows which read simply<br /><blockquote>Do NOT Touch – Black P Stones – Jeff</blockquote>So complete was the Stones’ control over the south side that the simple mention of the first name of their leader inhibited riotous mobs, and stores that purchased the placards survived intact.<br /><br />Other violence directly involving Jeff Fort includes an October, 1968 case in which Fort was arrested for assisting in the beating of a postal employee who had caught a 13-year old Stone initiate stealing a car and was holding him for the police. In July, 1969, Fort was again arrested for ordering the murder of Jackie Turner, a Navy midshipman returning from Vietnam, and an anti-gang organizer who had refused to join the Black P. Stones. Four Stones, wearing the gang’s trademark red berets, shouted “almighty Blackstone Rangers” before stepping out of a darkened gangway at 71st and Ridgeland and opening fire on Turner with machine guns. Amazingly, Turner survived.<br /><br />In late 1969, Fort again used the veneer of civil rights as a cause for gang enrichment. Operation Breadbasket, the Jesse Jackson-led wing of the Southern Christian leadership Conference, had waged a public boycott against the Red Rooster Supermarket chain for allegedly overcharging customers and serving low-quality products in black neighborhoods. Fort offered the company the opportunity to “hire” 22 gang members, including 15 of the Main 21, at inflated salaries, as a way to show solidarity and mend ties with the Woodlawn community. Fort personally was hired as an “outside store inspector”. The gang’s deal helped end the boycott, but their increasing demands finally bankrupted Red Rooster; Fort had killed the rooster that laid the golden eggs!<br /><br />In 1970, the P. Stones even allegedly extorted $160,000 from entertainer Sammy Davis (Sr.), who had an ownership interest in a Dixmoor-based liquor store, which he agreed to let gang members run.<br /><br />As some of the previous examples indicate, Jeff Fort was increasingly becoming a political figure, especially after he took complete control of the Black P. Stones when Eugene Hairston went to prison in 1968. Later revelations indicated that the Rangers had even weighed the possibility of high-profile assassinations during the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, including those of incumbent Vice President Hubert Humphrey and Sen. Eugene McCarthy.<br /><br />But Jeff Fort’s most famous political statement came about not in Chicago, but in Washington that year. A January, 1968, investigation by the <span style="FONT-STYLE: italic">Tribune</span> had revealed the extent to which the TWO grant was being misused by the Rangers. Fort was asked to testify before the U.S. Senate subcommittee on investigations to explain the apparent fraud. When asked his name, he replied, but after that refused to answer further queries. His attorney, sitting next to him at the hearing, demanded that Fort be allowed to cross-examine previous testifiers, who had claimed they witnessed fraud. Upon being reminded that a Senate subcommittee was not a trial court, Fort stood up and walked out on Congress, leaving his questioners shouting threats of contempt charges after him. In fact, Fort was later tried and convicted for contempt. The scene of the young black militant showing evident disrespect to the Senate made the front pages and headed the evening news.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5wYxEiJaPqsRj1Q0SLDG-ZQYcf6Eu892gDYhZVvfDxnCM8smnMTi_EW_wRuJJOC0CipYKG4bf-Z1YOj6Rd5vcl8REgEh3vStfDguXrhnhTji4kXJ5eHmTd50cMU5PkAn8Aj6Dlemt2b0/s1600-h/jefffort.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5340304351978037010" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 323px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5wYxEiJaPqsRj1Q0SLDG-ZQYcf6Eu892gDYhZVvfDxnCM8smnMTi_EW_wRuJJOC0CipYKG4bf-Z1YOj6Rd5vcl8REgEh3vStfDguXrhnhTji4kXJ5eHmTd50cMU5PkAn8Aj6Dlemt2b0/s400/jefffort.JPG" border="0" /></a>(Pictured: Jeff Fort in Almighty Black P. Stone jacket)<br /><br />With his heightened political profile, Fort began to flex political muscle back in Chicago. In December, 1968, he led a march down the Midway Plaisance to State Street, demanding that the city rename State Street in honor of a slain fellow gang member, Jerome "Pony Soldier" Cogwell. After the march reached State, Fort led the crowd in smashing windows, jumping on cars, and generally rioting, until the police arrested him and scores of others. In fact, the scene was manufactured by Fort expressly for the intent of challenging Illinois laws against disorderly conduct. After his arrest, Fort sued Mayor Richard J. Daley claiming the statutes were vague and that city police used them to harass residents. The Illinois Supreme Court eventually ruled in favor of the validity of the laws.