Al Capone (January 17, 1899 in the borough of Brooklyn in New York, United States – January 25, 1947 in Miami Beach, Florida, United States), whose real name is Alphonse Gabriel Capone (or in Italian Alfonso Capone) and nicknamed “Scarface” (the scarred one), is the most famous of the gangsters 20th century Americans. He made his fortune in the traffic of contraband alcohol during prohibition in the 1920s where he became very famous. An emblematic figure in the rise of organized crime in the United States of prohibition, he helped give the Chicago of the 1920s and 1930s its reputation as a lawless city.
Godfather of the Chicago mob from 1925 to 1932, a conflict with the North Side Gang caused both the success and the downfall of Capone, whose reign ended at the age of 33.
Childhood and youth
His parents are from Naples. Fleeing the misery of their native country, they will like many of their compatriots try their luck in the hope of realizing the American dream. His father Gabriele (December 12, 1864 – November 14, 1920), was a barber in the Italian town of Castellammare di Stabia. He first became a cashier in a grocery store and then managed to open a hairdressing salon which also served as a barber. His mother, Teresina Capone, born Bandiera Raiola (December 28, 1867 – November 29, 1952) was a seamstress, very religious Catholic from the town of Angri in the province of Salerno. They arrived in New York in 1893 with two young children and a third to come (Vincenzo, first name anglicized to James; Raffaele, now Ralph; Salvatore, now Frank). Al is the fourth of a family of nine brothers and sisters (his youngest being Amadeo become John, Umberto anglicized in Albert and Matthew, Rose and Mafalda) who will almost all follow him in his criminal activities. Capone's family briefly emigrated to Canada before returning to settle in the borough of Brooklyn in New York in 1894 in a dilapidated apartment at 95 Navy Street in the neighborhood near the New York Navy Yard. Alphonse Capone moved several times with his family during his childhood, nevertheless always remaining in New York. Gabriele Capone was naturalized as an American in 1906. Despite a good academic start in strictly disciplined Catholic parochial schools for immigrants, Alphonse left school at age 14 after hitting a teacher. His family having moved to 21 Garfield Place, one of his neighbours, Johnny Torrio, an underworld boss, who controls the lottery in the Italian district as well as several brothels and gambling dens and for whom he has already accomplished small "missions", becomes his mentor.
As a teenager, he did odd jobs (shoeshine, clerk in a confectionery, paper cutter, etc.) and joined small neighborhood gangs who engaged in theft, racketeering and illegal betting:the Brooklyn Rippers (“Rippers”). of Brooklyn”), the Forty Thieves Juniors (“40 junior thieves”), the Bowery Boys (“tramp boys”) and, later, the famous Five Points (“5 points gang”). This gang is led by Frankie Yale, one of the masters of the New York underworld. Torrio, who left for Chicago in 1909, introduced Capone to Frankie Yale, who hired him as a bartender and bouncer in his bar, the Harvard Inn (de) which he ran on Coney Island. Al Capone is 18 years old. It was during an argument with a client, Franck Gallaccio, a local mafioso, whose sister he had inadvertently insulted at the door of a nightclub where he was one of the bouncers that he had his razor cut. left cheek, his three scars will earn him his nickname Scarface (“scarred” in French). When subsequently photographed, Capone would hide the left side of his scarred face and claim his scars were war wounds. Capone will apologize to Gallaccio at the request of Yale8. Later, he will make him his bodyguard.
On December 30, 1918, he married a woman of Irish origin named Mae Coughlin (1897-1986) with whom he had just had a son Albert Francis Capone (1918-2004) whose godfather was Johnny Torrio. Wanting a respectable job for his family, he moved to Baltimore where he got a job as an accountant for Peter Aiello's construction firm.
Chicago Mafia
Al Capone's father died on November 14, 1920 of heart disease at the age of fifty-five. According to Bergreen, the death of his father put an end to Al Capone's legal career. The sudden disappearance of parental authority coincides in any case with the abandonment of his career as an accountant by the young Capone. Torrio contacts him, telling him that Chicago is almost free ground, and he invites him to join him there. It was in Chicago that Capone, collaborating with Torrio, began his rise to the highest levels of organized crime.
