The Crime Book

152

PROHIBITION HAS

MADE NOTHING

BUT TROUBLE

THE BEER WARS, 1923–29

O

n a rainy Friday night in

Chicago, Illinois, six

armed gangsters burst

through the front doors of a saloon

and attacked the bar owner,

beating him senseless with the

butts of their guns. A few days

earlier, Jacob Geis had refused to

purchase beer from the South Side

O’Donnell gang, choosing instead

to remain a loyal customer of the

Saltis-McErlane gang.

In front of the saloon’s patrons,

O’Donnell gangsters threatened

Geis, demanding that he purchase

alcohol from them and them alone.

The bar owner was left in a bloody

heap with multiple skull fractures.

The late night shakedown, which

took place on 7 September 1923,

was the beginning of Chicago’s

so-called “Beer War” – a gang war

that left a trail of violence and

death in its wake.

Territorial monopolies

This spate of gang violence had its

roots in Prohibition. In 1920, federal

Prohibition policies outlawed the

sale of alcohol across the US. Soon

after, bootleggers emerged to fulfil

the demand for illicit booze,

smuggling alcohol from other

countries and bottling their own

concoctions. The Mafia was heavily

involved in the bootlegging trade

and rose to dominance as a result

of its success in supplying alcohol

during Prohibition.

The most notorious criminal

to profit from bootlegging was

Chicago mobster Al Capone.

Capone allegedly earned $60

million (£643 million today) each

year from the industry. His success

was thanks to the monopoly that

his operation – the Chicago Outfit

• held over the city’s South Side.
  Capone worked under Johnny
  Torrio, who had divided the South
  Side of the city into territories.
  Each territory was controlled by

IN CONTEXT

LOCATION

Chicago, Illinois, US

THEME

Gang warfare

BEFORE

1910 Chicago police arrest

more than 200 gangsters from

a crime family known as Black

Hand in a raid in Little Italy.

16 January 1917 The Illinois

State Attorney indicts eight

corrupt politicians and police

officers, including the Chief of

Police, for bribery and collusion

with Chicago gangsters.

AFTER

29 July 1932 John, Arthur,

and James Volpe – Pittsburgh

bootleggers – are shot in a

coffee shop on the orders of

local mob boss John Bazzano.

26 September 1933 George

Barnes Jr, alias “Machine Gun

Kelly”, is arrested in Memphis,

Tennessee, for bootlegging

and armed robbery.

When I sell liquor, it’s called

bootlegging. When my patrons

serve it on Lake Shore Drive,

it’s called hospitality.

Al Capone

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153

A police investigator stands amid

containers of moonshine after a South

Side raid in 1922. Gangsters often paid

the police to raid rival breweries or to

warn them of raids on their own.

See also: The Hawkhurst Gang 136–37 ■ The Sicilian Mafia 138–45

ORGANIZED CRIME

a smaller gang, which supplied

speakeasies – and a lucrative

network of brothels and casinos

• via Torrio’s breweries. The North
  Side of Chicago was controlled
  by the Irish-American North Side
  Mob, with whom Torrio had
  agreed a truce.
  The Outfit controlled all of
  Chicago’s South Side except for one
  area under the jurisdiction of the
  Saltis-McErlane Gang. There was
  one other gang vying for a piece of
  the South Side – the O’Donnells,
  who controlled no territory but
  owned breweries. They were eager
  to fight existing gangs for a piece of
  the action.

City at war

The gangs of Chicago fought over

customers, undercutting each

other, threatening bar owners, and

stealing from distributors. Their

jostling over territorial boundaries

often spilled blood. Gangsters

met violent deaths – usually on

the wrong end of the “Chicago

Typewriter”, the Thompson

machine gun, introduced to

the city by Frank McErlane.

The Beer War raged between

the O’Donnells and the Saltis-

McErlanes, who also went to war

with Capone allies, the Sheldon

Gang. In late 1925, a Sheldon

member was murdered by a Saltis-

McErlane mobster. Sheldons killed

two Saltis gunmen in retaliation,

escalating the gangs’ rivalry.

The North Side truce also fell

apart in the 1920s. North Side boss

Dean O’Banion was killed in 1924,

and Torrio retired after surviving an

assassination attempt. He handed

everything over to Capone, who

inherited a bloody war for control of

Chicago that culminated in the

Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre of

1929, in which seven North Side

gangsters were killed.

Many of these bootleg gangs

were folded into larger syndicates

when Prohibition finally ended in

1933. Capone’s organization, on
      the other hand, diversified into
      other rackets, such as gambling,
      prostitution, and narcotics
      trafficking, and would dominate
      Chicago for years to come. ■

Prohibition, crime, and the economy

From 1920 to 1933, the ban on

the production, transportation,

and sale of alcohol had the

unintended effect of creating

a rise in mass disobedience.

Despite the Prohibition

movement’s expectation that

outlawing alcohol would reduce

crime, it actually led to a higher

crime rate due to bootlegging.

During Prohibition, crime rates

in the United States increased

by 24 per cent, as criminal

organizations supplied the

black market in alcohol sales.

Prohibition also had an effect

on the US economy. During the

1920s, the cost of running the

Bureau of Prohibition increased

from $4.4 million (£41 million

today) to $13.4 million (£125

million today). Closing

manufacturing plants and

taverns also caused an economic

downturn. Most large-scale

alcohol producers were shut

down, leading to a reversal in

the technological advancements

that had been made in the

alcoholic beverage industry.

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