Edward J. O'Hare
Encyclopedia
Edward Joseph O'Hare aka "Easy Eddie" (September 5, 1893 – November 8, 1939), was a lawyer in St. Louis
and later in Chicago
, where he began working with Al Capone
, and later helped federal prosecutors convict Capone of tax evasion. In 1939, a week before Capone was released from Alcatraz, O'Hare was shot to death while driving. He was the father of Medal of Honor
recipient Butch O'Hare, for whom O'Hare Airport is named.
to first-generation Irish-American parents Patrick Joseph O’Hare and Cecelia Ellen Malloy O’Hare. The Irish name "O'Hare" meant, in Gaelic, "sharp, bitter, angry." On June 4, 1912, E.J. O'Hare married Selma Anna Lauth, a native of St. Louis, born on November 13, 1890. She traced her heritage to Germany. E.J. and Selma started their family in an apartment above Selma's father's grocery store in the Soulard neighborhood. They had three children: Edward
("Butch"), born in 1914; Patricia, born in 1919, and Marilyn, born in 1924.
E.J. passed the Missouri bar exam in 1923 and joined a law firm. From 1925 O'Hare operated dog tracks in Chicago, Boston and Miami. Edward J. O'Hare, as a lawyer, represented the inventor Owen P. Smith, high commissioner of the International Greyhound Racing Association, who patented a mechanical running rabbit for use in dog racing. As a result of this lucrative work for Smith, O'Hare moved his family in 1930 into a new house — with a swimming pool and a skating rink — in Holly Hills. During summers, the O'Hare family had escaped the St. Louis heat to river camps on the Meramec and Gasconade rivers. E.J. had given Butch a .22-caliber rifle. Plinking at cans and bottles tossed in the river, Butch became quite a marksman. It was also during this time that E.J. became fascinated with flying, even hitching a ride in Charles Lindbergh's
mail plane. Lindbergh took his first job as lead pilot of an air mail route operated by Robertson Aircraft Co.
of Lambert Field in St. Louis. E.J. then flew commercially whenever possible, and he found chances for his teenage son to briefly take the controls. As a result, his son Butch, the later Medal of Honor
recipient, best known for his extreme bravery as a U.S. naval aviator in World War II
, became quite a marksman and familiar with planes.
When Owen Patrick Smith died, O'Hare represented the administratrix of Smith's estate, Hannah M. Smith. E.J. began to expand his business interests from the St. Louis levee to Chicago.
One day in the 1920s E.J. came home to find his son, Butch, sprawled on a couch reading books and munching banana layer cake and doughnuts. The father decided that his boy was showing signs of laziness and enrolled him at Western Military Academy in Alton.
In Chicago, O'Hare met Al Capone
, the man who ran Chicago during Prohibition. When Charles Lindbergh
performed his famous transatlantic flight
in 1927, Capone was among the first to push forward and shake his hand upon his arrival in Chicago. Capone's gang was the dominant gang in the city. An entrepreneur new in town, as E.J. was, had to choose a gang, just as today he would have to choose a business insurer. E.J. later fell in love with secretary Ursula Sue Granata, the sister of a State Representative with ties to the Mob. The engagement went on for seven years because, as Catholics, O'Hare's divorce from his wife Selma made it impossible for the couple to have a church wedding. However, O'Hare was hopeful that a request for a dispensation from the Vatican would come through by 1940.
O'Hare and Capone began collaborating in business and in law. O'Hare made a second fortune through his ties to Capone. In 1930, E.J. asked John Rogers, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, to arrange a meeting with the Internal Revenue Service
(IRS). John Rogers organized a meeting with IRS agent Frank J. Wilson
. After lunch, E.J. agreed to turn over key financial records of Capone's. The IRS's overall goal was to wreck Capone financially by destroying his bootlegging business. Agent Frank J. Wilson's job was to convict Al Capone of tax evasion.
