Murder Incorporated – The Faces of Murder
Title: Murder Incorporated – The Faces of Murder
Original Publication Date: 6/28/2023
Transcript URL: https://share.descript.com/view/x0pe5BivSoK
Description: In this episode of Organized Crime and Punishment, Mustache Chris and Steve will continue to delve into the history and background of Murder Incorporated. We look at how organized crime outfits in New York City became to dip their toes into organized labor unions and labor-management relations issues during the early 20th Century. This will lead to a series of conflicts referred to as the Labor Slugger Wars. We will also begin to introduce some of the key players involved in forming Murder Inc, including Abe Reles, Meyer Lanksy, Bugsy Seigel and more.
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Begin Transcript:
[00:00:00] Welcome to Organized Crime and Punishment, the best spot in town to hang out and talk about history and crime. With your hosts, Steve and Mustache, Chris.
Here we are again and we're gonna talk some more about Murder Inc. Before we get in too far, let's recapitulate a little bit about what we've talked about previously with Murder Inc. It all starts off with this bugs in Meyer Gang, Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky, and then we fold in some more characters.
Joe Adonis, all of this in this stew of these. Immigrant neighborhoods of Brownsville and the lower East [00:01:00] side of Manhattan and its conditions that really made America and what maybe made America great of the immigrants and working hard and working hard to make a better life, but it also created some of the conditions for the very worst crime that America has ever seen.
So as we're moving forward, keep all of that in mind as we learn new players and we learn about new people, who are new people, who are getting involved in new events, in this whole idea of Murder Inc. That it's all happening in this really fascinating. Petri Dish of American History. Now, Chris, get us started today with Leke Buck Halter and Jacob Shapiro.
How do they fit into this next part of the story of Murder Inc? Yeah. The way we kind of planned it out was like the next two episodes are just gonna introduce like, all the major players in Murder [00:02:00] Inc. Like I th the previous episode I pointed out, like when we came up with the idea, I didn't, you know, I thought going into it, You know, this would be kind of relatively easy to do, and then once you start doing the research, it's, it's really kind of complicated.
There's a lot of moving parts. So, uh, we've kind of broken it up. So I, I believe it's gonna be pretty easy to follow for anyone really. Like you won't have to have any background really in, on the subject matter to walk away from. And, yeah, I understand what Murder Inc is. It's a lot of people too, and it's, I know that I don't like getting bombarded with a lot of people and biographies, but it really is important for this story to see how all of these different characters fit together.
So definitely hang in there with us as we introduce new characters. Some characters will exit the stage, some will fly off of the stage, as you'll see. Let's start off with Leke and Jacob Shapiro and how [00:03:00] they fit into this whole. Criminal underworld that we're, we're slowly setting up here. And, uh, Jacob Shapiro were both, uh, Jewish immigrants, like, uh, from poor Jewish immigrant families, which, uh, you know, a lot of, um, Jews were coming to the United States at this time.
And, uh, predominantly, most of them were born in, in LE's case. So he was born in the, uh, lower east side of Manhattan. In the year in 1897. Yeah, from my research, Leke was kind of a play on words. His mother used to call him Little Lewis. LE's father was, you know, a hardworking, like newly arrived immigrant into, uh, the United States.
He ran a hardware store and, uh, You know, in some ways it was kind of a modern American success story, right? You know, you'd come here, you open up a hardware store, and, you know, America's given you this opportunity that, uh, he wouldn't have had in, uh, the pale settlement, right? Where, uh, His family came from.
Unfortunately, in [00:04:00] 1909, LE's, uh, father passed away. But from what I've read, uh, by all accounts, Leke was a pretty like successful student growing up. You know, he had, he was honor, he had honor rules. He was, uh, uh, remarkably intelligent, you know, especially coming from such a poor neighborhood and rough background.
Um, This is one thing I thought was a little weird though. I guess maybe it was a little more common back then, like, um, like his mother decided to just move to Arizona. It reminds me a little bit of, uh, Roy de Mayo where, um, his mother just. Picked up and left and just kind kinda left them there. Uh, uh, from what I read, she went there for, um, health reasons.
