Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's here, and Dave is hovering over. It's like a hologram of Obi Wan Kenobi, which makes this short stuff.
It makes us his only hope.
That's right, boy, that's tough for Dave. Where his only hope? Sorry, Dave?
Yeah, you know, we haven't talked too much. We talked a little bit about the Mafia and stuff like that, but I feel like we have a gap in our sort of al Capone Chicago Mob sort of time frame, like who are the what was the movie The Untouchables that sort.
Of era, such a good movie.
We don't have a lot of that stuff. So this is maybe the beginning of a little bit more of that.
Okay, this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. As al Capone said.
Once that's right, then you got a knife in your back.
So our story actually takes place in nineteen thirty three. That's when it although it lasted almost the entire decade of the thirties, but by this time, and this is so funny because this whole thing is associated with al Capone. But if we were going to jump to the end and put it at the beginning. Yeah, he probably had almost nothing to do with this.
Yeah.
The reason this Chicago milk War as it's called, is associated with al Capone is because his direct descendants, his proteges that took over when he was put into federal prison, they were the ones who were involved in this. So he had some sort of kind of like phantom supernumerary hand involved, but no direct involvement.
Yeah. Like if he wouldn't have been in prison, it would have been al Capone running this milk war.
And it would have been ten times bloodier.
Probably, Yeah, you're probably right, But like we all know, he was in prison for tax evasion, initially right here in Atlanta and then eventually in Alcatraz, very famously. But we're talking about the milk war, like you were saying, and this gets a convoluted because there's just a lot of milk unions and delivery driver unions for milk, and they all have similar names, and they most of them are pretty good band names, so it gets a little
bit confusing. But we're going to do the best we can to tell you how the mob in Chicago got involved in the milk business. And one of the main reasons is that FDR came along and the writing was on the wall that prohibition was going to be repealed, and that was really bad for the Mob because they were making a ton of money with bootlegging and with the speakeasies. So they're like, we need to divert we
need to diversify. So they said, how about milk. It's pretty unregulated and under the radar, and we are already in the food business a little bit. We've run the we run the artichoke racket, which.
Was true crazy. That's the fact of the short stuff right there.
Well, that and the whisky on some cheese rackets. So they already had the foot and the pro dairy and produce.
Business, right. So yeah, I guess milk is a logical extension of those. I mean the cheese that makes sense too, but it is surprising to go from booze to milk. Yeah, but it almost didn't matter what the product was. Sure the Mob could figure out a way to completely upend the industry. They were early disruptors, I guess you'd call
them in twenty ten speak. Yeah, but the way that they did that was through like violence and intimidation, and that's the first, the first tactic they tried when they showed up at a guy named Steve Sumner's door, And Steve Summner's door was the front door of the office of the Milk wagon Driver's Union Local seven point fifty three. And the reason why is because Steve Sumner ran that he was the union leader, right, and you had said
this whole thing's kind of convoluted, it is. And the reason why is because from what I can tell, there was an uneasy working relationship between the different unions and the different associations that all came together to heart to produce, buy, bottle, sell, and distribute milk. And each one had their own competing interests and they were all trying to work together. There was some price fixing involved, there were some alliances that
were all uneasy. But then when the mob came in, they came in kicking on the door and shooting down, shooting tommy guns into this whole alliance, and it just created this total chaos that had just been waiting to happen, that the mob coming and really triggered.
And then some yeah, absolutely, because at the time the milk prices were I guess you would say fixed, right, is that the term. Yeah yeah, milk prices were set or capped rather, and they had to use union representatives to you know, to drive and deliver this milk, can distribute this milk. The Mob of Chicago basically said, all right,
we're gonna get in on the ground floor. We're going to buy an actual dairy, and they bought meadow More Dairies, And that's how we're going to get into the milk industry. And what we can do is then not have to use union employees. We can bypass that fixed pricing and we can undercut by a penny or two what everyone else is selling it for and get all the milk money ourselves.
Yeah, and don't forget this is during the depression, right, So a couple of pennies off of a bottle of milk that was selling for eleven cents, Oh yeah, that meant a lot. Like you, yeah, you could make a pretty big deal. So there was price fixing, which is illegal, and the Mob came in and undermined it by introducing good old American competition to it, which is really weird. That's why this whole thing is so hard to kind of wrap your head around, because it all is totally nonsensical.
Yeah, yeah, you're right. I mean I feel better because I couldn't figure out why. I couldn't really make the most sense of this because it's not the most complicated story. But yeah, they came to Steve Sumner eventually this guy named Murray the Camel Humphries, who was one of Capone's fixers. If you have a fixer, you're not a good person. Let's just say that. Yeah, that means you're breaking things if you need someone to fix things.
That's a great, great slogan.
Oh yeah, I should get that on a T shirt. Huh. So they went to Sumner and said, hey, if you and your union can just lay low for a little while, let us hire these non union workers. We can sell our stuff cheaper, and then you can make a big deal about that, and you can protest that. Then we
can raise these prices again. And in exchange for this, we're not gonna we're gonna offer you protection, which everyone knows for the mob means we're not going to destroy your milk trucks and firebomb your livery wagons.
Right, And what's funny is like I can't remember the spoof movie that this is in I want to say top secret, but I might be wrong. Where somebody comes in some like traditional like maybe gangster criminal comes in and starts shooting up the place, and then all of these like normal people like pull guns out of nowhere
and start shooting back unexpectedly. That's exactly what happened with this, because the mob came in and said that they were going to start breaking heads if everybody didn't fall in line, and so all these people in the dairy industry, who were allegedly legitimate went and bombed the mob's dairy the moment they the moment they said that they were going to do this, they went and bombed their dairy.
