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  AL CAPONE:

  A Biography

  Luciano Iorizzo

  GREENWOOD PRESS

  AL CAPONE

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  AL CAPONE

  A Biography

  Luciano Iorizzo

  GREENWOOD BIOGRAPHIES

  G R E E N WO O D P R E S S

  WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT . LONDON

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Iorizzo, Luciano J., 1930–

  Al Capone : a biography / Luciano Iorizzo.

  p. cm.—(Greenwood biographies, ISSN 1540–4900)

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 0–313–32317–8 (alk. paper)

  1. Capone, Al, 1899–1947. 2. Criminals—Illinois—Chicago—Biography. 3. Organized crime—Illinois—Chicago—History. I. Title. II. Series.

  HV6248.C17I597

  2003

  364.1/092 B21

  2003040824

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available.

  Copyright © 2003 by Luciano Iorizzo

  All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2003040824

  ISBN: 0–313–32317–8

  ISSN: 1540–4900

  First published in 2003

  Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881

  An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.

  www.greenwood.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  The paper used in this book complies with the

  Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National

  Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984).

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  For Howard J. Williams, M.D.,

  dedicated physician/surgeon, who knows how to treat skillfully whole individuals and inspire them to get on with their lives.

  CONTENTS

  Series Foreword

  ix

  Preface

  xi

  Introduction

  xiii

  Timeline

  xvii

  Chapter 1 Mafia, Black Hand, and Organized Crime: The Beginnings of a National Syndicate

  1

  Chapter 2 Urban Cesspools: Gangs and Politicians 7

  Chapter 3 Capone: The Early Years

  23

  Chapter 4 Capone in Chicago: The Formative Years 31

  Chapter 5 Capone Takes Over: The Struggles Continue 39

  Chapter 6 Capone Consolidates His Power

  47

  Chapter 7 Organizing

  Crime

  51

  Chapter 8 Capone in Flux

  59

  Chapter 9 Capone at Leisure

  65

  Chapter 10 The Trial: Part 1

  73

  Chapter 11 The Trial: Part 2

  79

  Chapter 12 Incarceration

  89

  viii

  C O N T E N T S

  Chapter 13

  Palm Isle

  99

  Chapter 14

  Final Thoughts on Capone

  103

  Glossary of Names and Events

  111

  Bibliography

  123

  Index

  127

  Photo essay follows chapter 8

  SERIES FOREWORD

  In response to high school and public library needs, Greenwood developed this distinguished series of full-length biographies specifically for student use. Prepared by field experts and professionals, these engaging biographies are tailored for high school students who need challenging yet accessible biographies. Ideal for secondary school assignments, the length, format, and subject areas are designed to meet educators’ requirements and students’ interests.

  Greenwood offers an extensive selection of biographies spanning all curriculum-related subject areas including social studies, the sciences, literature and the arts, history, and politics, as well as popular culture, covering public figures and famous personalities from all time periods and backgrounds, both historic and contemporary, who have made an impact on American and/or world culture. Greenwood biographies were chosen based on comprehensive feedback from librarians and educators. Consideration was given to both curriculum relevance and inherent interest.

  The result is an intriguing mix of the well known and the unexpected, the saints and sinners from long-ago history and contemporary pop culture.

  Readers will find a wide array of subject choices from fascinating crime figures like Al Capone to inspiring pioneers like Margaret Mead, from the greatest minds of our time like Stephen Hawking to the most amazing success stories of our day like J. K. Rowling.

  While the emphasis is on fact, not glorification, the books are meant to be fun to read. Each volume provides in-depth information about the subject’s life from birth through childhood, the teen years, and adulthood. A

  x

  S E R I E S F O R E W O R D

  thorough account relates family background and education, traces personal and professional influences, and explores struggles, accomplishments, and contributions. A timeline highlights the most significant life events against a historical perspective. Suggestions for further reading give the biographies added reference value.

  PREFACE

  There has been much written about Al Capone. Indeed, one might wonder what could possibly be said about one of America’s most identifiable criminals that has not already been documented. Most of the major writ-ings have been done by journalists and others interested in crime. What seemed to be lacking was a perspective which included Italian American history and Organized Crime. This book seeks to remedy that situation.

  Ethnicity, diversity, and organized crime are words bandied about freely in today’s society. Minority groups are treated with a respect few thought possible or worth pursuing at the beginning of the twentieth century. The actions of minority groups, especially those from southern and eastern Europe, were prejudged to their detriment. This book gives the reader an opportunity to see Capone in a different light. It does not necessarily portray him in a better way, but certainly in a broader perspective. In an age which has come to view former radicals/criminals as benefactors for their group and society at large, readers can decide for themselves where Capone really fits in American society.

