The high times, the rubouts, the payoffs -- they're all here in Wayne Klatt's account of the Windy City's wildest years. The entire country -- the world -- was shocked and entertained by what went on in Chicago during Prohibition. Learn how it all happened, from a step-by-step speakeasy set-up to the White Sox scandal to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Pull back the gauzy curtains of the gaudy era when Al Capone contributed to Mayor William Thompson's campaign and Governor Len Small used gangsters to fix his embezzlement trial. After studying every day of the Toddlin' Town's stint in Prohibition, author Wayne Klatt shows how bootleg gangs came into power and demolishes the myth of a North Side-South Side rivalry.
Listen, I know people like Al Capone. I know it's easier to just make stuff up about the North Siders...but as someone who considers herself well informed on them, you can't actually do that. Hymie Weiss did not side with his father after his parents separated, although the author did get that his father was absent a lot. His headaches were eventually diagnosed as terminal arterial cancer. And Dean O'Banion and Hymie Weiss didn't bring in Nails Morton because they were bad business men. He and O'Banion were friends who had stock in Schofield 's Flower Shop together. Finally, as much as I am entertained by the Chicago Herald Examiner I would be skeptical about pretty much anything they say and maybe not use them as a reliable source.