In Chicago, the big story was a funeral. The city was saying good-bye to the Dingbat. The "Dingbat" was John Oberta, his nickname derived from a comic strip. He was 29 at the time of his death. Like Taft he was a Republican politician, the 13th Ward Committeeman. Unlike Taft, he was a gangster. Oberta was a protégé of Big Tim Murphy, bootlegger and labor racketeer in the Back-of-the-Yards neighborhood. One morning Big Tim opened his front door and had his head blown off by a shotgun blast. A few months later, Dingbat married Big Tim’s widow. Now Dingbat was gone, too. He had been found shot dead in his car, along with his chauffeur, on a deserted road near Willow Springs. By 1930 the gangster funeral had become a familiar Chicago custom. Dingbat’s friends would not scrimp. “I’m giving him the same I gave Tim,” Mrs. Murphy Oberta told reporters. Dingbat was waked in his home on South Richmond Avenue. He lay in a $15,000 mahogany coffin with silver handles, under a blanket of orchids.
Chicago Tribune