Throughout their legal difficulties, as in their family life, Ralph had always led the way, and now he became to the first Capone to serve his sentence for income tax evasion. (The days that Al, currently held without bail, served in the Cook County Jail counted for nothing.) Ralph took the Twentieth Century Limited to Chicago and reported to the Federal Building, where he was fingerprinted, photographed, and interviewed. Coached by his lawyer, he supplied the following personal history, a profile of the man whom the Chicago Crime Commission called Public Enemy Number 3:
Name
Ralph J. Capone
Address
7244 Prairie Avenue
Age
37 years
Height
5 feet 11 inches
Weight
215 pounds
Hair
Black
Eyes
Brown
Descent
Italian
How Long in U.S.A
36 years
How Long in Cook County
9 years
Education
Grammar school
Occupation
Race horse owner
Married
Yes
Wife
Valma Capone
Children
Ralph, Jr.—14 years old
Father
Deceased
Mother
Theresa Capone
Address
7244 Prairie Avenue
When that grim procedure was concluded, the Chicago Tribune reported, “the gangster was taken to the county jail in a taxicab by two deputy marshals, being spared the customary ride in a patrol wagon with narcotic addicts and dry law violators. He was placed in the large receiving cell on the first floor, with a group of Negroes, Chinese, and police court prisoners.” Meanwhile, Al lingered upstairs in his fifth floor deluxe cell, and rumors circulated that the two brothers would soon depart for Leavenworth together.
On Friday morning, November 6, Ralph took his leave of the county jail, but not before the ever-obliging Warden Moneypenny permitted the brothers Capone to hold a lengthy reunion. Teresa also arrived to bid her son goodbye, and she left the jail sobbing. Ralph himself was said to be “morose.” After he made his final farewell, he was driven away in a police van bound for a train to Leavenworth.
“I’d like to eat in the diner,” he told the marshal accompanying him for the journey.
“Can’t be done,” came the reply.
“Well, then, I’d like to have some food sent in for me and the boys,” Ralph said, with a wave of the hand to indicate the other prisoners, “I’ll stand the check”: a magnanimous gesture to which the marshal readily agreed.
The train reached Leavenworth the following morning, where Ralph traded his custom-tailored clothes for drab gray prison garb, but he did not lack for company in his new home, for the penitentiary housed two of his colleagues: Sam Guzik and Frank Nitti. Sam’s brother Jack, Al Capone’s accountant, brothel manager, and devoted friend, was scheduled to join the bunch within months. Everywhere Ralph went in the federal penitentiary system, he found himself among close friends and associates. Campanilismo, even in jail.
Alarmed at the prospect of the entire Capone gang domiciled together for years, the attorney general ordered the wardens of federal penitentiaries around the country to redistribute them. He received an immediate response from Finch R. Archer, the warden of McNeil Island Penitentiary, located on Puget Sound, off the coast of the state of Washington, vowing to isolate Ralph and to give him no special privileges whatsoever: “Capone will of course be kept from communicating with any member of his gang as far as it can possibly be done. All prisoners received here are treated alike, whether they are bankers or laborers.” These arrangements took place in secret as well as in haste. Shortly after his arrival at Leavenworth, on December 10, Ralph received a nasty surprise: he was reassigned to McNeil Island. On the day of his transfer, his lawyers were informed that their client was being moved for “administrative reasons, the importance of which must be fairly plain to you.” By the time the lawyers reflexively complained about the hardship the move was certain to inflict on their client and his family, it was too late; Ralph had already arrived at McNeil Island. The presence of a Capone in the Northwest, coupled with rumors that Al himself would soon follow, immediately generated unwelcome publicity. “What an attraction this would be for summer tourists,” a local newspaper observed. “Thousands who never heard of this region would visit us every summer during the exile of the kings of gangland. We think the government is right in not wanting to imprison the Caponeites in Leavenworth. It is too common and the scenery is nothing to boast of.”
