Meadowmoor Dairy
Life Span: 1930-Present
Location: 1334 South Peoria
Architect:
Chicago Tribune, May 20, 1932
FLINGS BOMB OUT OF DAIRY PLANT AS IT EXPLODES
Windows were broken early today in the Meadowmoor Dairy company building at 1334-42 South Peoria street by a bomb which a night watchman had discovered and tossed on the sidewalk outside just before it exploded.
The watchman, Max Rosen, 1350 South Peoria street, said the fuse on the bomb was sputtering when he picked it up on the stairs inside the front door.
The police were informed that the Meadowmoor company was a newly organized concern which had not yet started operations and that the management planned to sell milk for 9 cents a quart instead of the standard 11 cents. There were three watchmen on duty in the plant, two guarding the machinery inside to prevent vandalism, while Rosen patrolled the exterior.
Chicago Tribune, May 22, 1932
RACKET BUREAU TO PROBE DAIRY PLANT BOMBING
Investigation of the bombing of the Meadowmoor Dairy company, 1334
South Peoria street, last Friday morning, will be opened tomorrow by the racket bureau of the state’s attorney’s office, It was announced last night by Edward Dufficy, assistant state’s attorney. Dufficy said the investigation would be opened by callIng in officers of the milk wagon drivers’ union.
At the city health department it was said yesterday that the newly formed dairy has not yet met requirements on which a milk plant license can be issued.
“The new equipment in the Meadowmoor plant has not met standards of the board of health in two tests recently made,” declared Dr. Herman N. Bundensen. “They are coöperating with us and regardless of any local squabbles, a license will be issued when the standard requirements are reached.
The Meadowmoor company announced after the bombing Friday that it would retail milk at 9 cents a quart, two cents less than the regular price in Chicago, J. L. Selph, manager, said farmers near Sun Prairie, Wis., and in five other localities have offered to supply the milk.
Chicago Tribune, November 18, 1932
Cut Price Dairy Concern Sues Rivals; Charges “Milk Trust”
Charges that a ” milk trust” is operating in Chicago were contained in a bill in equity filed in the federal District court yesterday by the Meadowmoor Dairies, Inc., a Chicago concern which sells milk at 9 cents a quart. The suit seeks legal redress for alleged business restrictions imposed by the Pure Milk association, the Milk Wagon Drivers’ union, No. 753, and 77 dairy concerns in the city.
The bill of complaint, filed by Attorney Arthur F. Albert of Cook & Albert, charges that the Pure Milk association refused to sell the Meadowmoor concern milk which would be retailed at a lower price than that sold by other dairies using the association’s milk. The suit is brought under the Sherman and Clayton antitrust acts. Further charges are that dairy equipment concerns refused to sell the plaintiff supplies “because of the general conspiracy to destroy its business.” Instances of violence inflicted on those doing business with the dairy company are alleged.
Prepare to Vole on Scale.
The suit was filed as officers of the Milk Wagon Drivers’ union were preparing to call for a secret ballot of its members on a proposal of the dairy companies to cut the wage scale of drivers from $45 to $40 per week.
A turbulent special meeting of the union in Car Men’s hall, Ashland boulevard and Van Buren street, was adjourned on Wednesday night without a poll when it became apparent that the pay cut proposal would be defeated.
Yesterday the union officers were placing the blame for the boisterous session on a group of members of an outlaw organization, the Chicago Teamsters’ union. These men, it was charged, have been attempting to incite the membership of 7,000 drivers into attempts to throw out the present officers or give them “every possible resistance” in conducting the union’s affairs.
Trice Cut Awaits Wage Vote.
The teamsters’ union is supplying drivers for the Meadowmoor concern, requiring each driver to pay $50 membership dues and other costs. Meadowmoor dairies is getting its milk supply from a dairy plant at Lyons, Wis., which also supplies two other Chicago companies, the Renz and Model dairies. While all three pay the same prices for their products, one is retailing milk at 9 cents a quart and the other two at 11 cents.
Dairy companies yesterday were awaiting the outcome of the secret ballot of the drivers before announcing the exact share the farmers and companies would assume in effecting a reduction of all milk prices to 9 cents a quart retail. The pay cut means a loss of more than $40,000 per week to the drivers, it was said.
Chicago Tribune, May 28, 1940
Echo of Gangster Threats Again Disturbs Milk Union
By James Doherty.
Convoys brought 10 tank trucks, 2 of them pulling trailer tanks, safely into the city last night just like in the days of prohibition. And over on the west side 200 armed men, half of them -city policemen, saw those tank trucks safely delivered to their consignee and emptied of their contents milk. And downtown, where dairy of ficials and union representatives had been wrestling all day and night with the great problem of a basis for the settlement of the strike of more than 6,200 men, the history of the Meadowmoor Dairy company, owner of the convoyed trucks, was being recalled.
