by Deirdre Bair
“If Mabel had worn trousers”: Mary L. Clark, “Women as Supreme Court Advocates, 1879–1979,” Journal of Supreme Court History 30 (2005): 47, 52. I thank Jill Norgren for these references.
George Emerson Q. Johnson: As all writers have noted, the initial Q stood for nothing; Johnson took it to distinguish himself from the many other George Johnsons in the world.
“not within his authority”: Johnson to Willebrandt, memo, March 13, 1929, in selected documents relating to AC’s trial.
“it is impossible to find”: Willebrandt published a memoir in 1929 at the same time as (depending on who has written of this) President Hoover either fired her or she resigned her position: The Inside of Prohibition (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill), 121.
“something devotees of dime novels”: Okrent, Last Call, 140.
“brilliantly original”: Bill Bryson, One Summer: America, 1927 (New York: Doubleday, 2013), 405.
“mild, middle-aged”: “Mary Ann Johnson—Tied to Chicago History Including Case vs. Al Capone—Dies at 82,” Chicago Sun Times, Feb. 3, 2015.
“a personal matter of great importance”: Willebrandt to Hoover, memo, May 14, 1930, in the FBI’s “Permanent File, Al Capone,” Washington, D.C.
President Hoover’s way of dealing: William E. Leuchtenburg, Herbert Hoover (New York: Henry Holt, 2009), 84–85.
“a vehicle of joy”: Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover: The Cabinet and the Presidency, 1920–33 (New York: Macmillan, 1952), 276.
“reign of lawlessness and terror”: Bascom N. Timmons, Portrait of an American: Charles G. Dawes (New York: Henry Holt, 1953), 4–16; Hoffman, Scarface Al, 25.
Did Mellon “get Capone” yet?: John H. Lyle, The Dry and Lawless Years (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1960), 249. Hoover began his day tossing a medicine ball with members of his cabinet, during which he usually asked Mellon, “Have you got that fellow Capone yet?” Jonathan Eig used the phrase “Get Capone” for the title of his 2010 book.
“that a man guilty of inciting”: Hoover, Memoirs, 277.
“like the hoodlum he is”: “Capone Ready to Say Nothing at Quiz Today,” Chicago Tribune, March 20, 1929.
CHAPTER 12: ATLANTIC CITY AND AFTER
“a crime so hideous”: Tony Berardi, quoted in Biography Channel documentary.
an embarrassing black mark: The social historian Humbert S. Nelli’s remark appears in Cashman, Prohibition, 78.
“political showmanship”: Ibid., 100.
“the account generally accepted”: Kobler, Capone, 257–58.
A far more florid and garish tale: Burns, One-Way Ride, 256.
He compared Capone’s life to a whodunit: Cashman, Prohibition, 77–78.
Home movies taken at Palm Island: In possession of Diane Capone, who found the film among her father’s effects and had it restored.
Each gang controlled its own fiefdom: Robert T. Loughran, Literary Digest, June 15, 1929.
“No more brass bands”: Quotations are from Helmer, “Wisdom of Al Capone.”
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out: Newspaper articles and biographers differ on what actually happened as AC worked to get himself arrested. My account takes them all into consideration but also relies on the Capone family reminiscences and the stories they handed down to their descendants.
CHAPTER 13: IN PRISON
When one looks at the barrage: To write the following account, I have consulted newspapers in Chicago and New York (primarily, among many others), the biographies of AC, and the testimonies of elderly family members who remember what their parents said about the resulting publicity.
“gangsterologists”: John Kobler coined the term for “the house crime expert” employed by most large metropolitan dailies. Capone, 287.
John Kobler had the good fortune: Kobler, whose biography was published in 1971, had the opportunity throughout the 1960s to talk to many of AC’s visitors, fellow inmates, police officials, and Pennsylvania government employees and elected officials. His account, ibid., 261–65, remains one of the most accurate and complete.
His insight into Napoleon’s failings: Loesch held this meeting in November 1928, but the account of it was not printed until March 25, 1931, in the Chicago Tribune. Hoffman gives a detailed account from Loesch’s perspective in Scarface Al, 47.
CHAPTER 14: “THE ELUSIVE ‘SCARFACE’ AL”
“the grand mogul”: Chicago Tribune and Chicago Herald and Examiner, respectively, both March 18, 1930.
“aided by perfect cooperation”: Philadelphia Bulletin, March 18, 1930.
