The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 (9 page)

When
the operators filed formal complaints against Jacoby and the Purple
Gang, Abe Bernstein, accompanied by attorney Edward Kennedy Jr., said
he didn't understand what the commotion was all about. He claimed no
knowledge of terrorism in the Detroit cleaning industry.

Inspector
Henry J. Garvin was amused by Bernstein's claim that he was employed
as a shoe salesman. According to Garvin, "The Bernstein boys
never had any connection with the shoe business unless it was to wear
out shoes running from the police!"

It
appeared that the State had an airtight case against the Purple Gang
on the Cleaners and Dyers War charges. The State contended that
Charles Jacoby
and
the Purple Gang had attempted to destroy the business of members of
the Detroit Wholesalers Association with terrorism. But immediately
after the trial began, the State's case began to suffer setbacks.

§
§ §

Two
of the members of the Wholesalers Association named as complainants
became hostile witnesses. At the pretrial examination, both denied
ever making charges against Jacoby or anyone else. The pattern would
continue throughout the trial.

For
pretrial, defense argued that the industry war had been a plot
between Frank Martel, as Detroit Federation of Labor President, and
Harry Rosman to ruin Jacoby's business. Jacoby had stood up to Martel
and was Rosman's chief competitor. Judge Cotter responded by
demanding an explanation for armed men at union meetings and
Association dues to Abe Bernstein for protection.

The
defense had no response; the men were held
for
trial.

The
trial opened dramatically when Chief Assistant Prosecutor James
Chenot explained to the court how the Purple Gang had systematically
extorted money from Detroit area cleaners and dyers. He outlined the
gang's method of extortion, painting a picture of the gang at its
headquarters—the Jacoby cleaning plant— taking target
practice and twirling pistols around their
fingers.

The
defense argued that the State's chief witness, Harry Rosman, and
Labor President Frank X. Martel had extorted the unions and sold out
the Retail Tailors to get a price increase for his racket. Abe
Bernstein had merely been a reluctant arbitrator for the Wholesalers
Association, and the Purple Gang a fiction created by Rosman and
Martel.

But
the Prosecution had checks. All of them had been signed by Harry
Rosman and endorsed and cashed by Charles Jacoby.

Frank
Martel complained to the Detroit press that the Purple Gang Trial was
ignoring the crimes of the gang and turning into an indictment of his
Detroit Federation of Labor. Martel would not testify as a witness,
deeming it "a betrayal of the Detroit Federation of Labor."

On
June 27th, 1928 the trial neared its end. Defense attorney Samuel
Rhodes declared that when the State rested he would make a motion
asking for a verdict of not guilty. Defense attorney Brown argued
that his clients had not been effectively tied to a conspiracy and
that their suspicious activities were "merely . . . isolated
incidents]". Defense also contended that the conflicting nature
of the state's witnesses' testimony had cleared his clients.

On
July 2nd, 1928 an unusual incident occurred. Samuel Rhodes asked
Judge Bowles to reopen the case so that Charles Jacoby could be
placed on the witness stand. Rhodes told the court that his client
wanted to vindicate himself.

Jacoby
blamed the terrorism on Frank Martel and labor leaders in the Detroit
Federation of Labor. He maintained he hired Purple gangsters to
succeed where the Detroit Police Department had failed, in protecting
plants during a vicious industry war. He stated that labor leaders
had gone so far as to attempt to poison a public food supply.

In
its summation the State pleaded with the jury to consider the facts,
emphasizing that the trouble in the Detroit cleaning and dyeing
industry did not begin until the industry was organized by Chicago
labor racketeers. Jacoby was the man who represented the association;
he had been chosen as the only man with whom Chicago labor racketeers
would do business; he had the Purple Gang force wholesalers to pay
for protection, and when the money was forthcoming the pillaging
ceased. The biggest threat to society was that the gang had used the
Cleaners and Dyers war to infiltrate legitimate business by
exploiting the gangster/businessman relationship between Abe
Bernstein and brother in law Jacoby.

Defense
attorneys Rhodes and Kennedy argued that rather than conspirators,
Jacoby and gang were actually victims of the Cleaners and Dyers War.
They characterized Frank Martel as "a ruler of stench bombers,
window breakers and perjurers" declaring that the trail of
corruption "leads directly to the door of the labor temple!"

On
September 13th, 1928, the case was given to the jury. At the trial's
inception, conviction had seemed certain but the defense had made a
dent in the state's armor. The jurors were out little more than one
hour before bringing in a verdict of not guilty.

Fear
had colored the testimony of state witnesses. Following the acquittal
Frank Martel was brought up on charges of extortion based on
testimony given during the Purple Gang trial. Martel stood mute, a
plea of not guilty was entered on his behalf, and he too was
acquitted.

Estimates
of tribute paid and damages incurred by shop owners during the
Cleaners and Dyers War vary considerably. One cleaning plant owner
claimed that certain Detroit labor leaders were getting as much as
$200,000 dollars a year in graft from the industry. Detroit police
records on reported property losses
through
1928 totaling $161,000. This did not include cases that went
unreported.

The
Purple Gang trial did have one positive outcome. It ended the
Cleaners and Dyers War. The Purple Gang, however, came through
unscathed and lived to fight another day.