Although Ralph’s term lasted until November 6, 1934, he would be eligible for parole within two years, but that was not a likely possibility. Warning that he was a “menace to society” and a “habitual criminal,” his parole report recommended against granting him early freedom. “He is a member of . . . the ‘Capone Gang’ and for years has been engaged in the illegal manufacture, sale, transportation and possession of liquor, the operation of bawdy houses or houses of ill repute, cabarets where the law has been violated and a notorious member of the gambling crowd,” the report noted; and, of course, he was the “brother of Alphonse Capone,” which might have been his worst offense in the eyes of the U.S. attorney’s office. Although Ralph was destined to serve out his full sentence, it was much shorter than what awaited his younger brother.
Ralph was kept active at McNeil, spending his days on a road repair crew, shoveling gravel. “The chill winter fogs that drift across the little island make the sleek gangster keenly appreciative of the heavy winter underwear issued to him,” the Tacoma Times remarked with understated glee. The physical activity caused the thirty-seven-year-old racketeer, who weighed over 215 pounds and had a distinctly roly-poly appearance when he arrived there, to lose weight swiftly. Such was the standard procedure for new inmates at McNeil: two weeks on the labor crew followed by four months on a construction crew, and finally reassignment to a less demanding task. A docile prisoner, Ralph was eventually employed as a cook in the prisoners’ mess. At Christmas, he decorated his cell with balls of red and green crepe paper, and over his doorway he wrote in chalk “Merry Christmas!” His sole relief that winter from the prison routine was a visit from his wife and mother-in-law. Clad in mink, they traveled by train from Miami, took the ferry to the island, spent a few hours with Ralph, and left as quietly as they had come. By spring he had earned a place on the penitentiary’s “entertainment committee,” although the opportunities for diversion in this grim little penal colony can only be imagined. But that was going too far for Sanford Bates, the director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, who promptly insisted that the warden remove him, lest Ralph’s position on the committee attract attention. “Mr. Bates would not want Capone to come out of obscurity to even this extent,” his assistant explained, adding in grim jest, “I assume that the Wilkerson who is serving on this committee with Capone is not Judge Wilkerson.” Archer had no choice but to comply, and Ralph left the committee. The Tacoma Times gleefully speculated about how Ralph filled the days and nights in jail. “Possibly he occupies the evenings looking for bedbugs,” the paper remarked. “The prisoners are allowed only $10 a month for spending money, and as Warden Archer . . . has offered a reward of $10 for every bedbug captured, the temptation is great. . . . We consider it a very proper life for a great gangster in retirement.”
Throughout the cold, dreary months he spent at McNeil Island, Ralph continued to protest his innocence. The record of his initial interview at the penitentiary reveals how in his own mind he deftly rearranged the facts of his case to exculpate himself:
In 1927 when the Supreme Court decision was handed down that profits from such business were subject to income tax he became fearful that his record might be investigated. Stated that he went to the Federal authorities and offered to pay any such tax that might be du
e. Told them that he had no way of keeping accurate accounts other than his bank deposit slips. Said that they took these and spread it out over the years of 1922 to 1925. . . . Said he paid the $4,065.75 [tax owed] but that his attorney advised him not to pay the fees and penalties as they could be knocked out because the government had been in error. . . . Said that while this matter was pending that he was indicted.
Takes rather the attitude that the thing has happened and that his main concern is that of doing his time and getting it over with. Does not blame the government for his trouble, but rather his own attorney. States that he would like to study Spanish, but that after shoveling all day he feels too tired to study.
Another entry in his prison record notes: “Never did a dishonest thing in his life, he says. . . . Except for the newspapers and politicians, he would never have been prosecuted. They got much publicity because of his brother, Al Capone.”
• • •
With both Al and Ralph in jail, a steady drumroll of newspaper headlines in December assured Americans that the Capones’ downfall had toppled the careers of many other gangsters, ending their influence for once and all:
CHICAGO’S UNDERWORLD EMPIRE SHAKEN BY THE FALL OF CAPONE
The Opposing Forces of Gangland and the Law as They are Now Arrayed, and New Elements that Have Entered the Contest
DRIVE ON GANGS SENDS GUNMEN TO U.S. PRISON
CAPONE “FORT” RAIDED, YIELDS TRIO OF CHIEFS
CAPONE ALLIES SEIZED; MAY BE DEPORTED BY U.S.