<br /><br />The police did keep close tabs on the Stones, and vice-versa. Fort once personally offered a Woodlawn officer $200 for pictures of members of the city’s Gang Intelligence Unit. In another case, he stopped a police car on the street and, as the officer later described it,<br /><blockquote>Fort laid a $100 bill on the seat of our car, and I said, “What’s that for?” He said: “Nothing right now. You do whatever you want with it. There’s plenty more where that came from.”</blockquote>The Chicago police weren’t the only ones tracking Jeff Fort. In January, 1969, J. Edgar Hoover approved an FBI plot to stir up disputes (and possibly violence) between the Blackstone Rangers and the nascent Black Panther Party. FBI agents forged an anonymous letter, which they sent to Fort. The letter read:<br /><blockquote>Brother Jeff:<br /><br />I've spent some time with some Panther friends on the West Side lately and I know what's been going on. The brothers that run the Panthers blame you for blocking their thing and there's supposed to be a hit out for you. I'm not a Panther, or a Ranger, just black. From what I see those Panthers are out for themselves, not black people. I think you ought to know what their [sic] up to, I know what I'd do if I was you. You might hear from me again.<br /><br />[signed] A black brother you don't know<br /></blockquote>An internal FBI memo released later indicated the agency was aware of the fact that their letter might lead to violence. The memo noted,<br /><blockquote>It is believed that the above may intensify the degree of animosity between the two groups and occasion Fort to take retaliatory actions which could disrupt the BPP [Black Panther Party] or lead to reprisals against its leadership.</blockquote>All of this power and fame certainly inflated Fort’s ego. Fort had always been a smart dresser, but now he began incorporating wild colors and exaggerated hats. In fact, Fort’s first adult arrest, back in 1965, indulged his sartorial tastes:<br /><blockquote>Early in March Calvin Williams, 21, purchased a pair of gray slacks. They were belt-less, cuffless, and tailor-made, and his friends often remarked to him that he stepped in them with noticeable aplomb. He had worn them only a few times when on March 19 his apartment at 6134 Kimbark av. was looted of a television set, radio, phonograph, record albums, silverware -- and his treasured pants. ....<br /><br />While enjoying a walk yesterday afternoon along 67th street near Blackstone avenue, Williams spotted a crisp looking pair of slacks worn by another stroller....He telephoned detectives who had investigated the burglary of his home. Police arrived and took Williams and the youth in his pants, Jeff Ford [sic], 19, of 1504 E. 66th pl., to the south side detective headquarters....Ford surrendered the pants to Detectives James McDonough and William McHugh, who found Williams' name on the label....<br /><br />Williams, however, will have to wait for return of the trousers. Police said the slacks are evidence and will be needed during the court hearing. As a result, Ford was left pantsless. He telephoned his home and his mother brought another pair to the station.</blockquote>By August, 1970, Jeff Fort could afford his own pants. In that month, he was involved in a high-profile dispute with another community organization, the Kenwood-Oaklawn Community Organization (KOCO), the leader of which had recently testified before Congress about gang problems in Chicago. The Stones had unsuccessfully attempted to worm their way into a $3.5 government grant being dispensed by KOCO. One afternoon, Fort decided to call a press conference about the issue, to be held at his headquarters in First Presbyterian. Most of the city’s radio and print outlets sent a reporter within an hour of the announcement, but only one of the television stations did so.<br /><blockquote>“I have important things to say,” Fort announced, casting a disappointed eye at the single television camera from CBS. “Maybe I ought to put off this press conference until tomorrow when the press can come.”</blockquote>Luckily for Fort, NBC finally showed up, and the press conference went forward, as he complained about the leader of KOCO, who was black, "going to white men for help."<br /><br />While he had committed countless crimes over the past decade, September, 1970, saw the beginning of the end for Jeff Fort’s freedom. In that month, he ordered an all-out war on the police. In the instance that led to his arrest, Fort told a group of gang members to break out all of the lights along a certain elevated train platform, then to take up sniper positions against police there. That evening, an officer was wounded by a bullet shot from the position.