Laboratory Slugger War

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With labor slugger wars (am.-ger .: "war of the workers Racket") a series of clashes in to New York City in the vicinity of (violent) labor disputes from 1913 refers to the 1,927th

It was about the predominance in the core of the so-called "labor racketeering" ; d. H. the gangs made thugs available for a fee, who then usually acted as strike breakers , but later also to enforce a strike by force. Often at the end of a labor dispute, in principle, mercenaries were hired to decide the fight for the company or trade union side.

1913–1917: First War

Essentially, what is meant here is a four-year conflict between the gangs surrounding the Kosher Nostras Benjamin Fein and Joseph Rosenzweig on the one hand and a merger of smaller gangs founded in 1911 against the two's monopoly of violence on the other.

In 1912 Benjamin Fein and Joseph Rosenzweig held a kind of monopoly of violence and dominated the business of providing reliable thugs. In late 1913 there was a shootout involving a large number of people on Grand Street and Forsyth Street . Fein and Rosenzweig's people faced the gangs around Billy Lustig , Paul Philip , Little Rhody , Punk Madden , Owney Madden and Moe Jewbach . However, there were no losses on either side and only later was Paul Philip shot by Benny Snyder , a Rosenzweig killer.

When Snyder was finally caught by the police, he testified against his boss, and Rosenzweig was arrested. In 1915, Fein was arrested on charges of murder. Fein, who had expected political support, also testified and 11 mobsters and 23 trade unionists were charged. However, there was no conviction.

1918–1919: Second War

The arrests of Fein and Rosenzweig changed the balance of power and the new monopoly over larger thugs had become Nathan Kaplan and Johnny Spanish in 1917 . Kaplan and Spanish had previously been rivals, now they formed an Italian-dominated monopoly , mainly from ex-members of the Five Points Gang . But there was an internal argument. Spanish left the common gang in 1918, but both factions began a fight that did not end until July 29, 1919 with the assassination of Johnny Spanish, presumably by Kaplan himself.

1923: Third War

As a result of Spanish's death, Kaplan dominated for four years, then in the early 1920s the gang around Jacob Orgen , which also included Jack Diamond , Louis Buchalter and Jacob Shapiro , began to face new competition.

The conflict between the two groups broke out on the occasion of the laundry workers' strike in early 1923. Shootings between the two groups broke out across town. In one of these shootings, Jacob Shapiro was hit by a bullet at the beginning of August and reported Nathan Kaplan as the shooter to the police , whom he wanted to remove from circulation. At the subsequent court hearing, however, he did not maintain his testimony and the charges were dropped.

However, immediately after the trial , Kaplan was charged with carrying a concealed weapon in violation of Sullivan's Law . When Kaplan was about to be brought to court under police guard, he was shot by Louis Kushner (aka Louis Cohen ). Kushner was actually a man of Orgen and was probably hired for this act by Buchalter and Shapiro, who are said to have promised him a high reward and important position after his release from prison. However, after an early release, Cohen was killed on January 28, 1939 on orders from Buchalter. Together with Irving Friedman, who was also murdered on the same day, he was supposed to testify against Buchalter as a witness in court.

1927: fourth war

Orgen began to use his racket monopoly for other purposes and got into alcohol smuggling, among other things. In any case, the basis of business had changed as the incidents of the labor disputes were investigated by the state. This began the infiltration of the unions by the mobsters, as Meyer Lansky had ordered. Orgen stayed with the old business model.

Since he did not follow the instructions on the one hand and had become a competitor in alcohol smuggling on the other hand, Orgen was murdered in 1927 by his former followers Louis Buchalter and Jacob Shapiro. Orgen's bodyguard, Jack Diamond, was also wounded during the drive-by shoot .

Under Buchalter, Lansky’s instructions have now been implemented, the unions have been infiltrated, and the original 'thug service' has been expanded into a killing machine that worked as Murder, Inc. for the National Crime Syndicate in the 1930s.

Movies and movie quotes

In FIST - A Man Goes His Way from 1978, the strike of the fictional transport workers' union FIST is suppressed by hired thugs; It was only when the union boss used his contact with his childhood friend, who had become a powerful mobster , that he succeeded in establishing the equality of forces and winning the strike. Success has its price, as it corrupts the union further and further. The film is a nod to the infiltration of the Teamsters transport workers union under its legendary President Jimmy Hoffa .

literature

  • Asbury, Herbert: The Gangs of New York . New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1928. ISBN 1-56025-275-8
  • Daugherty, Carroll Roop: Labor Problems in American Industry . New York: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1938
  • Gottesman, Ronald and Richard Maxwell Brown: Violence in America: An Encyclopedia . New York: Simon and Schuster 1999. ISBN 0-684-80487-5
  • MacDonald, Lois: Labor Problems and the American Scene . New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers 1938
  • Sifakis, Carl.
  1. The Mafia Encyclopedia . New York: Da Capo Press 2005. ISBN 0-8160-5694-3
  2. The Encyclopedia of American Crime . New York: Facts on File Inc. 2001. ISBN 0-8160-4040-0