by Deirdre Bair
“I am a property owner and a taxpayer”: Helmer, “Wisdom of Al Capone.”
Chicago’s city government: Each of the two major political parties, Republican and Democratic, had a committeeman who was the ward’s political boss and who determined each party’s candidate for alderman. Sometimes the committeeman also ran for alderman and, if elected, served on the city council. John Binder, in private communication, 2015, wrote, “The committeeman in each ward was the political powerhouse and not a figurehead. He received and dispensed various patronage positions.”
“For the gangsters”: Russo, Outfit, 15.
“he was a Republican”: Testimony of Phil D’Andrea before the Kefauver Committee, formally known as the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, pt. 5, “Capone Syndicate.”
“burned with the reckless optimism”: Bergreen, Capone, 104. All quotations by Robert St. John are from Bergreen’s interview with him.
Nearly everyone who wrote about Al’s role: Some of the differing sources include Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, 334; Russo, Outfit, 26; Murray, Legacy of Al Capone, 119; Bergreen, Capone, 106–9; Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 109; Kobler, Capone, 112–16.
“gun blazing in each hand”: Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, 334.
“an unusual ‘hood’ ”: Edward Dean Sullivan, Chicago Surrenders (New York: Vanguard Press, 1930), 157–58.
Dean O’Banion: I follow Rose Keefe in her biography of O’Banion, Guns and Roses (Nashville: Cumberland House, 2003), who writes that he was called Dean by those who knew him, as do all official uses of his name (such as his tombstone).
Hot Springs, Arkansas: Michael Wallis, in Pretty Boy: The Life and Times of Charles Arthur Floyd (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 315, writes that visitors “came to cure ailments ranging from syphilis to rheumatism…Huey Long, Herbert Hoover, and Al Capone were among the highly disparate guests.”
Al wasted no time acquiring: There is some debate about whether the Thompson submachine gun was used in this attempt. Russo claims it was, Schoenberg has it as pistols and “shotgun,” John Binder merely points out the discrepancy.
In an extremely sloppy and error-filled copy: Quotations that follow are from “Statement of Alphonse Caponi, 7244 Prairie Avenue, Vincennes 9360, Relative to the Shooting of John Torrio in Front of 7011 S. Clyde Avenue, About 3:30 p.m. January 24, 1925.” Document in the Marc and Mary Perkins Collection, generously made available via Bobby Livingston of RR Auction.
when he was on his way to buy tickets: There were two versions of the movie, 1930 and 1942. The first was not made at the time of this incident. There was a play of the same name showing in New York, but I have not been able to verify that it played or was playing at that time in Chicago.
CHAPTER 5: THE OTHER CAPONES
There was already a family named Capone: Much of this chapter is based on interviews and conversations, as well as documents provided by members of the Rockford Capone family: Joseph Edward, Gary, James, Gennaro, Andrew, and John. Also, Adele Anderson Mittlestat; Phyllis Sciacca; Beverly, Paula, Chris, and Cathi Capone; and the compiler of the “family history,” Nancy Capone.
“cousin on Taylor Street”: From Ellis Island passenger records for Vincenzo Piccolo, Gennaro Capone, Raffaele Capone, and Clotilde Tufano and from conversations and interviews with the branch of the family I will call the Rockford Capones.
The father Gennaro was a poor landless peasant: The senior Gennaro Capone was known as January Capone when his sons brought him to Chicago in 1923, after the death of his wife earlier that year in Acerra. He died in Chicago in 1939. The reader may find some confusion as this book proceeds, for in the traditional Italian fashion, the Capone family used the same names over and over. There was always at least one or possibly more Gennaros, named after the patron saint of Naples. Gennaro sometimes became January or Jann; other frequently used names were Ralph, James, Joseph, and John. In succeeding generations, as each son used these names for his sons, all those who bore them acquired nicknames, which was also a common way of identifying individual men. It was much the same for women, and certain names were common in families. Annunziata became Nancy, and Philomena usually became Fanny or Phyllis. These are only some that the various Capone families used, but all will be given with their appropriate nicknames as the family’s saga unfolds. For an interesting explanation of why the same names were used over and over and how nicknames came into common parlance, see Richard Gambino, Blood of My Blood, 55–56.
