This is the seventh article of a series on the gangsters of boozedom and what they did to Chicago. In previous installments Mr. Bennett has told the stories of Dean O’Banion, Johnny Torrio, and other notorious hoodlums.
Chicago Tribune, March 17, 1929
BY JAMES O’DONNELL BENNETT
OF all the crimes of Chicago boozedom the slaying of “Little Hymie” Weiss was at once the boldest and the most mysterious until the ghastly St. Valentine’s day of 1929, when boozedom set seven of Hymie’s successors against a wall and machine-gunned them to death á la Mex.
Here you have all the elements of incredible melodrama. Now for the first time the machine gun placed in ambuscade is brought into play in gang warfare. Long and pitiless vigil is kept in order to exterminate a gang leader. His lair—called by him and his co-criminals “business headquarters”—is overlooked by the armed killers from two perfect points of vantage. Escape for the victim is impossible. The escape of the killers after they have done the deed seems impossible, but it is not. Amid the panic creatQd by their fusillade they scurry through alleys less than a mile from the city hall of the fifth city of the world and vanish in broad daylight.
To this day-two years and a half after the murder—the identity of “Little Hymle’s” killers remains a mystery, although police and reporters who worked on the case speak of it in their offhand, knowing way as “a crime of the Capone gang.”
Mystery and Muddllng.
That Is one of the strange phases of cang crime. Unofficially many know much; officially they are” hopelessly baffled,” with the result that not a legal wheel turns to any purpose.
Nobody was prosecuted for killing Hymie. Two years and a half after the murder the most vivid memorial of it is the scarred corner stone of tho cathedral of a cardinal archbishop. On it the curious pause to puzzle out these shattered words:
The English translation of the Vulgate’s version of the words which St. Paul wrote to the Philippians is “At the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth.”
Literally, you see, gangdom shot piety to pieces in Chicago.
The Pieties of Gangdom.
And yet Little Hymie, bootlegging gangster, suspect in safecrackings and jewel robberies, ward heeler, election terrorist, and convicted hijacker though he was, went in for piety in his casual way. Of the vivid recollections of his followers one is that “he was always fingering his rosary. He was like Terry Druggan that way. Once when Terry hijacked a truckload of booze that two Jews were driving he kept the Jews on the load at the point of a pistol. All of a sudden the load is passing a church and Terry says: “Take off your hats, you Jews'”—here the reader can take for granted a sickening blast of foul words—”‘don’t you see you’re passing a church!'”
Rich and successful as he was-his reputed fortune was a million three hundred thousand, but it did not come true when his strong boxes were opened—Hymie had a premonition that he would come to an unsuccessful end.
A young acquaintance of mine, who was driving a truck for a legitimate business, was irked by his heavy toil and light pay as contrasted with the way—as he had special opportunity to observe—the money rolled in on gangdom. So one night he remarked to Hymie, “Jese! I’d like a cut in with you. It’s coming awful easy for you!”
WHERE HYMIE WEISS WENT TO HIS DEATH
- A general view of North State street, opposite the Cathedral of the Holy Name, where two gangsters were killed and a criminal lawyer was wounded in 1926. ① The window from which the machine gun was fired. ② The line of fire sweeping by the door of the florist shop where Weiss had his headquarters and in which Dean O’Banion had been assassinated two years before ③.
Hymie’s Premonition.
A morose shadow flitted Hymie’s face and he replied:
- I’ll trade places with you.
That, if you’ll believe it, was said only two days before Hymie Weiss fell dead at the hands of gangdom with ten machine gun bullets in his body.
The lesson was not lost on my young acquaintance. He is still going straight and he takes his wages home to his mother.
Weiss’ name will live in the black lexicon of crime because he invented the phrase “take him for a ride.”
When the gang suspected a fellow gangster of treachery he was lured into “taking a ride.” He was given the front seat in the automobile, the back of his head thus being convenient to the killers on the rear seat. Experienced killers of gangdom always say that the back of the head is the best place to fire at because then the bullet does not “take a course”—that is, deflect from a vital spot.
Weiss was of Polish birth. His real name was Wajciechowski, but, being found cumbersome, it was contracted to Weiss. In police records his first name appears as Earl, but in gangdom he was “Hymie” and “Little Hymie,” and “Hymie the Polack.” Early in his career of violence, which was well under way as long ago as 1919, he was called “the Perfume Burglar,” but the reason for that I was not able to run down after wasting enough to have written a column about a life that had been of benefit to mankind.
