Capone

by Laurence Bergreen

  At last Adler managed to tear himself away from this insistent man who had started playing the role of his conscience. He asked a friend the identity of the man who was so quick to remind him of his filial and religious obligations. “Come, on,” his friend said. “You’re kidding.” No, Adler told him, he wasn’t kidding. Who was the man who had extracted a promise from him to attend shule?

  “Al Capone,” his friend said.

  If Adler thought he was through talking with the most feared gangster of the day, he soon discovered he was mistaken, because Capone, after circulating through the crowd, returned to Adler and started boasting about how he attended Mass every Sunday, and he always made a point to send his mother flowers. Didn’t Adler do as much for his mother? Well, Adler said, the fact was that his mother lived in Baltimore.

  “So?” Capone said, “Ya never heard of Western Union, ya can’t wire em?”

  For Adler and many other stars, a meeting with Al Capone was one they never forgot, and many wound up in his thrall against their better judgment. He exerted his dominion over them in the same way as he did other men, the racketeers and politicians, only he was even more obvious with the performers, who lived in the arena of the ego. He came to dominate them not by shouting, overwhelming, or bullying, although the threat of physical violence always loomed, but by appealing to the inner man, his wants, his aspirations. Whatever cherished self-image he carried around with him and which the world callously ignored or discounted Al Capone claimed to recognize and value, and the legion of friends and allies he won this way never paused to question his motives or his sincerity. Instead, by making them feel valued, they gave unstintingly of their loyalty, and loyalty was what Capone needed and demanded; in the volatile circles through which he moved it was the only protection he had from sudden death. The highest compliment other men could pay Capone was to call him a friend, which meant they were willing to overlook his scandalous reputation, and to pretend along with Al that he had nothing to do with violence or sexual degradation, that he had never been a pimp or a murderer. Capone’s ability to evoke this suspension of disbelief was a skill normally belonging to an expert politician; like a candidate running for office, Capone encouraged others to project their needs and fantasies on him, which he in turn claimed to acknowledge. The resulting phenomenon was akin to a mass hallucination, for he managed to replace, at least temporarily, the terrible things they said about him in the newspapers with a new version of the truth in which he was no pimp, no murderer, no gangster; he was a man-about-town who knew how to get things done, a man you could go to if you needed a favor—Al Capone, the happy bootlegger. Since he could be generous and effective when it suited him, and the papers often did malign him, there was just enough truth to support the myth and to make it real for those he persuaded to believe in it and in him.

  • • •

  On November 8, 1927, the Chicago Daily News declared: “CICERO CLEANS UP IN GAMBLING LULL—Lid on Tight in City, Al Capone’s Places Jammed by Gamboleers” and went on to explain, “Scarface Al Capone’s gambling houses came into their own last night as the lid was slammed on Chicago. Lauderback’s, the Ship, the Radio Inn and other Cicero gaming establishments were jammed to the doors, getting a play such as they have never had in the three lean months when Chicago gambling houses were operating full blast under the Thompson ‘wide open town’ policy. Meanwhile nearly every gambling house of note in Chicago was closed. . . . The average man seeking to take a chance with Lady Luck was met with the explanation that ‘the lid is on and on tight.’ ”

  Appearances to the contrary, the Chicago Police Department was not responsible for “keeping the lid on” the city’s gambling establishments. It was Capone, demonstrating his control of the city’s economic life once again by withholding this hugely profitable activity. He had not suddenly turned reformer; on the contrary, this action was the first sign of his plan to drive Chicago’s rackets into the open and thus embarrass the Thompson administration into increased cooperation. Capone had put the squeeze on rivals, even on the police, but now, for the first time, he was putting the squeeze on an entire city. Investigating the extent of Capone’s control of Chicago at the time, the Chicago Daily News, normally a restrained voice, evoked “the amazing spectacle of a city of 3,000,000 people yielding tribute to a dictator of the underworld.”

