KIDNAP GANG GETS $150,000 CASH IS RAISED BY WIFE TO SAVE GAMBLER'S LIFE

KIDNAP GANG GETS $150,000 CASH IS RAISED BY WIFE TO SAVE GAMBLER'S LIFE Returns Safe to his Blue Island Home.

Monday May 4, 1931 the Chicago Daily Tribune headline story told of the 57-year-old, 240-pound gambler taken for a ride by unknown persons. 

James Hackett, Blue Island gambler, paid 150,000 ransom to kidnapers and retuned home unharmed yesterday morning. He was kidnaped Friday afternoon. For two days his wife worked frantically converting securities and jewels into cash and borrowing money, mortgaging the home, in order to meet the demand of the kidnapers.
Hackett said last night that the $150,000 was all he had. It was possible for his wife to raise the money only upon the assurance that he would sign the mortgage on his home when he was freed.

Life in Danger.

Three different gangs had been shadowing him for weeks to take him for a ride, Hackett said his captors told him, and from the conversation of his guards he deduced they were affiliated with a national organization which makes a business of kidnaping wealthy men for ransom. The gang that captured him wanted to take either him or his son, George, 20 years old, whom they had followed on several occasions last week, Hackett stated.

Others Kidnaped by Gang. 

There was no connection between this attempted bombing and his kidnapping, Hackett declared, but he said he was certain the men who were successful in the $150,000 crime were the same who on Jan. 6 of this year kidnaped Daniel Chamberlain, another Blue Island gambler and liquor dealer, and who also abducted James Ward, chief bootlegger of Chicago Heights.
Hackett, until this experience, had resisted all efforts of gangsters to get his wealth or take his profits from him. He is known to have had slot machines all through the southern portion of the county long before prohibition led to the formation of powerful gangs. These gangs, such as those led by Capone, the Saltis-McErlane gang of the south side, and the Bugs Moran gang of the north side, dealing in liquor, decided to annex the slot machine business in conjunction with their liquor sales.

The Human Vampire Dracula Is Here!

In March, 1931 Frances was dying to see Dracula, which had just opened at the State Lake Theater, but her parents wouldn't allow her to see the film. They were willing to let her go to the movies, just not that particular film. Dracula had been  released the month before in New York and there were reports of people fainting from shock. She disobeyed them and went to a matinee, pretending when she returned home to have seen something else. Around midnight Frances' chow chow dog growled a long low growl and then it began to howl. Next a brand-new roller shade in her bedroom window lost purchase and flipped up. Frances shrieked and ran to her parents, her terror exposing her earlier disobedience. There was already  plenty for the family to fear, no imagination required. Gangs of predators had been circling closer and closer and were becoming increasingly explicit in their menace.

James and Adeline Hackett with George and Frances about 1915

March 4, 1931 Chicago Tribune

REVEAL 75 LIVES IMPERILED BY “MURDER BOMB”
Gaming House Crowded, Police Discover.

The revelation that nearly seventy-five persons escaped death on Monday night when a dynamite bomb, the most powerful ever seen in the Chicago area, failed to explode beneath a Blue Island gambling house came as a climax last night to the inquiry into the murder of William Maier, 52 years old, caretaker, who was shot by the bombers.
Instead of a boarded-up deserted structure, as asserted by police, the gaming house at 119th street and Vincennes avenue was thronged with men playing games of chance when the bomb was placed, it was learned. In a political meeting only two doors away, thirty-five men and women were gathered. The lives of all these persons, in addition to passersby and residents in flats at the corner, would have been imperiled by the terrific power of the explosive.

Gangs Defied by Hackett.

Investigators seeking a motive found themselves confronted by a multiplicity of theories, but the one most generally accepted was that the bombing plot was aimed at James Hackett, wealthy gambling chief of Blue Island, the owner of the resort.
Hackett has been known to have defied efforts of criminal syndicates to muscle into his territory. The Joe Saltis gang some time ago and before that the Edward (Spike) O’Donnell gang were told by him to stay out of the profitable Blue Island gambling business, it was reported.
Another puzzling element was the part played by Hilario Rodriguez, 35 years old, a Mexican, who at first was hailed as the hero who snuffed out the bomb when, he said, the bombers hurled him and the explosive down a col chute into the basement of the gambling house. Questioning of witnesses yesterday disproved this version, and Rodriguez contradicted his own story several times.

Story of a Bus Driver.

One witness, William Johnson, of Harvey, a bus driver, said that Rodriguez, who had been lurking about the corner, joined the three bombers when they drove up, and that all four went to the side of the gambling house. Johnson then heard a shot which was followed by four others. Peering toward the scene, Johnson said, he saw a man lying on the sidewalk (later identified as Maier) and Rodriguez running way. The other three men jumped into their sedan and drove off.
Similar testimony was given by two other witnesses, residents in a flat nearby, who said they saw the shooting and heard Maier cry “For God’s sake, don’t kill me!”
Hackett and his partner, Jimmy Blouin, former bowling champion, had been ordered to appear at the inquest yesterday afternoon but neither did so. At Hackett’s $75,000 residence in Blue Island, a man who said he was a constable on guard, declared that Hackett’s whereabouts were unknown.
Hackett and Blouin were on the scene of the crime a few moments after the shooting and Hackett exclaimed to bystanders that the murder was an “outrage for which someone will pay.” He will be subpoenaed to appear at the next session of the inquest on March 13.

HURL MURDER BOMB: SLAY 1 continued

Shots Fell Watchman.

