In his embellished memoir, Elmer Irey (Irey and Slocum, Tax Dodgers, p. 26) claims Hoover personally told him he “never saw Capone in Florida.” Murray’s article appears to be the earliest reference to the Capone party anecdote, and it implies Hoover was a guest of Harvey Firestone, not J. C. Penney, further suggesting the story is a myth.
HOOVER AND CRIME: CT, March 5, 1929. Hoover, Memoirs, pp. 267–277. Allsop, Bootleggers, p. 97 (“shocking conditions”). Public Papers 1929, pp. 2–3 (“Justice must not”). Robinson and Bornet, Herbert Hoover, pp. 85–88. Calder, Origins and Development, pp. 5–6, 14–17, 28–38, 103–128. Hoffman, Scarface Al, pp. 24–27 (26, “a subversion of”; 27, “The rest of the country”). Leuchtenburg, Herbert Hoover, pp. 28, 80, 85. Folsom, Money Trail, pp. 43–45 (44, “supergovernment”). Eig, Get Capone, pp. 207–208. McGirr, War on Alcohol, pp. 189–193.
HOOVER AND PROHIBITION: John H. Lyle, “The Story Behind the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre!” CT, February 21, 1954 (“They’re not touching,” “Who is Al Capone?”). Robinson and Bornet, Herbert Hoover, pp. 86, 88. Public Papers 1930, p. 649. Calder, Origins and Development, pp. 109–110 (109, “large operations in,” “It seems obvious”; 110, “the ultimate transfer”); 132–133 (“special corps of”). Bergreen, Capone, pp. 322, 378. Okrent, Last Call, pp. 133–134, 140. See also Merriner, Grafters and Goo-Goos, p. 120.
Most accounts of the Capone investigation mistakenly claim Hoover gave his order to “get Capone” shortly after his inauguration, following a meeting with Frank Loesch and other prominent Chicagoans. Among those said to be present at the meeting was Walter Strong, publisher of the Chicago Daily News. The source for this misconception appears to be Hoover’s memoirs, which date the meeting to March 1929 (Hoover, Memoirs, pp. 276–277). Historian Robert S. McElvaine (Great Depression, pp. 52–53), however, has noted that “Hoover’s own Memoirs were done very carelessly and are chock-full of errors,” especially with regard to dates, making the March 1929 date suspect.
Hoover’s calendar (Public Papers 1930, pp. 637–649) shows no meetings in March 1929 with Loesch or anyone else supposedly present at his “get Capone” conference. James Calder (Origins and Development, p. 18) suggests Hoover’s meeting with “Claudius H. Huston and Mr. Strong” on March 19 (Public Papers 1930, p. 641) is the meeting in question, but it’s doubtful this Strong is the same as the publisher of the Daily News. The April 14 meeting with McCormick (described by Lyle, cited above) is the only such meeting confirmed on Hoover’s calendar in early 1929.
Hoover did meet with Loesch on March 15, 1930 (Public Papers 1930, p. 723), however, three days before the first known memos from Hoover administration officials referring to the Capone tax case (Calder, Origins and Development, pp. 133–134). A memo on the case prepared for the assistant secretary of the Treasury specifically dates the order “to proceed vigorously with the investigation of Al Capone” to March 18, 1930 (Robert H. Lucas, memorandum for Assistant Secretary Hope, March 19, 1930, in Presidential Subject Series, Box 164, “Federal Bureau of Investigation—Capone Tax Case, 1930–1931” folder, HHPL). In a memo to Frank Wilson dated March 21, A. P. Madden of the Intelligence Unit wrote, with regards to the Capone investigation, “that the White House may be expressing a desire to see it brought to an early conclusion” (Calder, Origins and Development, p. 134). If, as Wilson and others later claimed, Hoover sent the word out to “get Capone” in 1929, it seems highly unlikely Madden wouldn’t know for certain a year later.
A WP article written not long after Capone’s conviction dates Hoover’s “get Capone” order to April 1930, which is consistent with this general time frame. (“Capone to Be Tried as Tax Law Evader,” WP, November 22, 1930, in FBI-AC.) The Boston Globe also dated the order to around the time of Capone’s 1930 release from prison in Pennsylvania (“Hoover Himself Wars on Capone,” Boston Globe, May 14, 1930).