Weiss’ disposition was as ugly as hell except in its manifestations toward his mother, to whom he was
kind and generous. But he had a real knack of drumming up business for boozedom and was clever at developing leads on new and big customers. He was the brainiest leader north side boozedom has had and he made more and safer money for them. He helped to lead boozedom to the day when it ran distilleries and breweries and ships instead of risking life and limb in warehouse robberies. As to his ugliness, newspaper photographers can testify. When the law had laid fleeting hold upon him they would make ready to photograph him “You take a picture of me,” he would snarl, “and I’ll kill you.”
“And he’d look the part,” said one of the photogs, peering back through three years. “Face like a savage when he said that.”
But the picture would be taken. Those lads don’t scare readily.
At the inquest over Hymie Weiss his brother gave this precious bit of testimony:
- I saw him only once in twenty years. That was when he shot me six years ago.
Shameless Officialdom.
These squalid facts about a useless member of society are given not to make blood and thunder for morons to read, but to show the type of ruffians who were permitted by officialdom to wear deputy sheriff’s stars—as Weiss did—and whom Chicago permitted to terrorize at elections—as Weiss did.
He was a gun waver In polling places and would hold a room full of judges and clerks of election at bay while his gangsters stole ballot boxes. This he did at a time when his leadership in boozedom was notorious.
He not only defied city and county officials, he once ordered a United States marshal once from hIa apartment at the point of a shotgun—and the marshal went. The warrant that time was for violation of the Mann white slave act. When the apartment was searched later, knockout drops, handcuffs, sawed-off shotguns, and revolvers were found, as well as dozens of quarts of champagne, brandy, and whisky.
Far from being abashed by that contretemps, Weiss coolly started legal action against the federal government for the recovery of his rich store of silk shirts and socks, which, he alleged, had disappeared during the search.
Hymie’s Cheek of Brass.
In fact, his effrontery was colossal and it engendered a certain meekness in officialdom. “If you knew anything about this murder, would you tell me?” Detective Captain Schoemaker asked Weiss when he was brought in for questioning a few hours after gangsters killed Weiss’ friend and cocriminal, Dean O’Banion.
“Well, to be frank,” said Weiss with a grin, “I guess I wouldn’t.”
And he never did.
Twenty-three months intervened between the killing of O’Banion and the killing of Weiss. They were active months in gangdom, and the sequence of their activities can be traced like a pattern on a wall from the dead body of O’Banion to the dead body of Weiss. For twenty-three months reprisal piled on reprisal, while the police puttered about helplessly and the law enforcing agencies remained impotent in the face of violence that renewed the traditions of the warfare of desperadoes in a mining camp.
An Eye for an Eye.
Torrio-Capone killers were blamed for the murder of O’Banion in November, 1924. That demanded reprisal, so in January, 1925, Weiss-Moran killers -Weiss and Moran having succeeded O’Banion-tried to murder John Torrio. That demanded reprisal, so an attempt was made In August, 1926, by Capone killers–in broad daylight in front of the Standard Oil building at Michigan avenue and 9th street-to murder Vincent Druce!, bootlegger, election terrorist, jewelry thief, and co-criminal of Weiss. That demanded reprisal, so in September, 1926, an attempt was made by Welss-Drucci killers to murder Al Capone by means of a machine gun fusillade—fired from moving automobiles—which swept the front of the Hawthorne hotel in Cicero, where Capone kept headquarters behind steel shuttered windows. That demanded reprisal, so in October, 1926, Hymie Weiss was murdered by men whom “everybody”—except the law of the land declared to be Capone killers.
Reprisals and Subreprisals.
There were numerous other killings in and by Chicago boozedom during those red years 1924, 1925, and 1926. Most of them interlocked more or less, but particular mention of them is not essential to the tracing of the sequences from the dead body of O’Banion to the dead body of Weiss. Indeed, particular mention would only bore and baffle the reader as much as the Lancastrians and Yorkists bored and baffled him when he as a schoolboy was trying to get the hang of the Wars of the Roses in fifteenth century England.
The essential point is that in the closing months of 1926 a gangster of Chicago boozedom was either “a Capone guy” or “a Hymie Weiss guy,” and that Hymie had to die.
So rooms were rented, and machine guns were bought, and an abundant supply of cigarets was provided.
