I've copied (below) a portion of a "Gangland News" column with a story about some Cleveland mobsters. These guys were pretty tough back in the 1930's.
Big Al's Corner
By Allan May
(This week, Big Al tackles a couple of queries by Rick from Tampa about "Moe Dalitz and the old Cleveland Purple Gang." Rick wanted to know if Dalitz was the Cleveland family's "representative" in Las Vegas and if he was connected with the Bronfman family of Canada.)
First off, a point of clarification - the Purple Gang originated in Detroit. Dalitz, who once lived in Detroit and had family there, had connections to the Purple Gang but his main influence was in Cleveland. Born in Boston, Dalitz moved to Cleveland and used the name Maurice Davis so he wouldn't embarrass his family, who remained in Detroit and ran a legitimate laundry business.
Dalitz's important status in the underworld was apparent when he was invited to the Atlantic City crime conference in 1929. The meeting, which coincided with Meyer Lansky's honeymoon, was the first movement toward a national crime syndicate. The theme of the conference was nationwide cooperation. Some discussions took place on the beach with mobsters walking around barefoot with their pantlegs rolled up. The main topics of conversation were post-Prohibition plans for the liquor business and dividing up the country into exclusive gambling franchises. Depending on which book you read, the meeting was initiated by Lucky Luciano, Lansky, (left) Frank Costello (right) or Johnny Torrio of Chicago. What is not in dispute is that the participants came from a wide variety of ethnic and religious backgrounds including Italian, Irish, Polish and Jewish.
The Bronfman family started out in the hotel business in Canada but during Prohibition they reportedly made tremendous profits by shipping liquor into the United States, reportedly shipping booze through Cleveland, Detroit and New York.
Dalitz's connection to the Bronfman family stemmed from the fact that the Bronfmans shipped most of their liquor through Cleveland because of the city's proximity to the Canadian border. However, the Bronfmans also dealt with the Purple Gang in Detroit, and with various New York bootleggers including Luciano (right), Lansky and Arnold Rothstein. The Bronfmans were always entertained lavishly and treated to the best seats at boxing matches by their underworld hosts. After Prohibition, the Bronfmans' distilleries were among the most profitable in the liquor industry.
Dalitz's Cleveland partners were Morris Kleinman, Louis Rothkopf, and Sammy Tucker. It is not clear how the four got together, but in the early 1920s, their combined ruthlessness, street smarts, political connections and legitimate operations resulted in a formidable underworld enterprise. The members of the Cleveland Syndicate kept low profiles, but walked away wealthier and more intact than their Italian counterparts -- in Cleveland and in other parts of the country.
From 1926 to 1933, the Cleveland Syndicate prospered by bringing Canadian liquor across Lake Erie. Called the "Big Jewish Navy,"it shuttled illegal booze to the Lake Erie shoreline between Rocky River and Mentor. From rum-running on Lake Erie they moved on to control luxury resort hotels in Florida, and plush casinos in Las Vegas.
Occasional busts by the Coast Guard or the Cleveland Police did little to hamper the syndicate's business. By the late 1920s, Cleveland's gangsters had formed a working relationship that allowed each faction to operate freely without any bloodshed. The Jewish Cleveland Syndicate and the Italian Mayfield Road Mob would form an alliance that would make their leaders millionaires and allow them to live to spend it. This alliance also allowed for the Irishman Thomas J. McGinty to prosper with his West Side bootlegging and rum-running operations.
After Prohibition ended the Cleveland Syndicate was involved in gambling dens locally until law officials chased them out. They initially went to southern Ohio and northern Kentucky to operate, and ran a pretty successful operation out of Newport, Kentucky called the Beverly Hills Club. Dalitz joined the army in 1942, but after World War II, he got involved in Las Vegas and was one of the principal owners of the Desert Inn along with Clevelanders Kleinman, Tucker, and McGinty. It's not accurate to call Dalitz "Cleveland's representative." His connection to the Italian organized crime element in Cleveland ended in 1939 when the Mayfield Road Mob was basically dissolved.
