Except that he was born in Licata, Sicily, raised in Brooklyn, and his daddy’s real name was Tommaso
Gibaldi, not a whole lot is known about Vincenzo the boy, except that when his real daddy was
murdered, Li’l Vincent supposed tracked down the shooters and offed them. This might have attracted
the favorable attention of Brooklyn crime boss Frankie Yale (often spelled Uale, nee Iole), who might
have hooked him up with Al Capone, who had gotten a few facial scars in 1917 while working at Yale’s
Harvard Inn near Coney Island.
Possibly to spare his mom and dad embarrassment over of his general orneriness, or to dodge the
cops, Vincenzo at some point changed his name to James Gebardi and was adopted by the Chicago
family of Anthony DeMora, who also got himself shot.
Now James was really pissed. He tracked down the shooters, wasted them, and hooked up with Al
Capone (who likewise had moved to Chicago).
[And, believe me, this is the really condensed version.]
At some point Gebardi entered the local fight game that was dominated by Irishers and again
changed his name, this time to Jack McGurn, which sounded sufficiently Old Country to get him some
matches. (He didn’t tell folks which Old Country.) And about this time he also signed on as Al Capone’s
bodyguard, especially after Capone and his boss, Mr. Torrio (who had moved from New York to
Chicago some years earlier) prevailed on Brooklyn’s Mr. Yale to whack North Side bootlegging tycoon
Dean O’Banion in November of 1924. (Mr. O’Banion not only had set them up for a Seiben Brewery bust
but had the temerity to refer to his South Side friends as “wops"!)
This set off the Chicago Beer Wars in which Jack was accused of several killings. The North Siders
badly wounded Mr. Torrio, shot up the car of Mr. Capone (hitting his chauffeur), and then, in the mother
of all drive-by shootings, sent a motorcade down Cicero’s main street to blow hell out of Al’s Hawthorne
Hotel. The problem was, the wild-eyed North Siders couldn’t shoot worth a damn, and twenty days after
that Mr. Capone’s boys did a first-rate machine-gun ambush that took out their new gangleader, Hymie
Weiss and his bodyguard Paddy Murray, even if they had to wing a lawyer or two in the process. This
was clearly a case of preemptive self-defense by proxy.
It wasn’t until 1928 when the latest North Side gangleader, Bugs Moran, teamed up with the
despicable Joey Aiello, who had put a $50,000 bounty on Mr. Capone’s head, that Jack really started
earning his keep. Gangsters from several cities tried to collect, only to be “sent back home” by Jack,
who became known as “the professional killer who killed professional killers.” Aiello tried to leave town
but was taken out by means of an even more sophisticated machine-gun nest. He walked out the front
door of a friend’s apartment on Kolmar and straight into Tommygun fire from a house across the street.
He ran next door and tried to take shelter directly under a second machine-gun next. The cops counted
59 bullets in him—at that time the city’s record!
How Jack earned the nickname “Machine Gun” isn’t clear, because he worked mainly with pistols; and
once, when busted on some trumped-up charge, he indignantly denied owning a machine gun or even
having fired one. That may have stretched the truth a little, for he was accused of riddling Octavius
Granady, a colored feller who should have stayed out of the political-reform business.
By this time Jack was starting to get himself noticed. Among the noticers were the North Side
Guzenberg brothers, a couple of stone killers who nailed him with several bullets as he was coming out
of a hotel smoke shop. While recovering he told the cops he had no idea who would do such a thing,
and that it might have been a case of mistaken identity. When the same rascals machine-gunned his
car, with him in it, he managed to duck and probably speculated that since his machine was quite a
sporty one, the shooters must have been jealous college kids.
It is simply not true that the alleged victims of Mr. McGurn were found with nickels clutched in their
deceased hands, indicating “cheap hood.” This legend probably was the work of two Chicago reporters
who spent much of their time in a friendly rivalry (they later admitted) to see who could come up with the
best stunts and nicknames for the subjects of their stories in the irresponsibly edited newspapers of the
day.
It is also not true that Mr. McGurn was among those who introduced the Tommygun to New York
(causing a considerable stir) when turncoat mobster Frankie Yale was wasted, as all the books assert.