As O’Banlon’s succes or Weiss kept “business headquarters” In O’Banion’s old lair, the flower shop at 738 North State street, opposite the Cathedral of the Holy Name, where O’Banion himself had been shot to death two years before. The business headquarters were on the floor above the shop. Nobody entering them from State street could escape the sweep of slanting machine gun fire trom the windows of the front bedroom on the second floor ot the once handsome residence at 740 North State street.
So that room was rented by “a mystery man” who has never been run down.
Keeler, Our Local Conan Doyle.
And nobody leaving headquarters by way of the alley in the rear could escape the sweep of slanting machine gun fire from the windows of the apartment on the third floor of No. 1 West Superior street.
So that apartment was rented by “a mystery woman” who has never been run down.
Here is a quaint bit of coincidence about the room which “the mystery man” rented on State street. In it was born “the mystery novelist,” as he iscalled, Harry Stephen Keeler, author of Find the Clock, Sing·Sing Nights, and The Spectacles of Mr. Cagliostro, and in it he lived until his marriage a few years ago. His mother and he still own the property. But he has never bent himself to solving the mystery of who killed Hymie Weiss.
At four o’clock on the afternoon of Oct. 11, 1926, five men emerged from an automobile which they had parked on the Superior street side of the cathedral and started to cross State street to enter the flower shop, in which they could ascend to “headquarters.”
Five Struck Down in One Blast.
They were:
- Patrick Murray, gangster allied with Weiss.
W. W. O’Brien, a lawyer who specialized in the kind of cases which had brought wealth and notoriety to Patrick H. O’Donnell, a favorite lawyer of the lawless.
Benjamin Jacobs, an investigator for O’Brien.
Sam Peller, chauffeur and handy man for Weiss.
The five had taken only a few steps when they were swept by a storm of machine gun bullets coming from the old bedroom of Keeler, the mystery novelist. Weiss fell with ten bullets in his body. He died in a few minutes without uttering a word. Murray was struck by seven bullets and died where he fell—in front of O’Banion’s old lair. Lawyer O’Brien was struck in the arm, side and abdomen, but had strength to stagger to a doctor’s office eight doors away. He did not die. Jacobs was hit in the foot, and Peller in the abdomen. They ran to a doctor’s office a block away and did not die.
The corner stone of the cathedral was hit by an obliterating ram of bullets, with results to its carved words of adoration already described. It never has been restored to coherence.
Civilization in Chicago.
After the rattle and thud of shots an Instant of sUence. Then the street before the cathedral in noisy panic—wounded men staggering to cover, terrified passers-by clamoring but seeing nothing that was worth taking down at a coroner’s Inquest.
During this hullaballoo, which was their best protection, the killers ran down the back 8talrs of No. 740, then south In the alley in the rear, then across West Superior street and still southward through the alley between State and Dearborn streets until they reached the alley in the Superior-Huron block which runs west into Dearborn street. The only trace of their course that ever was found was their machine gun which they had thrown on top of a doghouse in the rear of No. 12 West Huron street.
Silence in the Second Lair.
Their fellow gunmen stationed in the lair on the third floor of No. 1 West Superior street made an equally successful escape. They had not fired a shot. The killers stationed in the first lair had gotten Hymie while he was approaching his headquarters from the front. Had he entered from the rear the gunmen in Superior street would have gotten him. Had he left them from the rear they would have gotten him. Boozedom had taken every precaution.
The very existence of this second lair was not discovered until a week after the murdser, and that was by chance. “A radiator or something is leaking in the apartment above us,” said an occupant of a second story apartlnent to the janitor. He went to the third floor apartment and found an automatic shotgun loaded with five shells and, around chairs set near a window overlooking the atorementioned
alley, rings of cigaret butts.
Traces of the Long Vigil.
In the first lair—the one from which the fusillade came—the police found thirty-five empty 45 caliber shells in a pile near the window, precisely as they had been ejected from the Thompson machine gun which the fieeing killers had later thrown on top of the dog house. Three exploded shotgun shells also lay by the window. Nearby stood a shotgun. Near it lay a hat, purchased from a dealer, so the label indicated, whose place of business was not far from Cicero. Cicero, you wJll recall, was tbe capital of the Capone segment of boozedom.
More than a hundred cigaret butts were strewn on the fioor. “Obviously,” said Police Detective John Stege when he saw them, “the killers kept a long vigil.”
Nobody knows how long it was.
