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Hey and welcome to the podcast I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here and Dave is hovering over us like a hologram of Obi-Wan Kenobi which makes this short stuff and makes us his only hope that's right boy that's tough for Dave where is only hope Dave
You know, we haven't talked too much. We talked a little bit about the mafia and stuff like that. But I feel like we have a gap in our –
sort of Al Capone, Chicago mob sort of timeframe. Like, uh, who are the, uh, what was the movie? The untouchables, that sort of era. Such a good movie. We don't have a lot of that stuff. So this is maybe the beginning of a little bit more of that. Okay. This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship as Al Capone said once. That's right. Then you got a knife in your back. So, um,
Our story actually takes place in 1933. That's when it began, although it lasted almost the entire decade of the 30s. But by this time, and this is so funny because
This whole thing is associated with Al Capone. But if we're going to jump to the end and put it at the beginning, he probably had almost nothing to do with this. The reason this Chicago Milk War, as it's called, is associated with Al Capone is because his direct descendants, his protégés that took over when he was put into federal prison, were
They were the ones who were involved in this. So he had some sort of kind of like phantom supernumerary hand involved, but no direct involvement. Yeah. Like if he wouldn't have been in prison, it would have been Al Capone running this milk war. And it would have been 10 times bloodier probably. Yeah, you're probably right. But like we all know, he was in prison for tax evasion initially right here in Atlanta and then eventually in Alcatraz very famously. Yeah.
But we're talking about the milk war, like you were saying, and this gets a little convoluted because there's just a lot of milk unions and delivery driver unions for milk. And they all have similar names and most of them are pretty good band names. So it gets a little bit confusing, but we're going to do the best we can to tell you how
The mob in Chicago got involved in the milk business. And one of the main reasons is that FDR came along and the writing was on the wall that prohibition was going to be repealed. And that was really bad for the mob because they were making a ton of money with bootlegging and with the speakeasies. So they're like, we need to divert. We need to diversify. Right. Right. So they said, how about milk? It's pretty unregulated and under the radar. And
We are already in the food business a little bit. We run the artichoke racket, which was true. Isn't that crazy? That's the fact of the short stuff right there. Well, that and the Wisconsin cheese racket. So they already had a foot in the dairy and produce business. Right. So, yeah, I guess milk is a logical extension of those. I mean, the cheese, that makes sense, too. But it is surprising to go from booze to milk. Yeah. But it almost didn't matter what.
what the product was. Sure. The mob could figure out a way to completely upend the industry. They were early disruptors, I guess you'd call them in 2010 speak. Yeah. But the way that they did that was through like violence and intimidation. And that's the first, the first tactic they tried when they showed up at a guy named Steve Sumner's door and Steve Sumner's door was the front door of the office of the milk wagon drivers union, local seven 53. Yeah.
And the reason why is because Steve Sumner ran that. He was the union leader, right? And you had said this whole thing's kind of convoluted. It is. And the reason why is because from what I can tell, there was an uneasy working relationship between the different unions and the different associations that all came together to produce, buy,
bottle, sell, and distribute milk. And each one had their own competing interests. And they were all trying to work together. There was some price fixing involved. There were some alliances that were all uneasy. But then when the mob came in, they came in kicking on the door and shooting down, shooting Tommy guns into this whole alliance. And it just created this tremendous
total chaos that had just been waiting to happen that the mob coming in really triggered and then some. Yeah, absolutely. Because at the time, milk prices were, I guess you would say fixed, right? Is that the term? Yeah. Yeah. Milk prices were set or capped rather. And they had to use union representatives to, you know, to drive and deliver this milk and distribute this milk. And
The mob of Chicago basically said, all right, we're going to get in on the ground floor. We're going to buy an actual dairy. And they bought Meadowmore Dairies. And that's how we're going to get into the milk industry. And what we can do is then not have to use union employees. We can bypass that fixed pricing and we can undercut that.
buy a penny or two, what everyone else is selling it for, and get all the milk money ourselves. Yeah. And don't forget, this is during the Depression, right? So a couple of pennies off of a bottle of milk that was selling for 11 cents, that meant a lot. Like, yeah, you could make a pretty big deal. So there was price fixing, which is illegal. And the mob came in and undermined it by introducing good old American competition to it.
Yeah. Which is really weird. That's why this whole thing is so hard to kind of wrap your head around because it all is totally nonsensical. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. Yeah.
I mean, I feel better because I couldn't figure out why I couldn't really make the most sense of this because it's not the most complicated story. No. But, yeah, they came to Steve Sumner eventually. This guy named Murray the Camel Humphreys, who was one of Capone's fixers. If you have a fixer, you're not a good person. Let's just say that. Yeah. That means you're breaking things if you need someone to fix things. That's a great, great slogan. Oh, yeah. I should get that on a T-shirt. Yeah.
So they went to Sumner and said, hey, if you and your union can just lay low for a little while, let us hire these non-union workers. We can sell our stuff cheaper and then you can make a big deal about that and you can protest that. Then we can raise these prices again. And in exchange for this.
We're not going to we're going to offer you protection, which everyone knows for the mob means we're not going to destroy your milk trucks and firebomb your delivery wagons. Right.
And what's funny is, like, I can't remember the spoof movie that this is in. I want to say top secret, but I might be wrong. Where somebody comes in, some, like, traditional, like, maybe gangster criminal comes in and starts shooting up the place. And then all of these, like, normal people, like, pull guns out of nowhere and start shooting back unexpectedly. Yeah.