<br /><br />When he found out the heat was on, Fort fled Chicago, moving between Detroit, New York City, and Barbados for over two months on the run. While at Barbados, the increasingly erratic Fort, who by that time insisted on being called "Black Prince," sent a oddly messianic letter back to a meeting of P. Stones in which he referred to himself in the third person:<br /><blockquote>He is in contact spiritually with each and every Stone. As a matter of fact, if you look around you from time to time you will get a glimpse of him. When the time is right each Stone who is truly Stone to the bone -- Stone to the spirit -- will be able to see "The Chief".</blockquote>During Fort’s time on the lam, detectives began trailing his girlfriend, Janis Connors. On October 30th, they saw her purchase a plane ticket for New York City. The detectives followed her onto the flight and, in New York, traced her to an east Manhattan hotel, where they arrested Jeff Fort and extradited him to Illinois. With him at the time of his arrest were papers indicating Fort was soon planning to flee with Connors to Algeria, where he would have joined Eldridge Cleaver and Timothy Leary.<br /><br />Fort had been arrested countless times before without being jailed. At the time of his extradition on the police sniping charge, he was under indictment or conviction for: two charges of attempted murder, three charges of aggravated battery, one charge of aggravated kidnapping, one of conspiracy, and one of concealing a fugitive.<br /><br />How had he managed to remain a free man during this time? Fort had excellent legal counsel, paid for at the expense of Charles Kettering II, grandson of the famed General Motors engineer and philanthropist. Kettering funded the Stones in the amount of $11,000 per month, which he openly admitted was intended for bail bonds and attorneys’ fees. Kettering, too, was entranced by Fort and the prospect of appearing sympathetic to minority interests. He also appears to have relished in the propinquity to dangerous criminals his money bought. He frequently referred to the Stones in public as “cats,” employing the slang of the era to signal just how hip he was.<br /><br />After his imprisonment, Kettering’s lawyers incredibly managed to eliminate most of Fort’s criminal charges. In the case of the attempted murder of anti-gang activist Jackie Turner, Fort was tried three times, and in each case, the judge declared a mistrial. In other cases, the state dropped the charges or found their evidence or their victim mysteriously missing. Between 1970 and 1972, Fort continued to actively lead the Black P. Stones, and it was common for 30-40 gang members to visit Fort daily at Cook County Jail.<br /><br />Finally, however, in May, 1972, Jeff Fort finally began serving a prison term for fraud in misdirecting funds at the TWO training center. He served four years, plus an additional year for contempt of congress, divided between state and federal prison.<br /><br />Jeff Fort was released from prison in the spring of 1976. During his imprisonment, he hatched an even grander scheme, to rebuild the Stones as a religious organization, which could hold cartel meetings in secret, protected by the First Amendment. The continuing story of that organization, the El Rukns, which Fort led into the 1980s, their consolidation of the drug trade in Chicago, and their audacious attempts at international terrorism, are detailed in <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/01/el-rukn-temple.html">this post</a> and <a href="http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2009/04/el-rukn-leader-jeff-forts-home.html">this one</a>.<br /><br />The Black P. Stone Nation still exists as a major coordinating organization for Chicago-based street gangs, though it is better known today as the "People" (they are opposed by the “Folk”, those gangs associated with the Rangers’ primordial enemies, the Gangster Disciples). Local Stones chapters, while no longer held together in a rigid organizational hierarchy as they did when Fort was leading the gang, inhabit many south side neighborhoods, as well as many suburbs. Affiliate gangs are notable in several other states, as far away as Florida.<br /><br />The home at 1504 E. 66th Place, where Jeff Fort lived while building the Blackstone Rangers and the Black P. Stones, up until his arrest in 1970, suffered a major fire, suspicious for its timing, in November, 1970, within a few days of his arrest in New York. The building is still standing, and appears to be inhabited (though two of the neighboring townhomes show evidence of abandonment). It wouldn’t be surprising if the property were still controlled by the gang.Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58563640551252225.post-84625230722665518082009-05-21T22:33:00.003-05:002009-05-21T23:06:36.022-05:00The Sad Case of Rosetta Jackson<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhccrAlY4m-LxYzUPgwGKT7c8A88io7jL4gf6zwrxIupk79FgFlR3UmIfz17203jT082ia6ZtTWOXyu2mAQ0bd8buasX13d7dmp_wphEQM26rJ9da0Q8QgHAQ4lyy9eue8j2gimrr-xPBk/s1600-h/Rosetta+004.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhccrAlY4m-LxYzUPgwGKT7c8A88io7jL4gf6zwrxIupk79FgFlR3UmIfz17203jT082ia6ZtTWOXyu2mAQ0bd8buasX13d7dmp_wphEQM26rJ9da0Q8QgHAQ4lyy9eue8j2gimrr-xPBk/s400/Rosetta+004.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338487381592054082" border="0" /></a>In the evening of June 12, 1874, 17 year-old Miss Rosetta Jackson died in her bed here at 186 S. Jefferson (since renumbered 313 S. Jefferson). The death certificate, prepared by her doctor, Charles Earll, indicated typhoid fever and enteritis as the causes of decease. Her sister and brother-in-law, Lizzie and William Flagg, sent her body to be coffined and taken by train for burial near her family home in Wisconsin.<br /><br />But something about the case troubled Chicago police officer Thomas Simmons: a sudden, unexpected death of a young, healthy woman, and such a rush to remove her remains. And then there was the involvement of the notorious Dr. Earll. He went to interview Miss Jackson’s landlady, a Mrs. Kate Heiland. The story that spilled out of Mrs. Heiland was one of the most sordid and heartbreaking in Chicago history, one that would fill newspaper headlines throughout that summer of 1874, as two separate juries deliberated on the fates of Mrs. Heiland, Dr. Earll, and the Flaggs. The Rosetta Jackson case, which brought to prominence in Chicago an early instance of an issue that roils America to this day, seems to have been lost to history.<br /><br />Miss Jackson’s older sister Lizzie had married a barber by the name of William Flagg, and the two inhabited an apartment on W. Lake St., above Mr. Flagg’s barbershop. At age 16, Rosetta left her family home in Mauston, Wisconsin, to live with her sister and brother-in-law in Chicago, exchanging room and board for cleaning and household duties, which were many in the rapidly growing Flagg family.<br /><br />But all was not right in the home. Mr. Flagg took an increasingly dangerous interest in the pretty young girl, and she seemed flattered by his joking flirtations, as when he would wrap his arm around her waist and laughingly tell the patrons of his barbershop that they’d better not lay a finger on “his girl”. Over time, the neighbors began to whisper and the scent of scandal turned prurient eyes wherever they were seen together. The two were seen sitting together at Western Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church on Sundays, without Mrs. Flagg, and frequently went out together at night.<br /><br />Mrs. Flagg wasn’t impervious to the accusatory stares of her neighbors, or what she could see with her own eyes. Pregnant with another child at the time, she was especially sensitive to her husband’s apparent dalliance. As she told the police on the day after Rosetta’s death,<br /><blockquote>I have seen my husband noticeably intimate with my sister. The neighbors noted it too. At one time I caught him kissing Rosetta. I had not the courage to speak to my husband about it, though….I never caught the pair in any more improper behhavior than kissing each other, but I could swear that at the time mentioned there was something irregular, and I believed that they had been doing wrong.<br /></blockquote>A neighbor, Angeline Pernod, later testified at trial:<br /><blockquote>Mrs. Flagg, about three of four weeks ago, told me that her husband was out until about 11 o'clock one night, and when he came home put his hat and coat in her room. Then he walked into her sister's (the deceased's) room, and she subsequently saw him kneeling on the floor, and he had his arms over her sister's head. She asked him what he was doing there, and he then got up and walked back to her room. When Mrs. Flagg told me this she said she had not told half of her troubles....There was some talk in the neighborhood about an intimacy between Flagg and his sister-in-law, occasioned by their going to church, and being out at night together.</blockquote>One day, Mrs. Flagg took the train up to Wisconsin for a family visit, leaving Mr. Flagg and Rosetta alone at home. Immediately upon Mrs. Flagg’s departure, the two went out to a restaurant together – something they had never done before – and upon their return, Flagg closed his barber shop early. The two were not seen again that evening.