Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Florin Vogelbaum here. Al Capone, sometimes known as Scarface, is perhaps the most recognizable and infamous figure in American organized crime. His life as a gangster was highlighted by a series of racketeering schemes, tax fraud, violence, and bootlegging. But a lot of that was hard to stick to the so called teflon Dawn since somehow the federal government only managed to put him in prison for eleven years on charges
of income tax evasion. He served out his sentence in Atlanta, then later in Alcatraz. But there's one story about Capone you might not have heard. It has to do with the Chicago dairy industry and several farmers and delivery drivers' unions. It was nineteen thirty three and Capone was already in prison. Fairy prices were fixed by law, but independent dairy farmers
wanted more money for their milk. Representatives from the dairy trade group the Associated Milk Dealers said that the public wouldn't pay more, as so the farmers, who were union members of the Pure Milk Association walked off the job. Meanwhile, Capone and his gangster proteges needed money because it was clear that President Franklin D. Roosevelt was preparing to repeal prohibition.
Once bootlegging and speakeasies became a thing of the past, it would put a dent in the Mob's major revenue sources, so they targeted the dairies for the article this episode is based on as toff Work spoke with Claire White, the director of education for the Mob Museum in Las Vegas, who explained that there were two reasons why the dairies. First, the dairies lacked regulation, and second, the mafia already controlled other food products, including artichokes, yes really, and Wisconsin cheese.
Capone's Mob bought meadow More dairies intending to bully its way into the milk business. Bottling milk and metal Moore's facilities would allow them to bypass the fixed dairy pricing and to stop unions from distributing only local milk. A metal Moore distributed milk through stores exclusively, rather than using drivers for home deliveries. The dairy bought milk from farmers
at a flat price, an aggressively exploited store distribution. This allowed metal Moore to underprice other distributors who were bound by contract to pay union prices to union drivers. These mob tactics pitted the gangsters against union officials and the dairies that were legally obligated to deliver milk directly to consumers homes and those delivery drivers. But the mob wanted
the union's help. A story in the Chicago Tribune recounts how Capohne's political fixer, A Murray the Camel Humphreys, went to one Steve Sumner, who was the union leader of the Milk wagon Drivers Union Local seven fifty three. Humphries asked him to lay low so that metal Moore could hire non union workers to undercut the other dairies. Then Sumner and his union drivers could protest Meadow more, which would give metal Moore reason to raise milk prices again.
All of this was in exchange for the mobs of protection. Of course, A Sumner wanted no part of it. He declined the mob's security and said no to all of their demands, which led to the beginning of Chicago's Milk Wars. Over an eighteen month campaign of violence and intimidation, there were numerous bombings, dozens of windows smashed, damaged trucks and drivers and mendors beaten a striking dairy farmers and drivers
bombed metal More just after it opened in nineteen thirty two. Undeterred, the dairy sold its milk at nine cents a court, two cents below the regular price at other distributors. Capone's mob also extorted New York pizzerias to use only Metamore cheese. There's even anecdotal evidence that Capone is responsible forgetting the practice of printing expiration dates on milk bottles officially implemented.
There's no clear proof, but Metomoor dairies did help set the standards for Grade A milk, if only because the dairy knew that its milk would pass the requirements while others would not. As the battles raged between the unions, the mob, home delivery drivers and retail sellers, Sumner and the Milk Wagon Drivers Union attempted to organize the companies and convert them to an employee wage system, but the Associated milk Dealers refused, and the dairy farmers continued to strike.
Even those Supreme Court handed down injunctions against union picketing. A fast forward to November of nineteen thirty eight, when a grand jury indicted forty three individuals with violating the Sherman Act for trying to fix the price of milk. Fourteen corporations and forty three people were indicted in total, including Sumner and several unions, but not Copones Associates. In nineteen thirty nine, the antitrust case was thrown out by a district court judge, but later reinstated by the u. S.
Supreme Court. However, instead of going to trial, the Department of Justice offered the parties the option of signing a consent decree to agree to the following. The farmers organizations and unions pledged that they would not stop independent producers from marketing milk. Distributors vowed to end price fixing, and the Driver's Union promised to not hamper store sales of milk, and thus the milk Wars officially ended in nineteen forty. By then, Sumner was already voted out of his job
as leader of the Milk Wagons Union. He seemingly took it with grace. The Chicago Tribune quoted him as saying, the young fellows wanted to move in, so we'll have to step out, But what about Capone and his connection to the Chicago milk wars. Most likely there wasn't much of a direct one. Claire White noted that both Al and his brother Ralph were already in prison when it kicked off, and unlike in Hollywood movies, they probably weren't
pulling too many strings from behind bars. A Capone essentially retired from the mob after his first imprisonment in nineteen thirty one, but the Chicago crime syndicate that he created continued under the leadership of several of his mafia disciples. By the time Capone was released from Alcatraz in nineteen thirty nine, he had complications from a severe case of syphilis, including progressive dementia and paralysis. Doctors noted that he had
the cognitive processing of a twelve year old child. He never returned to Chicago and instead lived out his last years with his family at his Florida mansion, where he died in nineteen forty seven at the age of forty eight. Today's episode is based on the article how Alcpohone's mobster's outmuscled Chicago milkmen on HowStuffWorks dot com, written by Schrese Cunningham. Brainstuff is production of iHeartRadio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot
Com and is produced by Tyler Klay. Four more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.