I guess the dryer air would help with her. Um, I'm trying to think, uh, I'm trying to dock holiday. Didn't he move like out to the desert Kilo? Yeah. And for, I assume she was probably suffering from something like that. And, uh, The dryer air apparently is better [00:05:00] for, um, people suffering from like, I guess, chest uh, ailments or lung ailments, uh, than like the stuffy air, than of living in a big city like New York.
Yeah. She would move there and then like, I don't know, basically Leke was kind of left in charge of his younger sister and obviously was too much for him. Right. He was, you know, by all accounts, was virtually an orphan at a very young age. I think that that's so interesting that how different it was back then where.
Father probably wasn't that old up and died. Mother cuts out to go live in Arizona. You could see and leaves Leke alone with his sister. You could see how somebody could break bad, so to speak, in that situation where you gotta make money. I'm sure his mother didn't set him up with a huge nest egg. Like you said, his father was a first immigration, first generation immigrant, just trying to scrape by.
[00:06:00] Those are, those were very hard times that really people who are not that distantly related to us, lived through, I, it's almost unimaginable to us today that our, our relatives would've lived like that not that long ago. Yeah, and stuff like that was like fairly common. I mean, it's slightly different example, but I mean over in England, like you know, you would send your kids to like boarding school and wouldn't see them for months at a time.
And I don't know, apparently this was just like normal. Like, I mean, I don't even like going a few days without seeing my kid. I couldn't imagine just being like, All right, little Lewis. You know, I'm moved to Arizona and back then it was like moving to Arizona was like practically like moving into a different country, right?
The infrastructure just wasn't there, right? Like they had trains and stuff like that, but you know, they weren't the most efficient and they were expensive and slow. Well, yeah, that, I mean, it would've taken her probably a couple of weeks to get out there to actually get settled and the [00:07:00] communications would've been virtually Nell.
Let's get into a little bit more of LE's criminal background. Yeah. So in 1915, uh, Leke would be charged with his, uh, He would be charged with those first crimes, like, so pretty early on, like, you know, teenage years. He's already, he's already getting involved in crime. Uh, those charges would end up getting dropped.
Uh, could be like a reoccurring thing with Leke. He, you know, he gets lucky, uh, a fair amount of times. Um, And yeah, like he would end up doing like a bunch of stints in prison, like kind of shortish ish stints, you know, for petty crimes. You know, B Andes, uh, you know, uh, I don't know, like sl like low tier, like racketeering and like being a muscle man.
Um, in 1920 though, like the longest sentence, uh, that he got, He was there for 30 months. Right. Which is kind of no joke, especially back then. [00:08:00] You people think prisons are rough. Now, can you imagine what prisons were like back then, man? Like breeding ground for, you know, like creating like, you know, just really tough characters, right?
Um. You know, it's just a different world back then. And, but you pointed out it really wasn't that long ago in terms of like, American history, even just human history. It's, you know, just a blunt on the radar really. Um, yeah. And, uh, Leke was gonna, like, he was described as like a quiet man too, right? So Leke would be, He would rather listen than talk.
Like he didn't talk, he didn't get very excited. Uh, people talk about like, very rarely did they ever see Leke, uh, kind of lose his temper. Um, I thought this was kind of interesting too, that like he ended up bear marrying this woman Betty, uh, Waserman, who was uh, she was a widow from Russia. And, uh, he would end up like adopting her.
Her kid later on, um, as his own kid, and [00:09:00] that would be the only kid he would ever have in his life. What do you think of somebody like Leke who. His father's square. He's trying to do his best. His family, you know, from everything we know has became very highly successful. But this one guy becomes a, a really l hardened criminal.
What do you think about that? I think it can, I think it comes down to like, I was thinking about this this week, right? Because like, cuz like I believe his sisters and his brothers, they all became like doctors or lawyers or druggist at the time. Like that's what they called him was druggist. But it's a pharmacist.
Pharmacist is what we would call him now. Um, druggist just sounds like he's like a drug dealer I guess, but I mean, sometimes. You know, you read about some of the stuff and it's like, I don't know, is there much of a, yeah, the lines pretty thin. It's, you know. Yeah. But I honestly, I think it comes down to like kind of like people idolize, I think.
