(00:00:00) Our Story begins on the last day of March in 1934 on that day a Ramsey County grand jury released the results of an investigation into crime in the city of st. Paul speaking over the radio the grand jury Foreman said a thorough probe had found no evidence of excess crime in st. Paul it declared the city relatively free of major crime and criminals residents of one sample neighborhood though had reason to doubt that conclusion just as the foreman spoke machine gun fire broke out on South Lexington Avenue next day the papers reported the news st. Paul and federal law enforcement authorities had cornered some suspicious characters in an apartment building the suspect shot their way out fingerprints from the scene showed. One of the residents was none other than John Dillinger Public Enemy Number One not bad for a town just declared free of major crime and as it turned out Dillinger was by no means the only National figure to be found in st. Paul retired. Newsman Bill Grier. (00:00:57) There was a gentleman Who is pretty close to the police department? Who? Came in one day and said kid this lady would like to go to the Brown Derby and I can't take her up there. Would you sure where it is? So I walked her over to the Brown Derby. And had lunch with her. And then I took her to lunch once more twice the second time. I found out who she was this Bonnie Parker (00:01:31) Bonnie Parker Pretty Boy Floyd Homer Van Meter Alvin karpis the list of Underworld visitors to st. Paul read like a who's who of Midwest gangsters that all these big time criminals found their way to st. Paul was no accident for years Saint Paul had been a resting-place a hideout of education spot for some of the midwest's most notorious Crooks and all with the blessings of two very important st. Paul leaders retired st. Paul newsman Fred. Heh Berlin, (00:01:59) there are two real Connors and you're probably familiar with dick O'Connor who was a political boss and his brother John O'Connor was chief of police. But John O'Connor was the one who operate at this policy of your shape all be hospitable to hoodlums provided. You don't commit your crimes here. Two of them are quite a pair. (00:02:20) The AL Connors had opened up Saint Paul to the criminal element sometime before World War One. The idea was deceptively simple and enormously effective Bill Grier. (00:02:30) We were told although I never saw any of this happen that they could come and by paying a sum of money. each week two officials particularly enforcement officials They could stay as long as they did nothing wrong here. The officials wouldn't be able to read the warrants from other places or wouldn't be able to recognize the pictures sent out. And as long as they did nothing that was illegal here. They could stay as long as they kept up their payment was there stay here then mostly a social occasion a rest and relaxation period oh no, it was more like a retreat to gain strength and go out somewhere else you could go to Seven minutes sugar or South Dakota or someplace where you knew there was a likely-looking bank and Robert door. Whatever your specialty happened to be but you could come back to st. Paul as long as you didn't do it here. They wouldn't see (00:03:46) you. The O'Connor's had developed a sophisticated system to keep the out-of-towners in line during their st. Paul State the underworld arrivals first checked in with one of the O'Connor's lieutenants Who provided orientation and found a place for them to stay a visitor failing to follow the rules at the very least would receive a dressing down by the chief. He could also end up cooling his heels in the city jail for time. Although I never saw this (00:04:09) happen personally. I often heard stories about some ambitious young man, who would go out and snatch an old lady's purse on the street. and within a few hours, there would be one or two rather determined gentlemen, walk up beside him and say The sun we believe we'd better teach you some manners and they took him out and taught him some manners and we had very little purse snatching as a result of their (00:04:42) teaching. It was a friendly little Arrangement so long as the out-of-towners played by the rules refrain from plying their illicit trades when they were in town. They were pretty much free to do as they pleased existence of this layover system was an Open (00:04:56) Secret. The point is very often made and I make it myself that it was a safer town to live in for most people. When you head the criminals making sure that there was no crime so that they had sanctuary. What in effect we were a cancer in our own neighborhood because this is a place where they could come and be safe and then they could go outside and conduct any criminal activity. They wanted outside. Although we had a very Easy life as far as crime went (00:05:35) here. Of course. There was one glaring exception to the general law-abiding nature of st. Paul under the O'Connor system prohibition. (00:05:55) My heart to (00:06:09) the passage of the 18th Amendment in 1919 was a boon to the criminal element. Noah law could deny An American in search of a drink someplace to wet his whistle and there was lots of money to be made supplying the liquor