---------------------------
@Hollander I avoided to mention the JFK situation in my Truman article because I dont want to open that can of worms and I believe you can easily understand why lol As you already said, it seems during the old days the Mob was involved in securing huge number of votes for these guys at key moments or at the last moment. Giancana also mentioned Roosevelt as their previous guy or before Truman and so it seems there were more than few presidents who sometimes worked for the pleasure of the Mob, usually only in important situations but the money was probably coming on weekly or monthly basis. Remember the Mayor Cermak situation or the alleged assassination attempt (invented by the media at the time) on Roosevelt? Well some of the evidences show that Roosevelt wasnt the real target, but instead it was probably Cermak and so the Mob again managed to finish their job. Cermak's men allegedly tried to kill Frank Nitto who in turn survived the shooting and later he and Ricca accomplished their revenge by using probably the first "Lee Harvey Oswald style" or method lol.
I understand haha it was common practice for the Mafia to deliver Teamsters Union votes at the national level at least till the 80s.
I love the old days when they had trucks and cars filled with enforcers armed with baseball bats and gas pipes to "help" with election and the voters lol.
For example the 1924 Cicero elections in Chicago was historically THE most violent election that ever took place in the city.
That same type of “satellite” enforcers went to work by polling booths with machine guns to see if the local residents "voted right". So the violence continued with cars filled with gunmen who paraded on the streets of Chicago and few hoods even entered the office of the Democratic campaign workers and shot one worker in both of his legs and held him against his will with eight other campaign workers until the elections were over. Also Stanley Stanklevich, another Democratic worker, was kidnapped and again 8 others were held as prisoners.
They even riddled with bullets the headquarters of the Democratic candidate for president and so the poor guy fled the scene in panic with bullets whistling at his heels and took refuge in a nearby house and stayed there until the police came to escort him safely to the station. Another incident occurred when the Democratic candidate for town clerk William Pflaum was beaten by six men at his own residence. He was beaten over the head with pistols and then the gangsters fired few shots in the ceiling and then they fled the scene. But some of the people around Pflaum’s residence heard the shots and so they curiously gathered around the house and so when the hoodlums got out, they started punching the curious people with brass knuckles and also with their pistols. Also eight people, including one 14-year old boy, who passed around Democratic flyers on the streets, were severely beaten by unknown hoodlums that same day.
It was a total chaos lol.
