Scarface and the Untouchable

Home > Other > Scarface and the Untouchable > Page 55
Scarface and the Untouchable Page 55

by Max Allan Collins

Rebecca McFarland has worked diligently to preserve the memory of the real Eliot Ness, even down to seeing that the Untouchable—forty years after his death—received a proper funeral. She lent her full support here, sharing decades of research and making herself readily available. Max is particularly gratified that Rebecca—inspired to study the real Ness years ago by Max’s novel The Dark City—could help bring our mutual fascination with the subject to fruition.

  Scott Leeson Sroka, grandson of Untouchable Joe Leeson, made available his groundbreaking research into the lives of the other Untouchables, bringing these famed but blurry figures into focus. A tireless defender of Ness’s reputation, Scott opened doors, making much of our research into the real Untouchables possible, and we look forward to his own upcoming book on Ness’s men. Special thanks to Scott’s wife, Marla, and son, Eliot, for their hospitality during one of Brad’s many visits to D.C.

  Barbara Osteika, historian for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, granted access to personnel files on every Untouchable as well as other Ness-related documents. She put faces to the names of several agents with their official ID photos. Thank you to Barbara and everyone at ATF headquarters in Washington, D.C.—especially Ginger Colbrun, Hilary Martinson, and Corey Ray.

  Paul Heimel, Ness’s first biographer, gave selflessly of his insight and research, from articles and documents to interviews with those no longer with us. If we’ve seen farther, as the old saying goes, it’s because we had Paul’s shoulders to stand on.

  James B. Cloonan, son of Untouchable Barney Cloonan, supplied memories, photographs, and documents of his famous father, including his father’s daybook—a precious piece of history giving a unique and personal window onto the lives of the Untouchables.

  Marco Bruzzi, Monica Melotti, Emanuela Verlicchi Marazzi, and Francesca Balestrazzi of MB America furnished a tour of 93 Palm Island in Miami, which proved vital in picturing the house as it appeared in Capone’s day. We thank them both for the visit and for ensuring the preservation of this historic property.

  Vanya Scott arranged a visit to view the Ness collection at the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington, D.C., making available amazing artifacts before their display in our nation’s capital. The staff of Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia made going to prison both fun and enlightening, and staff historian Annie Anderson shared key material regarding Capone’s time behind bars. Ken Alder of Northwestern University disclosed documents illuminating Ness’s relationships with the inventors of the lie detector. We’re grateful to John Carson of the University of Michigan for making introductions (as well as training Brad to be a historian).

  The resources of various branches of the National Archives and Records Administration were key to the writing of this book. We salute the archivists and staff in Chicago, College Park, San Bruno, and Washington, D.C., as well as at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa. Special fedora tips to Adam Berenbak in D.C. for opening the files of the Kefauver Committee, Henry Mac in San Bruno for pulling Capone’s prison records, and Gene Morris in College Park for helping with the Notorious Offenders files.

  The Federal Bureau of Investigation gave access to a wealth of information by processing numerous Freedom of Information Act requests in a comprehensive and timely manner. The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, quickly located personnel files for Eliot and Edna Ness and Alexander Jamie at long distance. The United States Secret Service delivered information on Giuseppe Zangara.

  Crucial research was conducted at numerous archives in and around Chicago, including the Chicago History Museum, the Newberry Library, the South Suburban Genealogical and Historical Society, the Harold Washington Library Center of the Chicago Public Library (Special Collections and Microfilm divisions), and the University of Chicago archives. Librarians, archivists, and staff at each institution made every visit a privilege and a pleasure.

  The Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio, remains the first port of call for Ness research, and they offered vital help on this project as they have for Max’s previous Ness-related works. The Cleveland Public Library and Cleveland State University Library yielded essential information. Special thanks to Brian Meggitt at the Cleveland Public Library for scanning loads of photos quickly and courteously, and Emily Vernon for opening the archives of the Cleveland Police Historical Society Museum.

  In Coudersport, Pennsylvania, John Rigas and Natalie Phelps shared their memories of Eliot Ness, making the Untouchable come alive. Natalie’s siblings, Linda and Joe Phelps, gave their own recollections of Ness in phone interviews. Doug Bretz of Coudersport presented his private collection of Nessiana. David Castano and Diane Caudell arranged a quick but valuable visit to the Potter County Historical Society. Special thanks to Matthew Pearl for making the trip to Coudersport happen, and sharing his own research.

