H.J. Gaudreau - Jim Crenshaw 02 - The Collingwood Legacy Read Free

distributing booze. The police tried to stop the flow of liquor to no avail. The money, the resources of the gangs, the corruption and the intimidation was too much. Liquor flowed from Windsor Canada across the Detroit River and into the nation’s fourth largest city in quantities no one could imagine.
    The Purples knew a golden opportunity when they saw one. Soon they were the most powerful and feared gang in Detroit. Seventy-five percent of the illegal liquor coming into the United States from Canada came through Detroit. Its twenty-eight mile long Detroit River was just a mile from Canada and dotted with thousands of coves, boat yards, nooks and crannies - it was a smuggler’s dream.
    At first, the Purples tried to keep the Detroit river front to themselves. It was an impossible task. There were too many rivals; the Purples couldn’t kill them all. But, they could impose a territorial system. Nothing moved along the docks of Detroit without the permission of the Purples. If it did, a savage lesson was taught. The Purples employed the new Thompson submachine gun as their business card. The ‘Chopper’ could cut a man in half in the blink of an eye. It ensured their rivals knew who had done the shooting and it left an impression.
    The Purples dominated the Detroit underworld for years. No one went to jail. No one talked. The Purple Gang simply owned the police and killed anyone who complained. Business was business. The Detroit underworld flourished; the East Side Gang, “Singing Sam” Catalanotte, Chester “Big Chet” La Mare and the rest were, for the moment, happy with the arrangement.
    The Purple Gang’s lock on the waterfront and bootlegging couldn’t last. The fall of 1931 saw an unprecedented opportunity for the competition. The American Legion was having its national convention in Detroit and the demand for liquor would surpass even the Purple’s capacity to supply it. Now rivals from all over the country were slipping into the city. Worse yet, some of the gang’s own associates began to moonlight. This didn’t go unnoticed by the Bernstein brothers.
    Foremost among the moonlighters were three new members of the ‘Third Avenue Navy’. The Navy was part of the smuggling operation of the Purple Gang. Equipped with some of the fastest boats produced on the Great Lakes and armed with Thompson submachine guns the Navy made the run across the Lake and stopped others from making the same trip. The Navy’s running fights with the U.S. Coast Guard were big news and widely reported.
    The Navy was a major part of the supply side of the Purple Gang’s operation. It was highly paid work, members were lost as a result of the work and to arrest. New members were recruited continuously. With the coming convention the Navy had to increase its size. New recruits were brought in without proper vetting. Hymie Paul, Isadore “Izzy” Sutker, and Joe Lebowitz were three of those new recruits.
    That summer, in a show of supreme stupidity the three began diverting portions of each run. The lightened loads were not unnoticed, but good fortune smiled on the three double-crossers. A negotiation was taking place with the North Side Gang of Chicago. The Gang was losing its power in Chicago and the Purples were exploring ways of moving in on Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit. A partnership seemed possible. The Purples simply didn’t have the time to devote to these relatively small losses.
    Unable to stand prosperity the three made another incredibly bad decision. They decided to start ‘making book’. They set the odds, took bets from all comers, including the opposition, and counted on the betters to lose. The scheme should have worked, but the boys were swimming with the sharks. 
    A great pastime of the day was motor boat racing. Different categories of boats from sail to yacht, professional and amateur, were raced on the Detroit River to the delight of the populace. One of the more popular races was the “Gentleman’s Motor