  Amid the tumult Capone once again disappeared, but this time there was no secret concerning his whereabouts. On the day before his departure, Capone and a retinue of gunmen appeared at Marshall Field, the prestigious Chicago department store, not in the guise of racketeers or holdup men but as customers. There they spent, according to one journalist, nearly $5,000 “for the latest suggestions on what the well dressed hunter should wear when taking a rest from the gang wars.” They left early the next morning for northern Wisconsin, and in the days that followed, reports trickled back to Chicago that “no better turned out duck shooters ever scratched their expensive leggings on briars. If it rained, they were protected by waterproof coats and breeches.” Not surprisingly, “Their marksmanship and the quality of their firearms was all right, too.” Al and the boys were gone for one week—long enough for him to decide anew that he must abandon the rackets at all costs.

  He returned from his north woods adventure on December 5, equipped with this resolve as well as several braces of duck, hare, and even a bear slain by one of the hunting party. Capone was so eager to trumpet the news of his “retirement” that on the day of his return he summoned reporters to his suite at the Metropole Hotel, where they found him “sitting comfortably in an easy chair, . . . clad in the ultranifty hunting suit he bought for the recent jaunt to the north woods. His jowls still carried the six day beard growth cultivated while he and his companions tramped after bear and deer and hare.” His eyes roving across the room, Capone announced he was abandoning the bootlegger’s trade, and not only that, he was abandoning Chicago. The thoroughly skeptical press corps reacted to these revelations with intense amusement. “I’m leaving for St. Petersburg, Florida, tomorrow,” Capone said above the reporters’ chortles. “Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best they can. I’m sick of the job. It’s a thankless one and full of grief. I don’t know when I’ll get back, if ever. But it won’t be until after the holidays, anyway.” No, he said in answer to a question, he hadn’t bought a house there, not yet, but he would at any moment, and he expected to welcome the New Year far from the frigid shores of Lake Michigan. This was the second time Capone had made such an announcement—perhaps the declaration had become an annual rite—except that this time Al spoke in anger. This time he meant it.

  “I’ve been spending the best years of my life as a public benefactor,” he insisted, ever the servant of a pleasure-seeking public. “I’ve given people the light pleasures, shown them a good time. And all I get is abuse—the existence of a hunted man. I’m called a killer. Well, tell the folks I’m going away now. I guess murder will stop. There won’t be any more booze. You won’t be able to find a crap game, even, let alone a roulette wheel or a faro game.” Referring to Chicago’s chief of police, who had recently called for more uniformed men to combat the city’s racketeers, Capone added, “I guess Mike Hughes won’t need his 3,000 cops after all. The coppers won’t have to lay all the gang murders on me now. Maybe they’ll find a new hero for the headlines. It would be a shame, wouldn’t it, if while I was away they would forget about me and find a new gangland chief?

  “Public service is my motto,” Capone continued with bitter irony. “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. It’s no use. I wish all my friends and enemies a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. That’s all they’ll get from me this year. I hope I don’t spoil anyone’s Christmas by not sticking around.” Here Capone alluded to the huge Christmas “bonus” that corrupt cops and city officials had come to expect from him. Al would not be handing out wads of
cash this year, and the Chicago Daily News estimated he would save himself at least $100,000 through this one economy measure.

  He suddenly turned serious and self-pitying. “I could bear it all if it weren’t for the hurt it brings to my mother and my family. They hear so much about what a terrible criminal I am. It’s getting too much for them and I’m just sick of it all myself. I’m known all over the world as a millionaire gorilla. The other day a man came in here and said that he had to have $3,000. If I’d give it to him, he said, he would make me a beneficiary in a $15,000 insurance policy he’s taken out and then kill himself. I had to have him pushed out. Today I got a letter from a woman in England. Even over there I’m known as a gorilla. She offered to pay my passage to London if I’d kill some neighbors she’s been having a quarrel with. The papers have made me out a millionaire, and hardly an hour goes by that somebody doesn’t want me to invest in some scheme or stake somebody in business. That’s what I’ve got to put up with just because I give the public what the public wants. I never had to send out high pressure salesmen. I could never meet the demand!”

