The North Siders – Chicago’s Pirate Robin Hoods: George ‘Bugs’ Moran — History is Now Magazine, Podcasts, Blog and Books

The Roaring Twenties were a time period filled with tales of adventure and glamour. Prohibition fueled a party lifestyle – and made available a dangerous but adrenaline fueled life to some of the more enterprising members of the underworld. In Chicago, Illinois, the Twenties have become a time of legend and usually call to mind one man, Al Capone. But Capone, for all intents and purposes, was only a figure head during the Beer Wars. He ran his gang and racket, but he delegated the dirty work.

To the north of him was a group that was, as one newspaper of the time called them, Modern Day Pirates, The North Side Gang. Consider Capone the Prince John to their Robin Hood and his Merry-men, an analogy that Rose Keefe introduced in her book, Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O’Banion. Robin Hood isn’t quite as steal from the rich to give to the poor and you’ll need to give Little John a temper and thirst for vengeance that was unrivaled. Also, make the merry-men a little crazier and a lot more deadly. You get the picture.

Three years, three bosses dead. The North Side track record was less than desirable, George Moran would have been well aware of this when he took over after the death of Vincent Drucci in April of 1927. He had said goodbye to three of his good friends, the flower shop was gone, Mr. Schofield having kicked them out after Hymie Weiss’s assassination, and having run from the past at least once already in his life, George Moran took stock of his life and probably thought about throwing in the towel. But Chicago was home and he couldn’t just forget everything that had happened. A part of him still wanted revenge and leaving the North Side would have felt like letting his friends down. So Moran did what he did best, he carried on.

Erin Finlen continues her series.

Part one is here, part two is here, and part three is here.

Note: An image of Moran is available here.

 

Minnesota Years

George Moran, the prohibition gangster most associated with being the arch enemy of Al Capone and by extension Chicago was actually from St. Paul, Minnesota and named Adelard Cunin. Born on August 21, 1893 to a French immigrant named Jules and his wife Marie, he was, like his friends enrolled in a Catholic School. And also like his friends, turned to crime at a young age, in fact he had served time three times before he reached the age of twenty one.

He and his father did not get along and Adelard regularly was hit with a belt by his dad for his behavior at home. At school, they also believed in corporal punishment and by the time he got home his father could be waiting to punish him again. Strong willed and resilient, the beatings did nothing to change his personality or willfulness. He turned to crime as an outlet for his frustration. At the age of eighteen, he escaped from jail and made his way south to Chicago. His father refused to have anything to do with him, but his mother still kept in touch.

It was after arriving in Chicago that Adelard started adopting different names, including George Gage, George Morrisey, George Miller and, of course, George Moran.

In photos, Moran typically is wearing something that covers his neck. When he was living in Chicago in 1917, he got in the face of someone heckling a public speaker. A fight broke out and Moran was cut several times on the neck with a knife. He was rushed to the hospital where they managed to stop the bleeding and save his life. He was lucky but also self-conscious of the way the scars looked and would do his best to hid them throughout his life. There was good to come of the incident, though. In his recovery he would meet Dean O’Banion.

 

The Beginnings of the North Side and Rise to Leader

In 1917, Dean O’Banion was working as a waiter at McGovern’s Tavern, charming customers with his beautiful singing voice. This tavern was where Moran began to become a regular during his recovery. He met there a man named Charles Reiser, who introduced him to bigger kinds of burglary. For the most part, George would steer clear of bootlegging, at least at first, he preferred to stick with thieving and safe cracking.

One of Reiser’s safe cracking proteges was O’Banion and the two were drawn to each other, both with independent, stubborn spirits. Although, Moran was much quieter and kept his cards close to his chest. They were joined shortly after by Hymie Weiss and the three became a trio of safecrackers. They were joined by Drucci last and though he was also readily accepted, it was not likely that it was for his thieving skills as his charm and reckless bravery.

They were well on their way to becoming the North Side Gang of legend, when Moran was sent to jail again and this time, after an escape attempt that was going well until he got caught, Moran would be absent in Chicago until 1921 as he served his sentence at Joliet Penitentiary.

When Moran got out his friends were waiting with good news: they were big shots in the bootlegging business and Moran was happy to help. He even went to Canada to see about a shipment for O’Banion. That wasn’t to say that bootlegging was his only occupation. He was arrested at least once with O’Banion and Weiss for burglary. And at one point Weiss and Moran were both involved in a police chase that ended when the police fired on the car and the pair decided it was safer to pull over.

