Understanding an American Gangster | Chicago Assassin: The Life and Legend of "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and...

BATTLING JACK McGURN | Chicago Assassin: The Life and Legend of "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and the Chicago Beer Wars of the Roaring ... | Richard J. Shmelter

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	• Chicago Assassin: The Life and Legend of "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn and the Chicago Beer Wars of the Roaring ... Richard J. Shmelter Cumberland House Publishing, 2008 - 352 pages average customer review:based on 12 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Excellent...

I'm not going to get too long winded here, only to say that this is an excellent read for anyone interested in McGurn and his times. Highly recommended.

Understanding an American Gangster

What is it about the gangsters of the Prohibition Era that continues to fascinate Americans?

Jack McGurn (a name he adopted when he began a boxing career; his real name was Vincenzo Gibaldi, born in Sicily in 1902) achieved prominence in the "beer wars" of Chicago's prohibition as the top enforcement man for Al Capone. He is widely credited, erroneously according to Shmelter and other recent writers, with being the mastermind of the St Valentine's Day Massacre. But he was an efficient and effective killer, warrior in the beers wars.

What is the nature of a man who would so easily take human life?

Schmelter takes us to McGurn's childhood in New York where his father was gunned down by New York gangsters in a case of mistaken identity. The New York Police Department was unable to (or didn't care to) bring to justice the killers. Italian immigrants lived on the frontier, where law and order had not yet come. His mother remarried, the family moved to Chicago where his father was a grocer who agreed to sell sugar to members of the Genna gang for use in making alcohol. When he said he would not refuse to sell sugar to all comers, specifically to competitors of the Gennas, he was shot down on the way to work one morning. Again, the Police did not bring the killers to justice.

McGurn, age 19, returned to New York, killed his father's killers and began planning on how to avenge his stepfather as well. The best way to do that he concluded, was to align with the opposition to the Gennas, the Torrio-Capone gang. And thus his career began.

Schmelter takes us through the beer wars, in which it is hard to see that one side had more moral claims than another. McGurn killed out-of-towners imported to murder Capone. He participated in other murders of rivals to his boss. Shmelter gives us the picture of a competent, loyal, if brash and cocky, man fitting into the lawless world of the gang subculture. By looking at McGurn, we also see the culture as it was.

St Valentine's Day proved a pyrrhic viceroy for Capone and the beginning of the end for McGurn, even though in this crime he had no involvement. It brought the full force of the government down on Capone and when he was sentenced to jail for tax evasion, his successor fired the brash Jack McGurn, who was left outside the Outfit, but well off with investments made during his good years.

The final years of McGurn are the years in which the comet descends. His properties became worthless under the onslaught of the national depression. He and his wife gradually descended from relative affluence to poverty when he was reduced to hawking betting sheets at the track. Finally, his efforts to gain reentry to the Outfit were rejected and his threat that he could talk proved suicidal.

One can look upon the body of Jack McGurn, bleeding out his life on the floor of a bowling alley, and feel that poetic justice was served. Shmelter also makes it possible to feel empathy for a man who saw his life disintegrate until death was only the conclusion.

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BATTLING JACK McGURN

"Chicago Assassins: by Richard J. Shmelter is an ongoing screeching ride in the rumble seat along with "Machine Gun Mc Gurn," and all the other infamous "pin-stripers" of the 20's Capone outfit.

The sounds of barking "Tommy-guns" and gaudy sweet scents from massive funeral wreaths rise from each page turned. The author delivers not only a dose of "Roaring 20's" romanticism to the reader, but... a heavy fusillade of reality as well!

These "wise-guys' could easily smile, shake your hand with their right, and happily squeeze off six rounds into your chest with their left and... never blink an eye.

This is an epic book about mean times, mean people, and a real "Untouchable" piece of the darker side of American history. Mr. Shmelter knows his subject and illuminates it for anyone who is willing to read. I highly recommend this book for anyone remotely interested in Prohibition, bathtub gin, and ...rat a tat tat...here we go again!