  The author wishes to express his gratitude to many who helped make this book possible. Over the long haul, he has benefited from friends and colleagues too numerous to mention and from the many students who attended his courses in Immigration History and the History of Organized Crime. Their interest required this writer to stay current in his studies which often required fresh research. A number of individuals offered helpful advice on various themes in this book, read all or parts of the manuscript, and offered technical assistance in the use of the computer to get manuscripts ready for publication. Among them are Dr. Joel Swerdlow, a

  xii

  P R E FA C E

  former student and presently a Washington, D.C. b
ased author and professor; Bruce Frassinelli, retired publisher of the Oswego Palladium-Times; Dr. Judith Gusweiler, psychologist; and James Patridge, a school counselor skilled in computer expertise. Special thanks to Impressions Book and Journal Services for getting the book to market in a timely fashion. I am most indebted to Kevin Ohe, sponsoring editor of this book. He has shep-herded me from day one. He helped to keep me focused on the readership, provided invaluable suggestions to improve the overall thrust of the book, and never failed to make better, when needed, the turn of a phrase. As always, my wife, Martha Marilee, was there for me. A lifelong inspiration, she encouraged me, read the manuscript, and offered helpful criticism. For any errors in fact or judgment, I, alone, am responsible.

  Luciano J. Iorizzo

  INTRODUCTION

  Al Capone! He has been dead for more than 50 years, yet he continues to draw the attention of people worldwide, more so perhaps than any other Italian American and most Americans. What makes him one of America’s most enduring and infamous characters is open to debate. His rap sheet was not unlike that of many common criminals. It included arrests for traffic violations (dismissed), disorderly conduct (dismissed), and operating a house of prostitution. He was charged with gambling (fined $150), carrying a concealed weapon (discharged), and violation of prohibition (twice, dismissed). He was booked for voting fraud (dismissed) and suspicion of murder (twice, dismissed). He was fined for carrying a concealed weapon in Joliet, Illinois, and, on another occasion, he served time in Pennsylvania on a similar offense. Miami police took him in on various vagrancy, suspicion, and perjury charges, which did not hold up in court.

  The entry on income tax evasion, of course, listed his conviction, for which he received an eleven-year sentence. This record hardly warrants his being counted among the world’s most ruthless killers, an animal feared by his cohorts and ordinary citizens, a gang leader held responsible for corrupting the processes of law enforcement, legislative bodies, and the judicial system. In fact, the deed that brought him the longest prison term was actually a white collar crime, a crime that seldom leads to incarceration. But the media paid little mind to legal niceties in the 1920s.

  Starting then and continuing thereafter, reporters, radio commentators, and filmmakers both demonized and glamorized Al Capone. There was little that went wrong in Chicago in his heyday for which he was not blamed. The media made him out to be a “superstar” of the underworld.1

  xiv

  I N T R O D U C T I O N

  Capone became larger than life and loved every minute of it. The U.S.

  government, whose quixotic Prohibition policy gave rise to bootlegging gangs throughout the land, helped create Al Capone, Public Enemy Number One.2 But Capone himself must take most of the responsibility. He played his role to the hilt. Taking advantage of every opportunity to publicize himself, he willingly talked with reporters. Never admitting to murder or running brothels, he offered himself as a businessman supplying a product eagerly sought by consumers. The fact that the product was illegal alcohol made no difference to him. He rationalized that so many good citizens ignored the Volstead Act, which made it illegal to manufacture, sell, transport, import, and export intoxicating beverages, that he should not be singled out for giving the populace what it craved. After all, he argued, many policemen, judges, and legislators drank. Technically, it wasn’t illegal to do so.3 His argument was self-serving, but not without some merit. It has gained more credibility as the years have passed.

  The erroneous notion, held by many people, that links Capone with the Mafia should not be overlooked. Since the late nineteenth century Americans have had a fascination with the Mafia, with which they have equated Italian American criminals.4 This helped to make Capone an even more irresistible attraction. People have never tired of reading books, watching movies, viewing videos, and tuning into television shows that deal with Al Capone, directly or indirectly, in which fictionalized mobsters were thinly disguised portrayals of Scarface Al.5 This attention has exaggerated his role in organized crime. Being of Neapolitan extraction, he was not eligible for Mafia membership (if indeed, that Western Sicilian organization existed in the United States). Still, one can hardly describe Capone as simply involved in what is termed today victimless crime. He fits somewhere between what the public has been led to believe all these years, what the record shows, and how he fashioned himself.

