Ragen's Colts was a chiefly
Irish street gang which dominated the
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
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, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
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underworld during the early twentieth century. By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the gang became part of the
Chicago Outfit
The Chicago Outfit (also known as the Outfit, the Chicago Mafia, the Chicago Mob, the Chicago crime family, the South Side Gang or The Organization) is an Italian-American organized crime syndicate or crime family based in Chicago, Illinois, ...
under
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the ...
.
Originally established as an athletic club, the Ragen's Athletic and Benevolent Association was soon led by team pitcher Frank Ragen. He hired out members of the club to Chicago Democrat politicians to do various forms of
election fraud.
The gang quickly expanded, numbering 160 members by 1902 and 2,000 by 1908. It earned the motto "Hit Me and You Hit 2,000". By the end of the decade, the gang had financed the careers of hundreds of Chicago city officials, including prominent
aldermen
An alderman is a member of a municipal assembly or council in many jurisdictions founded upon English law. The term may be titular, denoting a high-ranking member of a borough or county council, a council member chosen by the elected members th ...
, police chiefs, and city treasurers, as well as Ragen himself. Ragen became Chicago police commissioner. By 1920, many members of the gang had become notorious criminals and gunmen, such as William "Gunner" McPadden, Harry Madigan, Joseph "Dynamite" Brooks, Danny McFall, Hughey "Stubby" McGovern, Davy "Yiddles" Miller and Ralph Sheldon of the
Sheldon Gang.
The years after World War I were a time of increased social tension, as returning veterans competed with more recent immigrants and newer African American migrants from the South for jobs and housing. In several cities, such tensions erupted in rioting, often instigated by one of slightly older, more established groups to restore dominance over a newer group, often a minority. The Irish and African Americans were both concentrated in housing on the South Side and in jobs at the stockyards located on that side of the city.
The Ragen gang were believed to instigate fights between black and other South Side neighborhoods that contributed to the
Chicago race riot of 1919. In one instance, the Colts donned blackface and set fire to Lithuanian and Polish homes in the
Back of the Yards neighborhood in a deliberate attempt to incite the immigrant community to join them in committing heinous acts against African Americans.
The Ragen gang led raids from Irish neighborhoods into the
Black Belt
Black Belt may refer to:
Martial arts
* Black belt (martial arts), an indication of attainment of expertise in martial arts
* ''Black Belt'' (magazine), a magazine covering martial arts news, technique, and notable individuals
Places
* Black B ...
, where they looted homes and killed several people. Blacks retaliated by attacking other South Side neighborhoods. As news of the attacks spread, other neighborhoods around the city began rioting. Violence lasted four days and resulted in 38 deaths: 23 black and 15 white, and more than 1,000 injured.
The Ragen Colts also directed their anger at the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Ca ...
for its anti-Catholicism. In 1921, "In September, 3,000 people from the stockyards district (of Chicago) watched as the Colts hanged in effigy 'a white-sheeted Klansman'." (Tuttle)
During
Prohibition
Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...
, the gang soon began bootlegging. Member Ralph Sheldon formed his own group and began hijacking rival liquor shipments. While the gang came into conflict with the Chicago Outfit during the bootleg wars, Capone, impressed with the gang, hired them as enforcers for the organization. The Irish Ragen gang were eventually absorbed into the organization following the establishment of the
National Crime Syndicate in 1932. Many members would later become top leaders of the Chicago crime syndicate.
In 1920 several members of Ragen's Colts split off to form the
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
football team, the Chicago Maroons, later known as the
Chicago Cardinals
The professional American football team now known as the Arizona Cardinals previously played in Chicago, Illinois, as the Chicago Cardinals from 1898 to 1959 before relocating to St. Louis, Missouri, for the 1960 through 1987 seasons.
Roots ...
.
See also
*
Valley Gang
References
*Kelly, Robert J. ''Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States''. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000.
*Sifakis, Carl. ''The Mafia Encyclopedia''. New York: Da Capo Press, 2005.
*Sifakis, Carl. ''The Encyclopedia of American Crime''. New York: Facts on File Inc., 2005.
*Tuttle, William, M. Jr. ''Race Riot: Chicago in the Red Summer of 1919'' University of Illinois Prses, 1996.
{{Organized crime groups in America
Organizations established in the 1900s
1900s establishments in Illinois
Organizations disestablished in 1932
1932 disestablishments in Illinois
Former gangs in Chicago
Chicago Outfit
Irish-American gangs
White-supremacist organized crime groups in the United States
Irish-American culture in Chicago