# Milwaukee Leader, 25 July 1929, page 4: Detroit's rum ring now disorganized

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/clippings/clip-milwaukee-leader-1929-07-25-p4/

A short item from Detroit: the 'purple gang', once Detroit's most powerful bootlegging organization, was 'disorganized' after a federal jury convicted four of its ringleaders, Abe Axler, Eddie Fletcher, Harry Sutton and Irving Milberg, of prohibition violations.

Page 4 of the Milwaukee Leader (mail edition) for Thursday, 25 July 1929. The short item "Detroit's Rum Ring Now Disorganized," datelined Detroit, reads: "The 'purple gang' at one time Detroit's most powerful bootlegging organization, was disorganized today due to the fact that four of its ringleaders were serving sentences of 22 months each in prison."

It names "Abe Axler, Eddie Fletcher, Harry Sutton and Irving Milberg" and says they were sentenced "by a jury in federal court here late yesterday" on prohibition charges. The figures in the item do not agree: it gives 22 months in its first sentence and "a year" and fines of $5,000 each in the next. Both are recorded here as printed.

The South Bend News-Times of 28 July 1929 dates the conviction to Thursday, 25 July, while this item says "late yesterday"; the two pages differ. The descriptions of the men are the newspaper's.

## Sources

- Library of Congress, Chronicling America: https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83045293/1929-07-25/ed-1/?sp=4
- Library of Congress OCR text of this page: https://tile.loc.gov/text-services/word-coordinates-service?segment=/service/ndnp/whi/batch_whi_italico_ver01/data/sn83045293/00542869094/1929072501/0148.xml&format=alto_xml&full_text=1