Kid Cann

Isadore Blumenfeld
circa 1933
Born	(1900-09-08)September 8, 1900 Râmnicu Sărat, Romania
Died	June 21, 1981(1981-06-21) (aged 80) Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States
Other names	Kid Cann, Dr. Ferguson
Occupation	Mobster
Criminal status	Deceased

Isadore Blumenfeld (September 8, 1900 – June 21, 1981), commonly known as Kid Cann, was a Jewish-American organized crime figure based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for over four decades and remains the most notorious mobster in the history of Minnesota. He was associated with several high-profile crimes in the city's history, including the 1924 murder of cab driver Charles Goldberg, the attempted murder of police officer James H. Trepanier, and the December 1935 killing of newspaperman Walter Liggett. He is also thought to have participated in the fraudulent dismantling of the Twin City Rapid Transit street railway during the early 1950s.

Blumenfeld was convicted of violating the federal Mann Act in 1959 and, after a short prison term, retired to Miami Beach, Florida, where he and Meyer Lansky operated a real estate empire. He was involved in organized crime in Miami Beach and Havana, Cuba, until his death.^[1]

Life[]

Early life[]

Blumenfeld was born in 1900 in the Romanian shtetl of Râmnicu Sărat, Buzău County, to an Orthodox Jewish family. According to U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service documents, his parents emigrated to America in 1902 via the port of Duluth, Minnesota. His father, a Russian-born furrier named Phillip Blumenfeld, settled the family in the neighborhood of Near North, Minneapolis. During childhood, Isadore had to leave school and support his family by selling newspapers on Minneapolis' "Newspaper Row." At the time, the best selling locations had to be held by force against gangs of other boys. Blumenfeld would also tell stories of how he had made extra money picking up bus tokens and reselling them. Enraged by the poverty of his family, he turned to running errands for the pimps and madams of Minneapolis's red light district.

Two tales are told of the origins of his famous nickname. According to one legend, he picked up the name during a brief attempt at boxing. Another story told by his fellow North Side Jews alleges that young Isadore Blumenfeld would always lock himself in the outhouse (that is, the "can") to avoid gang fights in the neighborhood. Kid Cann indignantly denied both versions.^[2] Journalist Neal Karlen confirms that both stories were false, "Kid enjoyed not only fighting, but killing."^[3]

Prohibition[]

With the onset of Prohibition, Kid Cann and his brothers Harry Bloom and (alias "Dandy" and "Yiddy Bloom"), were transformed from small-time hoods into major organized crime figures in association with the American Mafia. Neil Karlen has described their organization as, "led by the Kid on machine gun and Harry and Yiddy Bloom on brains."^[4]

Their ties to the Chicago Outfit and New York City's Genovese crime family date back to the Prohibition period.

According to a later trial, they would legally import industrial grade alcohol from Samuel Bronfmans distillery in Montreal, which was shipped across the Great Lakes to Duluth, and then driven on souped up Ford automobiles to the Twin Cities.^[5] The brothers also ran illegal distilleries in the forests near Fort Snelling. Also, according to the book Minnesota 13,^[6] Kid Cann and his brothers made frequent trips to Stearns County, Minnesota to purchase the area's legendary moonshine from local Polish- and German-American farmers. Some was disposed of in the Twin Cities, but most of it was sold to the Chicago Outfit, which was then bossed by Al Capone. The same book also alleges that the Blumenfelds owned a lakeside cabin near Melrose, Minnesota.

By his 20s, Blumenfeld and his brothers held considerable power over the Jewish neighborhoods in North Minneapolis and oversaw illegal activities such as bootlegging, prostitution, and labor racketeering.

According to Twin Cities crime reporter Paul Maccabee, Kid Cann's rivalry with Minneapolis's Irish Mob ended after he and Irish Mob boss divided their territories with a handshake.

A number of deaths are attributed to Blumenfeld and his gang, including journalists who were killed after writing articles exposing the inner workings of his organization as well as his ties to corrupt politicians from several parties. A Jewish restaurant owner who recalls this era once said that the Blumenfelds were worshipped by several generations of neighborhood boys.