Clotilde (as she was known): Anna Maria Tufano, aged ninety-eight in 2016, who knew AC and was a close friend of this branch of the Capone family, insists that she was always called Adelina. Her descendants are divided, but most agree that she was “Grandma Clotilde.”
Vincenzo Piccolo, in whose house her brother: He was actually living at 727 Morgan Street, Chicago’s Ward 19. Shortly after, Vincenzo Tufano disappears from the narrative of the Rockford Capones. He may be one of the significant number of Italians who returned to their native villages, but no documentation has yet been found to verify this. The current generation of this family believes that he told Clotilde he had received a letter from Italy saying everyone in her family was dead and she was to inherit their property but she had to claim it in person. Because she could not leave her family, he asked her to authorize him on her behalf. He went to Italy, and never returned to Chicago. The current generation believes he claimed the land and stayed there.
on December 18, 1906, she married him: Marriage license no. 44781, State of Illinois, Cook County, shows that they applied for a license on December 17, 1906, and were married the following day by a Catholic priest, the Reverend John [looks like] Chenier, but no church name is given. For many years, until this document was found, their descendants thought they were never legally married but simply declared themselves as such.
he had set himself up as a “storekeeper”: Nancy Capone, untitled and unpublished family history. Both the 1910 and the 1920 census records list Raphael’s surname as Caponi and his wife’s first name as Lena (possibly a nickname for Adeline, although she was always known as Clotilde). In some shipping and census records, her maiden name is misspelled as Pufono or Gufano.
She left behind the two older children: They did not know they had a sister until she contacted them when they were all middle-aged.
Raphael was offered the plum manager’s job: His grandsons always use the title “president” when they speak of the B&K job offer, but because they were well on their way to building the fifty-some movie houses, it is more likely he was being offered a mid-level managerial position.
gang leaders always put their people on the inside: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 303.
“Chi lascia la via vecchia”: Gambino, Blood of My Blood, 2–3.
although this story has doubters: John Binder, personal communication, 2015, wrote, “This vignette of Raphael striking Al and living to tell about it is very hard to accept. AC’s bodyguards would likely have shot him before AC could have called them off.” Perhaps, but not if they were aware of AC’s respect for Raphael.
First they told the tale among themselves: For an interesting and relevant discussion of memory, see Theodor Itten and Ron Roberts, The New Politics of Experience and the Bitter Herbs (Monmouth, U.K.: PCCS Books, 2014). Itten and Roberts argue that a telling such as this one “is thus an historical one of recovering not just family memory but collective social memory in all the collective social settings in which we live. Profoundly modernist in character, the intention behind the method is to reveal something of how we as human actors engage with each other in reality, reconstructed from their memory in action.” See also their original sources, upon which they base their conclusions.
“When he got as far as Elgin”: Standard Certificate of Death, State of Illinois, no. 9361, March 29, 1929.
CHAPTER 6: THE ROAD TO POWER
“official graft disbursements”: Russo, Outfit, 27, 34.
“would dare to go out”: AC’s
immediate family members (his grandchildren, a great-grandchild, a child and a grandchild of his siblings) all told this story during interviews and conversations, all using exactly the same expression as one they say Mafalda often said.
until he was arrested: “Matt Capone, Al’s Brother, Dies at Age 59,” Chicago Tribune, Feb. 1, 1967.
He always used a tailor: Daniel R. Schwarz, Broadway Boogie Woogie: Damon Runyon and the Making of New York City Culture (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 123–24; Richard Rayner, “His Wit Was Hard-Boiled,” Los Angeles Times, May 25, 2008.
depending on who told the tale: Most books and articles use the 11-carat figure; in 2015, the granddaughters of Ralph Capone’s last wife, Madeleine Morichetti, were offering a 4.25-carat ring purporting to be AC’s for sale at auction through ATR Estate Sales, Kenosha, Wisconsin.
“more or less constant friction”: Dr. Joseph Moore (who treated AC in Baltimore and Miami after his release from Alcatraz) to Dr. Kenneth Phillips (AC’s family physician in Florida), March 20, 1940, Marc and Mary Perkins Collection, via RR Auction.
“I can’t tell you”: Helmer, “Wisdom of Al Capone.”
