Chicago to Springfield:: Crime and Politics in the 1920s (Images of America (Arcadia Publishing)) (10 page)

Will Colvin, chairman of the pardons and paroles board, boldly solicited bribes. Mrs. F. J. Haveland told a grand jury investigating the scandal that Colvin asked her for money if she wanted her son paroled. Governor Small also testified before the grand jury. The scandal became so hot that Colvin was forced to resign. Small then appointed him to the Illinois Commerce Commission at a high salary. (ALPLM.)

Ignatz Potz was hauling a carload of hooch for Torrio-Capone in 1922 when he shotgunned a pursuing police officer. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to death. Governor Small stopped the execution and later gave Potz a complete pardon. Commenting on the Potz story in its July 12, 1926 issue,
Time
magazine wrote that Small was “a governor whom decent thousands regard as a cold-blooded crook.” (JR.)

Cook County state’s attorney Robert Crowe said, “Perhaps the worst handicap this office confronts is Len Small’s pardon and parole system. He lets them out as fast as we put them in.” Capone biographer Robert Schoenburg wrote, “Len Small’s gubernatorial pardons made him, in effect, Johnny Torrio’s recruitment and personnel officer.” (KCC.)

This grainy newspaper clipping is the only known photograph of Michael Messlein (left), who is conferring with his attorney Albert Sabath before a grand jury investigating the pardon mill. Messlein, Colvin, and Jenkins operated the scheme. Messlein, the middleman between convicts and Colvin, admitted that more than 8,000 pardons and paroles were sold by the Small administration. (JR.)

Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti took over the Chicago Mob after Al Capone was sent to prison. Capone said in a 1927 interview, “There’s one thing worse than a crook, and that’s a crooked man in a big political job. A man who pretends he’s enforcing the law and is really making dough out of somebody breaking it.” Regarding specific politicians, Capone added, “There are worse fellows in the world than me.” (KCC.)

From left to right, Three-Finger Jack White and Red Barker are seen with lawyer Michael Ahern and Al Capone. White and Barker bought pardons from Governor Small. After Judge Shurtleff freed Fur Sammons, White hired Sammons as a machine gunner for Frank Nitti. Sammons murdered a Teamsters vice president and another man before being sent back to prison. (KCC.)

The bloodiest Mob wars of the Roaring Twenties were over control of beer territories. One war started in 1923, and it was Gov. Len Small who got it started. The governor did this by letting bank robber Edward “Spike” O’Donnell out of prison by commuting his sentence, making him eligible for parole. The commutation came through Umbrella Mike Boyle, Capone’s friend and Governor Small’s Mob contact, who arranged many of the pardons and paroles for criminals. Small was repaying Boyle for his help with his acquittal in the governor’s corruption trial. (KPL.)

State senators Edward J. Hughes (left) and Frank J. Ryan (right) were among 14 politicians who signed a petition for Spike O’Donnell’s parole. O’Donnell was released into the custody of Ryan. Hughes later was Illinois secretary of state from 1933 to 1941. (Both KPL.)

Spike got his gang together and went into business with Packey McFarland, owner of the Porter and Joliet Citizens Breweries in Joliet. McFarland, a former prizefighter, had been bootlegging for years. Packey avoided prosecution after he and his brother Tom were arrested in 1922 and Tom took the rap and a six-month jail sentence. Federal judge James Wilkerson ordered the Porter Brewery seized in 1923. Tom was arrested and Packey denied involvement. The brewery started back up, and Wilkerson again seized it in 1924. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, the breweries were back in business, with Packey in charge. Below, Packey is seated next to his wife, Margaret, in front of their Joliet home around 1920. Standing to the left are his brother Tom McFarland and Margaret’s sister Agnes Brady. (Both JR.)