The dispatches made for gratifying but wholly misleading reading. Judge Wilkerson, who continued to watch Capone’s progress with special fascination, discovered the real situation to be exactly the opposite of the newspapers’ jubilant accounts. Days after Ralph’s departure for Leavenworth, on December 2, he received an anonymous telegram leveling dismaying charges of corruption in the Cook County jail:
WISH TO INFORM YOU THAT AL CAPONE IS USING THE COUNTY JAIL FOR HIS LIQUOR BUSINESS AND TRANSACTS FROM THERE POSSIBLY AS MUCH IF NOT MORE THAN HE USED TO AT HIS OLD HEADQUARTERS AT THE LEXINGTON HOTEL. HIS VISITORS SEEM TO BE COMING ALL DAY LONG AS WELL AS IN THE EVENING. I AM EMPLOYED AT THIS BRANCH OF SERVICE AND CAN NOT UNDERSTAND WHY EVERY PRIVILEGE IS EXTENDED TO HIM AND NONE TO THE OTHERS. PLEASE INVESTIGATE.
Outraged by the special treatment Capone was apparently receiving behind bars, Wilkerson forwarded the telegram to the Chicago office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on December 3, 1931.
At about the same time, the U.S. attorney, George E. Q. Johnson, received the identical telegram, and it became apparent that a major scandal was brewing. Suddenly it seemed as if all the years of work he had devoted to catching Capone were being undone; the man was a recurring nightmare. The uncomfortable truth was that sending men to jail changed nothing in the Chicago syndicate; the booze and bribes flowed as freely as ever. Judge Wilkerson, U.S. Attorney Johnson, Director of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover, and President Hoover himself could redistribute the members of the “Capone gang,” they could execute every gangster on the Chicago Crime Commission’s list of Public Enemies, if they wished, without affecting the status quo, for the government’s strategy had been flawed from the start. Federal prosecutors had fastened on Al Capone, making him into a potent symbol of lawlessness and corruption, but they had failed to realize that he was, for all his wealth and influence, merely a big bright cog in the Chicago rackets machine, which was driven by Frankie La Porte, who, unknown to the FBI and unheralded by the Chicago Crime Commission, continued to do business from a safe remove in Chicago Heights. The FBI remained unaware this little city served as the epicenter of Chicago racketeering. Even those law enforcement agents who kept an ear close to the ground, men such as Eliot Ness and his band of Untouchables, considered the Heights merely an outpost of bootlegging.
Responding to the charges contained in the anonymous telegram, M. A. McSwain, a Chicago-based FBI agent, began a thorough inquiry and discovered no end of risqué tales of Capone’s life behind bars. He heard that Capone kept gallons of whiskey in his cell, serving it to his guests; that a pimp named “Bon-Bon” Allegretti furnished Capone with a steady supply of prostitutes, who on one occasion put on an “obscene performance”; that a woman named Marion, who was supposedly Capone’s mistress, had been sequestered with him; and finally, that he bribed Warden Moneypenny and other prison workers.
Dreading the newspapers’ airing of these allegations, Johnson decided to investigate personally. It was highly unusual for a U.S. attorney to intervene in the running of a county jail, but these were unusual times. Johnson went to the Cook County Jail, avoiding Capone but subjecting Moneypenny and his assistants to a thorough inquiry. The warden, according to Agent Mc-Swain’s report of the matter, explained that
visitors seeing Al Capone must talk to the latter through wire mesh, and none other than his attorneys and possibly Capone’s mother and sister are permitted to actually enter the hospital. . . . Likewise, Mr. Moneypenny denied any knowledge of any women visiting Capone’s quarters other than Capone’s mother and sister. . . . Mr. Moneypenny did state that food was sent in twice a day from the outside for Capone, but this is not an unusual practice, as all prisoners are permitted to receive food from the outside.
Half a dozen other prison employees, from the assistant warden to the night watchman, vouched for this account, and after a week of worry, Johnson’s informal but thorough investigation persuaded him that most of the allegations were groundless. However, Capone, if he wished, could conduct business from jail, so new measures were instituted to restrict the flow of visitors. “Henceforth,” the report concluded, “no persons shall be allowed to visit Alphonse Capone in the Cook County Jail without a pass from the United States Marshal.”