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Familiar, But Fun

This brief biography of "Machine Gun Jack McGurn" is an enjoyable addition to the recent bumper crop of books on Prohibition era crime figures in Chicago. I particularly liked the material on McGurn's tragic youth (both his father and stepfather were murder victims and, as an adult, McGurn would personally avenge both men's killings) and his efforts to become a professional boxer. His adopted Irish surname was created to promote him as a pugilist.

Some true crime readers will take exception to some of the gang war hits that the author credits to McGurn. While McGurn was definitely a suspect in several of the murders, many other true crime writers would dispute whether or not McGurn actually pulled the trigger as often as Shmelter suggests.

What is indisputable, however, is the fact that McGurn was one of Al Capone's favorites and frequently served as his personal bodyguard and accompanied him to numerous sporting events and night spots. When Capone was sent to prison, McGurn's stock dropped precipitously.

Capone's successor, Frank Nitti, was no friend to McGurn and effectively shut him out of the organization. By the time of his own murder, in a Milwaukee Avenue bowling alley, McGurn was living in reduced circumstances and seemed to be nearly penniless. He even tried to earn a living as a professional golfer, but his notorious reputation derailed that ambition as newspapermen hounded him during a qualifying round of a major tournament and interfered with his play so much that he missed making the cut.

Richard J. Shmelter writes well and his summaries of familiar events and facts are easy to read. Although fully annotated, the bibliography list reads like a book catalogue for the author's own publisher (Cumberland House) to the exclusion of any other sources. Many of these formulaic titles rehash old material while adding an occasional dollop of new information and "The Chicago Assassin" does not vary too much from this pattern. Sometimes, it feels as if the repeated accounts were added simply to pad the length of Shmelter's book, but that is a minor complaint.

The best portions of the book are those pages that relate to McGurn and his second wife, Louise Rolfe, who became celebrated as "the Blonde Alibi." Rolfe provided her future husband with an alibi that frustrated the efforts of the police and prosecutors to try McGurn as a possible participant in the aftermath of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

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Excellent primer on McGurn

Mr. Schmelter does an admirable job at bringing out the essence of McGurn in this fine book. He works with the history given and what newspapers spewed out at the time. There was no proof as to whom or how many men McGurn exactly killed. Finding that out is next to impossible. Also for any other gangster at that time. Their notches in their guns tended to be padded or somewhat overblown. McGurn was accused of almost every murder in gangland Chicago. Some other McGurn myths in history include McGurn being shot in a telephone booth or McGurn placing a buffalo nickel in his victim's hand.
This book is a excellent primer for those who do not know who McGurn was. Mr. Schmelter is on the right track and the effort was A 1.

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The city of Chicago led the nation when it came to gangland violence during the Prohibition era. As a result, many infamous, unforgettable personalities became a part of America's criminal history.

Chicago Assassin is the story of "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn, one of the people responsible for putting much of the roar into the Roaring Twenties. McGurn was born in Liscata, Sicily, on February 15, 1905, as Vincenzo Antonio Gibaldi. His family immigrated to Chicago in 1906, and he grew up in the city's slums and later took up boxing as "Battling" Jack McGurn.

Known to have been a well-mannered, law-abiding young man, he changed dramatically when his father was assassinated by members of the White Hand Gang in a case of mistaken identity. After he avenged his father's death by killing the three hit men responsible, he came to the attention of Al Capone, who invited him into his organization, known as the Chicago Outfit. There he rose to power and was one of the most feared members of Capone's organization, with more than twenty-five known kills for the mob. "Battling" Jack McGurn became so adept with the Thompson submachine gun that he quickly became known as "Machine Gun" Jack McGurn.

McGurn's most famous killings became known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, which he planned in an effort to eliminate Bugs Moran, the North Side gang leader who was Capone's biggest competitor. He avoided prosecution for that crime due to the testimony of his girlfriend, Louise Rolfe; he later married her and she refused to testify against him. In an ironic turn of events, McGurn was murdered on Capone's orders seven years later in a Chicago bowling alley on the eve of St. Valentine's Day, most likely because he ahd gotten involved with narcotics.

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