Market in downtown st. Paul there were dozens of speakeasies blind pigs the locals call them dozens more were scattered around the rest of the county. There was the exclusive hollyhocks in south Mississippi Boulevard the Brown Derby at Seven Corners. The plantation was in White Bear Lake and the boulevards of Paris at Lexington and University Dapper. Dan's was one of downtown's best remembered clubs Fred her Berlin (00:06:47) Deborah down the hot dog, man. On Wabash. Aw, he had a one of these big griddles in the window and there would be a wieners frying on them on the griddle and I suppose some people even went in there for a wiener back of the front. There's a bar. And at one time he expanded and a whole was knocking the wall back in the door put in in it or what was called the Blue Room where he had parties for friends and and the front of the Blue Room came out to the street, of course and are there was a false wall with it looked as though it might be a warehouse type place or it had a bigger displays a cigar advertising stuff like that and but you get back on that wall why it was an entertainment room the Blue (00:07:46) Room Deborah. Denny Hogan was a legendary figure in the st. Paul underworld with the passing of the to O'Connor Brothers in the 1920s Hogan became one of the new King Pins in the city. He was offense of some repute a bootlegger and a political power broker (00:08:02) Danny Hogan. The term was invented then so far as I know. But today the probably called a Godfather the sort of a father figure for for hoods who were climbing in the world of whom is mmm. (00:08:19) But Danny Hogan's rain over st. Paul was to be short-lived 1 December morning in 1928 as Hogan stepped on the starter of his car a bomb exploded. The murder was generally late on the doorstep of one of Hogans Rivals, but there were others to take his place and the O'Connor system lived on pretty much intact. There wasn't really anything quite like the O'Connor system in Minneapolis though it to gain quite a reputation in the 1920s. In fact, the evidence indicates an even longer history of corruption in the Mill City just after the turn of the century muckraking journalist, Lincoln steffens published an expose called The Shame of cities. His first Target was Minneapolis. He described it as a city of loafers gamblers saloonkeepers extortionists and common criminals all organized and lorded over by Albert dock aims by the 20s Ames and his crowd were long gone, but the graft continued the illegal liquor trade of course was the reason or landfall work began covering Minneapolis for the old Daily Star back in 1919. (00:09:20) I got into the newspaper game just as prohibition was coming into into action bootlegging was probably the biggest business at Minneapolis had 40 several years, you know, it was just like trying to catch cockroaches you get one and there'd be a dozen of them over there (00:09:41) Minneapolis was a Crossroads for bootlegging in the 20s Canadian whiskey flowed through the town on its way to other Midwest cities perfume Factory sprung up in several parts of town the alcohol for perfume manufacturing diverted and distributed more than a little of this activity went on with the full knowledge and sometimes the collusion of City fathers for a Minneapolis prosecutor and retired federal judge Myles law. (00:10:06) The county attorney's brother was caught coming across a Third Avenue Bridge in Minneapolis with several trucks and police escorts. All the trucks were full of whiskey and they were intercepted by the federal agents (00:10:25) a series of crime Lords ruled over Minneapolis in those years. The longest lasting was a restaurant tour named Frank McCormick McCormick had such influence most of it purchased that once in a joke that the city hall had simply been moved to McCormick's place on 5th Avenue Frank McCormick (00:10:42) the king of them all. Yeah. I know Frank well and I'll bet you that Frank had the City of Minneapolis and the clutches of the sort of League Hollow of his hand. (00:10:57) For 20 years, but there were others most Barnett who ran a protection racket several illegal gambling establishments in bootlegging distribution warehouses in city hall George Leach was the mayor Frank Brun skill is chief of police again all and folic (00:11:12) when George Lynch was a mayor. In both his first and second terms. The town was little bit wider open than it had been and he appointed Frank run skill as Chief of Police. Run skill they don't know whether your leech told him that he had to do this or not. But at least one skill undertook to collect. It was almost the common talk that he was taking money for well, even though suppressing robbery events and and trying to paint the city as being just free of all iniquity and only nice people lived and worked here. And he was loading his jeans with (00:12:11) cabbage Treasures like those though often repeated. We're never proven against Brun skill or leech run scale was forced to resign. However, following a grand jury investigation and leech came under heavy fire from Law & Order Advocates, once Orlin falak accidentally stumbled upon a little transaction, which may indicate just how bad the situation had gotten