“Your father broke my heart”: Because this appears in various versions in so many different sources, I simply mention how common it is and cite none here.
in order to get the boy to New York: William Balsamo holds the opinion that AC was in New York on other business as well: to participate in the assassination of Richard “Peg Leg” Lonergan; Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 142–44, describes the event with Al present and in charge.
she began to exhibit some alarming symptoms: Phillips to Moore, who writes that he is “pluck[ing] the essential details” from “an enormously voluminous” record. This is from what appears to be either a second letter or a separate postscript of March 20, 1940. Information about MC’s illness and treatment comes from the correspondence of Moore and Phillips.
This led Dr. Moore to conclude: Moore to Phillips, March 20, 1940.
CHAPTER 7: THE FORTUNES OF WAR
Harvard Business School case study: Tom Nicholas and David Chen, “Al Capone,” Harvard Business School Case 809-144, April 2009 (rev. March 1, 2012).
twenty-two brothels were operating openly: The figure of twenty-two brothels is from ibid.; while researching The Beer Wars, John Binder found no references to prostitution in Cicero during the 1920s–1930s. In a personal communication, 2015, he wrote, “Cicero was so intolerant of brothels during Prohibition that Torrio and Capone located them in Stickney, Lyons, Forest View, and other nearby suburbs.”
there were roughly 700 gang-related deaths: For a partial list of Capone-ordered killings, see Nicholas and Chen, “Al Capone,” exhibit 6. See also Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, 355, where he estimates that “more than 500 died. Just how many of these killings Al Capone was responsible for was never known, but estimates ranged from twenty to sixty.” Asbury also cites the Chicago Tribune, listing “thirty-three persons who were described as ‘Capone’s victims’…and many others about whom definite information is not available.” For further detailed information, see Dennis E. Hoffman, Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders: Chicago’s Private War Against Capone (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993), esp. 26–30. The Chicago Crime Commission listed 1,239 murders during 1922–25, with 209 gangland-style killings.
“I am getting too prominent”: Guy Murchie Jr., “Capone’s Decade of Death: Prohibition’s Crime Reign,” Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 16, 1936, D5. John Binder’s forthcoming book, The Beer Wars, will provide the most complete and authoritative account of this historical period.
“Capone’s Castle”: Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, 362.
a small apartment building: Pasley, Al Capone, 114–17, describes the building.
The body was covered: Ibid., 78; Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, 320.
where he inhaled so much cocaine: Bergreen, Capone, 116, cites an author’s interview with Roy Kral as the source for the description. He is the only author to date to make the claim about cocaine.
There is nothing in Capone’s voluminous: Ibid., 116n, cites the “Neuro-psychiatric Examination, June 4, 1938,” in the Bureau of Prisons file for U.S. Penitentiary, Alcatraz, which says only that AC had a “perforated nasal septum.” I find his argument to be based on speculation because I have been unable to find other evidence to corroborate it. Also, Bergreen, Capone, 292, writes that “he was far more sensitive to a new threat to discipline in his ranks…heroin.” He quotes AC as saying, “I love the son of a bitch but if he ever goes back on that stuff he’ll wind up in a cement overcoat.” This is hardly the reaction of a man who used drugs himself. AC’s physicians, Moore and Phillips, who wrote extensively about his medical conditions, treatments, professional contacts, and family relationships, never mentioned the use of drugs. His own descendants and those of his siblings recall how horrified any of their elders were whenever the subject of drugs was mentioned.
“a solid week”: Polly Adler, A House Is Not a Home (New York: Rinehart, 1953), 79.
“double-walled fortress of meat”: Alva Johnston, “Gangs à la Mode,” New Yorker, Aug. 25, 1928.
His decorating choices: Reference to the bulletproof chair is from John O’Brien and Edward Baumann, “Recalling Life as Wife of a Capone Gangster,” Chicago Tribune, April 13, 1986, quoting Rio Burke, whose husband was Dominic Roberto: “When Al moved into the Metropole, Dominic and Jimmy Amaratti (Roberto’s nightclub partner) gave him [the chair]. The back was bullet-proof. It came up over Al’s head”; reference to drawing of Big Bill Thompson is from Pasley, Al Capone, 152–53; reference to the portrait of AC is from Howard Vincent O’Brien, All Things Considered (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1948), 61. Hoffman, Scarface Al, 47, writes that Frank Loesch was “flabbergasted” to see “two great presidents alongside a buffoon like Thompson.”