I think there's like a genetic trait to criminal criminality too. I mean, that's when you start [00:10:00] getting into like, Kind of iffy territory. Like, is like criminality, like a genetic problem? Can we take care of this type thing? But I do think that there's some people that are predisposed to this type of behavior, uh, given say living in a place like Brownsville.
They're, you know what I mean? Like they're gonna jump at it.
Steve, here again, with a quick word from our sponsors. Let's set up the next player, Jacob Shapiro. Uh, somebody he's born again. He is a immigrant from the Russian Empire of Modern Day Belarus, but he grows up in a, uh, very, in a similar, uh, kind of wave as Leke in that similar neighborhood, similar idea you might say.
Yeah. Um, Jacob would, I would say probably, whereas like, Leke kind of, would you, you [00:11:00] could argue Leke chose to become a criminal in, in some ways. Like I think Jacob Shapiro didn't really have, uh, really much of a choice. Like he was an orphan at a very young age. Uh, he grew up in a Catholic. Projectory in New York, which probably wasn't easy for him being, being a Jew and living in basically a Catholic orphanage.
Uh, I, it wasn't just for Catholics. They would take anybody. Right. But that probably wasn't easy for a Jewish, uh, for a young Jewish man. Um, yeah. And early in his life, you know, like I pointed out earlier, they would run into, uh, leke and um, It's interesting, like apparently, uh, this is how they ran into each other.
They were both trying to rob like the same place and, but instead of like fighting with each other, I'm like, no, this is my money. This is my money. They just decided that they were gonna split the money together and that's kind of how their friendship started. Uh, it's interesting, like Leke, uh, and Jacob Shapiro's, uh, Uh, [00:12:00] relationship kind of mirrors a little bit.
Meyer Lansky's and Bugsy Siegel's relationship or Leke was more kind of like the Meyer Lansky of their relationship. And Jacob's Shapiro was more, he was more of the muscle. He was the Bugsy Siegel, uh, uh, aspect of their partnership. That's something I noticed when I was doing my research. Um, Yeah. And then this kind of leads us to, um, Shapiro and Leke would get involved in, you know, we're gonna get into it in just a second, something that's called the labor sluggers war, which is, uh, and doing my research.
I had never even heard about this, uh, the, these conflicts that went on, but it, I'm not surprised. I just really haven't. Heard too much about it and, uh, yeah, I had Jacob Shapiro had like a funny nickname. I guess one of the more interesting nicknames in the mob is in Garra and apparently like in Yiddish, like, get outta here.
But he would like say in such like such a thick Yiddish accent that when he would. I guess [00:13:00] scream at people to get outta here. It would kind of come. I was like, girl. Yeah. I think that this labor, slugger war is really interesting aspect to get into because I mean, anybody who's somewhat familiar with history knows that there was a lot of management labor conflict workers versus.
Bosses and that sort of thing. It's interesting to see how the mafia gets flipped on its head. In this episode, they're helping the, the management and the companies and then it almost flips on a dime that they then take over the union racket. So I'm really interested to see how that plays out. Yeah, like you pointed out like with industrialization in the United States, and it was ha like when industrialization happened in the States, it happened quick, right?
So it was like, I wouldn't say like it was overnight, but in a lot of ways it was, oh, we have this new tool. We have to do it as quickly as we possibly can. Right. And this like, this inevitably [00:14:00] led to like conflicts between workers and factory owners, right? I mean, the. I don't know, like the left, I, I don't, I guess the left wing view of this conflict, but like, it's very easy to, I don't know, demonize one side and like patronize the other side.
And I mean, it's complicated, right? Like a lot of these guys that were setting up these factories were, and a lot of cases were putting up like huge sums of their own money, right? And they needed, they needed to see like a significant, they, they weren't doing this stuff to like just get by, right? Like they wanted to do.
Well, um, So like it was, but at the same time, in terms of doing that, you're inevitably gonna have conflicts with the, with the workers. Really. I mean, a lot of these guys, like we pointed out earlier, a lot of the people that were working in these factories were like newly arrived Jewish immigrants. Uh, that.