Although various federal agencies had expressed some desire to incarcerate Capone before March 1930, we have seen nothing to suggest Hoover or his administration took any direct interest in their actions. Instead, the evidence strongly suggests that the president gave his “get Capone” order not in March 1929, but March 1930.
BUNDESEN AND MASSEE: CHE, February 16, 1929. CT, February 16, 1929; April 14, 1929; May 23, 1972. Coroner’s Jury list, December 23, 1929, MM. Goddard, “Valentine Day Massacre,” pp. 61–63. “Purpose of the Journal,” The American Journal of Police Science, vol. 1, no. 1 (January–February 1930), p. 3. C. W. Muehlberger, “Col. Calvin Hooker Goddard 1895–1955,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 46, no. 1 (1955), pp. 103–104 (104, “Blue Ribbon”). Kobler, Capone, pp. 258–259. Hoffman, Scarface Al, pp. 15–16, 72–74, 76–77, 80. Helmer and Bilek, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, pp. 113–116. Alder, Lie Detectors, pp. 115–116.
GODDARD: CT, April 13–14, 1929 (April 14, “systematic application,” “check the slaughter”). Calvin H. Goddard, “Scientific Identification of Firearms and Bullets,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 17, no. 2 (Summer 1926), pp. 254–260 (257, “that no two”; 258, “These irregularities leave”). Calvin H. Goddard, “Who Did the Shooting?” Popular Science Monthly, November 1927, pp. 21–22, 172 (“By such methods”). Goddard, “Valentine Day Massacre,” pp. 63–76. Muehlberger, “Col. Calvin Hooker Goddard,” pp. 103–104. Hoffman, Scarface Al, pp. 16, 81. Helmer and Bilek, St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, pp. 159–161. Yount, Forensic Science, pp. 71–77.
CRIME LAB: CT, April 14, 1929. “Purpose of the Journal,” pp. 3–4. Calvin Goddard, “Scientific Crime Detection Laboratories in Europe,” The American Journal of Police Science, vol. 1, no. 1 (January–February 1930), pp. 13–37 (13, “We had no”; 22, “In general, Europeans”). Muehlberger, “Col. Calvin Hooker Goddard,” p. 104. Hoffman, Scarface Al, pp. 82–84 (83, “The city needs”; 84, “at least sixty”). Alder, Lie Detectors, pp. 115–116 (116, “outside the pale”).
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: CT, May 16, 1929; May 18, 1929. Carte and Carte, Police Reform, pp. 63–64.
ELIOT AND EDNA: Alexander G. Jamie to Alf Oftedal, April 10, 1929; Alexander G. Jamie, Personnel Classification Board Form No. 4, May 5, 1929; Alexander G. Jamie to the Commissioner of Prohibition, September 5, 1929, all in Edna S. Ness OPF. W. S. Murphy, Report on Eliot Ness, November 15, 1933, p. 7, in FBI-ENA (“never discussed his”). John Larson, “Summary of Contacts with the Secret Six of Chiago [sic] and Elliott [sic] Ness,” n.d., in Carton 4, Folder 25 (“Clippings About—1947–1961”), John Larson Papers, BANC MSS 78/160cz, UCB. Porter, Cleveland, p. 102. Condon, “Last American Hero,” p. 139. Heimel, Eliot Ness, pp. 23, 82, 272. Lindberg, Return Again, pp. 308–313. Perry, Eliot Ness, p. 62.
NESS RETURNS TO SCHOOL: Pol. Sci. 344 Official Class List, in Carton 4, “Chicago. University” folder, August Vollmer Papers, BANC MSS C-B 403, UCB. Murphy, Report on Eliot Ness, p. 3. “Greenhorn,” American Magazine, March 1936, in ENPS, Roll 1, Scrapbook 3. “Evening Courses in Business Subjects,” n.p., n.d., ENPS, Roll 1, Folder 1. William Townes, “As Boy in Chicago, Ness Was ‘Just a Regular Guy,’ ” CP, February 23, 1937, in ENPS, Roll 1, Scrapbook 3. “Biographical Sketch: Eliot Ness,” n.d., in Box 2, “Biographies” folder, SPD. John Larson, “Summary of Contacts with the Secret Six of Chiago [sic] and Elliott [sic] Ness,” n.d., in Carton 4, Folder 25 (“Clippings About—1947–1961”), John Larson Papers, BANC MSS 78/160cz, UCB.
