Both boys were teenagers in 1925 and apparently quite good drivers, because they used to take turns driving the city police car for their father. In fact, they drove that car so well that the folks around Marion began calling them both “Speed,” a nickname that stuck with them for the rest of their lives. To tell them apart, Ralph was known as “Big Speed,” and Paul was “Little Speed.”
Zella’s son, Danny Cox, tells Marion Living about the night his uncle Ralph was helping Danny’s grandfather by driving the squad car for him. As luck would have it, on that particular night the infamous Charlie Birger gang chose to come blazing into Marion.
According to the story, five of Williamson County’s most notorious gangsters, Charlie Birger, Connie Ritter, Art Newman, Steve George and Rado Millich were passing through on some apparently pressing bootlegger business of their own. They were driving a brand new Durant touring car at a high rate of speed, and rather contemptuously ran the stop sign at Court and Main, which was then the main highway intersection.
Officer Smothers observed the violation and told his son, “Let’s get them.” He had no idea who was riding in that speeding tour car. (But Uncle Ralph told Danny that it wouldn’t have made any difference if they had known.) “Big Speed” tromped on the accelerator and the black city car took out after the cruising Durant.
The police car sped north on North Court Street, and caught up to the luxury auto just as they approached the Marion Cemetery. Officer John Smothers leaped fearlessly from the running board of the squad car onto the driver’s side running board of the Durant.
The big car stopped and Charlie Birger himself leaned forward and greeted the lawman. “What’s wrong, Johnny?” he asked. Officer Smothers told him that they had violated the stop sign at Court and Main. Birger didn’t deny it, but asked if they could just pay some money to the policeman and be on their way. Smothers refused the bribe, saying “You know better than that.” He stood on their running board while Birger’s car was turned around and driven contritely back into town. The driver and his accomplices had their moment before the Justice of the Peace, who found them guilty. The gangsters paid the traffic fine, jumped back into their car and left town.
Ralph Smothers said that he had often thought how easy it would have been for the armed men to blow his father in two, right off that running board. The gangsters had killed other men, including peace officers, with less provocation.
Ralph and his brother Paul later owned and operated the Greyhound bus station and soda fountain on the Square in Marion for over twenty years. Not surprisingly it was called “Speed’s.” Ralph “Big Speed” became a decorated combat veteran of World War II, serving in the South Pacific with the U.S. Coast Guard, as a crew member of an LST amphibious landing ship.
In 1953 he was appointed Superintendent of Transportation for the State of Illinois and ran the State’s vehicle fleet for eight years. J. Paul “Little Speed” Smothers became Marion’s Postmaster and served our community devotedly for many years. He passed away in 1992.
Ralph died In Sun City, Arizona in 1994 at the age of 85 years. But he never forgot that night in 1925 when he saw his father risk his life to uphold the law. Those were the kind of people who made Marion great.
(Article entitled “Face to Face with Death” written by Bernard Paul, contributing Editor Danny Cox, published in the Marion Living Magazine, August 2006)