The newspapers made the most of the developments. Where they had recently tolled the death of gangland, their headlines now related a much different tale, “CAPONE RUNS UNDERWORLD FROM CELL, U.S. REVEALS—Gangster’s Daily Visitors at Jail, Tipster Wires Washington; Al Living in Luxury—Warden and Aides Questioned; Politicians Linked; Ban on Passes Ordered by Marshal,” announced the Chicago Herald and Examiner. To those familiar with Chicago politics, none of this came a surprise—considering Capone’s massive clout, how could it be otherwise?—but the headlines were a revelation in Washington. Under pressure from the White House, the Department of Justice applied greater pressure on Johnson to move Capone to a federal penitentiary, where he would be less likely to have the run of the place.
Only two days later, on December 22, a fresh scandal broke with the appearance of this headline in the Chicago Daily Times: “BARE WARDEN’S CAPÍTOL TRIP IN AL CAPONE’S MOTOR CAR.” Although David Moneypenny had recently told George E. Q. Johnson, the U.S. attorney, that Al Capone was receiving absolutely no preferential treatment in jail, it was now apparent that the warden had been receiving preferential treatment from his celebrated inmate. Moneypenny would have gotten away with using Capone’s car—a spiffy sixteen-cylinder Cadillac—had he not suffered a mechanical breakdown while driving from Springfield, Illinois, to Chicago. Waiting impatiently at a garage for repairs to be completed, Moneypenny tried to impress the mechanics with the importance of his position. They fixed him, instead, by alerting reporters, who quickly traced the sleek Cadillac to Mae Capone, in whose name it was registered. When the reporters confronted him with their discovery, Moneypenny lamely insisted he had no idea who owned the car, but the incident served as a convincing demonstration that he had, despite his hot denials, accepted favors if not outright bribes from Capone.
Warden Moneypenny’s luckless drive through the Illinois countryside in Mae’s Cadillac backfired for Al as well. Once the news hit the papers, the scandal redoubled the government’s determination to remove Capone from his privileged position at the Cook County Jail, but they were still frustrated by Capone’s unending appeals. For months, his lawyers had toiled behind the scenes, attempting a series of legal maneuvers aimed at obtaining the release of their notorious cli
ent. None of the stratagems they employed had a remote chance of succeeding, but they had the less spectacular effect of delaying their client’s transfer to Leavenworth.
As the weeks of confinement slipped past, Capone continued to lead his comfortable jailhouse existence, hold court, and pursue his interest in boxing. He called his friend “Doc” Kearns, the fight promoter, to request fifty seats for his men at the upcoming Jackie Fields-Lou Brouillard middleweight title fight, specifying that Kearns deliver the tickets in person to the Cook County Jail. Instead of the grim prison setting he expected to find, Kearns came upon this cozy scene: “Al had a radio playing softly. There was an expensive quilt neatly folded at the bottom of his cot and there was a small table which openly bore several bottles of whiskey next to a cut glass, silver-topped humidor filled with cigars.” Once Kearns handed over the tickets, Capone summoned a turnkey, who obediently fetched a bucket of ice, while the prisoner prepared highballs with a masterful touch. After several drinks, the two men relaxed, and Kearns become sufficiently emboldened to ask Capone what he planned to do if he were convicted of income tax evasion.
“I got no idea,” said the racketeer with a frown. “I guess if it ain’t too stiff a rap, why the organization would sort of hold together until I got back. ‘Course, you never know what a difference a few years make and there’s no tellin’ how things might be, one way or another, when I finally got out. Hell, the booze racket’s about shot to hell right now the way the Feds have been cracking down.” Capone took a gulp from his drink, adding, “Why’d you ask, ‘Doc’?”
Under the influence of the jailhouse liquor, Kearns finally came out with his grand scheme to rehabilitate Capone in the public mind and, doing well by doing good, to reap a large profit in the process. “You’d be sensational as an evangelist,” he informed the astonished racketeer. “You know this here Billy Sunday?” Kearns said, referring to the baseball player who had become a popular preacher. “If he can be an evangelist, why not you?”
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