The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 (8 page)

The
inside workers worked in the plants cleaning, dyeing, and pressing
the clothing. They were the bulk of the cleaning labor force. The
third group in the industry were the Retail Tailors.

In
early 1924, a price war raged between wholesale cleaning plants
driving down industry prices. Most large wholesalers were losing
money. Retail tailors avoided cleaning bills by merely switching
their business to another plant.

The
situation was ripe for a labor racketeer to step in and gain control
of the industry's unions. He appeared in the form of Chicago union
organizer and labor racketeer Ben Abrams. The idea of making the
cleaning and dyeing industry into a racket began in Chicago, with a
group of labor racketeers who'd infiltrated labor unions in order to
manipulate the cleaning and dyeing industry.

A
writer of the era described that city's cleaning and dyeing racket as
a "collusive agreement" or a racket that grew out of the
greed of legitimate businessmen, labor leaders, and the underworld.

A
"collusive agreement" was the hardest racket to expose.
Respectable businessmen were part of it, and when it came under
scrutiny the principals hid behind legitimate business institutions.
In the Cleaners and Dyers War the legitimate business institution was
the Detroit Federation of Labor.

Ben
Abrams was affiliated with the American Federation of Labor. Frank X.
Martel, President of the Detroit Federation of Labor, called upon
Abrams to
come
to Detroit to "organize" the cleaning business. At one
point, Ben Abrams and another Chicago labor racketeer were actually
arrested by Detroit police.

They
were charged with carrying concealed weapons and by way of
explanation, they came right out and said they were in the city
because there was a lot of money to be made in the labor racket. They
even offered to cut the police in on their profits! Both had lengthy
Chicago police records for labor related murders—yet in true
underworld fashion they were protected from on high.

The
first attempts to unionize the cleaning and dyeing industry were
unsuccessful, but in the spring of 1925 Abrams suggested that the
wholesalers form an association to control industry prices. Within
three weeks, the largest Detroit area cleaning plants were members of
the newly formed Wholesale Cleaners and Dyers Association.

All
unions were affiliated with the Frank X. Martel-headed Detroit
Federation of Labor. Chicago leader Abrams promised a general price
increase to end price wars if the cleaners and dyers got together and
unionized their plants.

Detroit
cleaners and dyers would soon realize what they had gotten themselves
into. At a meeting of the Laundry Drivers Onion Frank Martel and a
Chicago labor organizer explained what happened in Chicago with
cleaners who got out of line, describing plant bombings, beatings,
the theft of full laundry trucks, and worse for recalcitrant union
members.

When
the newly formed Inside Workers union demanded shorter hours and
time-and-a-half for overtime, Martel prevented them from getting
their demands. As a reward, the Wholesale Cleaners and Dyers
Association gave Martel seven hundred dollars. The "gift"
would eventually tie Martel to Association payoffs during his trial.

Soon
after the industry was organized, wholesalers held a meeting and
decided that the tailors could not switch their business from one
cleaning plant to another without a good reason. A board was set up
to review requests from retail tailors to switch cleaning plants. The
new review board was comprised of a representative from the wholesale
cleaners, retail tailors, and the drivers unions. On the surface,
conditions in the cleaning and dyeing industry seemed to improve.

Abrams
was ready to step out of the picture. When he left, he was given
$1500 from the Wholesale Cleaners and Dyers Association for
organizing the trade. Charles Jacoby Jr., brother-in-law of Purple
Gangster Abe Bernstein, was named by Abrams as the only wholesale
cleaner with whom he would deal directly. During this time, Martel
and Charles Jacoby worked toward establishing the new prices and
policies of the newly unionized cleaning industry.

Jacoby
became the Association's first President and Frank Martel received a
share of union dues. Initially the dues of the Wholesalers Onion were
$25 a week. This changed to 2% of each wholesale cleaning plant's
gross business.

After
the industry was 'organized,' Martel was constantly requesting
donations to what he called the "construction fund." It was
supposed to sponsor pickets and pay for the advertising costs of the
Association. In reality, the money was spent to finance Purple Gang
terrorism used against independent plants who refused to join the
Association.

One
such independent was the Retail Tailors. When
the
Wholesalers Association doubled cleaning prices, Retail Tailors
became outraged. One night in the summer of 1925, they called a
meeting at the Detroit Labor Temple to protest the new price
structure. Frank Martel presided, with a brick in his hand. When a
tailor made an attempt to stand up and protest the price structure,
Martel slammed the brick down on the table and screamed, "Shut
up and sit down, if you know what's good for you!"

Anyone
who raised questions at future union meetings had trouble around
their shops. Bricks destroyed plant windows at night and shops were
stench bombed— a practice which ruined thousands of dollars
worth of clothing. It was the beginning of an industry-wide reign of
terror.

Victims
were businesses whose owners had the "wrong attitude"
toward union organization. The violence steadily escalated into
beatings, thefts, plant bombings, and murder. The Purple Gang and
their associates were used right from the start to keep cleaners and
tailors in line.

They
changed from gambling operators, bodyguards and hijackers to union
terrorists quite easily. They had already been shaking down
underworld operators. Preying on legitimate businessmen was a logical
next step, one that catapulted them into the upper echelon of
organized crime.

