A labor-connected killing, straight out of the movies
Projectionist’s slaying exposed the wrath of power-drunk union boss
It might seem odd that Jacob Kaufman, who lived in a Jewish neighborhood on Chicago’sWest Side, would have his carworked on in an alley garage in a Black neighborhood on the Far South Side. But during the Great Depression, people had to hustle to survive. Kaufman and Crawford Johnson, who sold him a car radio, weremembers of theMotion Picture Operators’Union. So Kaufman took a union brother’s offer of the radio at a bargain price andwent to Johnson’s garage at 9525 S. Princeton Ave. where itwas to be installed.
“A few minutes later, the flannel trousered gunman entered the garage,” the Tribune reported. “Kaufman… turned around. Nowordswere spoken. The visitor yanked a revolver fromhis pocket and fired five shots at close range atKaufman. The movie operator collapsed with three bullets in his chest, one in his abdomen, and another in his left leg.” The gunman jumped into awaiting sedan with two other occupants.
During a few moments of consciousness before he died at Little Company ofMary Hospital, Kaufman said he didn’t knowthe motive behind the assault. But after more questioning, he divulged that he’d provoked the wrath of Thomas “Tommy” Maloy, the corrupt business agent of their projectionists union, by backing another candidate for union office.
So itwas that on the evening of June 20, 1931, Kaufman unwittingly achieved a measure of immortality. His slayingwill be recalled for as long as there are aficionados of the history of Chicago’s organized crime. So, too, will be the story’s epilogue— in which, as in an ancient Greek tragedy, murder begets murder.
Itwasn’t just the local papers that played Kaufman’s killing big. TheNewYork Times ran it under a headline: “Seek Six in Chicago For A Labor Killing; Executive of TheMotion Picture Operators’Union Among ThoseHunted By Police.”
ThatwasMaloy. Kaufman having been a thorn in his side, hewas an obvious suspect when Kaufmanwas shot as hewatched David Greer, an unemployedmovie operator, install the radio in his car.
At the request of Assistant State’s Attorney Charles Bellows, the police sent an arrest-on-sight order forMaloy and several associates.
Maloy’s attorney responded that a sworn memorandum in which Kaufman accusedMaloy of threatening to “take him for a ride,” or to murder him, provedMaloy’s innocence.
“In the first place itwas written three years ago and ifmy client sought to harm
Kaufman he’d hardly take three years to do it,” the lawyer said.
But the timing of Kaufman’s killing incriminated Maloy. Kaufmanwas scheduled to testify in front of a grand jury as part of a federal investigation of the union’s glaring corruption. And on the day of his death, hewas fired fromhis projectionist job at the Piccadilly Theatre.
Three days after the killing, the cops staged a reenactment in Johnson’s garage. According to the Tribune’s account, police officers played Kaufman and his assailant, and Greer took his place under a squad car representing Kaufman’s car, where he said he had been installing the radio. John Drake, a handyman and another witness, was told to take his place.
“Iwas bending over the front of the car, just polishing away when the gunwent bang,” Drake said. “But I didn’t see the man fire the shots. Hewas outside the door (of the garage).”
Bellows, the assistant state’s attorney, placed a pencil in a bullet hole in thewall near where Kaufman fell and lined up a yardstick to estimate the bullet’s trajectory. It didn’t match up with what Drake had told them.
“Drake, you’re lying!” Bellows said. He noted that lie detector testing gave him reason to believe that Drake and Greer knew more about the killing than they were willing to say.
In fact, the killerwas inside the garage, whereDrakewould have gotten a good look at him. At that point, Bellows sent the cops to canvass the neighborhood for other witnesses.
“Have you found the man who took the notes?” a nearby resident asked.
Thewoman explained that she sawa motorist get out of his car and place a cushion under Kaufman’s head as he lay on the sidewalk whereGreer and Drake had placed him. The man took notes of what
Kaufman said, then left.
With that, the investigators returned downtown. They took with them Johnson, Drake and Greer, locking them up in the detective bureau, along with Leo Del Magro, who’d come under suspicion because Kaufman had gotten an industry job over his brother-in-law.
Bellows vowed they’d remain behind bars “untilwe clear this thing up and get the truth.”
The authoritiesweren’t the only ones questioning witnesses to the killing. Joseph Rogers, who had heard the shots as he and his wifewere driving nearby and sawthe getaway car take off, said hewent to check on Kaufman and a tall, dark man approached him, the Tribune reported.
“‘Did you see what kind of a car that man got away in?’ the man asked, referring to the slayer. Rogers replied that he had not. ‘Well you’d better not remember!’ threatened the man.”
Other potential witnesses either got that message or came to the conclusion on their own. When union member John Clarkson was served with a subpoena, he looked defiantly at the investigator standing in his doorway: “Do you think Iwant to get what Kaufman got?”
And so for a lack of cooperating witnesses, the state’s attorney had to quietly drop the case. Maloy, the business agent, continued to rule the union with an iron fist.
Two years after Kaufman’s slaying, another rebel union memberwas killed, this time inMaloy’s office. A judge had tried to mediate the differences betweenMaloy and member Fred Oser. The partieswere supposedly to continue that process on their own. But when Oser showed up at union headquarters, hewas fatally shot by Ralph O’Hara, another union business agent.
O’Hara pleaded self-defense, claiming that Oser drew a gun. At trial, a barber testified that shortly before the shooting, Oser had come in for a shave and the barber hadn’t felt a gun while hanging up Oser’s suit jacket. Nevertheless, the judge directed the jury to enter a not-guilty verdict.
Still, Maloy’s reignwas drawing to a close. FrankNitti, the head of Chicago’s mob, knewMaloy considered the union’s treasury his personal piggy bank. Maloy waswarned thatNitti and his boys intended a takeover of the union.
On Feb. 4, 1935, Maloywas killed when a car pulled alongside his and the occupants opened fire.
Taking over the projectionists unionwas a double-barrel bonanza for the mob. Not only did it inherit tens of thousands of dollars thatMaloy annually siphoned off union funds, but the union also gave the syndicate job opportunities for sons who didn’twant to followtheir fathers’ deadly trade.
In the late 1950s, a Tribune investigative series found that dozens of relatives of mobsterswere on the union’s payroll. They included at least one son and a brother of Tony “Big Tuna” Accardo, who then headed the syndicate. Therewas no evidence the relatives actuallyworked at the theaters that issued them paychecks.
But itwasn’t that probe that ended the violence of the projectionists union. That honor belongs to LarryHornbeck, an inventor who in the 1980s made it possible to showmovies digitally, without the need for projectionists.
WhenHornbeck received an Academy Award for his breakthrough, he thanked everyone who helped him create what he called— with more truth than poetry—“a disruptive innovation.”