A Switch In Rackets.
The end of prohibition put the bootleggers into the milk business. Milkmen agreed that when Capone mobsters first cast covetous glances in 1932 on the milk wagon drivers’ union with its $1,000,000 in the treas ury, misfortune began for the drivers. The organization of the Meadow- moor company, which began selling milk to stores for resale to the public at 9 cents a quart, and the activities of Murray Humphreys and his fellow Capone gangsters in milk circles were simultaneous. Eventually the Meadow- moor company, which has its plant at 1334 South Peoria street, forced the price for store sales to 8½ cents per quart, while unionized home de livery milk cost 13 cents per quart.
That differential of 4½ cents per quart sent thousands of housewives to carrying their milk home from the food stores and the number of milk delivery routes dwindled from 7,000 to 4,500.
The Meadowmoor employed nonunion help, it was explained; the union drivers averaged $52 per week. Basic Cause of Trouble. The cause of the present strike, or lockout as some call it, is that the companies employing union help asked the drivers to take a cut of somewhere between $14 and $18 per week, and asked their inside workers to take a similar cut. All concerned agreed that the reason was just lliis: That the cost of home delivery must be reduced or more and more of the business will go to the food stores, a large percentage of which are supplied by the Meadowmoor company. The union officials are admittedly facing a problem: Should they, if they can, “organize” the Meadowmoor company which they blame for the economic disturbance of the industry? Should they enter into a contract with this company which, in times past they linked with Capone and Humphreys? Peace Moves Recalled.
It was reported that Attorney William Parrillo, who has figured in west side politics and served as an assistant United States attorney, had broached the subject of possible unionization of the Meadowmoor company’s employes. He acted as its attorney, unionists said, and it was reported the other large dairies were encouraging the union to make peace with Meadowmoor. It was recalled that Steve Sumner, who was replaced as secretary-treasurer of the union a few months ago after 40 years of service, had twice testified about the Humphreys hostility to the union milk drivers. “Steve, in your time it was brass knuckles,” Sumner said Humphreys and other gangsters told in 1932. ” Now it’s machine guns and bombs.”
Tells of $100,000 Offer.
“They offered me $100,000 to get out and let them take over the union,” Sumner testified in 1934 before Judge Philip Finnegan. “I told him the dealers would never stand for him in the union and he replied: ‘A few sticks of dynamite will take care of that.'”
Last year Sumner testified in the United States courthouse before Bolon B. Turner, member of the United States Tax Board of Appeals.
“It was Humphreys who picked up the $50,000 I left on the seat of the automobile for Bob Fitchie’s ranson,” Sumner said. “With him were George (Red) Barker and William (Three Finger) White.” (Fltchie was president of the Milk Drivers union at the time of the kidnaping.)
Humphreys did not deny getting the money. The government, which sought to collect $37,000 tax on the ransom money from Humphreys, has not yet decided his appeal, which was heard in February, 1939.
Early Deals Told.
“Humphreys and his fellow gangsters visited me at the union headquarters and said I didn’t know how to make money out of the union,” Sumner, who Is now In his nineties, testified. “When he found he couldn’t do business with me, and I had fortified the union headquarers, he told me he was starting in the milk business and wanted me to let him operate for six weeks with nonunion drivers until he could get organized.
“He said prohibition was soon going to end and he had to find some business to take care of his beer runners. “He said he intended to force the larger companies to buy his new milk company out,” the veteran union leader said on another occasion.
Plant Bombed at Opening.
The opening of the Meadowmoor plant was accompanied by a bombing of its premises on May 19, 1932. The next day it was announced the com pany planned to sell milk at 9 cents a quart the regular price of all other distributors then was 11 cents.
Police and federal officials ques tioned Humphreys about the Meadowmoor company and questioned its offi cials about Humphreys. Privately, Humphreys would admit being in the milk business, but he wasn’t telling anything about anything to anybody, He was being groomed to succeed Capone when Capone went to federal prison, and Humphreys didn’t want any one to know about his own in come.
In 1934 Humphreys went to federal prison for not paying taxes on his income of $60,000 in 1932. When he came out, 18 months later, he was rated as Public Enemy No. 1, but later this title was to be transferred to Frank the Enforcer Nitti, who, state and federal officials said, was and is, in reality, Humphreys’ boss.
Out Now, He Says.
A few weeks ago Humphreys said he was out of the milk business. But the union officials and drivers are not yet certajn’he told the truth, they said. And so, last night at 11 o’clock, as the caravan of milk trucks pulled up to the Peoria street plant, the boys over at the Coliseum and the negotiators in the Stevens hotel spoke of Humphreys. Humphreys, they said, had brought the milk industry into a chaotic condition, reminiscent of what gangsters did to the country in the days before repeal.
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