That slander was based on the fact that Mr. McGurn may well have been present at Al Capone’s Miami
estate when the subject of Yale’s treachery came up; and that he supposedly was chosen for the job
because, as a kid, he had grown up in Brooklyn. That was more newspaper speculation. Fact is, Yale
was gunned down in his car by three of Mr. Capone’s special-assignment “American boys,” namely Fred
Burke, Bob Carey and Gus Winkeler (accordingly to the later-widowed Georgette Winkeler, commonly
spelled Winkler in the press), and by “Little New York Louie” Campagna, whose mother (whom he
visited often, like any good Italian son) lived in Yale’s neighborhood. (Actually, he got himself in trouble
with Capone for violating the Big Fellow’s orders not to make any calls to Chicago.)
Equally mistaken is the long-accepted belief that Mr. McGurn “masterminded” the St. Valentine’s Day
Massacre—another staple of gangster-history books. Jack was, by 1929, too high of profile and, in his
own words, “Could not have gotten anywhere near that garage!” It’s true he knew that Al finally had
been forced to put Bugs on the spot, and for that reason he and his girlfriend Louise Rolfe had taken a
room at the fancy Stevens Hotel until that matter was settled. Louise must have truly loved Jack for they
later married, and she insisted until her death in the 1990s that she and Jack had spent their time at
posh nightclubs, and that she was with him, especially on St. Valentine’s Day, when the ugliness on
North Clark Street went down. (According to Widow Winkler, the principle shooters were the same
American Boys from St. Louis, including Fred Burke, her late husband Gus, Bob Carey, and Ray
Nugent, along with one native Chicagoan, Fred Goetz, other known as George Zeigler.)
Among the things that had made jack so conspicuous by 1929 was his penchant for light blue outfits
(detractors called him a fop and a dandy), his talent with a ukulele, his fine manners and dancing skills,
and his patronage of the best golf courses around.
Alas, when Capone went to prison in 1932, Jack, a devoted Capone loyalist, fell on hard times. He
was also made to feel unwelcome among the Outfit regulars, whose “Americans” were being pruned by
Nitti’s own goons and henchmen. McGurn was reduced to running small suburban gambling operations,
and when he made noises about admission to the new Nitti mob in 1936, the bastards killed him: In his
favorite bowling alley on Milwaukee Avenue, a few minutes past midnight on the Massacre’s seventh
anniversary! Naturally the irresponsible press tried to make something out of that, even though he had
no direct involvement in the bloodfest seven years earlier. Indeed, a later FBI tape revealed that one of
his killers was a supposed buddy, Claude Maddox, a Capone turncoat who had since thrown in with Nitti.
THE MANN ACT
What all of us need to thank jack for is the determination he showed in appealing his conviction—the
only one they could get!—for violation of the Mann Act.
Yes. After the Massacre he and Louise, who had visited Mr. Capone in Florida on more than one
occasion, were arrested for “conspiracy to transport a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.”
Both were sentenced to prison, but Jack and the new Mrs. McGurn appealed their cases all the way to
the United States Supreme Court; and in its wisdom the High Court held that the law, as written, did not
contemplate a woman “debauching herself.” This voided her conviction, which meant that Jack had no
one to have conspired with! To the dismay of the U.S. Justice Department, his conviction likewise had to
be vacated.
Incidentally, the comic Valentine that the shooters supposedly left on Jack’s body was already at the
pool hall, waiting for him, and probably was the work of some pranksters—a fact conveniently ignored
by most of the newspapers
Which was just the kind of irresponsible reporting that typified the “Chicago School of Journalism”!
Gibaldi, not a whole lot is known about Vincenzo the boy, except that when his real daddy was
murdered, Li’l Vincent supposed tracked down the shooters and offed them. This might have attracted
the favorable attention of Brooklyn crime boss Frankie Yale (often spelled Uale, nee Iole), who might
have hooked him up with Al Capone, who had gotten a few facial scars in 1917 while working at Yale’s
Harvard Inn near Coney Island.