  Additional research was conducted among the collections of the Lilly Library at Indiana University in Bloomington, the American Heritage Center of the University of Wyoming in Laramie, the Bancroft Library of the University of California–Berkeley, the Miami-Dade Public Library, the University of Michigan Library, the Michigan State University Library, the Wisconsin Historical Society Library at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the Capital Area District Library, the Library of Michigan, and the Princeton University Library. We are indebted to the librarians and staff at each institution. At the main branch of the Pima County Library in Tucson, Arizona, Betsy and Victoria kindly tracked down a newspaper article about Eliot Ness.

  For insights helping illuminate the life of Al Capone, we are indebted to Eleanor Benson, Art Bilek, Deirdre Capone, Jan Greco, and Peg Hagenauer. Suzanne Andrukaitis, Ron Lazer and Kathy Fitzsimmons, and Sue and Tom Stewart generously offered lodging on research trips.

  Governor James J. Blanchard helped us understand Capone’s time in Lansing, Michigan.

  Ross Harris of the Stuart Krichevsky Literary Agency has been a tireless advocate for this project. Fedora tips to Ross, Stuart Krichevsky, Shana Cohen, Hannah Schwartz, and the entire SKLA team.

  Few editors are more enthusiastic and encouraging than Peter Hubbard at William Morrow; we’re grateful to him, Nick Amphlett, Maureen Cole, Kaitlin Harri, and everyone at HarperCollins for their support.

  Max Allan Collins wishes to thank his wife, writer Barbara Collins, for her editorial assistance throughout, as well as his friend and agent, Dominick Abel, who offered a key piece of advice late in the process.

  Finally, I will take the liberty of stepping out from behind third person to thank numerous friends and teachers who offered advice, encouragement, and ready sounding boards. At the University of Michigan, Jim Burnstein, Phil Hallman, and Matthew Solomon contributed to this project in ways large and small; Vincent Longo deserves special credit for submitting to more Nessiana than any friend should have to endure, including critiquing several draft chapters. At Princeton University, Jaime Sánchez Jr. offered insight as a keen student of Chicago and its politics. At Okemos High School, Matthew Morrison and Chris Smith let one of their students indulge his fascination with Eliot Ness—and, in the process, kindled a lifelong love of American history. Anna Zielinski always made the road to Chicago worth taking.

  Dennis and Nancy Austin Schwartz continue to be better parents than anyone could possibly deserve. This book is the culmination of countless acts, both large and small, that they performed over the years—among them introducing their son to Dick Tracy and The Untouchables, driving him around the South Side of Chicago late one night to view the scenes of Ness’s raids, making repeated attempts to visit the Cleveland Police Historical Society Museum, and letting him drag them to Des Moines to see his hero portrayed onstage.

  Most importantly, they made trip after trip to the Centuries & Sleuths Bookstore in Forest Park, Illinois, so their son could get to know his favorite author. They set this book in motion, and helped carry it over the finish line.

  Bibliography


  Books

  Ackerman, Kenneth D. Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties. New York: Carroll and Graf, 2007.

  Adelman, William. Touring Pullman: A Study in Company Paternalism. 2nd ed. Chicago: Illinois Labor Historical Society, 1977.

  Album of Genealogy and Biography, Cook County, Illinois. Chicago: Calumet Book and Engraving, 1896.

  Alder, Ken. The Lie Detectors: The History of an American Obsession. New York: Free Press, 2007.

  Allen, Frederick Lewis. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the Nineteen-Twenties. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931.

  ———. Since Yesterday: The Nineteen-Thirties in America, September 3, 1929–September 3, 1939. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1940.

  Allsop, Kenneth. The Bootleggers: The Story of Chicago’s Prohibition Era. London: Hutchinson, 1968.

  Alter, Jonathan. The Defining Moment: FDR’s Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006.

  Asbury, Herbert. Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1940.

  Bair, Deirdre. Al Capone: His Life, Legacy, and Legend. New York: Nan A. Talese, 2016.

  Balsamo, William, and John Balsamo. Young Al Capone: The Untold Story of Scarface in New York, 1899–1925. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011.