<br /><br />Up in Wisconsin, Mrs. Flagg had a dream: her husband was having an affair with her sister. She awoke and could not settle her suspicious intuition. She made an excuse and boarded the night train back to Chicago, arriving in the morning. At her home, she first went to Rosetta’s room. The bed was perfectly made and there was no sign it had been slept in. By contrast, in her own bedroom, she found the bedsheets askew on her husband’s bed, and the unmistakable evidence that two, not one, had slumbered there.<br /><br />Her worst suspicions confirmed, she confronted Rosetta. Was her sister sleeping with her husband? Rosetta denied everything, as did Mr. Flagg, but the relationship between the sisters was permanently damaged, and a few months later, Rosetta would depart from their home for good.<br /><br />Around the time of the confrontation with her sister, Rosetta Jackson discovered she was pregnant. Conditions for single mothers in Chicago were perhaps a little better than in the East, but out-of-wedlock childbirth still meant social ruin, poverty, and a practical impossibility in marrying. What would her fellow Methodist church members say? Would her sister and her family ever speak to her again? And what about dear, kind, Mr. Flagg? His reputation, his family life, his business, all could be lost. She just <span style="font-style: italic;">couldn’t</span> have this baby.<br /><br />She told Flagg of her plight, and he asked if she wanted to move out East to live with another sister in New York. No, she did not want this baby. “For God’s sake,” he later claimed to have told her, “don’t do anything to get rid of it. If you are in a family-way go and have it. I will pay your expenses.”<br /><br />But a few days later found Mr. Flagg in a brothel a few blocks east of his home on Lake St., where he discussed the problem with Nellie Sinclair, one of the prostitutes working there (Flagg later claimed, to the credulity of no one, that Sinclair was ill and he gave her $2, not for services rendered, but out of charity).<br /><br />“What do women of your profession do to eliminate a pregnancy?” He asked Sinclair. “I’m in real trouble – you see, I’ve gotten too intimate with a lady friend of mine from Wisconsin. She’s a church member and I have to shield her from disgrace.”<br /><br />Sinclair recommended two practices common among women of her grade: drinking tea made from the herb tansy and, amazingly, jumping rope. Later, Flagg would claim that he never mentioned any “lady friend from Wisconsin,” and that his query about ending a pregnancy was meant for advice to his wife – he had a large family and did not want any more children. This story, too, was believed by few.<br /><br />It was likely Rosetta who first broached the subject of approaching Dr. Charles Earll. “Dr.” Earll, who apparently had no medical training whatsoever, kept an office on Halsted St. Around 60 years old with a grey moustache and full beard, Earll was divorced a few years earlier. The <span style="font-style: italic;">Tribune</span> would later claim that during the Civil War, he had operated a “den of infamy” in Kinzie St. Now, however, he presented himself as a physician specializing in obstetrics. During the winter of 1874, around the time Rosetta Jackson discovered her pregnancy, Dr. Earll’s name made the newspapers when he was arrested for performing an abortion, in violation of an 1845 Illinois statute. Though the charges were later dropped due to a lack of evidence, Dr. Earll was known to be a man who could help distraught women.<br /><br />Dr. Earll’s assistant, a W. W. Quinn, later testified in court that in early May, William Flagg came to the office on Halsted in a state of great excitement, twiddling his thumbs furiously as he spoke.<br /><br />“I’m in a lot of trouble. I’ve seduced a servant girl and my wife is raising hell about it. I need one of Dr. Earll’s prescriptions to destroy pregnancy, and I need a boarding house or some other place for the girl to stay awhile. I can offer $50 if the doctor can help me.”<br /><br />It is not known if it was then, or later, when Dr. Earll became involved in the case, but by the end of May, Rosetta Jackson was living under an assumed name, “Mrs. Alice Hays,” at Kate Heiland’s home on Jefferson Street. Heiland was a dressmaker by trade, and occupied the home above her shop, along with two teenaged daughters. She took “Mrs. Hays” in as an apprentice and to provide companionship for her girls, charging her minimal rent, some of which was paid by Mr. Flagg. <br /><br />Almost immediately after Rosetta’s arrival, Mrs. Heiland discovered that her new boarder was four months pregnant by an unknown father, and moreover, that she was obsessed with ending the pregnancy. Alternately reading her Bible feverishly and dosing herself constantly with essence of tansy and other severe drugs, she presented the picture of a woman on the brink of madness. “I’ll get rid of this child or die trying,” she prophesied when Mrs. Heiland tried to dissuade her from the drugs. Mrs. Heiland noticed one of her knitting needles missing and assumed the worst.