Roger Touhy and Matt Kolb had their own plans for Chicago's labor
unions. Prohibition, gambling and the ability to avoid big political payoffs
and long drawn out beer wars had made them rich. By 1932, they had the money,
and the firepower to take over the entire Chicago Teamsters organization
without having to split any of it with Capone.
Unlike Capone, they didn't need to terrorize
their way into each local union before reaching the Teamsters International
office. They had a direct and trusted contact in the International office with
Edward Chicken McFadden, an old time labor terrorist with deep contacts into
the Teamsters International leadership.
McFadden picked up the name Chicken when he
organized a shakedown operation known as the Kosher Chicken Pluckers Union. He
had an arrest record dating back to 1901 that included intent to rob, police
impersonation and labor slugging. He had been a business partner with a labor
mobster named "Big Tim" Lynch, controlling the Chauffeurs and
Teamsters Union together, until Capone had Lynch killed. Capone took over the
union and chased McFadden and his contacts into the waiting arms of Roger and
Tommy Touhy. In early 1932, when Capone started his major push against the
unions, it was McFadden who set up a meeting between the Touhys and Patty
Burrell, the Teamsters International Vice President. Burrell called a meeting
of all the locals threatened by the syndicate and gave them a choice; they
could stand alone against Capone and lose their unions and probably their
lives, or they could band together and move their operations into Touhy's camp.
Most of the bosses already knew Roger and
decided he was the lesser of the two evils. They pitched into a $75,000
protection fund that was handed over to Tommy Touhy. In exchange, the union
bosses were allowed to keep their locals, and the treasuries that came with
them, and live under the Touhys' protection.