in Minneapolis. (00:12:32) Have you been in the city hall. Well, you know a great big pillars that are in there. I was going to go over to the city attorney's office. And I had just come behind one of these pillars and I was going to go run when I Heard a Voice say Bill. I got to have $1,500 for the boys who you know $1,500 for the boys. Well. grass candle and there was rumor there were rumors of graft going on all the time. But nobody could prove anything. I never did find out what the what the $1,500 was to do. But anyway this this was a door being thrown wide open to me of that city council. They were they were demanding graphed right in the city (00:13:29) hall. All that came of that particular incident was a couple of newspaper articles and editorials, but other crooked politicians did get caught in 1929 for Alderman were convicted of graft and bribery several police and City Hall officials were forced to resign when their ties to the underworld became public the Unholy alliance between City Hall and the criminal element though continued (00:13:52) everybody in the Minneapolis city government had a racket that is the elective officers had another racket somewheres. I know that there were honest all over me, but I can't remember who they were. but the officers who dealt with public conduct we're crooked as all get (00:14:19) out towards the end of the 1920s to Minneapolis Bootleggers Rose to leadership of the city's underworld. They were Isadora Blumenfeld better known as kid can and his sometimes partner. Tommy Banks both were convicted of bootlegging but were reputed to hold controlling interests in the better part of the other illegal activity in the city former FBI agent Richard (00:14:40) pranky in regards to Tommy Banks. He was supposed to have been referred to as the head of the Syndicate and I was supposed to take in gambling and stuff and then kid can Isidore Blumenfeld Alias kid. Can he was supposed to be head of the combination? And I don't know we in the FBI convicted him for white slavery later on but he was supposed to be connected with pimps and stuff like that. So those were supposed to be your two (00:15:12) leaders one gets conflicting reports about these two characters these days Frankie. Says they were both basically. Okay guys and that sentiment is echoed by many law enforcement and newspaper people who knew them. Bob Burns worked for both men as a nightclub (00:15:27) musician. I didn't know Banks personally, of course, but I've seen him in action as a matter of fact, he had a representation of a reputation of being kind of unsavory as an example. I was playing in a club in Minneapolis and He was sitting at a table of his wife and he had his two bodyguards or whatever sitting nearby. and the Busboys Drop something. I don't if you spill something on him or what but he jumped up and he made a pass at this kid and the kid duct him come back real with reflexes with the left and knocked down lie down flat. These two thugs jump this kid and they beat him so unmercifully, they had to take him out the back door to the ambulance and I never did hear what happened to him. How about Can-Can was quiet. Yeah. Yeah goes kept to himself. He never bothered anybody. It wasn't conspicuous at all and never saw him drunk never saw model line (00:16:37) for the ordinary citizen. The Twin Cities were actually quite safe places to live during the 1920s st. Paul. In fact had a stellar crime record. Thanks in large measure to the restrictions of the O'Connor system most people at nothing to fear from the underworld many people actually looked on the racketeers quite favorably after all they were the one supplying the illegal booze and entertainment denied by federal law or landfall Wick (00:17:02) and of course in those days the word Bootlegger ceased being the nasty name that preceded the arrival of prohibitionism. Bootlegger was a hero and instead of a snake trying to dodge it Government taxes on Whiskey and fortunately the city editor that of the book I started with the old Minnesota Daily Star. He had nothing but contempt for the psyched and rather openly displayed his a disdain for it by by raking nice stories about Bootleggers are printing my stories and pointing out that is just without saying so, you know indicating that they were the only people who were left that they would take care of of the good citizens who would like to enjoy himself, you know, whether the more than a cup of (00:18:05) coffee. It's difficult to imagine today the open disregard for the eighteenth Amendment and it wasn't just the big time operators behind the liquor trade for many Americans booze became a family business. (00:18:18) I recall one place on Genesee Street, which is pretty obscure. But we should go in there for a beer and the man of the house. So to speak was was put in jail, but the business went on his wife ran it and it didn't stop and her complaint mostly was not on the cops running like that. But her damn washing machine wouldn't (00:18:47) work. Of course one didn't have to always go out for a drink during the 1920s many a Minnesotan simply made his own bill Grier. (00:18:56) It would be awfully hard to have gone down on the upper Levy in the bucket of blood