The Crime Book

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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