<br /><br />Just a few days after her arrival, Rosetta gave birth, with Mrs. Heiland standing in as midwife. At just four months, the child was pitifully small, but alive. The baby raised its hand. At the request of Rosetta, Mrs. Heiland closed the tiny creature in an old cigar box and buried it in her backyard.<br /><br />During the birth and after, Rosetta was unwell. She had internal injuries and was suffering convulsions (the latter a common pharmacological effect of consuming high levels of tansy). Her personal physician, Dr. Earll, was called for. He prescribed a noxious blend of calomel (a laxative), quinine, and morphine, and Rosetta gave him a note to deliver to Flagg:<br /><blockquote>Willy: Come and see me as soon as you can. Don’t come at meal-time. Come any time during the day. The carrier [Earll] will tell you where I am.”</blockquote>Both Flagg and Dr. Earll called at Mrs. Heiland’s home frequently over the next week. At one point, Dr. Earll prescribed sulphide of soda powder, while at another time he recommended brandy and whiskey. Dr. Mayo, he was not.<br /><br />Finally, on Friday, June 12, Rosetta Jackson died. William Flagg, who was at her death-bed, informed his wife, and the two collected Rosetta’s body and had it shipped off to Wisconsin for burial. Dr. Earll signed a death certificate, which indicated death from typhoid fever and enteritis, mentioning nothing about childbirth, abortion, or drugs.<br /><br />On Saturday morning, when Officer Simmons arrived at Mrs. Heiland’s home to investigate the sudden passing, Heiland repeated what Earll had written on the death certificate. Officer Simmons decided to press a little harder to see if there might be something more to the story. “Madam, the law says in such cases, the County Coroner must examine the body. Dr. Earll has a reputation with young women. Are you certain there isn’t more you need to tell?”<br /><br />Heiland, who no doubt felt the weight of her role in the plot heavily, sobbed, then admitted the whole sordid tale – the abortion, the cigar box, the frequent presence of Dr. Earll and Mr. Flagg in her home, the tansy tea and other drugs. Simmons had his men dig up the cigar box and enter its contents as evidence. Then he had Mrs. Heiland arrested and jailed as a material witness for trial, and sent a telegram to recall the body of Rosetta Jackson back to Chicago for examination.<br /><br />The coroner empaneled a jury to investigate Miss Jackson’s death. On the stand, Mr. Flagg claimed he was not the father of the Rosetta’s child. He threw suspicion, instead, on two of his neighbors, especially a young jeweler, O. W. Young, who he claimed to have seen sitting in his house with Rosetta one night with the lights off (Young later took the stand and claimed he hardly knew Rosetta and had never been with her in the dark). He had known about Rosetta’s pregnancy and had visited her at Heiland’s home in an attempt to help her, but it was Rosetta, Flagg claimed, who had wanted to employ Dr. Earll, who was set on ending the pregnancy.<br /><br />With a large family and no means of supporting herself without her husband, Mrs. Flagg unsurprisingly rallied to her husband’s defense. She knew of no evidence that there was any intimacy between her sister and her husband. She was emotionally distraught when questioned on the day after her sister’s death, and anything she might have told the police about catching Mr. Flagg kissing Rosetta was untrue. Rosetta left her home not because of a dispute with her sister, but because the workload was too heavy. “Mr. Flagg and I were like mother and father to her.”<br /><br />After examining the body of Rosetta Jackson, Dr. Henrotin, the county physician, confirmed that she showed evidence of being four months pregnant, of having recently miscarried, and that the lining of her stomach was inflamed, “such as might, and probably would, be produced by irritating medicines.” When asked, he affirmed that her condition was consistent with the effects of tansy, a bottle of which was found in her possession at Mrs. Heiland’s home. The actual causes of death were not those listed on the death certificate by Dr. Earll, but were puerperal fever and metroperitonitis, two conditions associated with childbirth.