Capone: Admirably Ruthless

A man who killed people and ran brothels in the Windy City, and single-handedly contested the 18th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution for a living was more respected than the mayor of Chicago himself. He was a reverent family man, but an incorrigible criminal. He was a benefactor, but a pistol-pointing racketeer. He would open a three-meal-a-day soup kitchen downtown during the Great Depression, but bludgeon three men to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat.

He was revered by the public and applauded at his outings to Cubs games and the opera. His slicked-back hair and pricey suits made him easy to recognize. And he was respected because he gave the public what the city could not.

He offered them whorehouses, gambling joints, cash loans and bootlegged booze. He had a stranglehold on the bootlegging industry and helped Chicagoans get drunk during Prohibition. He paid the local politicians and police department to ignore his organization's blatant lawlessness, yet methodical manipulation over them at the same time.

He was the city's authority.

Alphonso 'Scarface' Capone (left) was a cunningly shrewd businessman and politician, but unorthodox in every sense of the word. In 1927, at the prime of his career, newspapers as distant from Chicago's news as the Oakland Tribune were covering the gangster. "Capone is credited with deciding who can sell liquor, who can run gambling houses and who can run vice resort in a good share of the city and in Cicero" (Owen).

His rise to gangster stardom did not begin in the city he 'owned,' but in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he was born in 1895. His parents immigrated to the United States in 1894, and Capone's upbringing was like the other 40,000 Italians that stepped foot on American soil that year. He lived with his eight siblings and parents in poor-to-modest neighborhoods that were ethnically diverse and colorfully vibrant. His parents made an honest living and never resorted to hitting their kids.

Laurence Bergreen's Capone biography refutes any notion of his parents being the root of his sinister lifestyle. "The mother kept to herself. Her husband, Don Gabrielle, made more of an impression, since he was, in the words of one family friend, 'tall and handsome -- very good looking.' Like his wife, he was subdued, even when it came to discipline. He never hit the kids. He used to talk to them. He used to preach to them, and they listened to their father."

His father's decision to move the family above his barbershop in a more eclectic neighborhood would open the door to young Scarface's future. He was expelled from school at 14 after hitting a female teacher, but Italian children leaving school to work at that age wasn't uncommon. A smorgasbord of western European gangs occupied the neighborhood and Capone identified himself best with the Five Points Gang after stints with several others.

Soon, Capone's exuberance and competence caught the eye of organized crime innovator Johnny Torrio, who would take him under his wing and stress the importance of living contradictory identities. Respectability on the outside as a family man is just as important as being an accomplished criminal. Like following the character Henry in the movie Goodfellas, Capone's immersion into the mob is parallel.

Criminal library author Marilyn Bardsley explains how Capone learns the mobster ideology under Torrio in which he would earn a doctorate degree in years later. "Meanwhile, young Al learned by observing the wealthy successful respected racketeer and the people in his organization."

Torrio moved to Chicago in 1909 and young Capone had no work running errands for the boss anymore. He would work quietly as a laborer for six years and was absent of a violent reputation. According to Bergreen, you didn't hear stories about Al Capone practicing guns; you heard that he went home each night to his mother. Al was something of a nonentity, affable, soft of speech and even mediocre in everything but dancing.

His mediocrity would soon come to an end with a life lesson from the brutal mobster Frankie Yale that gave him a hotel job at 18 with Torrio's recommendation. While waiting on a table, Capone insulted a man by whispering in his sister's ear. According to Bardsley, Capone said, "Honey, you have a nice ass and I mean that as a compliment." The man slashed Capone's face three times with a knife after Capone became violently excited when the man stood up from the table.

Yale forced Capone to apologize for his comment, but impressed upon him the necessity to use brutality in business. The scars would reinforce this lesson throughout life.

Bardsley explains that Yale's influence over Capone was perhaps the spark that ignited his violent future. "One clear catalyst was the menacing presence of Frankie Yale. Originally from Calabri, Francesco loele (called "Yale") was both feared and respected."

Capone would continue to learn the underground business 'ethics' with Yale until he married Mae Coughlin, had a son, and decided to return to a quiet life as a bookkeeper in Baltimore. He later found out that he gave his son congenital syphilis which would come back to haunt him. Then, two years later in 1918, Capone's father died, which marked a critical turning point in his life.

Bergreen writes that "It is possible that the sudden absence of parental authority made the young Capone feel free to abandon his bookkeeping job and carefully acquired aura of respectability.... He resumed his relationship with Johnny Torrio.... the opportunities were enormous: gambling, brothels, and...illegal alcohol."

After apprenticeships with two leading gangsters on the East Coast, Capone was equipped with the tools to exploit Chicago as his playground. But some realigning would take place before he exercised his administrative skills over the city.

Torrio partnered with Chicago's brothel tycoon "Big Jim" Colosimo and expanded the business immensely virtually unnoticed. Torrio took the reins of the multi-million dollar business after "Big Jim" was assassinated by Frankie Yale. "Big Jim's" grand funeral in 1920 reflected the city's demeanor. As Bergreen writes, "Colosimo was universally recognized as Chicago's premier pimp, yet his honorary pallbearers included three judges, a congressman, an assistant state attorney, and no less than nine Chicago aldermen."

But the Chicago of Capone's day is a stark contrast to present day. It's a sprawling metropolis that has since cleaned up its act and is considered one of America's greatest cities, devoid of rampant corruptness.

The corruption between vying mob bosses and mayor "Big Bill" Thompson was ideal for Capone's vision to own the city.

Twenty-two-year-old Capone walked into an underground empire for his taking as Torrio's partner after "Big Jim's" murder. He ran their headquarters, the Four Deuces, which was a gambling joint, whorehouse, and speakeasy in one. He befriended mobsters of non-Italian ethnicities, especially Jewish gangster Jack Guzik.

These were the business moves that separated him from every other mobster in Chicago and the country.

Bergreen writes, "Although he preyed on other people's weaknesses for a living, his reputation and standing in the community mattered deeply to him. The deeper he went into racketeering and all its associated sins, the more he idealized his family, as though they, in their innocence, were living proof that he was not the monster that the newspapers later insisted he was."

But he was a monster and became more ruthless with as his power increased. Capone shot no-name thug Joe Howard to death in a bar after Howard called him a dago pimp and attacked his best friend, Guzik. At this point Capone stepped out of the underworld shadows and basked in the media frenzy surrounding the murder.

In 1924, after Bugs Moran's attempted assassination of Torrio, Capone inherited the city and its baggage. Everyone wanted a piece of Capone's empire and several attempts were made on his life, but he thwarted every effort. No one could stop him, not even prosecutor Billy McSwiggin, who was killed by Capone's henchmen.

He became the public relations chair for his own illegal empire by showing his face at City Hall and developing a trusting relationship with newspaper editor Harry Read. He was a celebrity and earned the title Public Enemy No. 1 from the Hoover administration.

Despite being the government's prime target, he always defended his career. Bardsley writes, "Ninety percent of the people in Chicago drink and gamble. I've tried to serve them decent liquor and square games. But I'm not appreciated. I'm known all over the world as a millionaire gorilla."

In 1933, the most infamous gangster of the Twentieth century was behind bars for violating the Volstead Act and 22 counts of tax evasion adding up to $200,000.

After being read his sentence, Capone said, "There was way too much overhead in my business anyhow, paying off all the time and replacing trucks and breweries. They ought to make it legitimate" (Bardsley).

He spent most of his six-and-a-half year sentence at Alcatraz, from which he could not contact the outside world.