Possibly to spare his mom and dad embarrassment over of his general orneriness, or to dodge the
cops, Vincenzo at some point changed his name to James Gebardi and was adopted by the Chicago
family of Anthony DeMora, who also got himself shot.
Now James was really pissed. He tracked down the shooters, wasted them, and hooked up with Al
Capone (who likewise had moved to Chicago).
[And, believe me, this is the really condensed version.]
At some point Gebardi entered the local fight game that was dominated by Irishers and again
changed his name, this time to Jack McGurn, which sounded sufficiently Old Country to get him some
matches. (He didn’t tell folks which Old Country.) And about this time he also signed on as Al Capone’s
bodyguard, especially after Capone and his boss, Mr. Torrio (who had moved from New York to
Chicago some years earlier) prevailed on Brooklyn’s Mr. Yale to whack North Side bootlegging tycoon
Dean O’Banion in November of 1924. (Mr. O’Banion not only had set them up for a Seiben Brewery bust
but had the temerity to refer to his South Side friends as “wops"!)
This set off the Chicago Beer Wars in which Jack was accused of several killings. The North Siders
badly wounded Mr. Torrio, shot up the car of Mr. Capone (hitting his chauffeur), and then, in the mother
of all drive-by shootings, sent a motorcade down Cicero’s main street to blow hell out of Al’s Hawthorne
Hotel. The problem was, the wild-eyed North Siders couldn’t shoot worth a damn, and twenty days after
that Mr. Capone’s boys did a first-rate machine-gun ambush that took out their new gangleader, Hymie
Weiss and his bodyguard Paddy Murray, even if they had to wing a lawyer or two in the process. This
was clearly a case of preemptive self-defense by proxy.
It wasn’t until 1928 when the latest North Side gangleader, Bugs Moran, teamed up with the
despicable Joey Aiello, who had put a $50,000 bounty on Mr. Capone’s head, that Jack really started
earning his keep. Gangsters from several cities tried to collect, only to be “sent back home” by Jack,
who became known as “the professional killer who killed professional killers.” Aiello tried to leave town
but was taken out by means of an even more sophisticated machine-gun nest. He walked out the front
door of a friend’s apartment on Kolmar and straight into Tommygun fire from a house across the street.
He ran next door and tried to take shelter directly under a second machine-gun next. The cops counted
59 bullets in him—at that time the city’s record!
How Jack earned the nickname “Machine Gun” isn’t clear, because he worked mainly with pistols; and
once, when busted on some trumped-up charge, he indignantly denied owning a machine gun or even
having fired one. That may have stretched the truth a little, for he was accused of riddling Octavius
Granady, a colored feller who should have stayed out of the political-reform business.
By this time Jack was starting to get himself noticed. Among the noticers were the North Side
Guzenberg brothers, a couple of stone killers who nailed him with several bullets as he was coming out
of a hotel smoke shop. While recovering he told the cops he had no idea who would do such a thing,
and that it might have been a case of mistaken identity. When the same rascals machine-gunned his
car, with him in it, he managed to duck and probably speculated that since his machine was quite a
sporty one, the shooters must have been jealous college kids.
It is simply not true that the alleged victims of Mr. McGurn were found with nickels clutched in their
deceased hands, indicating “cheap hood.” This legend probably was the work of two Chicago reporters
who spent much of their time in a friendly rivalry (they later admitted) to see who could come up with the
best stunts and nicknames for the subjects of their stories in the irresponsibly edited newspapers of the
day.
It is also not true that Mr. McGurn was among those who introduced the Tommygun to New York
(causing a considerable stir) when turncoat mobster Frankie Yale was wasted, as all the books assert.
That slander was based on the fact that Mr. McGurn may well have been present at Al Capone’s Miami
estate when the subject of Yale’s treachery came up; and that he supposedly was chosen for the job
because, as a kid, he had grown up in Brooklyn. That was more newspaper speculation. Fact is, Yale
was gunned down in his car by three of Mr. Capone’s special-assignment “American boys,” namely Fred
Burke, Bob Carey and Gus Winkeler (accordingly to the later-widowed Georgette Winkeler, commonly
spelled Winkler in the press), and by “Little New York Louie” Campagna, whose mother (whom he
visited often, like any good Italian son) lived in Yale’s neighborhood. (Actually, he got himself in trouble
with Capone for violating the Big Fellow’s orders not to make any calls to Chicago.)
