The Daily Herald - Chicago's Suburban Daily

http://www.dailyherald.com/story/print/?id=20884

The more the Chicago mob changes, the more it stays the same
Daily Herald Staff Reports
Published: 8/20/2007 7:18 AM

"Here is the difference between Dante, Milton, and me. They wrote about Hell and never saw the place. I wrote about Chicago after looking the town over for years and years."
Those were the profound words of Carl Sandburg, published in his book of "Chicago Poems" in 1916.
Ninety-one years later, Chicago's landscape may have changed, but the sordid souls, who poisoned Sandburg's time, live here in infamy.
That much is evident after sitting through last week's Operation Family Secrets trial in federal court in Chicago. Five elderly men connected to the Chicago Outfit are charged with running mob rackets and torturing and killing 18 people the past four decades by strangulation, beating and shooting, with ropes, ball bats, blowtorches, shotguns, fists and feet.
But the five hoodlums with witty nicknames such as the Clown, the Breeze, Little Jimmy and Twan, didn't operate without help from outside their secret organization.
Just as in Sandburg's day, when the hell-bent were called Big Jim and the Fox, the mobsters of our era admit they bribed police and public officials to protect their illegal businesses.
Two new books prove that nothing has changed. Despite the modernization of Michigan Avenue, lakefront beautification and regular police department announcements that crime is declining, the dirty business of public corruption at the behest of the Outfit thrives.
In her book "Sin in the Second City," author Karen Abbott writes about the open sex trade in Chicago's Levee District on the near South Side in the early 1900s. It focuses on the turn-of-the-previous-century whorehouse, the Everleigh Club. The story amounts to a blueprint for the modern rackets that the Calabrese/Lombardo Outfit is now on trial for allegedly running.
In 1900, dance hall operator Ike Bloom was in charge of making sure the police allowed bordello operators, call girls and pimps to freely conduct their business.
"So integral was Bloom to the web of Levee graft that his portrait, handsomely framed, hung in a prominent place of honor in the squad room of the 22nd Street police station," writes Abbott.
Below Bloom's picture was a price list of the appropriate bribes to be paid to police: "Massage parlors: $25 weekly; Larger houses of ill fame, $50-$100 weekly, with $25 additional each week if drinks are sold; Saloons allowed to stay open after hours, $50 per month; Sale of liquor in apartment houses without license …"
The architects were First Ward Alderman "Bathhouse" John Coughlin and Democratic Party boss Michael "Hinky Dink" Kenna.
In a second new book, "The Tangled Web," author Michael J. Cain reports on the devilish work of his brother Dick. In the late 1950s and '60s, Dick Cain was a Chicago police vice detective and then chief investigator for the Cook County Sheriff's Department.
Author Cain says his brother was also "a made Mafia soldier and a protégé and informer for legendary mob boss Sam Giancana."
Dick Cain was a Chicago mobster, groomed by the mob to be a Chicago cop.
"Dick was one of a very small number that reported directly to Sam 'Momo' Giancana," writes Michael Cain.
Dick Cain distributed weekly mob bribes to other cops, according to his brother, and tipped Outfit bosses to gambling and prostitution raids. When independent, non-mob rackets were raided, Cain would be seen in the next morning's newspapers posed with a Tommy gun, a la Eliot Ness.
Cain's mob work stretched to Mexico and Cuba and probably included murders, admits his brother. Dick Cain was killed in 1973, five days before Christmas. Two gunman ambushed him in a West Side sandwich shop.
Richard Cane and Sam Giancana's corrupt DNA was the same that Ike Bloom and his ilk had in 1900. And now a century later, the bad genes are on display in Operation Family Secrets.
Testimony revealed that modern-day Chicago cops were on the Outfit payroll. Mob informants testified they were tipped off by dirty cops about upcoming raids.
An alleged Chicago mob boss testified about his cozy relationship with politically connected labor union bosses and with the late First Ward Alderman Fred Roti, who was convicted of corruption.
Another accused mob boss, who once bribed a U.S. senator, last week implicated all 50 Chicago aldermen in a payoff scheme to allow illegal gambling in their wards.
An admitted Outfit hit man pinned a suburban firebombing on one of Mayor Daley's close friends.
So nothing changes. We just keep writing about Chicago, after looking the town over for years and years

Upcoming Events

I'll be in Chicago on October 20 for the Illinios Women's Press Association Book Fair.

