Picketers dump milk from the truck of Frank E. Welsch of Kansasville, Wisconsin, on Highway 75 in Kenosha County on May 13, 1933, as Racine County sheriff’s deputies look on. The deputies had escorted the truck through Racine County. There were no Kenosha County deputies present, and the farmers seized the truck as it crossed the county line. The milk was destined for a bottling plant in Salem, Wisconsin. Photo and caption credit to The Chicago Tribune.
History can at times shape the future in funny ways. Depending on who you ask, you can be told that it’s either fact or fiction. Once upon a time in Chicago during The Prohibition era, the emergence of black markets and crime syndicates dedicated to distributing alcohol plagued the nation. The Eighteenth Amendment, also known as the Volstead Act, set the rules for the enforcement and banning the selling and consumption of alcoholic beverages in the country. The Volstead Act grew in unpopularity that by the late 1920s, an anti-prohibition fight started brewing; with the main arguments opposing the Volstead Act stemming from the negative effects on the economy, the ineffectiveness of reducing alcohol consumption, and the rise of organized crime. On December 5, 1933, the 18th Amendment was repealed with the ratification of the 21st Amendment.
Towards the ending of the Volstead Act, Al Capone and his brother Ralph “Bottles” Capone, feared that Prohibition was coming to an end, so the Capones needed another source of revenue – the Chicago milk industry. The milk industry wasn’t well-regulated during that time. It was a perfect fit for Capone and his mob to stronghold their way in. In 1933, Al Capone was already in jail for income tax evasion. He served out his sentence in Federal prisons in Atlanta and later to the infamous Alcatraz federal prison.
Steve Sumner, boss of the Milk Wagon Drivers’ Union, demonstrates the security features of the steel door at his union’s offices at 220 S. Ashland Ave. in Chicago in 1932. Photo and caption credit to The Chicago Tribune.
Al’s Chicago outfit carried his orders while in prison. According to an article in the Chicago Tribune recounts that Capone’s political fixer Murray “The Camel” Humphreys told Steve Sumner, leader of the delegation of the Milk Wagon Drivers’ Union Local 753, that the mob had bought a dairy and was intending to muscle in on the milk business just as it did with beer. Humphreys told Sumner to lay low for a couple of weeks, in the meantime, they can hire non-union help and undercut the price of dairy. Afterwards, they could hold a demonstration at their plant, so it would give them a reason to raise the price of milk and then hire union men. Sumner told Humphreys he wanted no part of their scam — thus, igniting Chicago’s milk wars.
Sumner’s next move was to reinforce the union’s offices with sheet metal and a security feature of a gun insert to shoot from. The union peddled that a police squad with machine gun nest was just across the street. Mobsters had terrorized the Local 753 before. In 1931, the union’s president, Robert Fitchie, was kidnapped and tortured by Capone’s henchmen, Fitchie was eventually released after the union paid the $50,000 ransom. After that ordeal, Sumner started driving a 3-ton armored car that was referred to as the “rolling fortress,” a car usually built for utility tycoons.
The scene at the airport in Chicago on Jan. 9, 1934, as a plane landed with a supply of milk for the Wagner Dairy Co. of Cicero. Police were on hand to prevent dumping by picketers. The company was one of the independents, which were particular targets of the strikers. Photo and caption credit to The Chicago Tribune.
During an 18-month period, there were numerous of beaten vendors and drivers, windows broken, damaged trucks, and bombings. Striking dairy farmers and drivers bombed Meadowmoor Dairies, just after it opened in 1932. The mob began undercutting dairy prices since they weren’t unionized. Capone’s loyalist mob also extorted pizzerias and forced them to only use Meadowmoor cheese or “mob cheese.” During the economic ruin of the Great Depression, the war pitted union officials against gangsters, and dairies that delivered milk to homes against those that sold milk in stores. Every penny that was shaved off the price of milk during the milk wars was getting them closer to bankruptcies, which was already overwhelming the farmers of America. The unstable prices forced a lot of Wisconsin’s dairy farmers to walk off the job in 1933.
As the war continued on between the unions, the mob, the milk delivery drivers, and the retail sellers – Sumner and the Milk Wagon Drivers’ Union demanded price standardization for all milk, no matter if it was sold in stores or not. But the Associated Milk Dealers rejected the idea and dairy farmers continued to strike. An official with the Associated Milk Dealers believed that price standardization wasn’t achievable.
The scene at the Bowman Dairy Co. plant in Harvard, Illinois on Sept. 15, 1933, as a farmer drove his truck through a group of strikers. He reached the delivery station with the loss of only one can of milk. Other farmers had their milk seized and dumped by the 500 striking for higher milk prices. Photo and caption credit to The Chicago Tribune.
In November 1938, about 100 defendants with a combination of individuals and companies, were indicted by a grand jury on monopoly charges accusing them of price fixing milk. Among the indicted were Sumner, Bundesen, Daniel Gilbert who was the state’s attorney police boss, Associated Milk Dealers officials, and the Bowman and Borden dairy companies. Sumner claimed the defendants were being reprimanded for giving what the public simply wanted: getting the milk to flow again. The anti-trust case was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court after it was thrown out by a district judge. The government presented them the option of signing a consent decree – for which they would come to an agreement to cease price fixing and sabotage. The farmers’ organizations vowed to not obstruct with independent manufacturers from the promotion of milk and the distributors swore to end price fixing. The drivers’ union promised not to obstruct stores and the sale of milk…the milk wars ended in 1940.
Picketers cheer the news of an end to the milk strike on Jan. 10, 1934. The picketers were near Lyons, Wisconsin, a frequent spot for violence during the blockade. Photo and caption credit to The Chicago Tribune.
The union’s higher ranks voted Sumner and Fitchie out of office. Two years after the end of the milk wars, union officials retrieved the armored car from Sumner’s garage and was later donated to a World War II scrap metal drive. In 1946, Sumner died. By the time Al Capone was released from Alcatraz in 1939, he suffered from a severe case of syphilis and died in his Florida mansion. There’s some myth surrounding this story about Al Capone influencing the implementation/enforcement of the expiration date for milk, but it remains unclear if the story is true – but it’s quite fun to think about.
A Wencel’s Dairy Products truck is dumped in the Chicago River at Berteau Avenue during the milk wars in January 1934. The Tribune reported: “The campaign of terrorism in the city was directed against independent, cut rate milk distributors who attempted to continue home deliveries. The vandals sank six milk trucks in the Chicago river and set fire to two more. In a score of other cases they beat, threatened, or fired shots at truck drivers, smashed windows, and dumped milk in the streets.” Photo and caption credit to The Chicago Tribune.
Sources:
The Chicago tribune
Dairy News
