Paul R. Kavieff - The Violent Years: Prohibition and The Detroit Mobs

Many people helped me in assembling research material used in The Violent Years. I would like to thank Pat Zacharias and her staff at the Detroit News Reference Library; Mark Harvey, photo archivist at the State Archives of Michigan; Thomas Featherstone of the Walter Reuther Library, Wayne State University; Sharon Brown of the Michigan State Police Central Records Division; John Currie and Mary Zumeth of the State Archives of Michigan; Penelope A. Morris, owner of the P. A. Morris Co., for her help in editing and creating a hard copy of the work; Walter Wasacz of the Hamtramck Citizen newspaper; and Officer Merle Van Marter.

For their support and encouragement, I would like to thank Rosalyn and Rick Smith; Georgia E. Wilder; Pat Henahan; my friends and colleagues at the Wayne State University Engineering Unit; and Mike Webb. A special thanks to Allan Wilson, Senior Editor, and Jeff Nordstedt, Vice President, Barricade Books; and to Carole and Lyle Stuart, Publishers, for having continued faith in my work.

Abadansky, Howard. Organized Crime. Chicago: Nelson-Hall Publishers, 1997.

Albini, Joseph L. The American Mafia: Genesis of a Legend. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1971.

Alix, Ernest Kahlar. Ransom Kidnapping in America 1874- 1975: The Creation of a Capital Crime. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1978.

Allen, Edward J. Merchants of Menace: The Mafia. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas Publishers, 1962.

Asher, Cash. Sacred Cows: A Story of the Recall of Mayor Bowles. Detroit: Published by the author, 1931.

Behr, Edward. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996.

Bonnano, Bill. Bound by Honor: A Mafiosos Story. New York: St. Martins Press, 1998.

Bruns, Roger A. The Bandit Kings. New York: Crown Publishers, 1995.

Cashman, Sean Dennis. Prohibition: The Lie of the Land. New York: The Free Press, 1981.

Catanzano, Raimondo. Men of Respect: A Social History of the Sicilian Mafia. New York: The Free Press, 1992.

Coffee, Thomas M. The Long Thirst: Prohibition in America 1920-1933. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1975.

Cressey, Donald R. Theft of the Nation: The Structure and Operations of Organized Crime in America. New York: Harper and Row Publishers, 1969.

Einstein, Izzy. Prohibition Agent No. 1. New York: Frederick Stokes and Co., 1932.

Engelman, Larry. Intemperance: The Lost War Against Liquor. New York: The Free Press, 1979.

Gervais, G.H. The Rumrunners: A Prohibition Era Scrapbook. Scarborough, Ontario: Firefly Books Ltd., 1980.

Gray, James H. The Roar of the Twenties. Ontario: MacMillan of Canada, 1975.

Helmer, William J. The Gun That Made the Twenties Roar. Toronto, Ontario: The MacMillan Co., 1969.

Helmer, William, with Steve Mattix. Public Enemies: Americas Criminal Past 1919-1940. New York: Checkmark Books, 1998.

Hess, Henner. Mafia and Mafioso. New York: New York University Press, 1998.

Hoover, J. Edgar. Persons in Hiding. New York: Little Brown Co., 1938.

Hopkins, Ernest Jerome. Our Lawless Police. New York: Viking Press, 1931.

Hunt, C.W. Booze, Boats and Billions: Smuggling Liquid Gold. Ontario: McClelland and Stewart, 1988.

Illman, Harry R. Unholy Toledo. San Francisco: Polemic Press Publications, 1985.

Kavieff, Paul R. The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit 1910-1945. New York: Barricade Books, 2000.

Kelly, Robert J. Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States: From Capone to the New Urban Underworld. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.

Kirkpatrick. E.E. Crimes Paradise. San Antonio, TX: The Naylor Company, 1934.

Kobler, John. Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: G.P. Putnams Sons, 1970.

Lee, Henry. How Dry We Were: Prohibition Revisited. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1975.

Lynch, Dennis Tilden. Criminals and Politicians. New York: The MacMillan Co., 1932.

