Milwaukee Leader, 21 May 1929, page 1: Chicago gangs form syndicate

Front page of the Milwaukee Leader, Mail Edition, Tuesday evening, 21 May 1929. The page’s lead is a local investigation story; the Chicago item is headed “Chicago Gangs Form Syndicate,” with the decks “Plan to Split $16,000,000 Vice Profits” and “Rival Gangsters Meet, Name Johnny Torrio ‘Czar.’”

The story, by Robert T. Loughran of the United Press, datelined Chicago, says the “fourteen points” of a gangland peace pact were “revealed today to the United Press.” It says the pact was proposed in Chicago and signed at a meeting in Atlantic City, that it was meant to end the overlordship of Al Capone by joining the warring factions in one syndicate, that John Torrio would be “czar,” and that the syndicate was claimed to net about $16,000,000 a year.

Every term, the dollar figure and every role in this story are the United Press’s own claims, with no named source, and none is verified here. The page is filed as a record of what a Wisconsin paper printed four days after Capone’s Philadelphia sentence.