The attempt upon Capone’s life was made on Sept. 20. Piecing together the vague testimony of the persons who rented the State street and the Superior street lairs for the killing of Hymie, both rentals probably were made early in the first week of October. The young man who made the rental at No. 740 said he must have the front room, but it was Oct. 8 before it was available. That was three days before the killing. How soon the actual killers took possession after the lair was at their disposal was not learned by the police.
The Manners of Officialdom
The inquest was conducted in a slipshod and indecorous manner. In the course of it Coroner’s Physician Joseph Springer said the police captains had been “dumb.”
“What captains do you mean?” demanded Capt. Daniel Murphy of Chicago avenue station.
“You know very well,” shouted Dr. Springer, “what captain I mean. His name is Murphy.”
Capt. Murphy then rallied to the dignity of the law with these words:
I’ll warn you, doctor, we have been friendly and cofiperative, but I don’t know how long we can be so. You can be put downstairs (meaning put In a foul cell in the basement of the police station). Get that prejudice off your chest and get rid of that air here your brains are supposed to be.
That badinage is perfectly illustrative of tbe improprieties with which inquests and trials are conducted in Chicago. You have seen in Chapter V, of this sorry chronicle how in the trial of Booze Gangsters Anselmi and Scalisi there was nothing which the lawyers on both sides did not dare to say and almost nothing which the court did not endure. The effect was far-reaching, and that effect was to show gangdom that it was dealing with a mouthy, irresponsible, and contemptible officialdom.
Once more the Wall of Silence.
Not one of the survivors of the fusillade that killed Weiss and Murray spoke any illuminating words about the crime.
But documents found on Weiss’ body and in the safe of the flower shop under Weiss’ headquarters
talked for them and shed a blistering light on how bold boozedoInJ dares to be.
On Weiss’ body was found a list of all the men called for jury service in the trial of Joe Saltis, a Chicago beer runner, gunman, and co-criminal of Weiss, who was charged with killing “Mitters” Foley, another gangster of boozedom. And in the safe of the flower shop, which had become Weiss’ blind as it had been Dean O’Banion’s, was found a list of the state’s witnesses who were to testify against Saltis.
McDonald’s Pointed Question.
“What,” asked Special State’s Attorney Charles A. McDonald with considerable pertinence, “was a. man of Weiss’ type doing with the names of jurors and witnesses? If there ever was a case where the decent people of the community were up against the mighty forces of the lawless element, this is it. Already two of our witnesses are scared away or bribed.”
Now mark this:
On the afternoon of the fusillade Lawyer O’Brien had come to the blind direct from the courtroom where the jury which was to try Saltis had just been completed. And the actual trying of the murder charge against Saltis was to begin the next morning. Also, on Weiss’ body $5,300 was found.
On Murray’s body $2,160 was found.
Lawyer O’Brien had about $1,500 in his pockets when he reached the blind with Weiss and Murray.
Saltis was acquitted on the basis of a dubious alibi aDd in the face of identification of him as the slayer by eyewitnesses.
The fund which gangdom raised for the defense of Saltis amounted—so the police were told—to $75,000.
The aftermath of the murder of Weiss was so conventional that it made Chicago grin. Chief of Police Collins ordered a reorganization of the department “in order,” as he put it, “to run gangsters forever out of the city.”
Fresh Every Hour.
Gangdom did not seem deeply impressed by that, and Vincent McErlane said to the pOlice, who were annoying him for carrying concealed weapons, “If you arrest me ten times a day you’ll find a gun on me each time.” Thereupon Mr. McErlane was promptly released on bonds.
Chicago had lain down to gangdom.
But If the gangsters did not fear the police, they did fear one another.
The sweeping of Capone’s Cicero headquarters with machine gun fire from mOving automobiles had killed nobody, but it was an impressive demonstration of force, The murder of Weiss In reprisal had been so slickly accomplished, and the getaway had been so easy, that boozedom decided that these reprisals and counter reprisals might do what the law manifestly could not do—that is, exterminate gangdom. Not only had the murder of Weiss taken the heart out of everybody, but the public was getting red hot. Chicago, callous to Violence within its borders, was writhing under denunciations and criticism from outside.
Gangdom figured that It could not win against itself, however successful it had been for six years in winning against the city. So it sought peace within itself as a strictly business measure.
Sidelights on Maxie Eisen.