  Swept away on the tide of his own words, Capone declared he had no police record. This was far from the truth, as was his next statement: “I’ve never been convicted of a crime nor have I ever directed anyone else to commit a crime. I have never had anything to do with a vice resort. I don’t pose as a plaster saint, but I never killed anyone. I never stuck up a man in my life. Neither did any of my agents ever rob anybody or burglarize any homes while they worked for me. They might have pulled plenty of jobs before they came with me or after they left me, but not while they were in my outfit.” As proof of the honest, aboveboard, and legitimate nature of his business, Capone cited Cicero, which he memorably termed “the cleanest burg in the U.S.A. There’s only one gambling house in the whole town, and not a single so-called vice den.” This was completely untrue, of course, but no one bothered to correct the lord of Cicero.

  Capone went on in this vein for a long while; it hardly mattered what he said, how many lies he spread. In the Chicago of 1927, black was white, truth was falsehood, everything was public relations, even the gang wars. When a reporter asked how a bootlegger can justify murdering his rivals, Capone instantly replied, “Well, maybe he thinks that the law of self-defense, the way God looks at it, is a little broader than the law books have it. Maybe it means killing a man in defense of your business—the way you make the money to take care of your wife and child. I think it does. You can’t blame me for thinking there’s worse fellows in the world than me.” Such was Al’s way of displaying contempt for “Big Bill” Thompson and his entire administration. The balance of power had shifted decisively in Capone’s favor, away from legitimate institutions, which had become too compromised and ineffectual to cope. He had bought and bullied his way to power with bullets, booze, broads, and bucks, but now he behaved as if he were the Pied Piper, about to forsake Chicago to the rats. The Pied Piper of legend had stolen away the children—the future—from the city he had been hired to cleanse because he hadn’t been paid the money he was promised. Capone was leaving Chicago because he hadn’t been paid respect. Even a fraud like Thompson refused to give him his due.

  Capone had called himself a “hero for the headlines,” and as he anticipated, his unusual press conference received wide play in the Chicago dailies. “ ‘YOU CAN ALL GO THIRSTY,’ IS AL CAPONE’S ADIEU,” the Chicago Tribune headlined, while the Daily News, emphasizing Al’s vow to eliminate his Christmas “bonus” payoffs, said simply, “CAPONE PACKS BAGS AND SANTA WEEPS.” Mike Hughes, the chief of police, greeted the announcement with glee. “I feel almost like sending him and his boys a basket of roses,” the chief quipped, adding that he still wanted his 3,000 additional policemen.

  Mayor Thompson, however, was strangely silent on the topic of Al Capone’s sudden departure; no expressions of relief or delight were forthcoming from City Hall. The damning fact was that Thompson needed Capone more than Capone needed Thompson. Indeed, the entire city of Chicago required the services of the Capone organization in one form or another. The press needed him to sell papers; the police needed him to supplement their meager pay and to help keep order (as did the local Prohibition agents); the city’s speakeasies and their customers needed him to keep them wet and content; and Thompson needed him most of all to keep a semblance of the peace in Chicago and to help him remain in power. Without Capone, speakeasies would dry up and gang war would erupt. But the mayor could not come out and implore the city’s most notorious crime figure to reconsider his decision and stay. Instead, Thompson greeted the announcement with silence, as he would the defection of any powerful supporter.

  • • •

  A blast of frigid air descended on Chicago, bringing with it snow and temperatures hovering around the ten-degree mark. Capone managed to avoid the sudden advent of winter, for the day after his press conference, he abandoned Chicago’s dangerous streets for a warmer and presumably safer climate. Yet he failed to find the tranquillity he expected. Even when he came under attack in Chicago, Capone was in his element, instinctively aware of what moves to make, how to get things done, which usually meant whom to bribe and, occasionally, whom to eliminate. He had adapted to the city, and the city had in turn adapted itself to him. Once Capone left Chicago, however, he instantly became an outsider, and more than that, an outcast, an object of scorn. Thus his pilgrimage in search of peace quickly turned into a bizarre exile from the one city sufficiently corrupt to appreciate Al Capone.