Ness’s personnel file doesn’t mention a leave of absence to go back to school, but newspaper and magazine profiles of him written during his time in Cleveland note he took a hiatus from the Prohibition Bureau to take the University of Chicago course. (Kansas City Star, April 19, 1936, in ENPS, Roll 1, Scrapbook 2, p. 68. Baltimore Sun, May 17, 1936, in ENPS, Roll 1, Scrapbook 2, p. 80. Kansas City Star, March 28, 1938, in ENPS, Roll 2, Scrapbook 8, p. 10. Havens, “Personalities in Law Enforcement,” p. 61.)
Lending further credence to the class requiring Ness’s full-time attention is a CT article about a later session of Vollmer’s cla
ss, which notes that ten police detectives were “relieved of routine duty” in order to attend. (CT, January 3, 1931.)
VOLLMER: CT, May 16, 1929; December 14, 1929 (“stupid,” “no business being”); January 7, 1931. “National Affairs: Professor Added,” Time, September 16, 1929, p. 13. “Police: Finest of the Finest,” Time, February 18, 1966, p. 49. Carte and Carte, Police Reform, pp. 1–3, 15–16, 19–21, 24–30, 33, 41–53 (46, “strike any person”), 69–74 (72, “an admission of”; 73, “If the communists,” “make martyrs out”; 74, “bunch of morons”), 99–103 (“The eradication of”). Potter, War on Crime, pp. 36, 43–44. Alder, Lie Detectors, pp. 17–23 (22, “college cops”), 28, 60–61, 73, 106.
NESS INSPIRED BY VOLLMER: August Vollmer, “Aims and Ideals of the Police,” Journal of the American Institute of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 13, no. 1 (May 1922), pp. 253–254 (“Merely arresting the,” “Common sense teaches”). “Police Work a Profession, Not a Job,” CDN, August 19, 1916, in Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 7, no. 4 (May 1916–March 1917), p. 622. John Larson to Eliot Ness, November 19, 1929; John A. Larson to John Favill, May 17, 1938, both in John Augustus Larson Papers, Personal Collection of Beulah Allen Graham (courtesy of Ken Alder). August Vollmer, “The Scientific Policeman,” The American Journal of Police Science, vol. 1, no. 1 (January–February 1930), p. 9 (“out-Sherlocking the”). CT, January 7, 1931. Eliot Ness to August Vollmer, December 16, 1935, in Box 24, “Ness, Eliot” folder, August Vollmer Papers, BANC MSS C-B 403, UCB (“I feel, and”). Ness MS., pp. 16, 20, in ENPS, Roll 1, Folder 2. Ness and Fraley, The Untouchables, pp. 134–136. Carte and Carte, Police Reform, pp. 33–36, 69–70, 84–86, 92–93. Alder, Lie Detectors, pp. xiii–xiv, 23–24, 55–61, 75–85, 90, 113, 115, 119–138, 147–148, 155–162. Perry, Eliot Ness, pp. 76–77 (76, “always smiling, but”).
JAMIE, JOHNSON, AND YELLOWLEY: CT, September 20–21, 1929 (September 20, “intensive,” “warn the enemy”; September 21, “harmonious,” “A greater effort”). “Debate Plan for Arid Rule in Chicago,” n.p., n.d.; “Johnson Is Given U.S. Orders to Dry Up Chicago,” n.p., n.d.; “Jamie Hastens to See Doran; Purpose Is Secret,” n.p., n.d., all in ENPS, Roll 1, Scrapbook 1. Calder, Origins and Development, pp. 124, 137.