A stipulation preliminary to the peace meeting, which was held in a downtown hotel, was that nobody should bring pistols to it. Before it there were tentative conversations between Maxie Eisen, racketeer, bootlegger, and labor terrorist, and Tony Lombardo, grocer and racketeer, who sold yeast and sugar to gangs of Italians and Sicilians who operated illicit stills. Eisen spoke for the north side gangsters who were under the leadership of “Bugs” Moran and “Schemer” Drucci, now that Weiss was under ground. Lombardo, who in 1928 was killed by gangsters amid throngs of pedestrians in the heart of Chicago’s loop, spoke for Capone and his affiliated crews. Eisen has an appalling record of violence. Concerning him Mrs. Mamie Oberlander, fish dealer, who wished to continue in business, gave Chicago’s most useful citizen, Frank J_ Loesch, this illuminating detail in writing so recently as July, 1928:
- … I went to Eisen and pleaded with him to let me open a store, and he agreed on condition that I gave him $3,000. I have no money to give, as I am a poor woman. I threatened to tell my trouble to some public officer, but this brought a hearty laugh from Eisen.
“He said he is the boss and Is not afraid of any official or anybody in the city or county; that nobody can make him do what he doesn’t want to do. I feel sure, Mr. Loesch, you will help me to open a store so I can make a living again for me and my children.
Peace for Four Months.
The supreme irony in these annals is that, by the machinations ot such\ scalawags as Elsen and Lombardo, and not by the efficiency of the officers of the law, Chicago did obtain in late 1926 and early 1927 about four months of relative relIef from the scandal ot gang murders.
Outstanding provisions ot the peace treaty were:
“Lay down arms. Everything is off the slate.
“No more killings or beatings .
“No more stealing ot customers.
“No more ribbing. (That is, malicious gossip with inflammatory intent.)
“One side (meaning Capone’s Cicero gang and its affiiliated lesser gangs) to take the territory south of Madison street, Chicago, and the other side (meaning the Moran-Drucci-Saltis gangsters) to take the territory north of Madison street.
“Each side to punish its own men if they break the treaty.”
- John Stege, then a captain, now deputy commissioner of police, examining the automatic shotgun and shells found in the second ambush that had been set for Weiss in case the first failed. The golf bag was used to conceal the weapons.
Banquet of the Buzzards.
A banquet was given In a Chicago restaurant named for an illustrious Italian city to celebrate the peace. It was like a feast of ghouls—a word meaning in its ea rlier Significance, as you will recall, demons who feasted on corpses. A man present—not a gangster-told me that the talk turned him faint. Old murders were recalled. Projected murders that had failed to come off were discussed.
“Remember that night eight months ago,” one former rival asked another, “when your car was chased by two of ours?”
“I sure do!”
“Well. we were going to kill you that night—but you had a woman with you.”
Shouts of laughter.
At It Again.
The peace lasted-so far as the killing of outstanding scoundrels went until the night of Mach 11, 1927. On that night two of Joe Saltis’ gangsters—Frank Koncil and Charles Hrubeck—were killed in one ot Saltis’ automobiles by men who bore down on them in another automobile and delivered a fusillade. The Saltis gang had suffered by the peace treaty. Less than a week before he was killed Koncil had said to police detectives:
“We’re down. We’re broke. But we won’t stay that way. We’re going to get back what we used to have. We won’t be pushed around any more. And if anybody gets in the way we’ll take care of him.”
And so the shame of Chicago flamed up again along the old lines-running fights in boozedom, slayings in broad daylight, mistrials, corrupt trials, no trials at all.
In these chapters on the killing of O’Banion, the attempt to kill Torrio. the killing of the Gennas, and the killing of Hymie Weiss, you have had representative crimes of boozedom.
But those murders and attempted murders were not its worst crimes. Its worse crime was the kind of liquor which it made and which it peddled to the silly customers.
That weird story will make our next chapter.
Chicago Tribune, March 18, 1929
The following letter from former Police Captain Murphy, now Attorney Murphy, is printed as a footnote to the foregoing chapter partly because Mr. Murphy wishes to present his side of a story and partly because of the light his letter sheds on the way in which some officials allow petty rancors to impede the course of justice.—J. O’D. B., March 18, 1929
- Dear Mr. Bennett:
I was somewhat surprised in reading your article, Chicago’s Gangland, yesterday to learn that you had put me in rather a bad light in the matter of the Hymie Weiss and Patrick Murray murders. I refer, of course, to the paragraph which dealt with the inquest over Weiss and Murray and your pen picture of the argument between myself and Doctor Springer which did me a great injustice because you have taken up the argument too late.
