Gary J Sibio
We’ve all heard of Al Capone but not that many of us have heard of Hymie Weiss, yet, if anyone scared Capone, it was Weiss. Here is his story.
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Hymie Weiss
Hymie Weiss was born Henry Earl J. Wojciechowski on 25 Jan 1898. He was born in Poland but, when he was 3 years old his family came to America. He grew up Catholic on the North Side of Chicago. Wherever he went he carried a rosary and a Bible.
Weiss' criminal career started in his teens. He got his nickname "The Perfume Burglar" from the police after he knocked over a shelf of perfume during a botched burglary. Weiss and his friend, Dean O'Banion, teamed up with George "Bugs" Moran and established the North Side Gang. The gang grew to the point that they eventually controlled the bootlegging activities on the North Side. O'Bannion was the undisputed leader of the gang but Weiss was the brains.
The gang also worked as "salesmen" for the Chicago Tribune. While this sounds out of character for the gang, the position involved keeping the street vendors in line by trashing their shops and beating them with brass knuckles. This job lasted until Moses Annenberg offered them better pay if they would jump to the Chicago Examiner.
Annenberg recommended the gang to safecracker Charles Reiser who taught them the skills and soon they were doing jobs on their own. They moved on from intimidating newspaper vendors to intimidating voters for local politicians. They also got into automotive theft. They would steal the cars at gunpoint and sell them to Sam "Nails" Morton, owner of Morton's Garage on Maxwell Street. He altered the cars and sold them to his customers.
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Dean O'Banion's Flower Shop on State Street Across from Holy Name Cathedral
Like many gangsters, Prohibition was a boon to their business. O'Bannion imported "Real McCoy" beer from Canada. Soon the gang controlled the politics and the alcohol in Chicago's north side 42nd and 43rd wards. In 1921 Steve Wisniewski, one of the gang's bootlegging contacts, made the mistake of hijacking one of their trucks. The gang found out and Weiss took Wisniewski for a ride to Chicago's lakefront. Weiss returned alone and told the others, "I took Stevie for a one-way ride." The phrase "one-way ride" became entrenched in gangster jargon.
Weiss did not restrict his "getting even" to humans. When "Nails" Morton, who bought their stolen cars, died after being thrown from a horse, the gang took the horse on the spot where the accident had occurred and shot it.
Weiss was not the most easy-going person. In 1926 his brother said he had only seen him once in twenty years. That was in 1920 and Weiss had shot him. He told photographers who tried to take his picture that he would kill them if they did.Weiss' bad attitude extended to the authorities. Once he chased away a Deputy U.S. Marshal at gunpoint when he came to arrest one of Weiss' friends for violating the Mann Act. The marshal returned with reinforcements and arrested the friend, but Weiss filed a lawsuit claiming the marshal had stolen his silk shirts and socks. The case was thrown out.
Weiss is said to be the only man that fellow-ganster Al Capone feared. After O'Bannion was killed by Capone's men in 1924 at their headquarters in Schofeld's flower shop across the street from Holy Name Cathedral, Weiss became single-minded in his desire to kill Capone and his cohort Johnny Torrio. Weiss was now the gang's leader and, besides getting revenge on the man who killed his friend, he wasn't averse to taking over Capone's profit-making activities.
#3
Giovanni "Papa Johnny" Torrio On 24 Jan 1924, Torrio and his wife returned from a shopping trip. Three men opened fire on the car killing the driver, Robert Barton, Torrio's wife and his dog. At that point the shooters noticed that Torrio was not in the car but was unloading the groceries. Weiss and Moran jumped from their car and shot Torrio. Moran walked up to him and was going to put a bullet in Torrio's head only to discover that he had run out of ammunition. At that point they were scared off by an approacing car with a blaring horn. Torrio survived. Weiss decided it would be a good idea to form an alliance with gangster Joe Saltis who was on trial for murder. On 11 Oct 1926 jury selection began and Weiss, along with four of his men - bodyguard Sam Pellar, gangster Paddy Murray, attorney William W. O'Brien, and Benjamin Jacobs (O'Brien's investigator) - were sighted in the vicinity. That afternoon they left for their State Street headquarters at the old Schofield flower shop. They parked their cars on Superior and turned onto State Street. They were unaware that there were two gunmen hidden in a nearby rooming house who opened fire with a submachine gun and shotgun. Weiss and Murray were fatally wounded. (Weiss actually died in the ambulance on the way to Henrotin Hospital.) O'Brien was hit four times. Pellar instinctively drew his .38 and fired a shot in the direction of shooters but struck Weiss as he fell to the sidewalk. Wounded and still under fire, Pellar and Jacobs retreated. Some of the bullets chipped the cornerstone of Holy Name Cathedral which can be seen today. Weiss (Wojciechowski) is buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. It is the same cemetery as Al Capone and Dean O'Banion.
Text © 2017 Gary J. Sibio. All rights reserved.