  Barlett, Donald L., and James B. Steele. Howard Hughes: His Life and Madness. New York: W. W. Norton, 1979.

  Barnhart, Bill, and Gene Schlickman. Kerner: The Conflict of Intangible Rights. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

  Behr, Edward. Prohibition: Thirteen Years That Changed America. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1996.

  Benjey, Tom. Doctors, Lawyers, Indian Chiefs: Jim Thorpe and Pop Warner’s Carlisle Indian School football immortals tackle socialites, bootleggers, students, moguls, prejudice, the government, ghouls, tooth decay and rum. Carlisle, PA: Tuxedo Press, 2008.

  Berg, A. Scott. Lindbergh. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1998.

  Bergreen, Laurence. Capone: The Man and the Era. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994.

  Berle, Milton, with Haskel Frankel. Milton Berle: An Autobiography. New York: Delacorte Press, 1974.

  Bilek, Arthur J. The First Vice Lord: Big Jim Colosimo and the Ladies of the Levee. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 2008.

  Binder, John J. Al Capone’s Beer Wars: A Complete History of Organized Crime in Chicago During Prohibition. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2017.

  Black, Gregory D. Hollywood Censored: Morality Codes, Catholics, and the Movies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

  Boehm, Lisa Krissoff. Popular Culture and the Enduring Myth of Chicago, 1871–1968. New York: Routledge, 2004.

  Boettiger, John. Jake Lingle: Or Chicago on the Spot. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1931.

  Borroel, Roger. The Story of the Untouchables as Told by Eliot Ness. 2nd ed. East Chicago, IN: La Villita Publications, 2012.

  Bradley, Robert L., Jr. Edison to Enron: Energy Markets and Political Strategies. Salem, MA: Scrivener Publishing, 2011.

  Brothers, Thomas. Louis Armstrong: Master of Modernism. New York: W. W. Norton, 2014.

  Bruck, Connie. When Hollywood Had a King: The Reign of Lew Wasserman, Who Leveraged Talent into Power and Influence. New York: Random House, 2003.

  Buder, Stanley. Pullman: An Experiment in Industrial Order and Community Planning 1880–1930. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967.

  Bukowski, Douglas. Big Bill Thompson, Chicago, and the Politics of Image. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998.

  Burns, Walter Noble. The One-Way Ride: The Red Trail of Chicago Gangland from Prohibition to Jake Lingle. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1931.

  Burrough, Bryan. Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933–1934. New York: Penguin Press, 2004.

  Busch, Francis X. Enemies of the State. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954.

  ———. Guilty or Not Guilty? Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1952.

  Cahan, Richard. A Court That Shaped America: Chicago’s Federal District Court From Abe Lincoln to Abbie Hoffmann. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2002.

  Calder, James D. The Origins and Development of Federal Crime Control Policy: Herbert Hoover’s Initiatives. Westport, CT: Prager, 1993.

  Capone, Deirdre Marie. Uncle Al Capone: The Untold Story from Inside His Family. Bonita Springs, FL: Recap Publishing, 2012.

  Carte, Gene E., and Elaine H. Carte. Police Reform in the United States: The Era of August Vollmer: 1905–1932. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.

  Casey, Robert J., and W. A. S. Douglas. The Midwesterner: The Story of Dwight H. Green. Chicago: Wilcox and Follett, 1948.

  Cohn, Art. The Joker Is Wild: The Story of Joe E. Lewis. New York: Random House, 1955.

  Collins, Max Allan. Introduction to The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. Vol. 1, 1931–1933. San Diego: IDW Publishing, 2009.

  ———. “Shoot First.” Introduction to The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. Vol. 2, 1933–1935. San Diego: IDW Publishing, 2009.

  Collins, Max Allan, and George Hagenauer. Chicago Mob Wars: Eliot Ness vs. Al Capone. Northampton, MA: Kitchen Sink Press, 1993.

  Collins, Max Allan, and Matt Masterson. “Chester Gould Speaks.” In The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. Vol. 1, 1931–1933. San Diego, CA: IDW Publishing, 2009.

  ———. “Chester Gould Speaks, Part II.” In The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. Vol. 2, 1933–1935. San Diego, CA: IDW Publishing, 2009.

  Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Complete Sherlock Holmes. New York: Doubleday, 1930.

