The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1922-06-03

A>SW AoAh "a. y dtc, III AcI Iluc, udS
tossed up many queer and unexpect-
ed combination on her dizzily spinning
wheel Of chance; but seldom so odd a
one as that Of today, when Lady As.
tor, the winsome, the brilliant, the
idol of two continents, looked down
from the heights of her fame to do a
good turn for fellow Virginian-a
man who had been the companion of
criminals and jailbirds and who went
to prison himself because he shot Ed
die Guerin, the most famous interna-
tional criminal of the last forty years.
The woman known as "Chicago
May" to whom no depths of wicked
ness were unknown, dragged this man
down with her; and now Lady Aston
lifts him up.
When the great Majestic tied up at
the dock in New York recently among
her passengers was the man known
as Charley Smith"-a man who has
been in an English prison for the last
fifteen years, and who would have
been there another ten long years if
it had not been for Fate and her
younger sister, Nancy, Lady Astor.
Once "Charley Smith," facing a
judge, said that his real name was
"Mr. Nobody, from Nowhere" The
years haven't added much to that
Identification, nor to what is known
about that arch-criminal, the man
whose path "Charley Smith" luckless-
ly crossed-Eddie Guerin. The I'M
derWorld knows all their secrets, and
the underworld doesn't tell. ~ 1900:
Let's begin with what is known
about Eddie Guerin. Nobody knows
in what obscure hole he is lurking to-
day. The chances are that he is
miserable, grayhaired derelict, thiev-
ing and begging on the streets Of
London. But there was a time when
he posed as an American millionaire,
and when the police of London, Paris
g and New York held him in awe.
Guerin a Gang Leader.
Eddie Guerin was born in a poor
quarter of Chicago, some sixty years
ago, in day when Chicago was no
torious as a sink hole of vice and a
breeding place Of crooks. By the time
he was twenty, in 1880, he and his
brother Paddy were leaders of a gang
of young toughs. Their first big "job"
was to walk calmly away one day
with nearly $4,000 in cash from the
counter of a bank in Galesburg, Ill.
Eddie might have stayed on in Chi
cago, but, only few days after the
bank robbery, he shot Thomas Ire
harm, a policeman, in the back room
of a Chicago saloon, and fed from
his old haunts.
On his way East, a bank in Ale
gheny, Pa, was robbed .daringly, and
Eddie Guerin was wanted" for the
crime. But he reached New York and
managed to keep out of harms way,
though he became known to the New
York police.
With the money from an occasional
bank robbery or burglary Of jewels,
Eddie hung about uptown gambling
houses and spent it freely in the dives
Of the Tenderloin. He was a husky,
handsome young fellow-if you didn't
study his eyes too closely-and he
liked 'the women One of them in
particular he liked-"Chicago May"
Churchill. He was to change his opin-
ion Of her later.
May was easy to look at, if con-
temporary reports are to be believed.
Her blue eyes could seem very allur-
ing to well-to-do men who didn't know
her record. Afterward, when they
had accepted an invitation to her fiat,
and, once there, found Eddie Guerin
suddenly demanding a fat bankroll
from them as the price of silence,
they found Mays blue eyes as cold
as the steel of Eddie's revolver. EE
Paris Attracts Them.
New York cramped the two after a
while and, in the COS they decided to
take look at Paris.
There was a robbery of 25OOOO
francs from that famous Partisan
bank, the Credit Lyonnais, in 1891.
Eddie was suspected Of having had a
hand in that. But nothing happened
to him for a good ten years. a.
Then, in the warm spring days Of
1901, when all Paris and it's guests
was basking at the little tables of the
boulevards, the distinguished Ameri-
cans planned more spectacular and
richer haul. Around the corner from
the Cafe de la Paix, the busiest and
most famous corner in all Paris, and
in the very shadow of the great
opera house, were the Offices of the
American Express company.
With them now were Kid McManus,
a young Eastsider who had ascend
ed from the prosperous state of a
New York saloonkeeper to the COM
partnership Of Eddie Guerin, and
Dutch Gus Miller, a notorious Ger
man-American criminal.
Their booty from the express rob-
berry consisted Of only 10000 francs,
then worth about $4,000. They had
overlooked or had been unable to
break the larger safes.
The four accomplices left Paris on
different days. Kid McManus went
first and reached London, but was
later arrested for another crime and
spent seven years in a Canadian peni-
tertiary, emerging mental wreck.
Dutch Gus Miller and Chicago May
were arrested as they left OH differ
ent trains. And on June 10 thir-
d fppn0 was AGAIN tO fiUuro q cSS ~, mn.