Mason, Philip P. Rumrunning and the Roaring Twenties: Prohibition on the Michigan-Ontario Waterway. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1995.

Merz, Charles. The Dry Decade. New York: Doubleday, Doran Publishers, 1931.

Nelli, Humbert S. The Business of Crime: Italians and Syndicate Crime in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.

Partridge, Eric. A Dictionary of the Underworld. New York: The MacMillan Co., 1950.

Perello, Rick. To Kill the Irishman: The War That Crippled the Mafia. Cleveland: Next Hat Press, 1998.

Pitkin, Thomas Monroe, and Cordasco Francesco. The Black Hand: A Chapter in Ethnic Crime. Tutowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1977.

Purvis, Melvin. American Agent. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1936.

Reed, Lear B. Human Wolves. Kansas City: Brown White-Lowell Press, 1941.

Reid, Ed. The Grim Reapers: The Anatomy of Organized Crime in America. Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1969.

Rudell, Mary E. (Ed.) Detroit Murders. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1948.

Ruth, David E. Inventing the Public Enemy: The Gangster in American Culture 1918-1934. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Scott, George Ryley. The History of Capital Punishment. London: Torchstream Publishers, 1950.

Seruadio, Gaia. Mafioso: A History of the Mafia from its Origins to the Present. New York: Stein and Day, 1976.

Sheridan, Leo W. I Killed for the Law. New York: Stackpole Sons, 1938.

Sullivan, Edward Dean. The Snatch Racket. New York: The Vanguard Press, 1932.

Woodford, Frank B. Alex J. Groesbeck: Portrait of a Public Man. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1962.

Woodford, Frank B., and Arthur M. Woodford. All Our Yesterdays: A Brief History of Detroit. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1969.

Case No. 2206; Location: St. Joseph, Michigan, Berrien County; Crime: Murder; Date: December 14, 1929; Victim: Charles L. Skelly; Suspect: Fred Burke alias Dane.

Case No. 2389: County: Wayne; Officers: William Watkins; Location: Detroit; Date: July 1, 1925; Crime: Bank Robbery; Victim: Peoples Wayne County Bank; Suspect: Frank Cammarata.

Case No. 1136; Location: Cassopolis; Crime: Bank Robbery; Date: November 24, 1926; Victim: First National Bank; Suspects: Chester Tutha, Joe Konen, James Allen, Sam Bokosky, Clarence Madden, and Steven Racskewski.

Case No. 5970; Location: Albion, Calhoun County, Michigan; Crime: B&E Store and Safe Robbery; Date: March 9, 1936; Victim: Kroger Store; Suspects: Louis Fleisher, Chester Tutha, Sam Bernstein, Harry Fleisher.

Case No. 5954; Location: Jackson, Michigan, Jackson County; Crime: B&E and Safe Robbery; Date: May 11, 1936; Victim: Isabel Seed Co.; Suspects: Louis Fleisher, Sam Bernstein, Chester Tutha, John Godlewski, Robert Deptla.

Case No. 5954; Location: Jackson, Michigan, Jackson County, Crime: B&E and Safe Robbery; Date: June 2, 1936; Victim: Riverside Packing Co.; Suspects: Louis Fleisher, Sam Bernstein, Chester Tutha, John Godlewski, Robert Deptla.

Detroit Evening Times

Detroit Free Press

Detroit News

Hamtramck Citizen

Pontiac Press

The directory of Gangland is a complicated affair. Life in that last of the absolute monarchies runs not in straight lines but in sharp zigzags. Leaderships, alliances, friendships and enemies are constantly changing.

The Detroit News, 1923

T he modern Detroit area underworld organization was born out of one of the bloodiest gang wars in the history of the underworld. It began shortly after the Michigan Prohibition Law became effective on May 1, 1918. This internecine warfare, which became known as the Giannola/Vitale Gang War, was to rage for nearly three years. Before it ended, all of the established leaders of both of the warring factions would be dead. Antonio (Tony), Sam, and Vito Giannola immigrated to the United States from Sicily around the turn of the century. The three brothers eventually settled in Detroits Italian community, which was located on the citys lower east side.