Samuel Jules "Nails" Morton (July 3, 1893 – May 13, 1923) was a soldier during World War I and later a high-ranking member of

Dean O'Banion Charles Dean O'Banion (July 8, 1892 – November 10, 1924) was an American mobster who was the main rival of Johnny Torrio and Al Capone during the brutal Chicago bootlegging wars of the 1920s. The newspapers of his day made him better known ...

's Northside gang.

Biography

Early life

Born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, Morton grew up in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

in the Jewish neighborhood centering on Maxwell Street. As a young man, Morton won the admiration of the Jewish community for making a part of Chicago's West Side safe for them by creating a defense society to drive their enemies away.Landesco, John. "Organized Crime in Chicago" in ''The Illinois Crime Survey''. The Illinois Association for Criminal Justice, 1929, p. 1031 The Chicago police also suspected him of at least two murders.

World War I

After the United States declared war on

Imperial Germany The German Empire (), Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditar ...

, Morton enlisted in the

American Expeditionary Forces The American Expeditionary Forces (A. E. F.) was a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I. The A. E. F. was established on July 5, 1917, in France under the command of General John J. Pershing. It fought along ...

. He served with distinction and was awarded the Croix de Guerre by the French Republic. By the war's end, he had been promoted to

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

Death

Morton died when he was thrown from his horse and trampled as he was riding in Lincoln Park. He was 29 years old. Grief-stricken members of the North Side gang, including George "Bugs" Moran, Vincent "The Schemer" Drucci, Earl "Hymie" Weiss, and Louis "Two Gun" Alterie took the offending horse from its stables, led it to the spot where Morton died, and then shot the horse "with four slugs to the head". Morton received a funeral with full military honors by the American Legion. He was seen off by prominent politicians, city officials, and gangsters. According to the ''

Chicago Daily News The ''Chicago Daily News'' was an afternoon daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, published between 1875 and 1978 in Chicago, Illinois. History The ''Daily News'' was founded by Melville E. Stone, Percy Meggy, and William Doughert ...

'', 5,000 Jews paid their respects to Morton that day.

In popular culture

Morton's death and its aftermath were later fictionalized in the film ''

The Public Enemy ''The Public Enemy'' (''Enemies of the Public'' in the UK) is a 1931 American all-talking pre-Code gangster film produced and distributed by Warner Bros. The film was directed by William A. Wellman and stars James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edwar ...

''. After a horse kicks to death his friend Samuel "Nails" Nathan (

Leslie Fenton Leslie Fenton (12 March 1902 – 25 March 1978) was an English actor and film director. He appeared in more than 60 films between 1923 and 1945. Early life Fenton was born on 12 March 1902 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England. He emigrated to ...

), Tom Powers ( James Cagney) buys the horse and guns it down in the stables. The incident may also have inspired the infamous horse head scene in

Mario Puzo Mario Francis Puzo (; ; October 15, 1920 – July 2, 1999) was an American author, screenwriter, and journalist. He is known for his crime novels about the Italian-American Mafia and Sicilian Mafia, most notably '' The Godfather'' (1969), whi ...

's ''

The Godfather ''The Godfather'' is a 1972 American crime film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who co-wrote the screenplay with Mario Puzo, based on Puzo's best-selling 1969 novel of the same title. The film stars Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caa ...

''.

References

Bibliography

*English, T. J. ''Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster''. New York: HarperCollins, 2005. *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., 2001.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morton, Samuel Jewish American gangsters 1894 births 1923 deaths North Side Gang Prohibition-era gangsters United States Army officers Military personnel from Chicago Recipients of the Croix de Guerre (France) 20th-century American Jews