Chicago memorandum listing members of former and present Chicago gangs (July 1936)

Part 09 of the FBI Vault’s Capone file, scans 56 to 59, with a later version on scans 65 to 68. The part is filed under Bufile 32-15941, the general Chicago gangsters file. Scan 56 is a transmittal of July 29, 1936 from D. M. Ladd, Special Agent in Charge at Chicago, sending the Director “for indexing purposes” copies of a memorandum by Special Agent Jerome Doyle “relative to all members of former and present gangs of Chicago.” Scans 57 to 59 are that memorandum, dated Chicago, Illinois, July 28, 1936, and headed “Memorandum for the File.”

The memorandum states: “On July 22, 1936, the following list was obtained from Lieutenant J. C. Wilamowsky, firearms identification expert for Cook County Coroner. The list includes the names of all members of former and present Chicago gangs and indicates by an asterisk those now dead.” It says the list was compiled with the help of “Jiggs” Donahue, a Chicago policeman attached to the coroner’s office. It adds: “It might be noted that Hymie Levine is alleged to be the present leader of the Capone gang in the absence of Frank Nitti.” The first heading is “Capone Gang (South Side)”, with thirty-eight names. Among them are Jack McGurn (marked dead), Louis (“Little New York”) Campagna, Ralph (“Bottles”) Capone, Tony Accardo alias Joe Batters, Johnny Torrio, Jake Guzik, Frank Nitti and “Dago” Lawrence Mangano. Scans 58 and 59, read from OCR, list the Saltis, O’Donnell, Moran (North Side) and other gangs.

Scans 65 to 68 are Ladd’s letter of the autumn of 1936 (it answers a Bureau letter of September 19, 1936) and a retyped list giving Chicago Police identification numbers for the living members. The memorandum records what a county official told an agent. It is not a finding about any person’s rank or role, and this archive does not copy it onto the family charts. The FBI sent the same Capone-gang names to an inquirer in 1983 (Part 22). The first page was read from the image stored here; it carries the date July 28, while the research record dated the item by the July 22 date in its first sentence.