Chicago always had a particular high murder count even then depending on accurate reporting. Before the rise of Prohibition there was in the mid to high 100s. After Prohibition it basically doubles.
Im not talking about the independent low level criminals or black hand gangs that killed whole families that refused to pay. I was talking about a particular crime group that existed during the 1890's untill late 1920's. These guys invented organized crime in Chicago. Guys like Mont Tennes, Jim O'Leary, King Mike, Mushmouth Johnson, Sam Young, John Gazzola, Mike Heitler,John Condon, Tom McGinnis,Charles Smith, Harry Perry and Bud White and Kenna and Coughlin. They rarely used murder as a tool but managed to control a multi-million dollar operations in those days. When two of these guys decided to go to war against each other, they bombed and burned their homes, work offices and vice joints for 5 years but in the end no one was killed. During their criminal careers they obviously murdered few people here and there but nothing close to as the Capone mob or any previous Italian gang. The most "violent" guy which was Tennes, he ran gambling in Chicago wide open and also had a wire service which covered cities all over the country. In the old days the Irish, German or British crime lords were always less brutal than the Italian or Jewish.
@Furio