Also, in 1921, Moran met a woman with whom he fell instantly in love, Lucielle Logan. Lucielle was worried that George would run when he found out she had a son, but George was just as smitten with him and adopted him, spoiling him and helping him learn English, as Lucielle and her son, who would go by John George Moran for the rest of his life, spoke French. Surprisingly, he loved being a family man and when one reporter asked him what was next after a funeral, he probably wasn’t lying when he said he just wanted to live with his wife and kid in peace.

In 1924, when O’Banion was murdered, Moran was fully on board with Hymie Weiss’s plans to get revenge. There was also another item of business that Moran could not wait to handle. He had never been a fan of O’Banion’s bodyguard, Louie Alterie. So, when Alterie was talking to the media about shooting the murderers of O’Banion and, strangely, following Torrio and Capone to New York after the funeral, Moran sent Alterie packing, saying there was no place for him in the North Side Gang. With that taken care of, it was time to get to the real business of getting even, even if the boss was in jail.

 

While Weiss was in jail in the summer of 1925, Drucci and Moran tried several hits on the Gennas. They weren’t exactly subtle about it though.

Between the two of them, neither Moran nor Drucci was known for thinking revenge plans through to the full extent. And with Weiss in jail and the grief over losing O’Banion mixed with a disdain for the Gennas they were more gung ho than usual. Amatuna, who had been a shooter of Dean O’Banion had agreed to hand over to Moran and Drucci the other two men believed to be responsible: John Scalise and Albert Anselmi. They believed Amatuna and went to the rendezvous where they were promptly shot at and both had to be treated at a nearby hospital.

After Weiss’s death, Moran agreed with Drucci that peace was the best option but he wasn’t happy about it. And when Drucci died, he kept the peace but he could feel his nagging hatred for Capone, the man who had stolen O’Banion and Weiss from him, itching at him. Then, after Capone battled with other men, he eventually started eyeing a Northwest gang whose territory he wanted. He had the leader bumped off. The man, John Touhy, was an old friend of Moran’s. Seeing another of his friends dead by the hand of Capone reopened the wounds that had never closed from O’Banion and Weiss’s deaths. The war was back. And this time it was going to take a massacre to end it.

 

Checkmate

After the death of Touhy, Moran and Capone continued to battle. Murdering continued until Capone had had enough. Somehow word got back to him that Moran was having a meeting at the North Side’s garage on Clark Street. Al Capone was never one to do anything quietly, a fact which irritated his friends back in New York, who found his ostentatiousness to be too attention seeking for their comfort. And what Capone had planned was nothing short of attention grabbing. Unfortunately for him and the seven men who would be in the garage, it wouldn’t see the end of his arch enemy.

On February 14, 1929, Moran was late to his meeting at the Clark Street garage. If he was like people of today, running late to your first meeting on a very cold, snowy morning, probably makes you think that your day isn’t going to go well. So, when he turned onto Clark Street and saw black police vehicle sitting outside his garage, he changed his course and went into a nearby diner to wait.

Men had been waiting across the street for Moran to enter the garage. When they thought they saw him enter, the signal was given and two men dressed as police officers entered. They had the men surrender their weapons and face a wall with their hands raised. Then they pulled out Thompson submachine guns and opened fire. Six of the men were killed instantly but one was still alive when the real cops arrived, although in his short time left he refused to identify the killers. The carnage was unlike anything Chicago had ever seen and the police and medical examiners were sickened by it. The lone survivor was the mechanic, James Mays, dog, Highball. When the police finally arrived they found him howling and shaking. He was later euthanized due to being unable to recover from what he had witnessed.

Word of what happened reached Moran and in a rare show of emotion, he checked himself into a hospital for exhaustion and a stomach issue. When police eventually found him, the only thing he would say was “Only Capone kills like that.” The man who was killed in Moran’s place was Al Weinshank. He looked uncannily like Moran in build and facial features. He was not a criminal, he simply associated with them.

Moran didn’t stay long in Chicago after that. And the North Side Gang was no more. Capone had won the Beer Wars.

 

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Sources:

Binder, J. J. (2017). Al Capone’s Beer wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago during Prohibition. Prometheus Books.

Burns, W. N. (1931). The one-way ride: The Red Trail of Chicago Gangland from Prohibition to Jake Lingle.

Keefe, R. (2003). Guns and roses: The Untold Story of Dean O’Banion, Chicago’s Big Shot Before Al Capone. Turner Publishing Company.

Keefe, R. (2005). The Man who Got Away: The Bugs Moran Story : a Biography. Cumberland House Publishing.

Kobler, J. (2003). Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone. Da Capo Press.

Sullivan, E. D. (1929). Rattling the cup on Chicago crime.