E.J. O'Hare played a key role in Capone's prosecution for tax evasion. Frank J. Wilson, then government investigator of the Internal Revenue Service
(and later Chief of the U.S. Secret Service
between 1937 and 1946) revealed in the 26 April 1947 issue of Collier's magazine how Capone was convicted: "On the inside of the gang I had one of the best undercover men I have ever known: Eddie O'Hare." By 1930, E.J. O'Hare was working undercover for the Internal Revenue Service of the Treasury Department
. It is believed O'Hare directed investigator Wilson to the Capone bookkeeper who became a key witness at the 1931 trial, and he also helped break the code with which Capone's bookkeepers kept ledgers at various gambling houses throughout the 1920s. During the Capone trial, O'Hare tipped the government that Capone had fixed the original jury that was to hear the case in the court of Judge James Wilkerson
. Thus alerted, Judge Wilkerson switched juries with another federal judge just as the Capone tax trial was set to begin (depicted in the 1987 film "The Untouchables"
).
Al Capone was found guilty on five of twenty-two counts and sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison. Al Capone arrived at Alcatraz in August 1933.
Edward Joseph O'Hare was shot and killed on Wednesday, November 8, 1939, while driving in his car. O'Hare was 46. That afternoon he reportedly left his office at Sportsman's Park in Cicero with a cleaned and oiled Spanish-made .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol, something unusual for him. O'Hare got into his black 1939 Lincoln Zephyr
coupe, and drove away from the track. As he approached the intersection of Ogden and Rockwell, a dark sedan roared up beside him and two shotgun
-wielding henchmen opened up on him with a volley of big-game slugs
. Edward Joseph O'Hare was killed instantly. As his Lincoln crashed into a post at the side of the roadway, the killers continued east on Ogden, where they soon became lost in other traffic. Several months after O'Hare was gunned down, Frank Nitti
, Capone's second in command, married Ursula Sue Granata, O'Hare's fiancée.
In 2010, Alderman Ed Burke asked the Chicago Police Department Cold Case Squad to re-examine O'Hare's murder in light of a new book, Get Capone, which made allegations about the crime.
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
and later in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, where he began working with Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
, and later helped federal prosecutors convict Capone of tax evasion. In 1939, a week before Capone was released from Alcatraz, O'Hare was shot to death while driving. He was the father of Medal of Honor
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It is bestowed by the President, in the name of Congress, upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her...
recipient Butch O'Hare, for whom O'Hare Airport is named.
Early life in St. Louis
Edward Joseph O'Hare, known to friends and family as E.J., was born on September 5, 1893 in St. LouisSt. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
to first-generation Irish-American parents Patrick Joseph O’Hare and Cecelia Ellen Malloy O’Hare. The Irish name "O'Hare" meant, in Gaelic, "sharp, bitter, angry." On June 4, 1912, E.J. O'Hare married Selma Anna Lauth, a native of St. Louis, born on November 13, 1890. She traced her heritage to Germany. E.J. and Selma started their family in an apartment above Selma's father's grocery store in the Soulard neighborhood. They had three children: Edward
Edward O'Hare
Lieutenant Commander Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare was an Irish-American naval aviator of the United States Navy who on February 20, 1942 became the U.S. Navy's first flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. Butch O’Hare’s final action took place on the night of November 26, 1943,...
("Butch"), born in 1914; Patricia, born in 1919, and Marilyn, born in 1924.
E.J. passed the Missouri bar exam in 1923 and joined a law firm. From 1925 O'Hare operated dog tracks in Chicago, Boston and Miami. Edward J. O'Hare, as a lawyer, represented the inventor Owen P. Smith, high commissioner of the International Greyhound Racing Association, who patented a mechanical running rabbit for use in dog racing. As a result of this lucrative work for Smith, O'Hare moved his family in 1930 into a new house — with a swimming pool and a skating rink — in Holly Hills. During summers, the O'Hare family had escaped the St. Louis heat to river camps on the Meramec and Gasconade rivers. E.J. had given Butch a .22-caliber rifle. Plinking at cans and bottles tossed in the river, Butch became quite a marksman. It was also during this time that E.J. became fascinated with flying, even hitching a ride in Charles Lindbergh's
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
mail plane. Lindbergh took his first job as lead pilot of an air mail route operated by Robertson Aircraft Co.
