.....also, THE Outfits prime overseer during the 50s and 60s of both the policy and prostitution rackets on the South Side, Ralph Pierce, followed by his close associate Hyman Godfrey...


Pierce


Godfrey

Sam Young - Born in Huntsville,AL in1858 played baseball as a teen and traveled with a team between Memphis and other Southern cities. One thing he enjoyed more than baseball was gambling as the legend goes. He was known as an avid gambler who loved riverboats, especially in New Orleans. He would learned a numbers game while in New Orleans and later would reinvent it. He married Ada Miller in 1885 and moved to Chicago.They first lived on 29th & Federal St, later moved to 31st & S Rhodes Ave.

Sam hustled bets in the neoghborhood but more frequently at the downtown corner of State & Madison. When not there, he was at "Whiskey Row" on State street. Sam would be hustling Policy bets and pulling winning numbers from his hat. Additionally at 311 S Clark St in which this gambling house was owned by Al Bryant, George Whiting, & John " Mushmouth" Johnson. It was here that most likely Sam Young & John Johnson struck a deal and around 1890 Johnson sold his interest in 311 & opened the Emporium Saloon ( 464 S State St). Sam's Policy game became a featured attraction. The Emporium flourished with the political protection of the local Democratic Party especially from Michael Kenna and John Coughlin. The Policy stirred up a gambling fever at the beginning of the 1900s that people were being robbed at gunpoint in the streets. Things got so bad that in 1903, Reverend Reverdy Ransom of the Institutional AME Church And Settlement House at 3825 S Dearborn St attacked the evils of Policy gambling and it's evil influences in the communitu from his pulpit. In an attempt to shut Ransom up, somebody firebombed his church. Citizens took the streets in protest and even Policy Sam embraced Ransom with full support. The firebombing of the church led to the passing of Illnois Senate Bill #30: An Act for the Prevention of Policy Playing: The Anti Policy Law of 1905 (rev.1949).

Edward Morris ( Attorney) met with Ransom and together recruited Ed Green( Republican/ IL House Of Representative) in which Green drafted and introduced the bill. The bill succeeded in having the law passed. Green deplored the Policy racketeers of those days and on the floor of the House proclaimed:
[" The Policy trust has established its lures near the schools in Chicago and it's owners grow rich on the pennies they steal from the school children...money given them to buy lunch.. Under present law, Patsy King walked out of the criminal court in Chicago snapping his fingers at the judge." ]
When the Anti Policy Law pass, the game went underground and Policy Sam went into bail bond business.

To be continued*

Sorry for bumping my post again, but the psycho bitch with multiple accounts is stalking me again.
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Cool detailed info @BlackFam and tnx.

Few questions...some sources say that even though the policy game was always considered black mans racket, still legend goes that King was allegedly the one that devised the game. Sam Young was allegedly a simple porter on the gambling boats when he met King who in turn taught Sam on how the game worked and so they started operating together. Is this true?

Also, by 1903 Mushmouth Johnson, King Patsy, Sam Young, King Foo and one of Mike Kenna’s underlings and gambling operator, Tom McGinnis, they all controlled the policy wheel companies called the ''The Union and the Phoenix'', which were headquartered at The Emporium. So, who was the "boss" or was this a simple business partnership?

Btw, was Bob Motts white or black racketeer? Im asking this because he was one of Johnsons first gambling partners but later some type of bad blood between them and so as a sign of retaliation, Motts used his connections with Illinois congressman Edward Green to press anti-policy legislation.

1st Question:
Within the book it states : Patsy King was a White riverboat gambling buddy of Sam's, who hit town looking to get in on the action not long after Sam arrived. Patsy could have been the first guy that Sam tested the game on. In fact, it is noted that Patsy invented the Policy game, but stronger evidence and memories of old-timers still around as of this writing credit Sam Young with originating the game. The two were friends and became business adversaries when Patsy opened a flower shop as a front for Policy and other gambling action.

2nd Question:
Business partnership.

3rd Question:
Bob Motts? There's no-one of that name that i came across unless you meant Robert T. Motts ( Black racketeer). He used to work for Mushmoth at the Emporium but as the profits grew, he put his own bankroll together and launched his own theater: The Pekin Theater (2700 South State St).

In 1906 Mushmouth shutdown the Emporium and opened the Frontenac Club on 22nd Street and continued to operate until the day he died in his home( Sept 13,1907).

Ok and thanks again.

Regarding "Bob Motts"...we might be talking about the same person (Rober aka Bobby etc.)...obviously if he was the one who went against Johnson and his buddies..

.....yup, we are talking about the same guy....

Ah! So it's his nickname, make sense. Are you using the newspaper archives by chance?

Yup (since the days when the Chi Tribune used to be free or in beta version lol) mainly regarding cases and individuals from the early days when there wasnt any FBI files or special surveillances. Also, the whole MCClellan hearings from the early 50s are also quite useful regarding the early period, since they went way back by researching more than 40 years in the past. In fact, these were also the prime sources for most books regarding black policy in Chicago, mainly because by the 1960s the racket was on the downfall and was slowly being replaced with narcotics and prostitution. I mean, dope and hookers goes the same way as gambling and loan sharking.

.....btw, here are two more articles regarding Motts...in addition, one grand in those days was around $35,000 in todays cash....and btw who the hell was Al Brown during the 1900s? Ive seen his name more than few times and I got interested because more than a decade later Capone used the same allias...