Went from like, say, working in the fields in Poland to all of a sudden they're getting cramped in like an industrial workspace and it's a totally alien. I mean, Carl [00:15:00] Marks talked about this and I mean, that's not, I don't agree with Carl Marks and I don't know what things, but I, I would say this is one thing he did really capture that was kind of correct, like factory work in a lot of ways is.
Is dehumanizing. And especially if you're say like a farmer or PA coming from the field, it's, it's, you know, it's alienating, it's dehumanizing. It's uh, it's totally different. So let's talk about how did these unions and corporations and well now, how these unions and companies got were in conflict with each other, and then how and why would they use this, this tough muscle against each other.
Yeah. Well, so like the, like the workers would argue like they had certain rights and I mean, rightfully so. They did like, they wanted say certain amount of hours, worked, certain safety concerns, and then the factory owners would be like, well, that's cutting into my profits and if I have to put this, this, and this, it's gonna cut even more [00:16:00] into the profits, gonna raise costs for everything.
And then the workers would be like, well, we're going on strike. And then the factory owners are like, okay, fine. You guys go on strike. We're gonna hire. Scab workers were cheap, right? And then these workers would be like, hell no, you're not. And you know, they needed muscle to, you know, beat up these scab workers.
Or sometimes the factory owners needed muscle to get their, you know, their own workers to go back to work, um, and stop being on strike. So it's only kind of natural that, you know, people who specialize in violence such as gangsters saw an opportunity here and thought. Man, there's a lot of money to be made here and we don't necessarily have to work for one side or the other.
And it, it, it really is interesting that they, they could play both sides of the field and just make so much money off of it and not really have any care in the world who they were supporting. Yeah. That's it. Right? Like, cuz the only thing that they were supporting was. [00:17:00] The dollar really. Right? Like, you know, who's gonna pay me more money?
All right, I'll be your Muslim. I mean, when we get into Jimmy Hoff, uh, you know, this is kind of like the origins of like gangsterism and, and unions and factory owners. This is kind of where it starts. But when we get into like Jimmy Hoffa, like way down the road, I'm, I'm not sure when we were gonna do that, but that's gonna be a huge thing.
Like, you know, initially, like when Jimmy Hoffa was. Starting out, like he was just following a practice that had always gone on for forever. I mean, a lot of people have like these like romantic notions of revolution and like, oh, if we just follow the right doctrine and we do this and that, like, you know, everything will kind of fit into play.
It's been, you know, I mean, in reality it's unique characters like, These gangsters to actually get any, to get certain things done. Really? I mean, what was Stalin really? I mean, Stalin was a revolutionary, but in a lot of ways he was kind of like a [00:18:00] gangster. He was like robbing banks and I mean, he was going to the revolutionary cause.
But I mean, I've also, I've often wondered, I mean, what type of mob, uh, Stalin would've been, you know, cuz he, in a lot of ways he was a gangster. So let's set up this first, uh, labor slugger war, uh, from 1913 to 1917. Yeah, we're not gonna get into like super, like tons of detail about like a lot of these ones.
But, uh, yeah. So there was a guy named like Joe Grr, Rosen Wag and Dopey Benny Fien. They both like, they both like led like different gangs and like, they would fight amongst each other, but, uh, but they would, uh, end up like uniting and like forming like a, like a strong alliance a. Basically kind of dominated like the unions, like the way that we were just explaining how this process, uh, kind of happened.
Right. And uh, basically like created like a powerful racketeering uh, operation, right? Because [00:19:00] that's kind of how it all worked was like, In a lot of ways, like these gangsters could control, you know, whether these factors are running or whether they're aren't running right. Because they're the ones that had all the muscle really, in, in a lot of ways they were like the most important players.
Um, so like the, you know, the factory owners kind of had to like pay them respect, but also the unions kind of had to pay them respect. Right. It's the, it's the really, the perfect. It's the perfect racket. Not to, not to sound cheesy, but it's the truth. Um, yeah. But these two guys together, they were just so powerful.
