Tommy Touhy was cut up badly. This was a major
setback for the Cermak-Touhy operation since Tommy was the organization's field
general. Unlike the pensive and remote Roger, Tommy was earthy and gregarious,
gifted with a natural charisma that his group trusted. He was their motivator.
Without him, the gang was in trouble.
Despite the recent small victories that White
had scored for the syndicate it was undeniable that the mouse was still eating
the lion. Against all odds, the Touhy-Cermak combination was winning the street
war. The 42 Gang, the syndicate's front-line troops, were tough and fearless,
but they were wild and undisciplined and the Touhys were picking them off with
ease. Other, more seasoned syndicate hoods were turning up dead at the rate of
one every other day The Chicago Tribune put the number of casualties as high as
seventy dead in one six-month period. At the same time, the federal government was
closing in on the syndicate, deporting hundreds of reliable operatives and
throwing most of the remaining syndicate power players in jail.
Although the Touhys had taken their share of a
beating, they could hold out in the fight for a couple years more. They were
smaller, tighter and more organized than the remains of Capone's mob and they
had the resources to hire the best gunmen money could buy.
Chasing the syndicate out of the Teamsters had
assured them ready access to the union's enormous pension fund, and the
Teamsters' top leadership was backing Touhy's war against the syndicate.
Then there was Tony Cermak, who remained Touhy's
strongest ally. As long as they had Cermak on their side, they controlled the
police and City Hall.
It was clear to Paul Ricca that the key to
ending the war was to kill Anton Cermak. For its inability to take back the
streets from Touhy, Chicago looked ridiculous in the eyes of the new national
crime syndicate. Worse yet, the New York mobs were taking advantage of the
disorder in Chicago by planting their flags in Los Angeles, Florida, Arkansas,
Nevada and Texas. They had to kill Cermak. The war had to end.