District without finding wine many people made gin and their own either wash basins are bathtubs Stearns County was reputed to be almost solid stills. Not one on every Farm but maybe two or three on some farms and then there'd be a few without. They had a type of corn that was sold to make booze of and the booze took its name, Minnesota (00:19:38) 13 that Stearns County brew was something special as these folks. Tell it a moonshine unsurpassed in quantity and quality former nightclub. Musician. Bob (00:19:49) Burns the best moonshine you could buy with made-up round. St. Cloud they call it Minnesota 13 Germans up there knew how to make it and they made it clean some of this moonshine was made around Minneapolis. It was so rotten that you take the cork out of his the smell of it make you sick. Would you hold your nose and gargle it down and throw up a couple times and try to get it to they got some to stay down. I didn't know what will bourbon tasted like then because I've never tasted it, but I know it was much easier to consume them. What we were used to around the Twin Cities Lee's and gentlemen. now with rum ever since the beginning of time there has been a drink problem right a problem even a greater problem. Now, it's so scares the nightclubs operated by setups and they probably made more money instead of some they did later with beer because there were no restrictions what I explained that well setups was you Come here with a party of four as an example. You had said at your table and your daughter ginger ale or pop or whatever that you wanted to make sure your boys with and it bring you a bowl of ice a bowl of ice would be a buck and pop would be 75 cents each crack and it was pure profit. You carry your own bottle some of the places if you ran out of bows, you might be able to buy a bottle but they were kind of careful about (00:21:27) Dad but there was another side to the illegal liquor business during the 1920s a more Insidious side or landfall (00:21:35) Wick. It was just a frightful. The Bootleggers would would give the cops whiskey. and most of the cops were drinkers, you know, they they were they didn't necessarily necessarily have to be drunkards, but they they like bows and they were really happy to be able to keep it going during this period And so all of the facial my pay, I don't know $10,000 for for a protection deal and That'll be just a fraction of what he was making on it. And there was the rich loans are on, you know and criminy. There was one across the street from the police station kitty corner over on Fourth Street side street. And Third Street and Third Avenue South. Well, you know where that is. Okay, then right on the corner. There was a bootleg joint and I saw cops go in there detectives. Well, heck the agents knew about it and never knocked it off. It was corrupting in a very small way and small ways (00:22:58) retired federal district. Judge Myles Lord (00:23:01) The Little Old Lady Who Was bootlegging the policeman would come and take vegetables out of her garden and petty little things like that. Just those little extra privileges that they gave to Law Enforcement Officers every place where that was happening there was so that the idea of having even small violations that are profitable and consistent breeds a kind of corruption. That's the biggest thing wrong with gambling. They have to if there's any substantial gambling going on at least in those in the older days. Maybe it's more sophisticated now. That money is used to buy influence with the police. And then if you've ever been around police work, if you have a soft spot a weak spot where you've taken something from one person wrongfully, then you're exposed to the whole Panorama of corruption. They'll get you for something (00:23:58) else. Once you're in you're in and you just get deeper and deeper, (00:24:02) that's right. That's (00:24:03) right. And by the end of Prohibition in 1933 members of both the Minneapolis and st. Paul police forces were apparently in up to their necks. The system of payoffs The graft had become institutionalized former Saint Paul News man Fred. Hey (00:24:18) Berlin when I say the cops were some of them were on the take even petty stuff in a short period when I was covering place I recall there's a one of the police minor officials had a Christmas tree. Well it disappeared and he went a raging around and I remember I wrote a story I want to destroy by saying you that he vowed to have a Christmas tree even if you had to buy one, so I'm here for a small shop like that. They take anything to get the sheriff at that time. They used to give us Just like that. There's no crime in Ramsey County are there are no slot machines Ramsey County. I mentioned this one because slot machines were everywhere and I recall I was a knight reporter doing features that time the sheriff was going to demonstrate that there were no slot machines Ramsey County have a son alone. Going to ass Loom or whatever. And so I there any slot machines here and answer will be no sheriff and we went had quite a quite a Saturday. This was a Saturday night had quite an evening Saturday night Saturday Night Live and I wrote. I thought it kind of a humorous story about there