“ ‘Scarface Al’ Capone”: Rockford Daily Republic, March 19, 1930.
The story reported: Belvidere Daily Republican, March 19, 1930. Although there are still a number of people named Phillip Vella in northern Illinois, none were aware of this alleged connection to AC. AC’s descendants never heard the name until I told them about this news article.
As for Mrs. Lombardo: Helmer, Al Capone and His American Boys, 77, writes that Lombardo’s killing was in retaliation for the slaying of Frank Yale and that at the time of AC’s release “the underworld was making an elaborate pretense at mourning for the departed gangster [Lombardo].”
“grilling by ‘them ignorant coppers’ ”: Belvidere Daily Republican, March 19, 1930; it was repeated in various forms in newspapers throughout the United States.
The last surviving member: Phyllis “Fanny” Sciacca, interviews and conversations, 2013–14.
The bad news continued: Binder, Beer Wars.
The wiretappers learned he was there: Kobler, Capone, 265, tells of a drunken party on the night of March 18. There was indeed a drunken party, but it would have been impossible for it to be held on that date. The drive between the two cities took much longer, so it was most likely held around the twentieth.
“You’re the only one”: Ibid.
While he was throwing furniture: Kenneth Allsop, The Bootleggers and Their Era (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1961), 312; “Capone Gives Up to Stege,” Chicago Evening Post, March 21, 1930. AC’s earlier biographers repeat various versions: Bergreen, Capone, 355; Eig, Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 271; Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 252–53.
The first interview he granted: Genevieve Forbes Herrick, “Capone’s Story by Himself,” Chicago Tribune, March 22, 1930.
“tirade of self-justification”: Kobler, Capone, 268.
Later the same day: “Al Capone Relates His Own Story of ‘Racket’ in Chicago,” Chicago American, March 22, 1930.
First, he got in touch: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 252, quotes Berardi as saying he and Harry Read, the editor of the Chicago American, “convinced” AC to make the call on Stege. Because AC was doing exactly and only what he wanted during this period, he might have listened to the suggestion, but taking the action was most likely his own independent decision.
Miami police had raided the Palm Island house: Chicago Tribune, March 21, 1930. Six men were arrested altogether, including “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn, who had been responsible for the search warrant when he fired a machine gun at cans floating in the bay behind the house. The article described the liquor seized as whiskey and champagne.
“without reference to popular opinion”: Miami Daily News, March 28, 1930. See also Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 255.
In Monticello, Iowa, voters went beyond: Chicago Tribune, April 2, 1930.
“the [name of] the Scarface is as well known”: Chicago Evening Post, May 16, 1930.
“political influence or otherwise”: Summary of the report prepared by Special Agent Frank J. Wilson, Dec. 21, 1933, for Elmer Irey (chief of the Bureau of Revenue’s Intelligence Unit, Washington, D.C.). In “IRS Historical Documents Relating to Alphonse (Al) Capone,” available under FOIA.
CHAPTER 15: A NEW DAY FOR CHICAGO
Scholars of the Capone era: As of 2015, Tom Barnard is researching the Secret Six, aided by John Binder. Both have reservations about the
composition of the committee as given by Hoffman in Scarface Al. Tom Barnard cites the scrapbook of his grandfather Harrison Barnard, in which he names himself as a member of the Secret Six, which would make the membership seven at the least. Barnard’s research is ongoing, and his list is forthcoming. Hoffman, ibid., 10, names seven men: McCormick, Dawes, Robert Isham Randolph, Loesch, Burt A. Massee, Calvin Goddard, Henry Barrett Chamberlin. On ibid., 68–69, he names Julius Rosenwald as a member and Edward E. Gore and George A. Paddock, both of whom held joint memberships in the Secret Six and the CCC. John Binder, in the forthcoming The Beer Wars, names Harrison Barnard, Rosenwald, Samuel Insull, Paddock, Gore, Loesch, and Randolph.
Dawes most certainly qualified: This is Hoffman’s contention, Scarface Al, 11.
He was a banker: Sources include Timmons, Portrait of an American; M. O. Hatfield, Vice Presidents of the United States, 1789–1993 (Washington, D.C.: Senate Historical Office, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1997).
the only vice-president and Nobel Peace Prize winner: Joel Whitburn, The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits, 6th ed. (New York: Billboard Publications, 1996).
“one of the last anachronistic citadels”: Time, Aug. 29, 1955.