There was a high degree of political and civil corruption in the region in the 1920s and 1930s. The mainstream newspapers hardly mentioned what was going on, as any outlet that published articles critical of the status quo was threatened. Some small tabloid newspapers attempted to report what was going on, but reporters and editors quickly became targets. of the Twin City Reporter was shot and killed on September 6, 1934. A decade later the paper lost another reporter when Arthur Kasherman was killed on January 22, 1945.

Sports journalist Sid Hartman, who grew up in a poor Russian Jewish family in North Minneapolis, was an eleven year old newspaper peddler when he was brought by Minneapolis Tribune street circulation manager Joseph Katzman into the upper room at Jack Doyle's restaurant on Hennepin Avenue between Fourth and Fifth Streets. At the time, the restaurant was downstairs and upstairs was one of the largest sports betting operations in Minneapolis. Kid Cann, Tommy Banks, and the Berman Brothers were regular visitors and Hartman's decades long friendship with them began during those years.^[7]

After Prohibition[]

Following the end of Prohibition, Blumenfeld and his family continued to maintain control over the now legal liquor industry and owned, "all the big liquor stores; East Hennepin, Loring Liquors, and Lake Street. They monopolized the liquor business, and that's why they had so many enemies."^[8]

According to an internal FBI memo, "It is impossible to operate any place in Minneapolis without first getting permission from the Syndicate, and if a place is operated without obtaining such permission, the Syndicate sees to it that the new place is immediately closed."^[9]

From their headquarters at The Flame jazz club in Minneapolis' Washington Avenue Gateway District, the AZ Syndicate also committed many other crimes.^[10]

According to Hartman, "Kid Cann would bring in Sophie Tucker, Cab Calloway - entertainers like that - to appear at his club. Then, after hours, they would close the doors and the real show would begin. One time, the cops came barging in at 4am, took us all out, and put everyone in the Paddy wagon. If they had booked me with the rest of the people, I probably would have made the newspaper and lost my job at the Tribune. I did some begging and the cops let me go."^[11]

The Liggett murder[]

The most notorious murder was that of Walter Liggett, the founder and editor of a weekly paper called The Midwest American. He had been threatened and offered bribes to stay quiet, but he persisted in reporting on links he found between Twin Cities organized crime figures and Minnesota's ruling Farmer-Labor Party. Liggett was beaten up, prosecuted for a non-existent rape incident, and finally died after being machine gunned in the alley behind his home on December 9, 1935. His wife and daughter witnessed the assassination as did several neighbors. All identified Kid Cann as the shooter. Kid Cann was indicted by a grand jury and, on January 29, 1936, his trial began, where he was prosecuted jointly by the Hennepin County Attorney and the State's Attorney's Office.^[12]

Meanwhile, Kid Cann's younger half-brother Jacob Blumenfeld, alias "Yiddy Bloom", whom many sources allege to have been the acting boss of the organization, resurfaced in Paris. In an interview with the Washington Times, Jacob Blumenfeld called Liggett's murder, "a terrible extreme, but what the hell. Liggett persecuted the AZ Syndicate, which only wanted to live in peace with him. He was fiercely honest and became ridiculously inconvenient."^[13]

Poor investigative work and a careless trial, however, meant that Kid Cann was acquitted.^{[citation needed]} Edith Liggett would always believe that Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson and Farmer-Labor Party fixer Charles Ward were responsible for setting up her husband's murder. Liggett had repeatedly accused the Governor in print of having links to organized crime.^[14]

Other crimes[]

Although indicted for shooting dead taxicab driver Charles Goldberg and arrested for the attempted murder of police officer James H. Trepanier, who was left paralyzed, Blumenfeld continued to avoid conviction for serious crimes.^[15]