<br /><br />For her part, Mrs. Heiland claimed she did not know that burying a fetus in a cigar box in one’s backyard was against the law (to be fair, Illinois was not then a death registration state). She only wanted to protect the woman she knew as Mrs. Hays from disgrace. Though Mrs. Heiland had her suspicions that Flagg was the father of Rosetta’s child, she claimed that, on her death-bed, Rosetta admitted that Flagg was not the father.<br /><br />Brothel inmate Nellie Sinclair, as well as a variety of other interested parties, also testified. After three days of hearing witnesses, the jury ordered the arrest of Flagg and Dr. Earll, as well as a search of Earll’s office.<br /><br />Dr. Henrotin, who led the search, testified that the Halsted St. office was in “a frightful state of disorder,” and he was shocked to find six bottles containing fetuses suspended in fluid, between 1 and 6 months old. None of the bottles were labeled, “as is customary when such anatomical curiosities are found in medical museums or in the offices of respectable practitioners.” <br /><br />Dr. Henrotin also found a vast collection of medical instruments intended for use in obstetrics, including forecepts, hooks, and probes. While such instruments are used both by abortionists and respectable physicians, he admitted, the fact that absolutely no other types of instruments or doctor’s materials except these were found in the office, raised his suspicions.<br /><br />After a brief deliberation, the coroner’s indicted Dr. Earll for murder, and Flagg and Heiland as accessories before and after the fact, respectively. All three were imprisoned at county jail. The criminal trial of <span style="font-style: italic;">People v. Earll</span> began a month later, on July 29th, and lasted three days. Most of the witnesses from the coroner’s trial repeated their testimony, although Dr. Henrotin claimed that after a more careful examination of Rosetta’s body, there were wounds on her womb consistent with the use of instruments such as those found in Dr. Earll’s office. Mrs. Heiland’s daughter testified that she and Rosetta had gone for a walk before the birth, and had passed by Dr. Earll’s office, where Rosetta went up and spent five minutes in a room alone with the doctor.<br /><br />After the prosecution rested, Dr. Earll took the stand to defend himself. In a careful, calm voice, he claimed he never saw Rosetta until after she was sick and living at Mrs. Heiland’s, about the first of June, and he knew her only as Mrs. Alice Hays. At that time, Mrs. Heiland told him that Rosetta had miscarried a few days before, and he prescribed drugs to alleviate the pain. He claimed Rosetta had never been to his office and knew nothing of any relationship between her and Mr. Flagg. He continued to insist that the cause of death was typhoid fever and enteritis.<br /><br />In its closing argument, counsel for the defense argued powerfully that Rosetta Jackson’s death was consistent with her own self-medication, possibly under the advice of Mr. Flagg, and that Dr. Earll’s guilt could not be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.<br /><br />The jury deliberated all night, and at 2:30 in the morning were still split 6-6. The pressed on and finally, by daybreak, they agreed to convict Dr. Earll on a lesser charge, manslaughter, with a sentence of one year at Joliet penitentiary.<br /><br />The sentence was passed, and after an appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court failed, Dr. Earll served a year at Joliet, emerging in August, 1875. He directly went back to work as an abortionist, and was arrested six times, a rate of once per year, between 1874 and 1880. Each time, he escaped for lack of conclusive evidence. Finally, however, after the death of another patient who had acquired his services, Dr. Earll was again sentenced to Joliet, this time for five years.<br /><br />At the time of his release from prison in 1885, Dr. Earll was over 70 years old, and there is no further record of his activity. William and Lizzie Flagg later moved out to a larger home in the country to suit their large family. Mrs. Heiland’s home on Jefferson, where Rosetta Jackson boarded and died, is today a parking lot.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYXoSLaoqsQp0CLFIXUpzz8x7PpRqT-NCfMl9oZRIM0nPVtnkf5xGlH5qS_2AUlFWX4_0YUOU8iZvRy3uV7RVxUNh3DR9cZj5-EJln37JF7uqt2La2LMXI_kD7sFyDIwMs4F_5UkXoWo/s1600-h/Rosetta+001.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtYXoSLaoqsQp0CLFIXUpzz8x7PpRqT-NCfMl9oZRIM0nPVtnkf5xGlH5qS_2AUlFWX4_0YUOU8iZvRy3uV7RVxUNh3DR9cZj5-EJln37JF7uqt2La2LMXI_kD7sFyDIwMs4F_5UkXoWo/s400/Rosetta+001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5338487385643242578" border="0" /></a>Kendallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03469814413112068249noreply@blogger.com0