Like the various other gangs, like even, um, even, even if they were like United, really couldn't take them all on, uh, couldn't take them on. That's how powerful these guys were in New York at the time. Um, yeah. And then 1913 there was like a, Massive gunfight on the streets. No one was a, no one was actually killed at this.
But it like, you know, it just, it's stuff like that, like are you having like an open gunfight in the middle of [00:20:00] the day on the streets? You know, like multiple p people just shooting bullets, like randomly. Uh, the authorities actually have to step in and start doing something about that. Joey, the greaser, one of his hitman would end up getting charged with murder.
The murder of like one of these opposing gangs and he would end up like testifying and then dopey, Benny Fien would end up, uh, would also end up finding himself on murder charges himself. That basically ends kind of like the first labor slugger wars. Both these guys end up just going to jail. And don't worry, there will be another labor slugger war.
The second labor slugger war of 18 or 19? 18 to 1919. What, uh, what was the continuation of this conflict? Yeah. With Joey Grr going to jail and Benny Finn going to jail. Uh, there's an, a guy that came up, A kid dropper, Nathan Kaplan and uh, Johnny Spanish. I tried looking up. I don't [00:21:00] think that was his actual name.
I think that was just kind of a nickname. They were like rivals with each other, right? These are so, like, you know, with, uh, Benny going to jail and Joe Laris are going to jail. These were the gangs that were vying to try to get in charge of this like, really powerful racket. Um, they decided like, like instead of fighting with each other, let's join forces.
We, we have the two most powerful gangs. Then we'll run it together. Right. Um, But as you can point as, uh, you can see with the fact that it only lasted a year, this alliance didn't really last very long. I think it was about like eight months, five months from I read, and this is how long this alliance lasted.
And, uh, Johnny, uh, like Spanish would end up leaving the gang and they would, you know, uh, Kaplan and him would end up fighting and, uh, Johnny Spanish would, uh, end up getting killed probably by Kaplan, but were not a hundred percent. Sure. And that leads [00:22:00] us to the third Labor slogan award, which brings us, uh, closer to where Jacob Shapiro and, uh, Le Beko start getting into the picture.
It really is fascinating that even though this is, we're getting, we're in the time of the World War I. We can see it's before prohibition, but the, the writing is on the wall with prohibition at this point that it's coming down the pipe. But the mafia's and the organized crime, the real hooks are into this labor, racketeering, and labor muscle, even at this very, very early point in mafia history.
Yeah, well, I mean, like we pointed out that it, it really is, it's brilliant in a lot of ways. Like, cuz it doesn't matter which direction you go into, you can make money, you know? And like, and you're also extremely powerful because in a lot of [00:23:00] ways you're running like a huge important aspect of the economy and it's, it's something that kind of goes.
It's not something that kinda like grabs the headlines in a lot of ways, right? Where say like drug dealing or even prohibition, you know, like this person's like sneaking booze or this person's, uh, I don't know, say like dealing heroin like that, that grabs headlines, that brings attention in a lot of ways.
Like this type of stuff can kind of go unnoticed. Uh, Or unreported in a lot of ways cuz it's, it's very complicated. You know, like I've left a lot out of it just cuz it's, it is so complicated. There's so many different players, even me, like kind of researching it, uh, you know, years ahead of time and people have had all like the, uh, you know, All the resources available to them to research something that, you know, kind of happened like a hundred years ago.
Um, it's still, it's still difficult to really understand exactly how it all worked out. Imagine living it at the time. It would've been very difficult to uncover all this, you know, [00:24:00] um, investigative journalism is only one reason. We don't see it a ton anymore, or not like we used to. It's, it's very expensive to do and it's also very dangerous.
Uh, yeah. So, Yeah. So it brings us to the third labor slugger war, which starts in, um, 1923. So Kaplan kind of ran. Labor racketeering, unopposed for four years after he killed Johnny Spanish. Really? Um, and, but by like the, around the 1920s, he started facing competition. And this is where, like I pointed out, Jacob, uh, Shapiro and Le Boko, uh, started entering the picture again.
Right? So like when we introduced them, we kind of just introduced like their early life. And then this is. Really where they start becoming powerful together. Um, and this brings us to this one character, uh, Jacob Origin. He had a little, he had a nickname, little Augie, I'm just gonna call him Little Augie.