Chapter
/

The
St. Valentine's Day Massacre

"The
Purple Gang was a hard lot of guys, so tough they made Capone's
playmates look like a Kindergarten class . . . Detroit's snooty set
used to feel it was really living to talk to them hoodlums without
getting their ounce brains blown out."

—
Milton
"Mezz" Mezzrow

"/
will
give you 24 hours
to
kill
at least three and no more than six or else bring them in here. We
don't care if you kill them off. The best crook is a dead crook!"

Detroit
Police Commissioner William P. Rutledge

On
February 14th, 1929 a siren-fitted black Cadillac carrying five men
pulled to a stop in front of the S.M.C. Cartage Company in Chicago.
Two Police Officers and two men in overcoats climbed out and walked
briskly into the Cartage Company garage carrying riot length
shotguns.

The
fifth man remained behind the wheel. In the back of the unheated
garage, six well-dressed gangsters huddled around a coffee pot. A man
in grease stained overalls worked on one of the trucks. A German
Shepherd tied to a bumper barked as the patrolmen burst throught the
door.

The
gangsters were ordered to face the wall. The men, members of the
George "Bugs" Moran Northside Gang, grudingly complied,
assuming a routine police shakedown. Either someone hadn't been paid
off at the station or the raid was for good police publicity. They
might even be honest cops who didn't know any better.

After
confiscating their weapons, the uniformed men took several backward
paces. In a flash of metal the detectives pulled Thompson submachine
guns from their overcoats and took positions on either side of their
prey. In an instant, all four men opened fire, spraying their
victims' heads, backs and legs. Six gangsters were dead before their
bodies hit the floor, falling straight back from where they stood.

The
trench-coated killers then handed their smoking weapons to the
uniformed men, raised their hands above their heads, and left the
garage at gunpoint, "escorted" by the officers. They got
into the waiting police car and tore off, siren screaming. Witnesses
thought they'd seen a police raid—a common sight in Prohibition
era Chicago.

It
was the howling of the dog that drew attention. Those who had the
nerve to peek inside found the aftermath of the worst gangland
slaughter in U.S. history. Its victims were identified as Pete and
Frank Gusenberg, brothers and main enforcers of the Moran Gang;
Albert Kashelleck (supposedly Moran's brother-in-law); Adam Heyer,
the gang's accountant and business manager; John May, a safecracker
and mechanic; Albert Weinshank, a racketeer; and Dr. Reinhart H.
Schwimmer, an optometrist and sometime bootlegger.

These
men represented the heart of Chicago's once powerful Northside Mob.
They'd been waiting that morning for Moran to join them. When the
police arrived Frank Gusenberg was still barely alive.

He
had more than 22 bullet wounds in his body. When asked who shot him,
Gusenberg whispered, "No one—nobody shot me." He died
in a hospital three hours later.

The
S.M.C. Garage had been the liquor distributing center for the
Northside Gang. Its members had gathered that cold St. Valentine's
morning awaiting a large shipment of whiskey. It had been offered to
Moran by an anonymous source for a bargain price.

The
load was scheduled for 10:30 A.M., but the mobster was late to the
rendezvous that morning. Moran had missed death by only minutes. As
he and two gunmen walked to the garage they'd seen the siren-fitted
Cadillac pull up and stayed away.

The
killing was as clever as it was well-planned. It was as though
members of the Chicago police force had actually been responsible for
the massacre. It was soon discovered that the murders had been pulled
off by five gangland assassins, two masquerading as police.

However,
spotters had mistaken one of the men in the garage for "Bugs"
Moran. The target was still alive. The killers had failed.

The
massacre captured the public's imaginations, the brazen public
slaughter enraging citizens. An investigation was immediately
launched by the Chicago
Police
Department in conjunction with the State Attorney General's office as
agents promised to move heaven and earth to apprehend the killers and
clean up Chicago.

Across
the street from the garage were two rooming houses. They had housed
some very interesting young tennants. Mrs. Michael Doody, who owned
one, told police that approximately ten days before the massacre two
young men wanted rooms.

Mrs.
Frank Orvidson, who ran the other boarding house, rented a room to a
third man the same day. All three said they were cab drivers who
worked nights. They insisted on rooms that faced the front of the
building.

On
the morning of the massacre these men mysteriously vanished. The
Purple Gang was already suspected in the massacre. When the
landladies were shown photographs of sixteen Purple's, they
identified Harry and Phil Keywell, and Eddie Fletcher. Both
landladies stated that when they entered the men's rooms to clean
them they would often find one or the other seated by the window.

The
police speculated that the three had been used as spotters for the
assassination team, a strategy typical of the Capone mob. Incredibly,
the Detroit police never arrested them for questioning. Detroit
Inspector Henry Garvin stated to the press that he didn't believe the
Purple Gang could be involved in something this ruthless.

This
was said in the aftermath of the Milaflores Massacre. Garvin's
obstruction of justice not only revealed his corruption but allowed
the gang to continue on their invincible violent path. The Purple
Gang is suspected of having beaten the rap in hundreds of unsolved
gangland
murders probably due to such extensive political ties.

There
are two theories for the reason behind the St. Valentine's Day
Massacre. The first involved Capone. For more than a year prior to
the killings Al Capone had a loose business relationship with the
Detroit mob, as the Purples distributed quality Canadian whiskey
called Old Log Cabin.