  Cook, John William. Educational History of Illinois: Growth and Progress in Educational Affairs of the State from the Earliest Day to the Present, with Portraits and Biographies. Chicago: Henry O. Shepard, 1912.

  Cook, William A. King of the Bootleggers: A Biography of George Remus. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2008.

  Corsino, Louis. The Neighborhood Outfit: Organized Crime in Chicago Heights. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014.

  Critchley, David. The Origin of Organized Crime in America: The New York City Mafia, 1891–1931. New York: Routledge, 2009.

  Currey, Seymour. Chicago: Its History and Its Builders. Vol. 4. Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing, 1918.

  Daniels, Jonathan. The Randolphs of Virginia. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1972.

  Dardoff, Robert B., Joseph Jankovic, John C. Mazziotta, and Scott L. Pomeroy. Bradley’s Neurology in Clinical Practice. 7th ed. Vol. 1. London: Elsevier, 2016.

  Dawes, Charles G. Notes as Vice President: 1928–1929. Boston: Little, Brown, 1935.

  d’Eramo, Marco. The Pig and the Skyscraper—Chicago: A History of Our Future. Translated by Graeme Thomson. London: Verso, 2002.

  De Toledano, Ralph. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man in His Time. New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1973.

  Dobyns, Fletcher. The Underworld of American Politics. New York: Fletcher Dobyns, 1932.

  Dolan, Francis X. Eastern State Penitentiary. Images of America. Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.

  Durant, W. C., ed. Law Observance: Shall the People of the United States Uphold the Constitution. New York: Durant Award Office, 1929.

  Dyja, Thomas. The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream. New York: Penguin Press, 2013.

  Eghigian, Mars, Jr. After Capone: The Life and World of Chicago Mob Boss Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 2006.

  Eig, Jonathan. Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010.

  Ellen, Mary, Mark Murphy, and Ralph Foster Weld. A Treasury of Brooklyn. New York: William Sloane Associates, 1949.

  English, T. J. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster. New York: ReganBooks, 2005.

  Enright, Richard T. Al Capone on the Spot: The Inside Story of Chicago’s Master Criminal. [Chicago?]: Graphic Arts, 1931.<
br />
  Estleman, Loren D. “Stuart Lake: Frontier Mythmaker.” Introduction to Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal by Stuart N. Lake. New York: Pocket Books, 1994.

  Ewing, Steve, and John B. Lundstrom. Fateful Rendezvous: The Life of Butch O’Hare. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1997.

  Fass, Paula S. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.

  Fischer, Jim. The Lindbergh Case. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987.

  Folsom, Robert G. The Money Trail: How Elmer Irey and His T-Men Brought Down America’s Criminal Elite. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, 2010.

  Ford, Henry, and Samuel Crowther. Moving Forward. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1930.

  Fox, Stephen. Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth-Century America. New York: William Morrow, 1989.

  Fraley, Oscar. 4 Against the Mob. New York: Popular Library, 1961.

  Fraley, Oscar, with Paul Robsky. The Last of the Untouchables. New York: Popular Library, 1962.

  Gabler, Neal. Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity. New York: Vintage, 1994.

  Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash 1929. New York: Time, 1962.

  Garrow, David J. Rising Star: The Making of Barack Obama. New York: William Morrow, 2017.

  Gottfried, Alex. Boss Cermak of Chicago: A Study of Political Leadership. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1962.

  Gould, Chester. The Complete Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy. Vol. 1, 1931–1933. San Diego, CA: IDW Publishing, 2009.

  Grant, Bruce. Fight for a City: The Story of the Union League Club of Chicago and Its Times, 1880–1955. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1955.

  Haller, Mark H. Illegal Enterprise: The Work of Historian Mark Haller. Edited by Matthew G. Yeager. Latham, MD: University Press of America, 2013.

  Hanson, Neil. Monk Eastman: The Gangster Who Became a War Hero. New York: Knopf, 2010.

  Harris, Scott Jordan, ed. World Film Locations: Chicago. Chicago: Intellect Books, 2013.

  Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Seventy-Second Congress, First Session, on the Nomination of James H. Wilkerson to be United States Circuit Judge, Seventh Circuit, January 21, 22, February 9, 10, and 12, 1932. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1932.

 

‹ Prev