Uh, from [00:25:00] this point on, uh, little Augie grew up in a, grew up around like labor slugging his, his entire life. He worked under Benny Finn, which is the guy that we had introduced in the first laborer, slugger war, and kind of learned the ropes and. Was a rising star within this, um, you know, powerful, uh, racket that was going on in New York at the time.
So, but like when Benny Finn was kind of taken out of the picture and Johnny Spanish was, uh, taken out of the picture, Kaplan, and, you know, rightfully so, kind of saw, um, little AIE is, uh, Somebody to worry about. So he was kind of pushed to, pushed to the side for a little bit, but he ends up, uh, he ends up, you know, coming back relatively quickly.
He ends up forming his own gang, well, like an alliance of gangs and. You know, it includes people like Lap Balter, Jacob Shapiro, and another guy that I think we'll end up doing like kind of a short episode on this guy named Jack [00:26:00] Legs Diamond. I was reading a bit about him. He doesn't really, I don't know, he doesn't really fit in enough to like, For Murder Inc.
Per se. Um, so I kind of left him out, like doing a little biography on him, but he, he led a pretty crazy life. Like, I think he, I think people tried to kill him like six times before they actually got it done. One of the times we'll get into in a little bit here. Yeah. And then 1923, like a full on war broke out between, um, Kaplan and, uh, little Augie's New gang.
Um, One night, uh, there was a fight on Essex Street and led to like the death of like two innocent bystanders. So like I saying, like in a lot of ways these guys were just, you know, having happen, having open gun fights in the middle of the street in broad daylight, it's just, it's really crazy to, it's really crazy to think about.
I mean, it's, we see it sometime. We see it now sometimes with like drive-bys and. You know, like, uh, those are usually kind of like stupid low end gangs. Like the ones that [00:27:00] actually, uh, are kind of smart and trying to run it a bit like a business. They kind of discourage that type of behavior cuz it brings a lot of heat.
But that's one thing I've noticed, like reading, um, this, uh, early history of the mob where. In doing our research, we were kind of used to like reading about, uh, you know, like the five families and like, later on and there was like, you know, like, don't let the violence go on the streets. Don't call attention to the authorities where like these early gangsters, they just don't seem to care.
They just, just do it. You know, like, just have shootouts on the streets, innocent bystanders, uh, whatever just happens. This collateral damage, they just don't really seem to care as much. Um, maybe that was. I think that maybe that has something to do with the fact that the authorities just didn't have the type of resources, the power that they have nowadays.
But it is interesting that there was less. I don't know. There was less hesitation to do stuff like that. I don't know. Did you find that interesting? Yeah, I found that so interesting. At [00:28:00] just across that whole time period, there just seem, I mean, as much as they wanna say how violent of a society we have today, I mean, there was literal gunfights in the streets with people with machine guns, firefi, you know, like I.
Mogadishu style firefights all the time. And I think maybe, I mean this is wild speculation, but maybe one of the reasons that the commission came around and toned down the violence. At least, or at least kept it inside of the, the family so to speak, is that people were getting sick of this. And that's where the FBI started to come in and they were, the government started policing more and the organized crime knew they had to tamp it down.
I mean, this is the, a little later Bonnie and Clyde shooting up, you know, just shooting up towns and getting. Gunning cops down in the, in the middle of [00:29:00] the street. That stuff was starting to wear a little thin by the late twenties, getting into the thirties. Yeah, I just don't think that's what I think. I just don't think the, the authorities really had the resources to do much about it.
We talk about like neighborhoods now where, you know, cops go in and nobody talks. I can only imagine, imagine going into a place like Brownsville and be like, did you see anything? Oh, I didn't see anything I could probably was a hundred times worse. Uh, and they just did like, they just didn't have the technology really.
You think about it, right? Like, Cars were still kind of a relatively newish thing. And the radio, like the radio, uh, I mean, the government wasn't bringing in the type of revenue that it brings in now. You know, it was still kind of a belief of like as low taxes as possible. I know like income tax and stuff was starting to came about.
