Winston Churchill: Orator and Crime Boss

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was a British politician and Chicago crime boss who lived from November 30, 1874 until January 24, 1965.

At the start of WWII Churchill was appointed as England’s First Lord of the Admiralty, to their member of the War Cabinet, and crime boss Al Capone contracted Churchill as Chancellor of Operations for Capone’s crime empire.

After Capone’s health began to rapidly decline, he gave Churchill the reins of the operations in Chicago. Throughout the course of WWII, Churchill would communicate with his men through wartime speeches over BBC radio broadcasts. The most well-known speech for this purpose was Churchill’s “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat” speech, given on May 13, 1940 to the House of Commons.

During his speech he said to the world and to his empire in Chicago, “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” This was a message to his criminal organization that he had done as much as he could in planning the 1940 robbery of the Chicago Savings Bank scheduled for May 20, 1940. Blood, toil, tears, and sweat, stood for four of his most trusted men – George Vicante, Al “Thumbs” Lanier, Tito Nix, and Dr. Loren Maddux, the men he was handing the job over to. It was in his final line of the speech that he signaled them to go ahead as planned with the robbery. The signaling line was, “…come then, let us go forward together with our united strength.”

The transcript of his speech can be found here.

Churchill continued to lead the organization until the death of Al Capone in January 25, 1947. After he ceased communication with the outfit, he continued his involvement in politics until his death at the age of 90.