Robertson Aircraft Corporation
Robertson Aircraft Coroporation was a post-World War I American aviation service company based at the Lambert-St. Louis Flying Field near St. Louis, Missouri, that flew passengers and U.S. Air Mail, gave flying lessons, and performed exhibition flights...
of Lambert Field in St. Louis. E.J. then flew commercially whenever possible, and he found chances for his teenage son to briefly take the controls. As a result, his son Butch, the later Medal of Honor
Medal of Honor
The Medal of Honor is the highest military decoration awarded by the United States government. It is bestowed by the President, in the name of Congress, upon members of the United States Armed Forces who distinguish themselves through "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her...
recipient, best known for his extreme bravery as a U.S. naval aviator in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, became quite a marksman and familiar with planes.
When Owen Patrick Smith died, O'Hare represented the administratrix of Smith's estate, Hannah M. Smith. E.J. began to expand his business interests from the St. Louis levee to Chicago.
One day in the 1920s E.J. came home to find his son, Butch, sprawled on a couch reading books and munching banana layer cake and doughnuts. The father decided that his boy was showing signs of laziness and enrolled him at Western Military Academy in Alton.
Chicago
Divorced from his wife Selma in 1927, O'Hare moved to Chicago. Selma stayed in St. Louis with her two daughters Patricia and Marilyn, while Butch went to the U. S. Naval Academy.In Chicago, O'Hare met Al Capone
Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone was an American gangster who led a Prohibition-era crime syndicate. The Chicago Outfit, which subsequently became known as the "Capones", was dedicated to smuggling and bootlegging liquor, and other illegal activities such as prostitution, in Chicago from the early...
, the man who ran Chicago during Prohibition. When Charles Lindbergh
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh was an American aviator, author, inventor, explorer, and social activist.Lindbergh, a 25-year-old U.S...
performed his famous transatlantic flight
Transatlantic flight
Transatlantic flight is the flight of an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean. A transatlantic flight may proceed east-to-west, originating in Europe or Africa and terminating in North America or South America, or it may go in the reverse direction, west-to-east...
in 1927, Capone was among the first to push forward and shake his hand upon his arrival in Chicago. Capone's gang was the dominant gang in the city. An entrepreneur new in town, as E.J. was, had to choose a gang, just as today he would have to choose a business insurer. E.J. later fell in love with secretary Ursula Sue Granata, the sister of a State Representative with ties to the Mob. The engagement went on for seven years because, as Catholics, O'Hare's divorce from his wife Selma made it impossible for the couple to have a church wedding. However, O'Hare was hopeful that a request for a dispensation from the Vatican would come through by 1940.
O'Hare and Capone began collaborating in business and in law. O'Hare made a second fortune through his ties to Capone. In 1930, E.J. asked John Rogers, a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is the major city-wide newspaper in St. Louis, Missouri. Although written to serve Greater St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch is one of the largest newspapers in the Midwestern United States, and is available and read as far west as Kansas City, Missouri, as far south as...
, to arrange a meeting with the Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
(IRS). John Rogers organized a meeting with IRS agent Frank J. Wilson
Frank J. Wilson
Frank J. Wilson was the Chief of the United States Secret Service and a former agent of the Treasury Department's Bureau of Internal Revenue, later known as the Internal Revenue Service, most notably in the 1931 prosecution of Chicago mobster Al Capone and federal representative in the Lindbergh...
. After lunch, E.J. agreed to turn over key financial records of Capone's. The IRS's overall goal was to wreck Capone financially by destroying his bootlegging business. Agent Frank J. Wilson's job was to convict Al Capone of tax evasion.