TAX INVESTIGATION: “War on Chicago Gangs Not Over, Say U.S. Officials,” n.p., n.d., in ENPS, Roll 1, Scrapbook 1, p. 36. Paul Ward, “The Man Who Got Al Capone,” Baltimore Sun Magazine, March 20, 1932, p. 7. Irey and Slocum, Tax Dodgers, p. 32. Kobler, Capone, p. 279. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 255–256. Calder, Origins and Development, pp. 19, 226n78. Bergreen, Capone, p. 304. Eghigian, After Capone, pp. 159, 163.
RALPH CAPONE ARREST AND QUESTIONING: CT, October 9, 1929; December 21, 1930 (“Well, you don’t,” “Only enough to”). Dillard, “How the U.S. Gov’t,” pp. 14–15. Irey and Slocum, Tax Dodgers, pp. 33–34. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, p. 244.
Chapter Thirteen
SCALISE, ANSELMI, GIUNTA MURDER: CHE, May 9–11, 1929; May 20, 1929. CT, May 8–9, 1929 (May 9, “from Sicilian sources”). NYT, May 9, 1929. X Marks the Spot, p. 55, in FBI-AC. Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 329–332 (330, “Hop Toad”; 331, “This is the”). Vanderbilt Jr., “How Al Capone,” p. 20 (“Those who work”). Edward Doherty, “The Twilight of the Gangster: How Much Longer Are We Going to Put Up with Him?” Liberty, October 24, 1931, p. 8. Enright, Al Capone on the Spot, pp. 10, 77. Burns, One-Way Ride, pp. 274–281 (281, “I am the”). Foster, “Blackhand War,” pp. 41–43. Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, pp. 359–360. Anonymous, “Capone I Knew,” p. 80 (“The word spread”). Lyle, Dry and Lawless Years, p. 222. Allsop, Bootleggers, pp. 140–141. Kobler, Capone, pp. 264–265. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 233–234 (234, “I was in,” “You’re gonna know,” “We frisked everyone,” “Capone got so”). Capone, Uncle Al Capone, pp. 55–56 (“They were going”).
ATLANTIC CITY CONFERENCE: CHE, May 9, 1929 (“Capone is not”); May 18–20, 1929. NYT, May 9, 1929 (“an average of,” “a serious attempt”); May 18, 1929 (“co-operation in the,” “sumptuous quarters,” “We all agreed,” “I want peace”). CT, May 18, 1929 (“have made it,” “the idea of”); May 20, 1929 (“peace conference broke”). “Philadelphia Justice for Chicago’s Al Capone,” The Literary Digest, June 15, 1929, pp. 32, 34, 39 (“Big Four,” “an executive committee”). Burns, One-Way Ride, p. 307. Powell, Ninety Times Guilty, pp. 64–65, 68. Thompson and Raymond, Gang Rule in New York, pp. 356–357. Herbert Asbury, “America’s No. 1 Mystery Man,” Collier’s, April 19, 1947, p. 34. James A. Bell, “Frank Costello: Statesman of the Underworld,” The American Mercury, August 1950, p. 132. Smith, Syndicate City, p. 81. Wolf and DiMona, Frank Costello, pp. 84–92. Murray, Legacy of Al Capone, pp. 137–138 (137, “a good many,” “the safest place”). Nelli, Business of Crime, pp. 212–216. Sloat, 1929, pp. 81–83. Fox, Blood and Power, pp. 51, 66–67. Helmer and Mattix, Public Enemies, pp. 33, 122–123. Keefe, Man Who Got Away, pp. 238, 244–245. Critchley, Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 140–143. Mappen, Prohibition Gangsters, pp. 32, 79–104. Bair, Al Capone, pp. 152–156, 168, 188, 354, 358. Binder, Al Capone’s Beer Wars, pp. 199–201, 227–228.
Most books on Capone describe the Atlantic City conference as a meeting of mobsters from all over the country, discussing plans for a nationwide Mafia commission. The guest list has grown in the retelling to include virtually every major gangster in America at that time, with dozens of attendees. Typical is Eig’s Get Capone (pp. 226–227), which describes the conference as “the first meeting of the nation’s top crime lords,” whose “roster of attendees reads like an encyclopedia of crime,” details for which Eig offers no citations. (See also Kobler, Capone, pp. 265–266. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 234–235. Bergreen, Capone, pp. 331–336. Bair, Al Capone, pp. 151–155.)