Accord to Twin Cities crime historian Paul Maccabee, FBI files reveal that rival Minneapolis Jewish mob boss David Berman contributed very heavily to Marvin L. Kline's mayoral campaign under the understanding that Berman would take over illegal gambling in Minneapolis. Therefore, during Kline's 1941-1945 term as Mayor, Berman briefly eclipsed the Blumenfelds and became the leader of the Minneapolis criminal underworld.^[16]

In 1942, FBI documents described Kid Cann as the, "recognized leader of graft and racketeering in Minneapolis". They added that Blumenfeld was, "known to have corrupted City and County officials... and has been known to harbor criminals of various types." The files also report that Kid Cann often boasted that he had the Minneapolis City Council, "in the palm of his hand."^[17]

FBI files also allege that Kid Cann was involved with Bugsy Siegel in the running of the El Cortez Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.^[18]

Also according to Paul Maccabee, the first mayoral term of Hubert Humphrey, who ran for the Minneapolis mayor's office promising to be a racket buster, succeeded only in shutting down the far more visible criminal operations of David Berman and leaving those of the Blumenfelds largely unscathed. Berman and his associates then moved their operations to Las Vegas, Nevada and left the Blumenfelds to take their place in Minneapolis.^[19]

As the electric streetcar system, operated by Twin City Rapid Transit, was being dismantled in the early 1950s and replaced with diesel buses, Blumenfeld owned a 16% stake in the company. He was later accused of allying himself with an Italian-American Farmer-Labor Party fixer turned corporate raider named Fred Ossanna, and using force to intimidate stockholders to selling. Then, following the success of their hostile takeover and the company's transfer from streetcars to diesel busses, both Kid Cann and Ossana received significant kickbacks while disposing of the scrap metal from the streetcars.^[20][21][22] What remained of Twin City Rapid Transit was taken over at the behest of Governor Orville Freeman by noted Minneapolitan Carl Pohlad in 1960.

In 1954, the Chicago Crime Commission named Kid Cann as involved with the Chicago Outfit in the jukebox racket.^[23]

As public interest in organized crime grew over the course of the 1950s, Twin Cities Federal Agents and Prosecutors became increasingly determined to put Blumenfeld and his associates in prison.

During the late 1950s, the Immigration and Naturalization Service added Blumenfeld to the "Denaturalization and Deportation Program". In the hope of deporting Blumenfeld back to the Socialist Republic of Romania for moral turpitude, both the INS and the FBI launched an investigation between 1959 and 1960 of Kid Cann's sexual activities.^[24]

According to Blumenfeld's close friend Sid Hartman, however, the Federal Government's pursuit of "The AZ Syndicate" was motivated solely by anti-Semitism.^[25] Hartman wrote in his memoirs, "It was OK for the Kennedy family in Boston and for some of the families that are now among the wealthiest in the Twin Cities - families living off trust funds in Wayzata - to have made their money in bootlegging. But it drove a lot of people nuts that the Jews were running Minneapolis and still making money in the liquor business."^[26]

Convictions and imprisonment[]

In 1959, Kid Cann was indicted on Federal charges for violating the Mann Act by transporting a Chicago prostitute named Marilyn Tollefson across State lines to work for his prostitution ring in the Twin Cities. Although Blumenfeld's defense counsel read "smoky passages" from Tollefson's love letters to Kid Cann to suggest that, "it was not just money that lured her across State lines",^[27] in 1960 a Federal court found Blumenfeld guilty and sentenced him to two years imprisonment.^[28]

As this conviction was being appealed, a Federal grand jury indicted Kid Cann, Fred Ossanna, and six other executives of the Twin City Rapid Transit Company for mail fraud, wire fraud, and transporting fraudulently obtained property across State lines. All defendants were convicted at trial, except Blumenfeld, who was acquitted of all thirteen charges against him.^[29]

In another Federal trial in 1960, the IRS used ownership forms to prove that Blumenfeld, his relatives, and other members of the "AZ Syndicate" continued to control the Minneapolis liquor industry. Blumenfeld offered a $10,000 bribe to one of the jurors, but was caught within hours. When charged with attempted jury tampering, Blumenfeld plead guilty.^[30]