That's exactly what happened with this, because the mob came in and said that they were going to start breaking heads if everybody didn't fall in line. And so all these people in the dairy industry who were allegedly legitimate went and bombed the mob's dairy. The moment they the moment they said that they were going to do this, they went and bombed their dairy.
All right. I say we should take a break because that's a pretty remarkable thing. I'm going to go with Johnny Dangerously. I'm not sure if that's true or not. Is that it? Okay. But it seems like a likely candidate, and we'll come back right after this. We'll be right back.
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Johnny Dangerously, top secret. It's virtually the same movie. I mean, that's just a guess. Boy, I saw Johnny Dangerously in the theater when I was a kid. Oh, yeah. Funniest thing I'd ever seen. Some parts of it are still pretty funny. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I think it was. Yeah. Joe Biscopo. Michael Keaton. You kidding me? Yeah. The Dream Team is what they call that. Griffin Dunn.
Yeah, he's John. Did you know he's Joan Didion's nephew? Of course. He's got a new book out.
Called I'm Joan Didion's Nephew by Joan Didion's Nephew. You dummy. Emily just got it. It's supposed to be a good read. So she's all into that. Have you ever seen After Hours? Oh, yeah, of course. Good movie. Scorsese, baby. Yeah, it was. But it's also like a kind of a screwball comedy. Yeah, yeah. The only one he did, really. Yeah. All right. That's been Movie Crush. Oh, I miss that show. No. Not enough to do it again, though.
So we're back. And like you said, when we left, I believe, right before I said Johnny Dangerously, you said these regular schmoes started bombing the mob's dairy. And that's what happened. And it's just crazy. And all of a sudden, you know, this milk war has kicked off.
Yes. So I said that there was like a bunch of different competing groups. There were the people who made the milk. Those are the farm producers. Those are the farmers who are like milking the cows, putting into huge like canisters and then selling it to the milk dealers. The milk dealers have formed an association and they're the ones who are fixing the price. They were saying, hey, farmers, this is how much you're going to get for milk. Don't ask for anything more because I
everyone who's going to buy it from you is in cahoots against you, right? So the farmers said, well, this is all crazy. We're just going to go on strike. You're not going to get any milk unless you guys start giving us a better price. So in addition to this group, these people were arguing, there's also another group that were involved and they were the stores that sold milk, okay? And
They had milk for one set price and they could typically sell it lower than other companies who used delivery drivers, milkmen, to deliver their milk directly to people's homes because there's that added cost. And then on top of the added cost, the milk drivers were unionized. That's what Steve Sumner represented. And so they had like a contract with those companies saying like, you're going to pay our drivers like a good wage, right?
And so there was competition between the companies that used union drivers and the companies that just sold it directly from stores. And all of them hated each other because they were all beating one another up to get as much of a margin of profit out of the others as they possibly could, because the American public were the ones who were like, we're not going to pay that much for milk. You guys are going to have to figure this out yourself. Yeah. Do you think the mob ever went up to people and went,
You're going to be eating your granular with water.
Or did they have cereal by then? Or were they still calling it probably not granula? Sure, don't you remember a Kellogg's episode? That was the 19th century. Well, that's what I'm saying. That was like the early 1910s. They were calling it granula, but they called it cereal pretty soon after, right? Oh, I see what you mean. Sure, sure, probably. Yeah, I wonder what the first one was. Because I think they called their cornflakes cornflakes pretty early on. So they at least had cornflakes. All right, let me do another take. Okay. You're going to be eating your cornflakes with cereal. Okay.
God, you want to take a third take? Yeah, let's do take three. OK, I'm going to add a line to I'm going to improv line. You're going to be cereal with water like in the movie Fridays. That's awesome. We were ice cubed. Yes. You had to drink it or you had to eat it with water. Yeah. Oh, boy. Where were we? We're talking about cornflakes.
Yeah. In the story, I know there was a band name I wanted to mention, the Pure Milk Association. Yeah. They were one of the union's great band name. Associated Milk Dealers. What about that one? That's not too bad. Milk Wagon Drivers Union? Nah. Let's get a little wordy. You know, we haven't taken a break yet, have we? Oh, we did. We did. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah. We're supposed to be done by now.
So here's what happened. In 1939, there was an antitrust case that was going on basically with this monopoly that was happening. And the court threw it out. There was a district court judge.
that threw it out. I believe it was reinstated by the Supreme Court later, but they avoided trial. The DOJ said, you know what, if everyone signs and agrees to this, then we can get this milk war over. The farmers and the unions, you got to say that you won't stop independent producers from marketing milk. There can be independent producers who
Distributors, you can't fix your prices anymore. And drivers, your union, there's a lot of moving parts here. You can't hamper the store sales of milk. Like I know you like delivering to people's houses, but distribution is the thing now and you got to let that happen. Right. And so essentially what the Justice Department said was,
You basically need to go the way that the mob was trying to take this and go your separate ways and compete with one another, like be capitalists rather than price fixers. Exactly. What's funny is there's a quote from Steve Sumner, who's just befuddled by this
antitrust case that was slapped against him and some of the others. He's like, we're trying to get the milk flowing again. Like, we're just making deals here. And they're like, you're price fixing. That was the problem in the first place. So stop doing that. And I got the milk flowing again. I think in 1940, the whole thing ended. That's right. Pretty great stuff. The Chicago Milk Wars featuring Al Capone in name only. That's right.
Chuck said that's right twice, everybody. And of course, that means short stuff is out. That's right. Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.