Historian Marc Mappen, in his Prohibition Gangsters (pp. 79–96), offers a distinctly different and more convincing interpretation. Drawing on the work of David Critchley (Origin of Organized Crime, pp. 140–143), Mappen contrasts the “big conference” claim favored by Eig and others with a “small conference” theory—that the meeting was concerned with making peace between warring Chicago gangs, not the establishment of a nationwide crime syndicate. Mappen notes contemporary sources only mention the presence of Chicago gang figures at the Atlantic City conference, and the peace treaty only covered Chicago matters. The “big conference” narrative first showed up in print decades after the event, with a spate of dubious true-crime books adding their own embellishments from the 1970s on.
Our own research confirms Critchley and Mappen’s interpretation. The books and articles cited above strongly suggest that the consensus view, from 1929 to the 1950s, was that Frank Costello called the conference with the goal of making peace in Chicago. Some New York gangsters attended, but they were not the focus of negotiations. Although more interstate cooperation may have come about as a result of the conference, it seems not to have been the primary goal.
The “big conference” theory first appears, in slightly humbler form, in a 1947 article by Herbert Asbury (“America’s No. 1 Mystery Man,” p. 34). Asbury writes that the conference included “gang captains from all over the East and Middle West,” who “agreed to abandon internecine warfare and to arrange a suitable division of territory. A group known as the Big Mob was appointed to supervise the rackets and the liquor business from Chicago to the Atlantic Coast.” This began the process of pushing the Chicago aspect of the conference into the background and frontloading its national consequences.
It took another twelve years for the “big conference” theory to become fully formed in Frederic Sondern Jr.’s Brotherhood of Evil: The Mafia, excerpted in Reader’s Digest that May. Sondern claims Capone organized the conference himself, for the purpose of unveiling “a project on which he had been working for three years—a nation-wide organization or syndicate for gambling, prostitution, labor racketeering, extortion and, of course, bootlegging . . . The delegates were impressed, and within a few days [Capone] had put together a
number of formidable and friendly combines to form a national syndicate.” Sondern thus gives Capone credit for “the fundamental design and unwritten constitution of the modern American Mafia.” (Frederic Sondern Jr., “Brotherhood of Evil: the Mafia,” Reader’s Digest, May 1959, pp. 70–71.)
Sondern’s claims are directly contradicted by the more reliable accounts of the conference cited above, which make clear that, far from being a victory for Capone, the conference severely limited his power. Other elements of Sondern’s narrative are even less believable. For instance, Sondern claims that Capone received his famous scars from a Brooklyn barber who refused to give him a special haircut reserved for Mafia members. “Young Al Capone intensely admired the Mafia . . . and wanted his hair cut in the traditional Mafioso style,” Sondern writes, “but he was not a Sicilian . . . and the barber, a Mafia man himself, considered such a request from a Neapolitan a sacrilege.” (Sondern, “Brotherhood of Evil,” p. 67.) Sondern’s account of the Atlantic City conference is likely as fanciful as his ideas about Capone’s scars. Yet his book seems to be the seed for the “big conference” theory, which later crime writers would plant in their own work.
CAPONE ARRESTED AND CONVICTED: CHE, May 18, 1929; March 17, 1930. CT, May 18–19, 1929 (May 18, “You’re ‘Scarface’ Capone,” “My name’s Al,” “quietly and in,” “the boys,” “most interesting talk,” “a serious man,” “I’ve been trying,” “I’ve been in”). NYT, May 18, 1929 (“Give me a,” “Listen, boy,” “Worth about $50,000,” “You made a,” “All right”). Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, May 20, 1929 (“It’s the breaks”). “Philadelphia Justice,” pp. 32–42. Pasley, Al Capone, pp. 325–329, 332 (“Al figured on”). Murray, Legacy of Al Capone, pp. 137–138. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, pp. 175–176, 235–238. Bergreen, Capone, pp. 336–338. Mappen, Prohibition Gangsters, pp. 107–111. Bair, Al Capone, pp. 155–156.
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