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When we downtown Lincoln lunchers gathered in groups at the board on
Sept. 17, 1930, we did not begin talking about the stock market or fall
fashions or unemployment or our neighbors or any of those things which
usually occupied our attention.
Even before reaching for the menu or the sugar bowl everyone burst out
with one identical topic—what had happened that morning at 1144 O. We
had heard remotely about gangsters and underworld affairs, but on this
fair September morning hands from that other world actually reached out
and touched quiet respectable Lincoln.
There were submachine guns but no killing. Three men quietly entered the
lobby of the Lincoln National bank, with a word turned employes and
customers face downward on the floor, scooped up currency, looted a
vault and were out again—into a waiting sedan and away. One of the
largest bank robberies ever to occur in America—$2,000,000 in currency
and bonds—it forced liquidation and closing of the bank.
Gus Winkler, big time gangster and member of Al Capone’s gang, confessed
to knowledge of the stolen bonds but established an alibi so far as
active participation was concerned. Tommy O’Connor and Howard (Pop) Lee
were tried and given long term prison sentences. Jack Britt was released
after two trials. Winkler offered to return $600,000 of the securities
in return for his freedom. After much discussion and comment on the
advisability of such action Winkler won the point. Bonds valued at
$575,000 were eventually returned. (Their return, Mr. Towle reminds us,
saved five small banks in Lancaster county.) In 1933 underworld enemies
caught up with Winkler and he went down fatally wounded by machine gun
fire.