“bitterly attacked”: “Debates Swirled About McCormick,” New York Times, obituary, April 1, 1955.
McCormick conveniently forgot: Herbert Asbury, Gangs of Chicago: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld, (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, n.d. Last copyright year given is 1968 by Northern Illinois University Press), 76, describes Lingle thus: “Ostensibly Lingle was a police reporter…earning sixty-five dollars a week, but death revealed him as possessing an income of more than sixty thousand dollars a year. He drove a big car, owned an eighteen-thousand-dollar summer home, plunged in the stock market, bet heavily on the races, and maintained an elaborate suite of rooms at one of Chicago’s most expensive hotels. He was also disclosed as an intimate friend of Al Capone, as an occasional visitor [in Florida], as the proud owner of a diamond-studded belt given to him by Capone.” The list of Lingle’s “underworld connections” continues here and in most other books about AC.
Harrison Barnard: John Binder, The Beer Wars (unpublished 2015 MS), cites Tom Barnard’s contention that the Secret Six members were “most likely” his grandfather, the “merchant Prince” Julius Rosenwald, the “public utility magnate” Samuel Insull, the “investment banker” George Paddock, the “accountant” Edward Gore, and Loesch.
Chicago Crime Commission: James Doherty, “History of the Chicago Crime Commission,” Police Digest, December 1960.
“ice water smile”: As described by Okrent, Last Call, 133.
“dictatorship in politics”: Hoffman, Scarface Al, 25.
“sixty percent of my police [force]”: Dominic J. Capeci, “Al Capone: Symbol of a Ballyhoo Society,” Journal of Ethnic Studies 2, no. 4 (Winter 1975): 36.
“Chicago has shown it means”: Chicago Daily News, Nov. 7, 1928.
However, when it actually came to curbing crime: Asbury, Gangs of Chicago.
“a crazy man”: Hoffman, Scarface Al, 13.
One of his first acts: Much of the account that follows is based on Binder’s The Beer Wars.
“the ‘rackets’ which have pestered”: Ibid., quoting Swanson in the Chicago Tribune, Feb. 26, 1929.
“notorious in these activities”: John H. Wigmore, ed., The Illinois Crime Survey (Chicago: Blakely, 1929), 1066.
“intelligent and affable”: Chicago Tribune, Aug. 1, 1930, cited by Hoffman, Scarface Al, 177n12.
Many reasons have been offered: New York Times, May 19, 1931, 5.
“They dwell in a twilight zone”: “Law Enforcement by Stigma,” New York Times, April 25, 1930.
“vice monger, business manager”: Chicago Crime Commission, Jacob Guzik file, nos. 21700 and 21700-1, quoting the Chicago News and Chicago Examiner, respectively. John Binder provided this reference.
the Hollywood movie: The Public Enemy, released in 1931, starred Jean Harlow along with Cagney.
How such a street-smart man: Binder, Beer Wars, names, besides the CCC and the Secret Six, the Juvenile Protective Association, the Committee of Fifteen, the Better Government Association, and the Employers Association.
“the free advertising”: New York Times, June 8, 1931, 16.
“soft blues”: New York Times, March 21, 1929, 14.
“supplying a huge public demand”: W. R. Burnett, “The Czar of Chicago,” review of Al Capone, by Pasley, Saturday Review of Literature, Oct. 18, 1930, 240.
“an ambidextrous giant”: Mary Borden, “Chicago Revisited,” Harper’s Magazine, April 1931, 542.
“I’m no angel”: Burns, One-Way Ride, 210–12. AC’s comments about retirement are from this text.
“That’s Al Capone speaking”: Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1952), 20.
“Once in the racket”: This version of the oft-made remark is in Helmer, “Wisdom of Al Capone.”
“If Al Capone is not murdered”: Chicago Daily News, April 26, 1929.
CHAPTER 16: ON THE ROAD TO JAIL
“most strenuous efforts”: Wilson, report, Dec. 21, 1933. All quotations are from this until noted otherwise.
“without a doubt”: Report prepared by the Bureau of Internal Revenue agents W. C. Hodgins, Jacque L. Westrich, and H. N. Clagett, for the “Internal Revenue Agent in Charge, Chicago,” July 8, 1931. In “IRS Historical Documents Relating to AC,” available under FOIA. All quotations are from this until noted otherwise.
