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posies The underworld lest its most fantastic and picturesque personality and Johnny Torrio lost his most persistent pein in the neck on the morning of November 19, when ion O’Banion's body, heavier by six balls of lead, fell crashing among the chrysanthemums of his little flower shop at 738 North State Street. This flower shop, inti- mately connected with some of the most thrilling chapters in the long and bloody story of Boozedom, stands intact teday, and the proprietor, William Schofield, stands many customers on the spot where O’Banion fel} while he takes orders for flowers. Q’Banion, in partnership with Schofield and Samuel “Nails” Morton, used the little shop as a blind for his prodigious criminal! activities, A glad hand artist, an expert at throwing the bull, this paradoxical mixture of ferocity and sentimentality stepped high wide and handsome through the shadowy realm of the underwortd for a dozen years, cracking safes, shooting up saloons, terrorizing pollin places, figuring in newspaper circulation wars, hi-jacking liquor and thumbing his nose at public prosecutors. His ability to thumb his nose at public prosecutors, ascribable to his own more or less valuable services to certain North Side political leaders, first attracted the attention of Johnny Torrico when Johnny was locking about for breweries and talented gentlemen to aid him in what Was a new and inviting racket. . O’Banion, a typical neighborhood gangster from boy- hood, had assembled a formidable gang in the persons of such men as Samuel “Nails” Morton, Louie “Three-Gun” Alterie, “Little Hymie” Weiss, George “Bugs” Moran, Schemer Drucci, George and Pete Gusenberg and other lesser individuals. Torrio and O’Banion came to an under- standing and ©'Banion’s territory was established on the North Side. Presently he had, to use his own expression, stepped up into the bucks. O’Banion’s power resulted from the application of methods quite unlike those of Johnny Torrico and Capone, His realm was built on friendship, with pecuniary considerations secondary. O’Banion de- ended upon his pals, and his pals depended upon him. His death however proved conclusively to the interested spectator, that the almighty dollar furnishes a stronger basis for the relations between organized crime and ma- chine politics than brotherly love. O’Banion was ever-ready to aid and protect anybody in his neighborhood and he Imew everybody. The poor looked upon O’Banion as a great and good man, and he never forgot them. Across the street from his flower shop stood Holy Name Cathedral in which O’Banion had been an altar boy. Samuel “Nails” Morton was one of O’Banion’s closest friends from boyhood. Mor- ton was dubbed “Nails” when quite a lad because he was that hard. “Nails” served in the World War and emerged with several decorations for bravery and a commission. Sammy was a great influence on O’Banion’s intellectual development, if any. He took his blustering buddy by the hand and led him down the booze trail to prosperity and big dough before Torrico completed the job. In the little floral shop together these two men sat among the carna- tions and the filies and plotted such booze robberies as the removal of 6,000 gallons of excellent liquors from the Royal Drug Company on forged permits. Ah! What a swell job that was! Six uniformed policemen aided in the work of loading the liquor onto trucks, and, when the last quart of Old Taylor had been gathered in, Sammy gave the signal and the cops blew whistles and you and me, scurring down the street in our Model T stopped with screeching brakes, while Sammy and O’Banion moved out into the traffic, A great yowl, heard all over town, resulted from that job. The permits had looked all right enough, and they had read all right, but, too late, somebody dis- covered that they were phony. “Nails” taught O’Banion to wear dinner jackets and to live in fine hotels and how to use his knife and fork and to be a gentleman. He is given credit for also teaching the blustering Irishman that political pull is more potent for a racketeer on occasions than pistols. “Get the politi- cians working for you” was a complicated principle which Samuel pounded into O’Banion’s head. It is aaid that “Nails” invented the famous phrase “take him for a ride” by which is meant that traitors spies, squealers and stool pigeons, were disposed of by being placed in the front seat of an automobile and shot by somebody in the rear seat. Curiously enough “Nails” himself was taken for a ride one Sunday morning, only it wasn’t that kind of a ride. “Nails” in riding togs was en route from a stable one Sunday morning to Lincoln Park for a canter. The horse, not knowing what a tough gy “Nails” was, became unruly before they reached the bridle path and “Nails” was thrown violently to the pavement. Fhe horse then stepped on Mr. Morton's head. A few hours later, legend has it, Louie “Three Gun” Alterie, again rented the horse, rode it to a _ Temote spot and then pumped a bullet into the horse's head. A new story used to appear every day about O’Banion's loyaity to a pal, his bravery, his great love for gun play, his love for his mother and wife, and his “Robin Hood” methods. Here is one on the “pal” theme. In the days before the Golden Era of prohibition O’Banion was not at all averse to sensational holdups. Once he and his mob planned to “take” a certain race track which was about to open, on the West Side. Wind of this came to the pro- moters, one of whom knew a newspaper man who was friendly with O’Banion. Af being native Chicagoans, instead of informing the police, the promoters went to the newspaper man. O’Banion was called by telephone and the newspaper man said, “Say Deany, I want you to do a favor for me.” It was okey with O’Banion, even when the hewspaper man informed him that the favor meant assem- bling some of his boys and working as a guard over the till_at the race track, Sure enough on the day of the race, O’Banion with a gang of his hoodlums, al! armed, stood around the box offices ready for war if anybody attempted to spring anything. Later O’Banion learned from the hewspaper man that a fast one had been put over on him but he received the news with great relish. It will serve to illustrate the important position O’Banion occupied to mention a party given in his honor several days prior to his death. The hosts included the commissioner of public works, the county clerk, half a dozen police lieutenants, and the chief of detectives, Michael Hughes. A diamond studded watch was presented to O’Banion on this occasion. When news of the party got out, there was a great noise and Detective Hughes explained that he had come to the party thinking it was to be given in honor of another, Jerry O’Conner, secre of the Theater Janitors’ Union. “i was framed,” said Hughes, “and I got out as quickly as I could.” The unwillingness of O’Banion to take orders from Torrio, plug his ambition to extend his activities into forbidden territory brought about his break with Torrio and—his sensational and sudden death. It is likely that Torrio took O’Banion under his wing as a matter of policy. Torrio put as many boards in his political fence es he could lay hands on and O’Banion represented a wide plank on the North Side. But O’Banion’s flamboyant style was irri- tating to Torrico, and he felt that O’Banion would bring trouble into the realm with his high-handed methods. Torrio was a business man first and a gangster second. O’Banion Was a 1 Fangster. Torrio would rather bribe a policeman than kill him. O’Banion would rather bribe him too if he didn’t want too much. Two policemen once appropriated a truck load of beer belonging to O’Banion and Torrio. They demanded $200 to release it. When he waa told this over the telephone by one of the beer-runners, detectives listening in on a tapped wire, heard him sa , “Oh, to hell with them guys. I can bump ‘em off for half that much,” Later, the same voice, told O’Banion that Forrio in the meantime had instructed that the cops be paid the money. “We don’t want no trouble,” Torrio had said. And there you have the essential difference between Torrio and O’Banion. One didn’t want trouble; the other was always looking for it. ’