In an interview with Paul Maccabee, FBI Special Agent Bill Lais recalled sitting with Blumenfeld as he awaited sentencing, "Isadore lit my cigarette for me, took off my coat for me, called me, 'sir'. He admitted that he'd tried to bribe a juror at his trial. Then he said he wanted to send a nice present to my wife. It was Cann's opening gambit to see if I could be bribed, too!"^[31]

In 1961, he was sentenced by Judge Edward Devitt to a second two year sentence for attempted jury tampering.^[32]

Kid Cann served four years at USP Leavenworth and was released in 1964.^[33]

Later years[]

After his release from prison, Kid Cann moved to Miami Beach, Florida with his brothers. They continued to make money through criminal activities, though they changed tack and focused instead on questionable real estate dealings. In 1967, Miami newspapers alleged that Kid Cann and Meyer Lansky either owned or had financial stakes in ten of Miami's best hotels. Blumenfeld and Lansky were also alleged to have set up a labyrinth of businesses, deeds, mortgages, leases, and subleases to conceal their involvement and evade Federal income taxes.^[34][35]

Kid Cann frequently visited his family and friends in Minnesota and declared to a Minneapolis reporter in 1976 that he had recently turned down an offer to write his memoirs. He said, "I have nothing to say, really."

In 1978, however, Blumenfeld was allegedly responsible for manipulating Magic Marker stock prices.^[36]

Death[]

After allegedly returning home to die, Kid Cann died in Minneapolis' Mount Sinai Hospital of heart disease in the summer of 1981.

At the time of his death, Isadore Blumenfeld's estate was conservatively estimated at $10 million.^[37] According to an obituary in Time Magazine which incorrectly listed his place of death as New York City, Kid Cann was also a philanthropist and, although Jewish, had donated an estimated 10% of his estimated $10 million fortune to churches as well as to synagogues. When once asked why, Blumenfeld had replied, "I believe in playing all the angles. I'm superstitious."^[38]

Rabbi Max Shapiro of Temple Israel recited the graveside services when Blumenfeld was interred at the Adath Yeshurun Cemetery in Edina, Minnesota.

Rabbi Shapiro later recalled,

After Kid Cann's funeral, I received a call from someone who asked how could I possibly officiate at the funeral of such a terrible human being? And I answered, it's my belief that every Jew at death, no matter what he did in life, deserves to have the Mourners Kaddish – the last prayer – said for him. So I said Kaddish for Kid Cann.^[39]

Folklore[]

In Minnesota today, tales of Kid Cann and his rumored dark deeds may be considered to have made him a local urban legend, similar to Al Capone or Whitey Bulger.

In later years, he was alleged to have installed bulletproof windows on his suburban house and to have been able to fix any problem with a single phone call. During his lifetime, Kid Cann bore a love–hate relationship with his legend, on one hand glorying in the attention and also feeling infuriated by the increased Federal Bureau of Investigation surveillance that it brought him beginning in the early 1950s. In a 1976 interview, he snapped, "Ninety percent of what was written about me is b--- s---!"

See also[]

• Near v. Minnesota

References[]

Further reading[]

• Cohen, Rich, "Tough Jews - Fathers, Sons, and Gangster Dreams", Vintage Books (subsidiary of Random House), 1998, 1999
• Karlen, Neal, "Augie's Secrets: The Minneapolis Mob and the King of the Hennepin Strip", Minnesota Historical Society Press, April 2013.
• Paul Maccabee, "Alias Kid Cann", Mpls. St. Paul, November 1991.
• Marda Liggett Woodbury, "Stopping the Presses; The Murder of Walter W. Liggett", Minnesota Historical Society Press.
• Almog, Oz, Kosher Nostra Jüdische Gangster in Amerika, 1890–1980 ; Jüdischen Museum der Stadt Wien ; 2003, Text Oz Almog, Erich Metz, ISBN 3-901398-33-3
• "The Forgotten Crime Boss: Kid Cann, the Original Teflon Don, Reigned Over Minneapolis", Brian P. Rubin, City Pages, April 22, 2015.