Charles
Jacoby Jr. was a key player in the conflict. His marriage to a sister
of the Bernstein brothers was kept under wraps, so the Purple Gang's
connection to the Cleaners and Dyers War remained vague. By the
mid-twenties the Purples had developed such a reputation for savagery
in dealing with enemies that victims in the cleaners and dyers war
said nothing for
fear
for their lives. No one outside of the industry suspected the
infiltration of organized crime.

The
Purple Gang kept everyone's mouth shut through innovative terrorist
techniques. Harry Rosman related, in the famous Purple Gang Trial,
how the association used Purple Gang thugs to destroy his plant.
After his resignation from the Wholesale Cleaners Association, two
men rapped on the door of his independent Famous Cleaners and Dyers
Company. When the night watchman appeared they pulled guns and forced
their way in. Without a word, they tied the terrified watchman to a
post and began dumping gasoline over desk tops and clothing.

They
forced the guard into their car. As they pulled away, one tossed a
lit cigarette lighter through the open door. The guard watched
helplessly from the back seat as the building exploded into flames.
The plant watchman was driven to the country, thrown out of the car
and warned not to return to the plant.

The
Purple's methods with uncooperative union members was equally
violent. After a price increase in 1925, a group of retail tailors
resigned from the union. The union rebels formed two cooperative
cleaning plants, known as The Empire Cleaners and Dyers Company, and
The Novelty Cleaners and Dyers Company. At approximately 4:30 A.M. on
October 26th, 1925 the neighborhood of the Novelty Cleaners and Dyers
plant was rocked by a terrific explosion. Windows in nearby buildings
were shattered and residents jarred out of sleep. When the smoke
cleared, the Novelty plant was demolished.

Investigators
would later discover a nitroglycerin bomb hidden in the plant. The
Empire Cleaners and Dyers Company was also bombed that day. Eleven
tailor
shops had been stench bombed in the week prior to the destruction of
the two plants.

A
couple of months later the Association called a meeting to introduce
its members to the Purple Gang. The Purples, waved their guns and
warned the audience what might happen if they to decided to quit the
organization as their unfortunate colleagues had done. The Purple
Gang was an especially important at this meeting because the
remaining members now owed even higher dues for their businesses. It
was decided that to deal with the detractors the Association would
charge members a weekly increase of 10% of their gross business, to
fund a buy out of non-union plants. Not many protested—once the
independent plants had been bombed, all the Purples had to do to
convince a Wholesaler to get in line was leave a stick of dynamite
with a half-burned fuse at their plant door. Intimidations built up
so severly by 1928 that Samuel Polakoff's pummeled body opened the
floodgates of powerful legitimate businessmen who'd been sucked too
far into the underworld, who'd become more frightened of murder at
the Gang's hands than of turning them in. The official charge was
conspiracy to extort money and the warrant named Charles Jacoby Jr.,
Abe Bernstein, and eleven Purple Gangsters.

During
the Purple Gang pretrial examination, a witness was asked if he knew
why he had to pay dues and where the money was going. He stated that
the money was for protection against plant fires, thefts, bombings
and beatings. He paid the dues to avoid problems with the Purple
gang.

In
addition to the blatant gangster intimidation, the trial would bring
out adminstrative corruption previously known to only a few powerful
players. When

Jacoby
resigned from the union in 1927, it was suspected that he'd attempted
to line up the commision drivers against retail tailors and cleaning
plants. At the same time Jacoby's rival, Harry Rosman, started a
movement to eliminate commissions for drivers and put them on
straight salary, prompting many drivers to quit their plants to side
with Jacoby.

Any
drivers remaining on Rosman's side were then confronted by the
Purples and threatened that if they refused to work for Jacoby, "we
don't know what will happen to you!" According to one tailor,
the labor bosses were trying to divide the tailors and the drivers
because members were beginning to break away from the Association's
control.

Shortly
after the commission drivers sided with Jacoby, a message was
delivered to Harry Rosman. He was told that Jacoby had the power to
eliminate the commission drivers in exchange for $1,000 a week. At
the next union meeting Jacoby attended with a committee of laundry
drivers, introduced himself as business representative of the Drivers
Union, and had a vote taken wherein the commission drivers were
eliminated.

Abe
Bernstein then met with Rosman and told him the Detroit cleaning
industry would be straightened out if Rosman paid him $1000 a week.
Rosman refused and suffered the aforementioned bombing of his Famous
Cleaners and Dyers plant.

The
union eventually agreed to pay Bernstein his money to insure
protection of their plants. It was raised through contributions from
each operator beyond the ordinary weekly dues. At the next meeting,
Jacoby took the floor and announced that the only way he would be a
party to the agreement was if the Assciation agreed to make Abe
Bernstein boss.

Abe
Bernstein then announced that he was going to "run the parade
from now on and that it would be too bad for anyone who dropped out
of line." Onion members later testified that the organization
paying Abe Bernstein and the cessation of all fires, bombings, and
mayhem matched to the day.

After
taking over the Wholesale Cleaners and Dyers Association, Abe
Bernstein and a group of heavily armed Purple gangsters would appear
promptly at the start of the weekly meetings. The gunmen would sit in
an adjoining room while Bernstein opened the meeting, collected the
dues, and left with his men.

When
Charles Jacoby resigned from the Association, the dues increased. A
member complained to Sam Polakoff, acting business representative,
and was told that nothing could be done as the dues were set by Abe
Bernstein and Charles Jacoby. The Association voted to take Bernstein
off the payroll, Polakoff reluctantly agreed, and his murder is
history.