Uh, What year was it? It was like in World War I. It was a war measures act, was it not? But still the [00:30:00] government, like the federal government itself, and even the local governments were much smaller. Like they didn't have the type of resources and revenue that they have now to be able to take care of some of these problems.
Now I can argue whether that was good or bad. That's neither here nor there, but it, I think, The reality was they just didn't have the resources to be able to take care of these gangsters. And, and the gangsters knew it too. So I think it was a very different idea of policing too, that the p it was very reactive.
If it didn't spread outside a certain neighborhoods, the crime, they didn't really care about it. And if it did go into the neighborhoods they cared about, then they were gonna come down on it full force with clubs and. Shooting and disappearing people. It was not the idea that we have of proactive policing and that the police are going to be pulling people over and all of those sorts of things that we probably take for [00:31:00] granted, and that maybe has become too excessive in a lot of cases and policing today.
But I mean, As, but as much as we, uh, talk about reactive policing today, the police were almost a hundred percent reactive back then. Yeah, there was no, there was really no proactive policing back then. You know, really Not at all. It'd be like, oh, this happened. Okay, we gotta do something about it. Yeah, let's go crack some heads.
Let's throw some people in jail. Let's throw some people into the river and then move on from there and not look at, and the government, besides that, that, I mean, it would've been unthinkable in any aspect of, you know, that's, Maybe starting to look into root causes of crime is happening at this time, but it's very much in its infancy.
Little Augie ended up hiring a man by the name of Lewis, uh, Cohen. Yeah. And he killed a Kaplan on, [00:32:00] uh, August, uh, 28. 1923. And with the death of Kaplan, little Augie had virtual control of the, uh, lager, labor slugging operation that was going on in New York. And then that leads into our fourth and final Labor slugger conflict, which will really bring us full circle back to where we're going with this whole idea of Murder Inc.
Yeah. So, um, yeah, the fourth War is, uh, basically Leke and Jacob Shapiro. Uh, don't, don't like what little Augie is, uh, doing and not just little, not just them, but, uh, you know, Arnold Roth scene. Um, Meyer Lansky in a lot of ways, we're trying to convince, uh, little Augie that, you know, typical labor slugging activity, which is, you know, just go and beat up heads and do this and do that.
They were trying to convince him that, uh, like this is, this isn't gonna last very much longer, [00:33:00] and the authorities really aren't gonna put up with it anymore. What you really should be trying to do is like, really infiltrate the unions like, Start becoming like put people in charge of like local chapters.
You know, maybe yourself end up becoming the head of the union, you know, a little Augie. And I mean, in his defense he grew up around traditional labor slogging. He's like, well this is what I've done my whole life. I go, why am I gonna change how I'm doing this now? Um, And kind of refused to, uh, change. And Meyer Lansky, uh, uh, and Ron Arnold Rothstein gave the backing to, uh, lek and Jacob Shapiro to, you know, make a move on Little Augie, get him under the picture because Jacob and Leke kind of saw.
Saw the future too. And they saw what Meyer Lansky and, uh, and Arnold Rothstein saw what was the future of, uh, labor racketeering in United States. And in New York in particular. It really is, it's the [00:34:00] meeting of the brains in the of. The labor con controlling the labor unions. It started off as just bashing heads, and then you stu the, you get new people thinking maybe we can do this in a slightly different way and control it even more.
You really see the evolution. Yeah. And then, so in October, 1927, uh, Jacob Shapiro and Leke killed Little Augie. Uh, they would end up getting charged with this murder, and it was dropped because there, there wasn't enough collaborating evidence. Um, And they ended up wounding his, uh, bodyguard at the w was the guy that had introduced a little bit Jack Diamond, I already mentioned.
We'll probably do a little short episode on him just cuz he, he really is a crazy story with that guy. Uh, he was an, he was an Irish guy actually. Just, you know, was a little side note. Uh, yeah. With little Augie out of the picture. Um, [00:35:00] lek and Shapiro were. Left in charge of labor racketeering in New York, and lucky would run labor racketeering in New York from this point on until his death, he would, I believe, ended up becoming one of the most powerful labor racketeers that the United States is.