Now, for your information, Mr. Bennett, because I do not believe you would knowingly injure me in this or any other connection, let me say that this discussion between Doctor Springer and myself really began the night of the murders when the esteemed Doctor strolled into my office at Chicago Avenue Station and inquired first for Deputy Commissioner Zimmer, then for Chief of Detectives Shoemaker. H first asked me where Zimmer was, next where Shoemaker was, then asked m who was in charge of the district. He then asked how much money had been found on Murray’s body. I told him the approximate amount: said I had not personally seen it but the desk sergeant took charge in the usual way and record was made thereof. He then asked me how much money had been found on Weis’ body and I approximated the amount in that case something between five and six thousand dollars, as I recalI it, including some checks.
The Doctor said, “Where is that money?” I said, “It is in the Henrotin Hospital,” where Weiss’ body lay. He very brusquely said, “I’ll take charge of that.” I said, “All right, Doctor, perfectly all right.” The next I heard from th Doctor was about a quarter of ten that same night when he called me to tell me he was taking the money with him, and that he was sending over the clothing of Weiss. The Doctor’s whole attitude from the beginning was highly offensive. Now, you know, Mr. Bennett, it was a matter of indifference to me who took charge of the money, the Henrotin Hospital, the coroner or the police department. However, Doctor Springer seemed to be unusually interested in money, as you may learn through your police reporters that was nothing unusual for the Doctor.
Then on the following day as the inquest progressed, I took upon myself to ask some pertinent questions of the Doctor, which is not unusual. The questions, as I recall them, were: from his examination of the bodies of Weiss and Murray would he say that the bullets fired into them were fired from the same level as they were or from a higher level, such as the second floor, and he answered, “I believe a much higher level.” I then asked him how much money had been found on Weiss’ body and where the money was. He mentioned the amount, being obviously nettled. He told me that he had taken the money to the coroner’s office adding that didn’t I think it was all right. I assured him I thought it was all right, but I wanted the record to show where the money was because it was a little bit unusual for the coroner’s office to have taken the money in this particular way None of the other coroner’s physicians, as I recall it, ever did that.
It was at that tim.e that he made mention of the “dumb police captains.” Now, Mr. Bennett, you would have to know Doctor Springer to know the feeling in the police department toward that gentleman. For years it has been his practice to browbeat policemen, especially of the lower ranks. Quite naturally, I asked him what ‘he meant by that remark, and he replied, “You know what I mean.” The rest you have quoted correctly. I assure you no great injustice would have been done had the dear doctor been put into that “foul cell.”
For some reason unknown to me Doctor Springer was discharged by Coroner Wolf the next day. I note you made no mention of that, although, as stated, I do not know just what the cause of the discharge was, whether his actions at the inquest had anything to do with it, or whether an accumulation of complaints, as I am more inclined to believe, was the cause or his discharge.
Now, Mr. Bennett, I appreciate the fact that poetic license is permissible at times to more forcibly express our thoughts. You apparently want to bring out the point that officials, as you call them, “mouthy officials,” are to blame somewhat for conditions as they exist. I am not even saying that that is not so, but I believe you did me a great injustice in your pen picture of that inquest.
Believe me to be.
Sincerely yours,
(Signed) DANIEL F. MURPHY. Attorney at Law,
776 First National Bank Bldg
- ④ The brainiest leader the north side boozedom has had, Hymie Weiss ruled by the might of outsmarting his underlings and his enemies. He held sway over gunmen and politicians alike—until laid low with ten bullets in his body.
⑤ Tony Lombardo, shot down one block from the “world’s busiest corner” while the streets were thronged with shoppers. His demise came after a long reign as a west side racketeer.
CHICAGO GANGLAND BY JAMES O’DONNELL BENNETT
- Gangland 1—Charles Dean O’Banion
Gangland 2—O’Banion Funeral
Gangland 3—Rise and Fall of John Torrio
Gangland 4—The Nefarious Deeds of John Torrio
Gangland 5—Day of Sixty Shots
Gangland 6—The Ferocious of the Gangsters
Gangland 7—TThe End of “Little Hymie”
Gangland 8—Distillers and Distributors of Death
Gangland 9—The Murders of McSwiggin and Esposito
Gangland 10—The Big Fellow
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