“all kinds of traps and escape routes”: Vern Whaley, interview with Bergreen, Capone, 291.
“responsible for everything”: This and quotations that follow, until otherwise noted, are from Helmer, “Wisdom of Al Capone.”
“soft, fat, sentimental features”: Johnston, “Gangs à la Mode.”
CHAPTER 8: IN HIDING
Cranberry Lake: John Dettloff gives the location as “Pike Lake, a thirty-seven acre lake that feeds into the [Chippewa] Flowage.” Dettloff, Three Record Muskies in His Day: The Life and Times of Louie Spray, with Louis Spray (Couderay, Wis.: Trail’s End, 2004), 99.
Edward J. “Artful Eddie” O’Hare”: O’Hare was gunned down on November 8, 1939, allegedly because AC wanted revenge for O’Hare’s testimony in helping to convict him for tax evasion. In the years since AC’s conviction, O’Hare had continued to be an informant on the mob. Ironically, the O’Hare name graces Chicago’s principal airport but for the son and not the father: Edward “Butch” O’Hare Jr. was a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and a hero who gave his life in World War II when his plane was shot down.
a way station for contraband booze: Later, it became the Barker Lake Lodge and Golf Course.
where a local resident was the conductor : Dettloff, Three Record Muskies in His Day, 99, notes that Bob Cammack (the train conductor) built one of the first resorts in the area, Treeland Pines.
Residents of the little town: I am grateful to Bob and June Kinney, who told me their childhood memories of AC and provided interviews and documents concerning the Couderay property. Gennaro “Jeep” Capone introduced me to Joanie Stern, who graciously provided information and photographs. Richard Corey Hart supplied information about Ralph Capone’s relationship to his grandfather Vincenzo, Richard “Two Gun” Hart, and to Hart’s sons Sherman and William. Other descendants of AC’s brothers, among them Ralph Hart, contributed their memories of visits to the property.
the Hideout: In 2009, the Hideout was in foreclosure and listed for sale after being appraised at $3.7 million.
“Al must have never gotten anywhere”: Bill Farmer, “Mystery Still Cloaks Capone’s Old Hideout
,” Sawyer County Record, June 4, 1978.
“big black cars, with the motors running”: Personal interviews with residents of Hayward and Couderay, Wisconsin. Also, Terrell Boettcher, “Bank Has ‘Interested Buyers’ for Al Capone’s Hideout,” Sawyer County Record, Oct. 14, 2009, 1, 10A.
“a room where the gang lords”: Mary Ann Pattison, “Father Kinney and the Hideout,” unpublished MS, graciously made available by the author and June and Bob Kinney.
“He is the most-shot-at man”: Pasley, Al Capone, 60.
In other attempts: Ibid., 171, lists 1927 “as the banner year for plots against [AC’s] life.” This is another instance of his suspect chronology, which should have begun a year earlier, around the time of the McSwiggin murder.
“Of all Chicago’s gangland killings”: Bergreen, Capone, 354.
McSwiggin had the misfortune: The northern part of Cicero was either granted to or already under the control of the West Side O’Donnells, who might have been given it in return for their help in the 1924 election. Binder provides further information in his forthcoming The Beer Wars.
flat out blamed Capone: Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, 357.
“murder cases are tried in the newspapers”: Pasley, Al Capone, 131–32.
“It’s a waste of time”: Ibid., 128, quoting Chief Morgan A. Collins.
“spread Chicago’s evil renown”: Asbury, Gem of the Prairie, 354, 355.
a lieutenant in the Outfit: The term “Outfit” (capitalized) was seldom in use before the 1960s. Until then, Chicago newspapers generally used “the Old Capone gang,” the “Nitti-Guzik-Capone gang,” and several other terms that strung leaders’ names together. Schoenberg refers to the Capone gang as “the outfit” (lowercase), while Binder and others reserve “the Outfit” (upper case) for the gang led by Frank Nitti after Prohibition, which merged other entities into the Capone gang. Given that the Nitti-led crime family is the direct outgrowth of Capone’s gang, I use the term “Outfit” to describe both.