Binder - Al Capones Beer Wars

I am grateful to many fine historians and numerous friends for many things. I have learned much about the Chicago Heights and south suburban gangsters from my long-time comrade-in-research Matt Luzi. Matt has also been a great sounding board for ideas, and he read the entire manuscript and provided comments. Mars Eghigian, another coauthor and friend, was ever ready to discuss Chicagos underworld and to share anything that he himself uncovered. , which is based on our joint research, owes much to him and also to Jeff Thurston. Jeff is a tireless investigator of the Windy Citys long criminal history, especially its gangland murders. In his own research he has found many nuggets of valuable information and has produced numerous insights, which he has gladly passed on. Furthermore, he, like Mars Eghigian, has always been available to hear new ideas and to critically comment on them.

Mario Gomes, whose only shortcoming is that he lives in Canada, read the entire manuscript and has been an extremely energetic participant in discussions with me about the Prohibition Era over the past twenty-plus years. He also shared with me copies of many useful documents he has uncovered. His excellent website My Al Capone Museum is the gold standard when it comes to careful historical research on the Internet. Another Canadian, Rose Keefe, is the poet laureate of the North Side gang. She has been a great source of information on Dean OBanion and his gang. Bob Marzewski, who lives near Chicago, read various parts of this book in its early stages and helped me explore a number of topics from different angles. Bill Balsamo provided a variety of information over the years on New Yorks underworld and the early careers of Al Capone and John Torrio.

I have had quite a few spirited dialogues with Mark Levell since 1991, when I joined the Merry Gangsters Literary Society (MGLS) in Chicago. He is a treasure trove of information and a master of the literature on Al Capone and Prohibition. I am also forever grateful to the late Nate Kaplan, who was one of the founders and the chief architect of the MGLS. He relaxed the rules so that I could join the group, which greatly accelerated my interest in the subject. Nate later encouraged me to serve as its president, and he vigorously supported me during my years in that office.

Bob Schoenberg and Larry Bergreen kindly shared with me various materials they used in their biographies of Al Capone, and Bob, in particular, has greatly influenced my research in this area. Retired investigators and police officers Art Bilek, Bob Fuesel, Wayne Johnson, and Chuck Schauer have been excellent sources of information on police work, weaponry, and organized crime. So were the retired members of the Chicago Police Departments Intelligence Unit who allowed me to attend their monthly meetings. Mari Huff was another stalwart of the Merry Gangsters who left no stone unturnednot even a tombstone!when digging into the citys gangster history. She provided me with valuable information on many major hoodlums. Another old friend, the very knowledgeable Jeanette Callaway, most graciously searched the Chicago Crime Commissions files for specific information and checked several important facts. Rio Burke, John OBrien, and Bill Roemer, who are now departed, were very helpful in explaining intricacies of Chicagos underworld to me. I miss all three of them.

A number of the aforementioned individuals have written their own books and articles on the subject. Collectively this feisty group of local tommy gun historians, as William Brashler once described the MGLS and which also applies to its adjunct members, has contributed a great deal, through very careful research, to our understanding of the Prohibition Era in Chicago, the bootleggers, the other racketeers, and the Beer Wars.

Separately, Bill Brashler and the late Ed Baumann, both very talented authors, gave me excellent advice about writing and publishing. I have also benefitted from Alex Hortiss knowledge of the publishing world and his contacts in it. Most recently, Deirdre Bair and Diane Capone took time out from writing their own books to read the entire manuscript and to comment on it. Deirdre also counseled me on writing and publishing. I owe a further debt to Scott Mendel for his diligent work as my agent, and to my editor, Steven L. Mitchell, and the other wonderful people at Prometheus Books for their help in bringing this book to publication. Mark Eckstein helped greatly by preparing the maps that appear here.

Valuable assistance was provided by the special collections departments at the University of Chicago and the University of Illinois at Chicago libraries and the staff of the Chicago History Museums research center, especially by Lesley Martin. Furthermore, I am grateful to various individuals, some of whom knew the bootleggers quite well, who provided me with information or photos, including several people who do not want attribution.

This book began as a joint project with Professor Arthur Lurigio of Loyola University in Chicago. Unfortunately, his teaching, administrative, and research commitments made it much too difficult for him to be actively involved as things progressed. Nonetheless, I am grateful to him for his generous assistance. Finally, a large thank you goes to my family. Over the last twenty-five years they have indulged my research into Chicagos nefarious past and the collection of photos related to it. I am sure they wondered at times what, if anything, would come from all those hours of digging and collecting. This book is, among other things, what came of it.

I can be reached by e-mail at .

December 2016
River Forest, Illinois

Humbert Nelli and Robert Lombardo argue that Black Hand killings in Chicago essentially ended by 1920. Nelli attributes this to three factors: federal government prosecution of extortion, blackhanders becoming bootleggers during Prohibition, and restrictions on foreign immigration that decreased the supply of victims. Yet, the CCC list contains more than sixty murders in Chicago that occurred from 1920 to 1933 that were Black Hand related. Therefore, further examination of this issue is warranted.

Unfortunately, in his analysis Nelli apparently misquotes the original sources. For example, Nellis overall conclusion that Black Hand activity virtually ceased by 1920 is based on a statement by John Landesco that due to federal prosecutions of letters sent by mail, [e]xtortion by mail has ceased and little more is heard of the black hand, but extortion by violence or gun and the bomb has not ceased. While Landesco argues that Black Hand letters largely stopped, he clearly states that this type of extortion and the related violence continued:

If, in late years, bombing and murders have not been ascribed to black hand, it is not because threats of extortion have not been common, but because the modus operandi has been changed and the threats do not come by letter. One of the probable reasons for the present rarity of the threat by letter is that the perpetrators lay themselves open to prosecution in the Federal Courts, which have occasionally succeeded in convicting such criminals. In Sicily, where telephones are even now rare, the threat was usually communicated by letter. In the earlier days it was thus in Chicago. The

The demands for money could have been communicated by telephone or by a secretly hand-delivered note if mail was too risky. For example, the