are no slot machines Ramsey County. It's but obviously y by Monday or they'd be back in place. So but that night as Ramsey County was pretty (00:25:54) clean, but then in 1933 came an event which changed forever the nature of this friendly little game. It occurred one midnight in April of that year. Bob Burns was among those on hand for the big (00:26:06) event. We were ready to play at midnight and the club was full of people. This club happened to be the Persian Club in 17th and Nicollet in Minneapolis on the second floor at the stroke of midnight. We played Happy Days Are Here Again The Doors Opened and all the Busboys and waiters each one carrying a case of beer and his shoulders and the crowd went (00:26:28) wild for most of America. This was a night of unbridled celebration. The dry years were finally over the noble experiment declared a failure booze was back. But there was little to be happy about that night for the criminal element in Minneapolis or anywhere else repeal of the 18th Amendment for them was a major setback. The loss of bootlegging money was incalculable Bill Grier (00:26:53) here or a whole group of people living very well as a result of being allied with the illegal production of alcoholic beverages in the area and suddenly their livelihood was removed. They were poor or facing poverty depending upon how Hold our judgment had been in using the money or storing it when they made (00:27:23) it at first some in the Underworld were able to turn the end of prohibition to their advantage by violating for a profit the new liquor control measures for starters. There were the hours during which it was legal to sell booze after-hours joint sprang up almost immediately Bob Burns, (00:27:40) but it's a six-piece band. We work seven nights a week we start to work at 9 and go to one and we cut down to three men at one o'clock because by 1:30, we'd have 15 men probably on the stage everybody jamming and having a hell of a time. Those are the days of the big bands coming through the are fume bands like Benny Goodman Tommy Dorsey. Bob Crosby and they would wind up with one o'clock. So they wanted to go somewhere and blow a little more and I'd come up there and we probably jam and have a ball until the paradise is close maybe at five o'clock and he's jumping cars and go up to the north side and finish off at 9 or 10 o'clock and maybe go home (00:28:31) the police knew this was going on didn't they? I mean (00:28:34) the after our job, how could they help but no, there was one spot. I'm head of a matter the paradise that was probably the greatest of all the mall had a speaker outside. Picking up the band and a floor show and all the noise of the club all night long 3 o'clock in the morning you get on end up and all you could hear was his speaker playing on (00:28:58) but after our joints alone weren't nearly enough to sustain the underworld there just wasn't enough money in it new Ventures were desperately needed underworld activities took a nasty turn kidnapping became one particularly popular crime at first rival Mobsters were the targets. They after all weren't likely to alert the cops, but it was just a matter of time before those gangs enlarge their Horizons to include innocent law-abiding citizens in 1931 alone. There were 280 kidnappings Nationwide bank. Robbery Rose to nearly epidemic (00:29:30) proportions. Hey used to tell me I was building a dream. And so I followed the mark when there was Earth to plow or guns to bear was always there right on the job. They used to tell me I was building a dream (00:30:10) probably nothing did more to transform the criminal element than the great crash of 1929. The depression spawned a whole new class of young lawbreakers criminals who just didn't adhere to the old rules. They couldn't afford to Bill (00:30:24) Grier the people back in the late twenties and early thirties. They staked out a Turf and they stayed there. if they were delivering booze they would shoot anybody that got in the way if you didn't get in the way you were safe. You didn't have to worry about them as the Depression started to take effect. You got people who? Would break the money to break the law to get money to eat. It wasn't to live get close and it was eat. consequently, they knew very little about being criminals and they knew very little about picking up. Candidates for the crime and they stayed within their boundaries and all of a sudden the people in nice quiet neighborhood started to become conscious of the fact that there is a criminal World out (00:31:26) here from this new Criminal element emerged John Dillinger and his associates Bonnie and Clyde the to we mop and most important in the history of Minnesota The Barker karpis gang led by The Barker Brothers from Missouri and Alvin creepy carpets from Canada by way of several County and state prisons in this country in 1932. The Barker karpis gang moved its base of operations to st. Paul taking advantage of the Aging those still partially intact O'Connor system early on the brothers mother K Barker was apparently the brains of the operation though. That point is still disputed by some one of the gangs first jobs in Minnesota was a not so tidy daylight robbery of the third Northwestern National Bank in Minneapolis red medic was an eyewitness. (00:32:13) I was going by in the street. Going home and I saw this guy standing by the help box. You had a submachine gun. It was on a triangle. It was the one on the corner one on each side with a submachine gun. They're robbing the bank. So the bank called in the police station said there's trouble at the bank. That's all they said. so Ira Evans Leo Gorski were the two policemen in the squad car. They drove up in front. It didn't have a chance to get out of the car a hundred and twenty four slugs across car killed them both. I remember that everybody got on the floor in the street journal. