Read Online The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 by Paul R. Kavieff - Free Book Online

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