The rat-a-tat of the shots brought Mayer, the watchman, out on the run. He advanced a few steps and was quickly felled by a fusillade of bullets which ripped into his legs and left him in a dying condition in the street. A few seconds later the bombers disappeared west in 119th street.
Neighbors, attracted by the firing, summoned the police and the fire department. Within a short time the intersection was thronged. Bomb experts from Chicago arrived as firemen were filling the coal chute with water, retrieved the bomb, and on examination pronounced it one of the strongest explosive devices ever reaching their attention. That it failed to explode was due, they believed, to the wetting of the fuse by soggy basement ground.

Speculate on Motive.

The attempted bombing, police said, probably was due to the fact that Hackett insisted on playing a lone hand in gambling in Blue Island. According to reports, Hackett operated a handbook without partnership or allegiance to any gambling group. Recently, it is said, a powerful combine has harassed Hackett to join their syndicate. To all advances Hackett is said to have turned a deaf ear and turned the emissaries away with sharp refusals.
Hackett said he knew of no reasons for an attack. His connections, if he has any, are unknown, but he appeared to be a man of influence. While the excitement over the incident was at its height Hackett appeared at the hospital and at a Blue Island police station. At the later place he imperatively ordered the captain to detail a couple of bluecoats at his gambling place and a couple more at the bedside of the slugged Mexican.


Frances told me a story when I was staying with her one summer. A man came into Jim Hackett's establishment carrying a keg of beer from his boss, telling Hackett he would be buying beer from this boss from now on. Hackett picked the man up by the collar and the back of the pants, threw him into the street and the keg after him saying "Tell that polack son-of-a bitch I'm not buying his beer!" Frances was proud of her father's physical strength and courage in delivering this decidedly  "sharp refusal" and she had a right to be. Based on Hackett's choice of abusive epithets it is likely that the boss in question was Joseph "Polack Joe" Saltis who, with his exceptionally violent partner Frank McErlane, controlled bootlegging on Chicago's southwest side.

HURL MURDER BOMB: SLAY 1

Wednesday March 3, 1931  the Chicago Daily Tribune

Throw Victim in with Blast; Fuse Goes Out.

One man was fatally shot and another was slightly wounded by five machine gunners in the attempted blasting last night of an alleged gambling house in Blue Island in which the gangsters tried to blow one of their victims to bits with a bomb 26 inches long and 41/2 inches in diameter loaded with pulverized dynamite and shrapnel. The unsuccessful bombing took place at 119th Street and Vincennes Road, across the street from the city limits.
The target of the bomb was a gambling place owned by James Hackett, reputed to be wealthy.
The murder bomb, constructed of steel pipe, contained approximately 15 pounds of dynamite and, had it exploded, could have lifted the one story brick building under which it was thrown and damaged houses a block away, according to Sergt. Joseph Corvin of the Chicago bomb squad.

An Assassination Plot.

The police described the hurling of the bomb as a desperate attempt at assassination, in contrast to the usual bombing, in which much lighter charges of explosives are set and which are used only for the purpose of damaging property and intimidating owners. 

Victims of the bombers were William (Biter) Mayer, 60 years old, caretaker and watchman of the place, and Hilario Rodriguez, 35, a Mexican. Both of Mayer's legs were riddled and torn by machine gun bullets. He died early this morning in St. Francis Hospital, Blue Island. Rodriguez's jaw was smashed. He was also taken to the hospital.

Rodriguez was the victim of a most harrowing experience and the only witness to the attempted bombing. He was standing at the southwest corner of Vincennes road and 119th street, waiting for his wife, when an automobile stopped on the Chicago side of the street, which is the Blue Island boundary. Five men emerged from the car, three of them lifting a heavy object, and walking to the side of Hackett's place on the southeast corner, which runs in the guise of a cigar store.

Hurl Victim after Bomb.

The other two strolled over to Rodriguez, drew revolvers, and ordered him to follow them. Believing them to be police, the Mexican obeyed and joined the first group. As they stood there one of his captors demanded money and, on Rodriguez's plea he had none, struck him in the face, shattering his jaw. During all this time the desperadoes gathered around a four-foot deep coal chute leading beneath 
Hackett's cigar store. Two of them had the bomb.

Suddenly one of the men applied a match to the fuse attached to the missile and tossed it into the hole. Two others seized Rodriguez's bodily and hurled him after the bomb.

There was a momentary sputtering and sizzling as the fuse burned, with Rodriguez looking on in terror. Realizing the danger, he climbed out of the chute in time to see the quintet boarding their car. Two of them alighted again and blazed away at him with a machine gun. One bullet inflicted a slight flesh wound.

from the Chicago Daily Tribune

1927
November 10th - Blue Island police last night blamed gambling troubles for the early morning bombing of the Transfer Inn at 11901 Vincennes avenue. The explosion practically destroyed the two story soft drink parlor and gambling house and shattered windows for blocks around. The place was the property of James Hackett and James Blouin, world's champion bowler. "Dog in the manger" tactics, ascribed to south side gamblers whose Chicago gambling houses have been hit by the police lid, the Blue Island police believe, were responsible for its destruction.

November 26th - For the second time in three weeks the soft drink parlor and gambling house of "Jimmy" Hackett at 11901 Vincennes avenue, Blue Island, was bombed early this morning. A black powder bomb was placed in the front doorway and front windows shattered. The loss was fixed by the Blue Island police at $25.
The place was under reconstruction following a bombing on Nov. 9 that practically demolished the structure, causing a loss of $20,000. It was claimed at that time that Chicago gamblers, resenting the patronage Hackett was getting, thus cutting in on their profits, were responsible for the blast.

The Long Count

On September 22, 1927 Jim brought thirteen year old Frances to Soldier Field to attend the rematch between Jack Dempsey and Heavyweight champion Gene Tunney. Frances told me she was wild about the young handsome Tunney, and when he won after the notorious "long count" Jim didn't spoil her fun by revealing to her that he'd had thirty grand on Dempsey.