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. It was a close one because those bullets are flying and I'll never forget that (00:33:15) the take that day for the Barker karpis gang was a cool $20,000 later. The gang had Banks and other Midwestern Town Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Brainerd. They also got the Swift company payroll in South st. Paul in all it's been estimated the gang accumulated something in the neighborhood of three million dollars during the early 1930s spree. The gang left a definite impression on more than a few Midwest towns. Bob Burns (00:33:41) car Pastels in his book where they went up to. Cambridge went up to Cambridge and they burgled every store in town. In the comic, is that her to come and when left? And they robbed every store in town and and thick Alder Loot and went into a Buick agency and drove a Buick through the window and brought their loot back to st. Paul and Garba. So that's only time every business in a town is robbed. It took something from everybody it want to slide anybody. (00:34:21) Though not directly connected with a National Crime organization emerging in the 1930s. The Barker karpis gang was very well connected with its leaders men who for a percentage of the take would organize a caper Supply extra help provide protection. There were two such figures in st. Paul Harry Sawyer who ran a club called the Green Lantern that was Danny Hogan's old place and Jack pifer the proprietor of the hollyhocks in the spring of 1933 pifer contacted carpus with the proposition carpets later recorded his memories of that meeting in preparation for an autobiography recordings. We obtained from the carpus estate. (00:35:00) The bosses are were running with rackets and so forth would like to see us if we could get up that way. (00:35:06) These recordings apparently made on a rather Antiquated tape recorder in the early 1970s provide a fascinating Narrative of one man's impressions of st. Paul in the 1930s. Of course, Alvin karpis was no ordinary visitor to the city after Dillinger carpus and his Partners were probably the most feared of the Depression era gangsters carpets himself top the FBI's list of Public Enemies longer than anyone else carpus once wrote that of all the Midwest cities st. Paul was his favorite. It was like a Perpetual party. He said everybody in st. Paul had the same things in common stealing killing or looting even after the O'Connor payoff system started to crumble in the 1930s carp has found sanctuary and protection from the city's underworld leaders like Jack Piper. (00:35:51) He was well connected with the rum running had been a bank robber in his earlier days. Pretty well tied up with The Syndicate. If you could call it that over in Minneapolis. They had alcohol. They had the alcohol running braudy bringing alcohol out of the Twin Cities into the Dakotas and so forth were involved in the several other Vice rackets and all in all these fellows are making a lot of (00:36:18) money what Jack Piper proposed to Alvin karpis and Freddy Barker in the spring of 1933 was as much a political caper as a criminal one in 1932 st. Paul had elected a new mayor a reform candidate who had promised to clean the city up though. There is little indication. The new administration had accomplished much the new mayor apparently had the Old Guard worried (00:36:40) that the bosses aren't as a political bosses and the city who had been ousted in their past election in 1932 and decided that the time had come for a little major crime in the city which might tend to discredit to reform. The next election came up there would have been enough happen. So that the outs could also point out that the reform element certainly hadn't done the city and he good chances were good that they would overthrow them and get back in (00:37:13) again. What Jack Piper had in mind was a spectacular crime one sure to shake the good citizens of st. (00:37:19) Paul. What would you guys think it died? Kidnapping would you go along with what fibers in this thing would come for $100,000. I'd take 10% of it if it's all right with you guys. That would leave you $90,000 cut up six ways, but he has to say who the hell is this guy? You want kidnappers in Iraq and guy who died for laughs and says, no. No, it's one of the guys that should be having plenty of cash money right now. This is a felon is President Han Brewing Company to William the ham (00:37:56) Junior of all the people and say Paul to profit from the repeal of prohibition William Hammond Jr. Undoubtedly led the list