Ever seen, and then you see how it moves on from there, where this money and this racket just keeps moving forward and forward and forward into the forties and the fifties and the sixties, and a whole empire is built up out of this one activity that we see start all the way back in the 19 teens. That arguably in a lot of ways is still with us today, this very day.
Oh yeah, for sure. Like, it's not as like, as, like, it's not like Jimmy Hoffa's time or this time period that we're talking about, like the mob's still all involved in construction. You know, like they're still all involved in [00:36:00] the unions. They're not as much as they used to be, but they're, they're still, they're still involved, you know?
Um, I don't think that will ever stop. Cause this just seems to kind of go hand in hand. You know, like the bosses could use somebody from the mafia. The unions could use people from the mafia too. They're helpful people when you need certain things done. You know, it sounds cliche, but it's the truth. Yeah.
And it all exists in this gray area that's semi-legal, semi illegal. It's really hard. For authorities to bust it up. I mean, if the, if it was easy, it would've been done decades ago, nearly a century ago, and we still hear about labor unions that have mafia connections. And even for the people involved. And sometimes it's a gray area.
Like, uh, I had read, I read Frank Sharon's book, which was the, which would the, to paint, uh, to paint houses, which was what the Irishman [00:37:00] was based on the recent movie, at least, I guess it's a couple of years old now. But, uh, you know, he, he thought like the, like his greatest achievement in life was like becoming like a, a leader of like a local chapter.
Um, Because he kind of believed in what he was doing with, as bizarre as sounds like, even for some of the guys involved, it was a little like, you know, like, am I a union guy or am like, I'm, I'm a mobster too. And you know, some guys just kind of, they didn't care about any of that, but there's examples of guys that, and at least they thought they were doing the right thing.
Where does this lead us into, into the full story of Murder Inc. This murderous organization that lasts such a long time in the formative years of the Mafia? Well, by, I like Jacob Shapiro and Leke were kind of their own pair together. Right? And when we, when Murder Inc. Forms, they were, you know, two of the most powerful [00:38:00] guys.
Uh, In Within Murder Inc. Right along with Albert Anastasia. Um, and then, then the next episode we're gonna talk about is kind of this other faction that forms together with the likes of say, Hey, Bres and Harry Strauss and Happy My Own and Frank Abbi, and this kind of whole conflict with the Shapiro Brothers.
But in a lot of ways they're two separate things, right? Like Leke and. Jacob, like they're doing their own thing over here and a res and what we're gonna get into the next episode is like another thing over here, and then they kind of merge together. That's, that was my idea of splitting the two episodes up and splitting these kind of mini biographies up of the two.
Because if you try to do it all together, it's too many names. It gets confusing. So we have this, uh, the, the idea of this labor racket and then the. The national syndicate and all of these pieces are gonna all come together to make this new [00:39:00] organization that we are, we know when as the mafia. So I know, I'm excited to talk more about it.
I'm sure Chris is more excited. What do you, maybe just to give a little teaser, what do you think is the, the next piece that's really gonna. Get people thinking more about this organization, murder Inc. I think the guy that we're gonna end up talking about a bit is Harry Strauss. Uh, Straus, uh, uh, I, I'm sure everyone's a little, they're a little bit more familiar with the, uh, the Iceman, Richard Kalinsky, and.
Researching Harry I, uh, or Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, Phil, which is a weird nickname and nobody really seems to understand. He'd never been to Pittsburgh and nobody really seems to understand why he has that nickname. But, uh, we're like Richard. It's kind of, we're not exactly sure what he's, what he's telling the truth or is it, is he just lying?
The total, he's definitely lying about some [00:40:00] of it. Uh, some of the stuff that he talks about. With Strauss, it's, he's the real deal. And I was thinking about this kind of, when we were reading it, I'm like, well, if Richard made it all up, I mean, I think he kind of used Strauss as a template, just to give you a little teaser about, uh, what we're about to get into with that.
Definitely check us, check out the next episode where we continue the, our Tale of Murder, Inc. If you wanna support the show, there's so many ways to support the show, but the. Best way to support it is by telling a friend about the show. Tell your friends so that they can become friends of ours. Yeah, forget about it guys.
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