  On December 10, Al, accompanied by his brother Ralph and a contingent of armed bodyguards, boarded a train bound not for St. Petersburg, Florida, as he had announced, but for Los Angeles. It was an odd choice, for Capone had few allies in that city. In addition, Mae and Sonny remained in Chicago. Al planned either to send for them at a later date, or, if Los Angeles did not prove hospitable, to return home. At the time of the journey, he was a month short of his twenty-ninth birthday, and he had seen relatively little of the country. His travels had been limited to Brooklyn, Chicago, and Lansing, Michigan. Although he ceaselessly prowled the greater Chicago region, his attachment to place outweighed his wanderlust. He felt much more at ease within the confines of a bulletproof limousine than exposed to the open country where his older brother, “Two-Gun” Hart, was so much at home. Now this rail excursion gave Al his first opportunity to sense the magnitude of the country and to glimpse, however fleetingly, the other America, in opposition to which his own racketeering empire had been founded. The America Capone saw through the window of his car during that December of 1927 was a land of striking social contrasts and incongruities. Its big cities were the most modern in the world, wholly of the twentieth century, while its prairie hamlets adhered to a manner of living firmly rooted in the previous century. The fault line running between these two Americas—the urban and the agrarian—was Prohibition. Banning the sale and consumption of alcohol signified so much more than simple abstemiousness; it signified an entire way of life: rural, God-fearing, Protestant, middle-class, virtuous, restricted, suspicious, and self-reliant. It was a world in which Al Capone had no place.

  If he expected to receive a warm welcome in Southern California, or at least an absence of resistance to his presence, he was disabused of that notion immediately upon his arrival. The Los Angeles chief of police, James E. Davis, warned the notorious racketeer, “You’re not wanted here. We’re giving you twelve hours to leave.” The Capone party spent only a bit more time in Los Angeles than that; they stayed the night at the Biltmore, where Capone gave interviews concerning the state of gangland in Chicago (“This gang war stuff is greatly overdone, and I get tired of it. I’m strictly against gang wars of any kind and I just want to get along with everybody”) and spent the following day touring a movie studio. “I never saw them make pictures before,” Al commented, “that’s a grand racket”—a racket that would soon make millions out of gangster movies inspired by his life story. He also found time to drive past the homes
of the stars, notably Pickfair, Mary Pickford’s magnificent dwelling. The excursion into celluloid fantasy came to a rude conclusion with the arrival of “Roughhouse” Brown, a detective dispatched by the chief of police to escort Capone out of town. “Why should everybody pick on me?” Capone asked reporters as he prepared to leave. “I thought that you folks liked tourists. I have a lot of money to spend that I made in Chicago. Whoever heard of anybody being run out of Los Angeles that had money?”

  Shadowed by the Los Angeles police, the Capone party returned to the Los Angeles rail terminal, where they boarded the Santa Fé Chief on December 14. Their journey east took them through Kansas City, the very heart of the drys. “The police in the station were so thick that some of them were pretending to sell apples,” Capone remarked. For the moment, the police let him continue his journey.

  Meanwhile, in Chicago, Michael Hughes, the chief of police, and William E. O’Connor, the chief of detectives, announced an ambitious plan to put every gangster in that city under house arrest. “I will place guards at once around the homes of all the hoodlums in Chicago,” O’Connor said. “If we can’t keep them in our regular jails, we’ll bottle them up so as to serve the same purpose.” The order would, at the very least, make it difficult for Capone to return to his family in Chicago and subject to arrest if he were seen within the city limits. Anxiously awaiting her husband’s return to their home on South Prairie Avenue, Mae was so outraged that she broke her customary silence to complain publicly and to plead that everybody leave him alone, if only for the sake of their child. When printed, her interview had the opposite of its intended effect, reminding the public of Al Capone’s vulnerable young boy. “CAPONE’S SON FINDS SINS OF FATHER HEAVY,” the Chicago Herald and Examiner headlined, “Mother Pleads for Lad, Victim of Schoolmates’ Torment.” Mae explained that little Sonny came home from school each day in tears caused by his classmates’ taunts that his father was a gangster and a murderer. “It’s more than he can stand. It’s more than I can stand,” Mae said, “and it’s not fair. He’s broken-hearted, and he can’t understand it. I’m a true mother, and I suffer with him. Can’t something be done?” As the years ahead would reveal, the answer was no, nothing could be done; in fact, Sonny was only beginning to comprehend the stigma that would plague him throughout his life.