E.J. O'Hare played a key role in Capone's prosecution for tax evasion. Frank J. Wilson, then government investigator of the Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
(and later Chief of the U.S. Secret Service
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
between 1937 and 1946) revealed in the 26 April 1947 issue of Collier's magazine how Capone was convicted: "On the inside of the gang I had one of the best undercover men I have ever known: Eddie O'Hare." By 1930, E.J. O'Hare was working undercover for the Internal Revenue Service of the Treasury Department
United States Department of the Treasury
The Department of the Treasury is an executive department and the treasury of the United States federal government. It was established by an Act of Congress in 1789 to manage government revenue...
. It is believed O'Hare directed investigator Wilson to the Capone bookkeeper who became a key witness at the 1931 trial, and he also helped break the code with which Capone's bookkeepers kept ledgers at various gambling houses throughout the 1920s. During the Capone trial, O'Hare tipped the government that Capone had fixed the original jury that was to hear the case in the court of Judge James Wilkerson
James Herbert Wilkerson
James Herbert Wilkerson was a United States federal judge.Born in Savannah, Missouri, Wilkerson received an A.B. from DePauw University in 1889. He was in private practice in Chicago, Illinois from 1893 to 1922...
. Thus alerted, Judge Wilkerson switched juries with another federal judge just as the Capone tax trial was set to begin (depicted in the 1987 film "The Untouchables"
The Untouchables (1987 film)
The Untouchables is a 1987 American crime-drama film directed by Brian De Palma and written by David Mamet. Based on the book The Untouchables, the film stars Kevin Costner as government agent Eliot Ness. It also stars Robert De Niro as gang leader Al Capone and Sean Connery as Irish-American...
).
Al Capone was found guilty on five of twenty-two counts and sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison. Al Capone arrived at Alcatraz in August 1933.
Assassination
Al Capone's mental state began to deteriorate during his imprisonment in Alcatraz. As a result, at the end of 1939, Capone was due for release from federal prison any day.Edward Joseph O'Hare was shot and killed on Wednesday, November 8, 1939, while driving in his car. O'Hare was 46. That afternoon he reportedly left his office at Sportsman's Park in Cicero with a cleaned and oiled Spanish-made .32-caliber semi-automatic pistol, something unusual for him. O'Hare got into his black 1939 Lincoln Zephyr
Lincoln-Zephyr
Lincoln-Zephyr was a marque for the lower priced line of luxury cars in the Lincoln line 1936-40. Lincoln-Zephyr and Mercury, introduced 1939, bridged the wide gap between Ford's V-8 De Luxe line and the exclusive Lincoln K-series cars. This served a purpose similar to Cadillac's smaller LaSalle...
coupe, and drove away from the track. As he approached the intersection of Ogden and Rockwell, a dark sedan roared up beside him and two shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
-wielding henchmen opened up on him with a volley of big-game slugs
Shotgun slug
A shotgun slug is a heavy lead projectile, that may have pre-cut rifling, intended for use in a shotgun and often used for hunting large game. The first effective shotgun slug was introduced by Wilhelm Brenneke in 1898, and his design remains in use today...
. Edward Joseph O'Hare was killed instantly. As his Lincoln crashed into a post at the side of the roadway, the killers continued east on Ogden, where they soon became lost in other traffic. Several months after O'Hare was gunned down, Frank Nitti
Frank Nitti
Francesco Raffaele Nitto , also known as Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti, was an Italian American gangster. One of Al Capone's top henchmen, Nitti was in charge of all strong-arm and 'muscle' operations...
, Capone's second in command, married Ursula Sue Granata, O'Hare's fiancée.
In 2010, Alderman Ed Burke asked the Chicago Police Department Cold Case Squad to re-examine O'Hare's murder in light of a new book, Get Capone, which made allegations about the crime.
See also
- Edward "Butch" O'HareEdward O'HareLieutenant Commander Edward Henry “Butch” O’Hare was an Irish-American naval aviator of the United States Navy who on February 20, 1942 became the U.S. Navy's first flying ace and Medal of Honor recipient in World War II. Butch O’Hare’s final action took place on the night of November 26, 1943,...
- E. Joseph O'Hare's son and Medal of Honor recipient.