in those first few months after repealed his Brewery was running at full capacity sale strong as ever. What a target for kidnapping (00:38:22) This guy actually because with the way they're selling that barely going even better 3/2 is only been back now but a month or so and they've got thousands of cases stacked up high for Applied hams a pretty good guy and we don't want to see him get tied up financially as white Invader fair with their operations. If you guys take too much money anyway, $100,000 a bad one, especially beautif actor were going to be informed of every step that goes along missing by the police. This is practically a gift actually instead of a (00:39:00) taper on June 15th, after weeks of planning and research carpus grabbed ham as he walked home from the brewery for lunch. It all went off just as plan. No one knew the Brewer was missing until the first Ransom note arrived and as it turned out Jack Piper's contacts in the st. Paul police force proved invaluable to the gang again, Alvin karpis. (00:39:21) Survivor Court collect a million times. I forgot home. So you are and Parker and told him for the Christ's sake don't try to collect that money like that. Then that Brewery to whether the use of of Brewery truck for the delivery of it because they are sticking in your crack machine gun expert under a tarpaulin on the bed of that truck and whoever tries to get pick up that money is going to get cut to Pieces. So you guys are going to have to figure out something else (00:39:54) several days later a new money drop was arranged and the wealthy st. Paul Brewer was released if the figures behind the hams kidnapping at hope to create a public uproar by this crime, they were indeed successful almost immediately the st. Paul Daily News began a front-page editorial assault on the city's crime record and the police force in Washington leading figures in the Roosevelt administration and the US Senate lashed out at st. Paul as a hotbed of crime. Part of the nation a Haven for the criminal element if any two cities in the nation needed cleaning up said us attorney general homework Commons. It was Minneapolis. And st. Paul the New York Times reported that leading st. Paul businessman fearing. They might be the Outlaws next victim had taken to traveling in bulletproof cars carrying weapons even gas masks for protection former Saint Paul news reporter Bill Grier the rich (00:40:46) people who solder colleagues and fellow club members being kidnapped and held for ransom. Naturally got a little bit fearful. My understanding is that they Wanted to organize something in the nature of a protection for (00:41:08) themselves these concerned citizens brought their cause to Howard Kahn the editor of the now-defunct st. Paul Daily News Fred her Berlin. (00:41:17) The police department are suspected of being riddled with fraud bribery all sorts of things and He was pretty much instrumental now. He wasn't the only one but pretty much instrumental in and getting development of Jayme Wallace Jamie. (00:41:43) So pretty much forgotten today in the 1930s the name Jamie was nearly synonymous with anti-gangster undercover operations. It was Alexander Jamie who led the secret six in Chicago, which finally got the goods on Al Capone these st. Paul businessman wanted him to come to st. Paul instead. Jamie despatched his son Wallace young man in his 20s who really didn't want to get into law enforcement. He was sent to head the Saint Paul investigation young. Jamie was to devise one of the most spectacular Undercovers schemes in the state's history, but it wasn't long after Wallace Jamie set up shop in st. Paul that the city got yet another (00:42:20) jolt. Kidnapper strike (00:42:33) again. Here is our latest victim Edward G Bremer st. Paul Banker whose father is a close friend of President Roosevelt. It was after taking his eight-year-old daughter Betty to school that mr. Bremer started to drive to the bank of which he is head the card only gone a few blocks and it is stopped by another car driving in front of it. One of the abductors then got into Burma's car and forced the banker to drive off. That was the last scene of it. With a two hundred thousand dollar Ransom demanded (00:43:00) Entre. Unfortunately for the mob behind the Bremer kidnapping the mood of the country had turned tough on crime by 1935 st. Paul was beginning to take seriously its own particularly notorious record five kidnappings and nearly a dozen Gangland slayings in the previous three years alone Washington had made kidnapping a federal crime by 1935 and new legislation had greatly strengthened the hand of the FBI in the midwest the bomber case became a bureau priority former agent Richard pranky. We all had to do a hell of a lot of work. (00:43:32) And in those days we worked seven days a week we worked night and day got no time off you lost your vacations. It was just hard work going around contacting and interviewing people and (00:43:46) so from the first break in the case came with the discovery of several flashlights on the side of a Gravel Road near zambrotta. They were tracked down to a Saint Paul store with a clerk identified a picture of Alvin karpis two days later age. Found empty gasoline