Now that Guzik was in prison: Chicago Crime Commission, Jacob Guzik File, no. 1688, quoting Chicago Daily News, Sept. 9, 1929. John Binder called this to my attention.
It was a decision that led most lawyers: When the American Bar Association’s annual meeting in 1990 included a staged re-creation of the trial, both the prosecuting and the defense lawyers agreed that Mattingly should never have taken his client to the hearing.
The recorded remarks showed: Transcript of the April 17, 1930, interview is from IRS files and is quoted at length in Schoenberg, Mr. Capone; Kobler, Capone; Bergreen, Capone; and Eig, Get Capone.
In one of his most dramatic: Frank J. Wilson and Beth Day, Special Agent: A Quarter Century with the Treasury Department and the Secret Service (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965).
Depending on who tells that tale: Bergreen, Capone, 393, accepts it as fact, giving as his source Alan Hynd, The Giant Killers (New York: Robert M. McBride, 1945), 49. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 258–59, disputes Wilson’s claim, made in Special Agent, 43–44. Kobler, Capone, 282, accepts Wilson’s story. Although Kobler does not provide source notes, his bibliography confirms that he used Wilson’s memoir.
“seize, arrest, kidnap”: John Kobler’s eloquent description in Capone, 284.
A city ordinance had been passed: Miami Herald, May 15, 1930; also quoted and with further detail in Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 269.
The police were waiting: The following account is based on articles in the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Associated Press, the Miami Herald, and the Miami Daily News, all between April 20 and June 15, 1930. Various versions that rely all or in part on these accounts can be found in Kobler, Capone; Schoenberg, Mr. Capone; and Bergreen, Capone.
“newspaper war”: To write the following account, I have used the Chicago Tribune, stories throughout July 1930; Allsop, Bootleggers and Their Era; John Boettiger, Jake Lingle (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1931); Hoffman, Scarface Al, 102–5; Kobler, Capone, 297–98; and Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 282.
As he had threatened: AC’s denial was printed in the Chicago Tribune, July 20, 1930.
Once again, Mae was careful: Miami Herald, May 18, 1930, said fifty children were there; Miami Daily News, June 11, 1930, put the number at seventy-five.
Trucks wended their way: From confidential report prepared by the Bureau of Internal Revenue agents W. C. Hodgins, Jacque L. Westrick, and H. N. Clagett, “Computation of Income and Tax on
Basis of Partnership,” Treasury Department confidential memorandum, July 8, 1931.
In reality, Al paid Giblin: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 312, 445n. Citing American Bar Association trial documents, Schoenberg adds that the $10,000 was generous because AC’s Philadelphia lawyers had charged far less for much greater representation.
At that time, the Outfit controlled: Binder, Beer Wars, 172–73.
“an assault on the Pie Handlers’ Union”: Ibid., 193–94. Information about labor racketeering is from this, until noted otherwise.
Mattingly sent the long-delayed letter: Mattingly to Herrick (Bureau of Internal Revenue, Chicago), Sept. 30, 1930.
Mattingly’s letter worked against: Wilson, report, Dec. 21, 1933.
“they evaded, lied, or left town”: Wilson, as quoted by Douglas O. Linder, “Al Capone Trial (1931): An Account,” http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/capone/caponeaccount.html.
CHAPTER 17: LAW ENFORCEMENT BY STIGMA
“Law Enforcement by Stigma”: New York Times, April 25, 1930.
“a lean, long-faced grump”: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 300. All quotations from this until noted otherwise.
“persons who neglect”: Chicago Tribune, Sept. 10, 1930.
“bombinated from the bench”: Chicago Tribune, Feb. 18, 1931.
When a reporter: Chicago Tribune, Sept. 17, 1930; Hoffman, Scarface Al, 120.
“who feed, fatten, and thrive”: Chicago Tribune, Sept. 24, 1930; Hoffman, Scarface Al, 122.
“abnormal crime situation[s]”: Chicago Daily News, Nov. 23, 1928.
“cool effrontery”: Chicago Daily News, Nov. 3 and 4, 1930.
He eluded arrest: Chicago Tribune, Oct. 5, 1930.
Al pulled out all the stops: To write about the wedding, I have consulted the standard biographies (Kobler, Capone; Schoenberg, Mr. Capone; Bergreen, Capone) and the following newspapers: in Chicago, the Herald and Examiner, Tribune, Post, Daily News, Daily Times. Also, the New York Times. Members of the Capone family have contributed both personal memories and stories they were told by their elders.