Roger Touhy, armed with a
machine gun, walked into a meeting at the Teamsters Headquarters in Chicago.
With him was his top enforcer, Willie Sharkey, and two other men. Each of them
carried a machine gun and a pistol as they herded the union officials and lined
them up against the wall. As more members entered the building for a special
emergency meeting, they too were lined up against the wall until there were
over one hundred members held hostage.
After two hours, Roger stood before the
crowd and spoke.
"Listen up you mugs, we've come here
today to clean the dago syndicate out of the Teamsters Union."
A cheer went up across the room from the
membership. Roger looked over the faces in the hall and spotted a half dozen of
Murray Humpreys' enforcers including Artie Barrett whom Touhy had known from
the Valley. "We thought you were a right guy" he said to Barrett.
'What are you doing hanging around these rats for?"
'Well, hell, I gotta eat Rog, " Barrett
said.
He let Barrett leave but pulled two of the
syndicate's union leaders named Goldberg and Sass into an office and told them
to call Murray Humpreys and tell him to come to the building as soon as he
could. When they said they couldn't remember the number, Roger said, 'Well, get
together and think it up or we'll give it to you right outside the door. None
of you other mugs have to be afraid, we're after Klondike O'Donnell, Camel
Humpreys and Jack White and we won't hurt anybody else."
Out of ignorance or fear Goldberg and Sass
didn't place the call.
Roger rounded up his men and left the
building at 11:30 in the morning, three full hours after they had arrived,
taking Goldberg and Sass with him. His last words to the membership were,
'These two are going to get theirs. " Once again the membership exploded
in cheers.
Sass and Goldberg were released two days
later. They were not harmed or abused. "Actually," said Goldberg,
"they treated us well. The food was excellent. The conversation was
good."