tins on a funnel in Wisconsin. They deduced they'd been used to refuel the kidnap car the lab found one of Doc Barker's fingerprints on the cans. The bureau was finally getting a picture of just who was behind this crime Richard pranky produced. One of the final pieces of the puzzle when bramer was (00:44:16) held he memorized the wallpaper seat and after his release the FBI showed them Reams and reams of wallpaper, and he finally picked it out and says, that's the kind. Well, I'm in Chicago. We went out and raided a house in Bensenville and as we went through I goes into that bedroom. And I lets out a big war hoop. Here's the wallpaper. All of us agents had to carry a sample of that wallpaper and hollers out necessary is the wallpaper sure enough. I mean that's the room that Bremer was (00:44:54) in over the next several years. The FBI was able to track down each and every member of The Barker karpis gang doc Barker was courted in Chicago by Melvin Purvis Freddie and Ma Barker died in a gun battle with G-Men and Florida authorities. Finally caught up with Alvin karpis two years later, of course by the mid 30s nearly all the great gangsters it either been killed or captured John Dillinger Homer Van Meter Baby Face Nelson, Bonnie and Clyde their time had passed and in Saint Paul Wallace. Jamie's investigation was beginning to bear fruit using some of the most up-to-date techniques. Jamie had amassed an impressive case against the corrupt elements in City Hall Bill Grier (00:45:33) almost every officials phone in the st. Paul police station was tapped. Apparently the Taps were connected with recording equipment later. It turned out that they had recordings very complete of most conversations that have been going on in the police (00:45:58) station in June of 1935. The city's Commissioner of Public Safety went public with the results of Wallace. Jamie's investigation nearly 90% of the recordings made in City Hall. He said were incriminating. He immediately suspended five top police officials later a grand jury handed down 21 indictments most against members of the police force in the end several high-ranking police officials went to the workhouse the chief the chief detective the head of the kidnap Squad and several others were removed from office a new breed of honest cops Rose to the leadership and the Saint Paul Department Fred her Berlin (00:46:33) and the Great White Knight at that time was Clint Heckert supposed to be the first clean Chief we've had in quite a long time that there was quite a shake-up in town the old Customer appointing police chief's politically was wiped out and police commission was set up the town actually had quite a change police ways. We had a clean (00:46:59) Department former Saint Paul news editor Fred her Berlin in Minneapolis. The cleanup was much slower incoming it wasn't until the mid 1940s that the Mill City finally elected a mayor able to turn the tide against the rackets. His name was Hubert Humphrey elected in 1945 Humphrey appointed Ed Ryan as police chief the first clean Chief in decades people say and under the new mayor's leadership. The racketeers were put on notice that the old rules no longer applied long time Humphrey associate retired federal judge Myles Lord (00:47:30) the first thing he did he believed in giving people a warning. So he called in a man named Eugene bernath who was an old-time detective and June spoke with I can't mimic any kind of Swiss accent. He called in you Ginny said Eugene. I want to promote you in the police department. He said will you be honest and Jean says boss, you know still I know steel and Bernard later told me he said and I never did steal after that. He although Humphrey was about 6 foot 1 which surprised many people including me Burnett always called him the little guy. He said the little guy you went out and they gave him one warning or maybe to now I'm not sure he went into the places where the gambling dens were in the houses of prostitution and the illicit liquor sales de little guy down there at City Hall says you going to clean up your act or you're gonna go to jail. And that was Bieber in a statement. He went all over town telling people that and then actually Hilbert didn't have to put many people in (00:48:44) jail retired federal judge Myles Lord in the final analysis. It's difficult to put in perspective the lawlessness the corruption that plagued the Twin Cities in the 1920s and 30s certainly other cities were similarly Afflicted Chicago st. Louis, Kansas City, but in this state which Prides itself in and is widely recognized for its generally clean government. It's basically corruption-free politics those decades stand out as dark and unsavory chapters in our history. This is Mark heisted. A story of crime criminals and Corruption was produced and narrated by Mark heisted and is a production of the Minnesota Public Radio history project technical Direction by Joe juncos and Scott Yankees research assistance from John Van hecke e-soo Burris and William wilcoxen. Our thanks to the National voice library at Michigan State University to the UCLA film television and radio archives to the estate of Elven carpets and the Minnesota Historical Society for their assistance.