Equally mistaken is the long-accepted belief that Mr. McGurn “masterminded” the St. Valentine’s Day
Massacre—another staple of gangster-history books. Jack was, by 1929, too high of profile and, in his
own words, “Could not have gotten anywhere near that garage!” It’s true he knew that Al finally had
been forced to put Bugs on the spot, and for that reason he and his girlfriend Louise Rolfe had taken a
room at the fancy Stevens Hotel until that matter was settled. Louise must have truly loved Jack for they
later married, and she insisted until her death in the 1990s that she and Jack had spent their time at
posh nightclubs, and that she was with him, especially on St. Valentine’s Day, when the ugliness on
North Clark Street went down. (According to Widow Winkler, the principle shooters were the same
American Boys from St. Louis, including Fred Burke, her late husband Gus, Bob Carey, and Ray
Nugent, along with one native Chicagoan, Fred Goetz, other known as George Zeigler.)
Among the things that had made jack so conspicuous by 1929 was his penchant for light blue outfits
(detractors called him a fop and a dandy), his talent with a ukulele, his fine manners and dancing skills,
and his patronage of the best golf courses around.
Alas, when Capone went to prison in 1932, Jack, a devoted Capone loyalist, fell on hard times. He
was also made to feel unwelcome among the Outfit regulars, whose “Americans” were being pruned by
Nitti’s own goons and henchmen. McGurn was reduced to running small suburban gambling operations,
and when he made noises about admission to the new Nitti mob in 1936, the bastards killed him: In his
favorite bowling alley on Milwaukee Avenue, a few minutes past midnight on the Massacre’s seventh
anniversary! Naturally the irresponsible press tried to make something out of that, even though he had
no direct involvement in the bloodfest seven years earlier. Indeed, a later FBI tape revealed that one of
his killers was a supposed buddy, Claude Maddox, a Capone turncoat who had since thrown in with Nitti.
THE MANN ACT
What all of us need to thank jack for is the determination he showed in appealing his conviction—the
only one they could get!—for violation of the Mann Act.
Yes. After the Massacre he and Louise, who had visited Mr. Capone in Florida on more than one
occasion, were arrested for “conspiracy to transport a woman across state lines for immoral purposes.”
Both were sentenced to prison, but Jack and the new Mrs. McGurn appealed their cases all the way to
the United States Supreme Court; and in its wisdom the High Court held that the law, as written, did not
contemplate a woman “debauching herself.” This voided her conviction, which meant that Jack had no
one to have conspired with! To the dismay of the U.S. Justice Department, his conviction likewise had to
be vacated.
Incidentally, the comic Valentine that the shooters supposedly left on Jack’s body was already at the
pool hall, waiting for him, and probably was the work of some pranksters—a fact conveniently ignored
by most of the newspapers
Which was just the kind of irresponsible reporting that typified the “Chicago School of Journalism”!
The Fall from Grace of MACHINE GUN JACK McGURN And how he beat the Mann Act! |
GUILTY? Guilty of WHAT?
Guilty of consentual sex
with the girl he loved?
(Okay, so maybe he was
married to someone else
at the time. No big deal;
they probably were
splitting up anyway.)
Thanks goodness he beat
the Mann Act conviction
that otherwise could have
scarred his reputation for
life! Note, by the way, that
Jack is not wearing the
ridiculous plaid pants and
goofy shirts that today's
golfers seem to like. Yuk.
Guilty of consentual sex
with the girl he loved?
(Okay, so maybe he was
married to someone else
at the time. No big deal;
they probably were
splitting up anyway.)
Thanks goodness he beat
the Mann Act conviction
that otherwise could have
scarred his reputation for
life! Note, by the way, that
Jack is not wearing the
ridiculous plaid pants and
goofy shirts that today's
golfers seem to like. Yuk.
LOUISE