  Capone remains one of the most interesting criminals in history whose story continues to fascinate people from all walks of life. Like Tony Soprano today of HBO’s The Sopranos, a fictional gang leader and killer, who has gained and kept the attention of millions of television viewers, Capone continues to capture the imagination of millions of Americans through books, magazine articles, television, and the movies. He turns up in the most unlikely places. In 1997, a book on Italian humor, which featured such classic authors as Giovanni Boccaccio, Dante, Alessandro Manzoni, Cesare Beccaria, and a host of others, included five humorous sayings from Al Capone.6 After the tragedy of the bombing of the World Trade Center in 2001, Capone was mentioned in various news broadcasts.

  In one, an American commentator referred to him to demonstrate the in-humanity of the attack. In another, a Taliban spokesman used him to

  I N T R O D U C T I O N

  xv

  show that the terrorists’ actions weren’t so horrible when put into a Caponian context.

  It is no easy chore, though it is extremely intriguing, to separate the fantasy from the reality in the life of Al Capone. Many authors, struck by the frightening violence of the 1920s, portray Capone as the prime villain, the most violent, insensitive, wanton killer of his time. Despite the lack of courtroom proof, there seems to be little disagreement that Capone was a murderer, brothel-keeper, bootlegger, gambler, and gang leader. Viewing that period from a distance, some writers today are apt to be somewhat sympathetic. While not apologists for Capone, these authors see him as a product of his times, as much responding to violence and corruption as initiating it. They recognize that he helped the needy. They view him as a family man who believed in old-fashioned values. They remark on his devotion to his mother, brothers, sister, son, and extended family. And difficult as it is to fathom, though he pimped and chased women, they cite the mutual devotion that he and his wife, Mae, shared.7

  It is what is not in the official record that gives Capone his historic authenticity. His conviction record to the contrary, the media portrayed Capone as a brutal, beastly murderer who ruthlessly eliminated his competition. Sometimes he was given credit for pulling the trigger himself or battering his opponents to death. Other times, as in the St. Valentine’s Day slaughter, he was identified as the one ordering his henchmen to do the dastardly deed while he basked in the sun in Florida. The newspapers also marked him as a pimp, running a number of brothels in Cook County. For Capone’s part, he never knew what all the fuss was about. He owned up to gambling and supplying Chicagoans with alcohol, activities that an overwhelming number of its citizens either approved of or craved. He could see nothing wrong with that. But, claiming a deep devotion to family values, he denied participating in activities involving murder and prostitution.

  Al Capone, also known as Scarface, the Big Fellow, Al Brown, and assorted other names, didn’t understand that outside the big cities was a different world, an Anglo-Saxon Protestant one where many people viewed drinking and card-playing (to say nothing of gambling) as sinful. He did not realize that there were relatively few Catholics in the United States beyond the Irish, who were essentially urbanites. Nor could he know that the Catholic Church still considered most of the United States mission-ary territory. Perhaps it is that naïveté, that disarming charm, maybe a feigned innocence, that drew people to him; or his generosity, his concern for the downtrodden, his gregariousness. Maybe it was his opulent lifestyle: the custom-made automobiles with bulletproof glass and armor-plated steel, or parading around town with flashy women at his side under the protection of bodyguards, or the tailored
suits in colors associated with

  xvi

  I N T R O D U C T I O N

  pimps on Times Square and the pearl-colored fedoras. Perhaps Capone was the symbol of hope for the downtrodden in the Depression. While Americans early on felt the sting of a worldwide economic slide, Capone reveled in his glory, feeding the poor in soup kitchens and being living proof for those who hoped that prosperity was just around the corner.

  Some likened him to Jesse James, a murderer and thief, who came to be a hero in nineteenth-century rural America. As America developed in the twentieth century, Al Capone became James’s counterpart in urban America. People still disagree on James. Some see him as a villain. Others claim him as an authentic American Robin Hood. History can at times whitewash the evil deeds of the past. Putting things in perspective has a way of doing that. Was Capone the innocent he claimed to be? Was he the epitome of evil, as his detractors claim? Was he the greatest gangster the world has ever known, as some have claimed? Was he the de facto ruler of Chicago? Or has his influence and role in that city been exaggerated? Moreover, what has been his status in organized crime? Has history been accurate on Capone? We shall see.

  NOTES

  1. Capone’s offenses are readily available in a number of books, but see Laurence Bergreen, Capone: The Man and The Era (New York, 1994), pp. 661–62.

  2. Frank J. Loesch, head of the Chicago Crime Commission, originated a list of public enemies in Chicago in 1930 and defined Al Capone as Public Enemy Number One. See Bergreen, Capone: The Man, pp. 366–67. H.L.

  Mencken, The American Language, Supplement II (New York, 1962), p. 672

  states that Homer S. Cummings, Attorney General of the United States from 1933–39, coined the phrase, which was used to classify national criminals. On that level, John Dillinger was the original Public Enemy Number One.