One of the leading gangsters in New York in the Prohibition era was neither Sicilian nor Jewish, but was born in England. His name was Owen Madden, and he came to New York as a child, to live with his aunt in a notorious slum on the west side of Manhatten, known as "Hell's Kitchen". He joined the local street gang, the Gophers, and rose to be their leader. He was known as "Owney the killer".
In the 1920s he made a fortune in bootlegging and the "numbers" gambling racket; he owned the elite Cotton Club in Harlem, and was nicknamed "The Duke of the West Side". But in the early 1930s he retired to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he founded a hotel and casino that played host to many of his fellow-gangsters and sheltered Lucky Luciano when on the run from the authorities.
Madden remained there until he died peacefully in the 1960s; long enough to have met the young Bill Clinton as he was growing up in the state. Clinton's mother certainly encountered Madden, since she once had to prepare him for surgery, and recalled that the old bullets in his body lit up the x-ray screen "like stars in a planetarium!"
Although there is no reason to believe that Clinton himself ever met Madden, wouldn't an imaginary meeting make a splendid story, as the aged gangster imparts to the future president his advice on how to become a success in life!
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