Also during that trip I'll be speaking at St. Malachy School, addressing the issue of integration in the sixties. I know this has nothing to do with The Tangled Web, but it's an important adjunct to another book I had a hand in writing and publishing - Herren's: An Atlanta Landmark by Ed Negri with Michael J. Cain (Roswell Publishing 2005).

On November 1 I'll be in Washington, D. C. to participate in the National Press Club Book Fair - details to follow.

November 16-18 is the annual gathering of the JFK research community sponsored by JFK Lancer. Held this year at Radisson Dallas Love Field, 1241 West Mockingbird Lane, Dallas. I'll be speaking to the group about the alegation of Dick's involvement in the Kennedy assassination and about the goings on at the Glenview Naval Airstation in the sixties. I'll also be signing books there at the resource center.

The next event on the horizon is the Spring Lecture Series at the Irish American Heritage Center in Chicago. The date's not fixed yet, but should be sometime in late January 2008. I'll keep you posted right here.

Family Secrets

This afternoon a jury in federal court in Chicago convicted five men in what's come to be known as the Family Secrets trial. Joseph Lombardo, 78; Frank Calabrese, Sr., 70, James Marcello, 65, Paul Schiro, 70 and Anthony Doyle, 62 were convicted of a wide ranging number of charges including 18 Murders and a variety of conspiracy and racketeering charges.

The trial, which lasted nearly ten weeks, was the most important case of its kind in years. Lead prosecutors, Patrick Fitzgerald and John Scully wove together a substantial case and are to be commended for their efforts.

One of the documents prepared by the prosecution for trial, the Santiago Proffer, indicated their belief that Joseph Lombardo (known as "the Clown") was the triggerman who killed Richard Cain on December 20, 1973. Richard's murder was not included in the indictment because of a lack of physical evidence.

Sentencing will happen at some point in the future, but it's unlikely that Lombardo will see the light of day.

Illinois Women's Press Association Book Fair

On October 20, 2007 I'll be appearing at the Illinois Women's Press Association Book Fair to be held at the Chicago Cultural Center.

The Chicago Cultural Center is located at 77 East Randolph Street in downtownChicago. The building occupies the block bordered by Michigan Avenue to the east, Randolph Street to the north, Garland Court to the west, and Washington Street to the south.

I'll look forward to meeting you and talking about The Tangled Web.

Decatur Book Festival

For any of you who attended the Decatur Book Festival last weekend, you were subjected to one of the finest book events in the Southeast. Last year more than 50,000 people attended, that's pretty impressive when you consider that the Printer's Row Book Festival in Chicago only draws 70,000.

The crowd was impressive this year and, best of all, they bought lots of books.

I'm going back to Chicago in October, more on that later...

Update for September 6, 2007

On my recent trip to Chicago to promote The Tangled Web, I was interviewed on WBEZ a Chicago affiliate of NPR by Richard Steele, a talented interviewer who clearly did his homework. You can listen to interview by clicking on this link:
http://www.chicagopublicradio.org/Program_848_Segment.aspx?segmentID=12978

Another interview with a cable access station is now available on the web. They'll be running the interview in a week or so on Comcast channel 19 in Chicagoland.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4778540979621885458

The Family Secrets trial went to the jury on Tuesday (September 4) and it's anyone's guess how long it will take to reach a verdict. In the last two days they've asked the judge to define usury and intimidation. The judge refused to give them a dictionary and they later discovered that usury is actually defined in the indictment. I wonder what ever possessed them to read the indictment?