All right, I say we should take a break, because that's a pretty remarkable thing. I'm going to I'm going to go with Johnny Dangerously. I'm not sure if that's true or not.
Is that it okay?
But it seems like a likely candidate, And we'll come back right after this.
Johnny Dangerously top Secret. It's virtually the same movie.
I mean, that's just a guess.
Boy.
I saw Johnny Dangerously in the theater when I was a kid. I thought it was, oh yeah, funniest thing I've ever seen it hit? Some parts of it are still pretty funny. I haven't seen in a long time, but I think it was. Yeah, Joe Biscopo, Michael Keaton, you kidding me?
Yeah? The Dear, the dream Team is what they call that.
Griffin Dunn, yes, Master Chargia.
Did you know? Uh, he's Joan Didion's nephew.
Of course, he's got a new book out.
Called I'm Joan Didion's Nephew by Joan Didion's nephew.
You dummy. Emily just got its supposed to be a good read, so she's all into that.
Have you ever seen After Hours?
Oh? Yeah, of course, good movie. It's course azy baby, Yeah.
It was, but it's also like a kind of a screwball comedy.
Yeah, yeah, the only one he did really. Yeah, all right, that's been movie crush. Oh I missed that show. Not enough to do it again, though. So we're back. And like you said when we left, I believe right before I said, Johnny, dangerously, you said, these regular schmos started bombing the mobs dairy, And that's what happened, and it's just crazy and all of a sudden, you know, this milk war has kicked off.
Yes, so I said that there was like a bunch of different competing groups. There were the people who made the milk. Those are the farm producers. Those are the farmers who are like milking the cows, putting into huge like canisters, and then selling it to the milk dealers. The milk dealers have formed an association and they're the ones who were fixing the price. They were saying, hey, farmers,
this is how much you're gonna get from milk. Don't ask for anything more because everyone who's going to buy it from you is in cahoots against you. Right, So the farmers said, well, this is all crazy. We're just going to go on strike. You're not going to get any milk unless you guys start giving us a better price. So, in addition to this group these people were arguing, there's also another group that were involved, and they were the
stores that sold milk. Okay, they had milk for one set price, and they could typically sell it lower lower than other companies who used delivery drivers milk men to deliver their milk directly to people's homes. Because there's that added cost, and then on top of the added costs, the milk drivers were unionized. That's what Steve Sumner represented, and so they had like a contract with those companies saying like, you're going to pay our drivers like a
good wage. And so there was competition between the companies that used union drivers and the companies that just sold it directly from stores, and all of them hated each other because they were all beating one another up to get as much of a margin of profit out of the others as they possibly could, because the American public were the ones who are like, we're not going to pay that much for milk. You guys are gonna have to figure this out yourself.
Yeah. Do you think the mob ever went up to people and went you're going to be eating your granula with water? Or did they have cereal by then or were they still calling.
The Paul You remember at Kellogg's episode that was the nineteenth century.
That's what I'm saying. That was like the early nineteen ten, So they were calling it granula, but they called it cereal pretty soon after, right.
Oh, I see what you mean. Sure, sure, probably, Yeah. I wonder what the first one was, because I think they called their corn flakes corn flakes pretty early on, so they at least take corn flakes.
All right, let me do another take. Okay, you're going to beat your corn flakes with cereal?
God, you want to take a third take?
Yeah, to take three?
Okay.
Uh, I'm going to add a line too. I'm gonna improv the line. You're going to be eating cereal with water like in the movie Fridays.
That's all.
Yeah, you had to drink it or you had to eat it with water.
Yep.
Oh boy? Uh, where were we.
We're talking about corn flakes?
Well, in the story, I know there was a band name wanted to mention, the Pure Milk Association. Yeah, they were one of the union's great band name Post Dealers.
What about that one?
That's not too bad?
Milk Wagon Drivers Union. You know, we haven't taken a break. You have? Oh we did? We did? Okay? Good?
Yeah? Good, I mean we're we're supposed to be done by now. So here's what happened. In nineteen thirty nine. There was an anti trust case that was going on, basically with with this you know, monopoly that was happening, and the court threw it out. As a district court judge that threw it out, I believe it was reinstated by the Supreme Court later, but they avoided trial. The DOJ said, you know what, if everyone signs and agrees to this, then we can get this milk ore over.
The farmers and the unions. You gotta say that you won't stop independent producers from marketing milk. There can be independent producers, distributors. You can't fix your prices anymore. And drivers you're a union. There's a lot of moving parts here. Yeah, you can't hamper the store sales of milk. Like, I know, you like delivering to people's houses, but distribution is the thing now, and you got to let that.
Happen, right, And so essentially what the Justice Department said was you basically need to go the way that the mob was trying to take this and go your separate ways and compete with one another, like be capitalists rather than price fixers.
Exactly.
What's funny is there's a quote from Steve Sumner, who's just befuddled by this antitrust case that was slapped against him and some of the others. He's like, we're trying to get the milk flowing again, Like we're just making deals here, and they're like, you're price fixing that was the problem in the first place, so stop doing that, and I got the milk flowing again. I think in
nineteen forty the whole thing ended. That's right, pretty great stuff, the Chicago Milk Oars featuring al Capone in name only.
That's right.
Check said that's right twice everybody, and of course that means short stuff is out.
That's right.
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