When Al Capone arrived, Torrio's organization was already a very profitable business, bringing in $10 million a year from beer, gambling and prostitution. The gang numbers between 700 and 800 men. Al Capone starts at the bottom of the ladder as a tout at the entrance to a brothel. It was probably there that he met Jake Guzik, a member of a Jewish family involved in pimping. They bonded quickly, and Guzik became the "treasurer" of the organization. Capone's regard for Guzik was evident in 1924, when a robber named Jow Howard made an anti-Semitic remark in their presence. Capone shoots him on the spot with six bullets, in front of witnesses, in a saloon on South Wabash Avenue. Capone was questioned by Assistant State's Attorney William McSwiggin, but released for lack of evidence:all witnesses suddenly appeared to suffer from memory impairment. In 1922, Capone, who had demonstrated his good disposition, became Torrio's right-hand man. He is joined by his brother Ralph. Al Capone becomes boss of the "Four-Two", and partner of Torrio. He receives a salary of $25,000 per year. In 1923, prompted by the election of William E. Dever, an uncooperative mayor who had closed 7,000 speakeasies, Torrio and Capone moved their headquarters from Quatre-Deux to the Hawthorne Inn in Cicero, the suburbs of Chicago, and therefore outside the jurisdiction of the Mayor of Chicago.
The sector was dominated by the Western Electric power plant, which employed 40,000 people and paid well. The population therefore had a lot of money to spend in betting shops and Al Capone's bars. Cicero also subdues a large Czech community, accustomed to the Bohemian beer provided by the O'Donnells of the West Quarter. The O'Donnells have not joined Torrio's organization, and consider Cicero part of their territory. Without informing them, which the most basic professional "courtesy" would have dictated, Torrio tests the extent of their power by setting up a brothel on Roosevelt Road. The local police, at the request of the O'Donnells, promptly shut it down; the O'Donnells disapproving of prostitution. They allow gambling, but only in the form of slot machines, controlled by a local elected official named Eddie Vogel. Torrio, in revenge for closing his brothel, sends the Cook County Sheriff to confiscate Vogel's slot machines. Torrio then arranges a meeting with Vogel and the O'Donnells and negotiates a truce.
The machines are then returned, and Torrio agrees not to open brothels in Cicero. It allows the O'Donnells to continue the distribution of beer in certain areas of the city. In exchange, the Syndicate obtains the authorization to sell beer in the rest of the city, and to open casinos and cabarets wherever it wants. Having gained a foothold in Cicero, Torrio leaves the business in Al Capone's charge and leaves for Italy with his mother and a few million dollars. He buys a villa for the old woman, puts the rest of the money in an Italian bank, and leaves for Chicago.
Rise of Al Capone
In 1925, Torrio was seriously injured in a shootout and decided to retire to his native Italy, handing over command to Capone. The ruthless war that he waged against his adversaries Bugs Moran and Hymie Weiss, as well as the establishment, under his rule, of organized corruption of the local authorities ensured him an international reputation. In 1925, begins the "reign" of Al Capone on Chicago.
The American mafia (mostly led by Italian-Americans) emerged in power in the major cities of the United States thanks to Prohibition. The US Senate voted in favor of Amendment 18 to the US Constitution in 1919. It was with the aim of reducing alcoholism, thereby increasing productivity in factories and decreasing rape that Prohibition came into effect on January 17, 1920. The name of the amendment was the "Volstead Act” (Volstead Law), named after Andrew J. Volstead who drafted this law.
Alcoholism was a huge problem in 19th century America and Europe, ever since the democratization of distillation in the early 18th century. Seeking to combat this scourge, temperance leagues were set up from 1824. The Women's Christian Temperance Union (en) (WCTU) founded in 1874 and the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) created in 1893 a nationwide political force, supporting candidates with strong anti-alcohol views in local and national elections. The WCT, and later the ASL, were very effective in their attacks on the sale of alcohol to the public. The FSA does substantial fundraising in churches across the country. Many eminent industrialists, such as John Davison Rockefeller or Henry Ford, supported the Prohibition movement. The spirits industry seriously underestimated public support for the alcohol ban. The Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed on January 16, 1919, when two-thirds of the American states voted in favor of Prohibition. This amendment became law on January 17, 1920, the Volstead Decree of 1919 authorizing the IRS to enforce the amendment. The golden age of American gangsterism can begin. Suddenly, the criminals are opened to the very lucrative market of smuggling alcoholic beverages.
Al Capone, Master of Cicero
The first challenge Capone had to face:taking over the city of Cicero, a town bordering Chicago. The opportunity presented itself during the municipal election of 1924, which pitted Democrat Rudolph Hurt against Republican Joseph Z. Klenga. The election takes place on April 1. Al Capone puts all the weight of the Syndicate in the balance to favor Klenga. He settled his whole family in Chicago; and his brothers, Ralph and Frank, along with his cousin Charly Fischetti, help campaign hard on behalf of Klenga and other gang-backed candidates. They are assisted in this task by 200 henchmen installed around the polling stations in order to terrorize the voters. In traditionally Democratic constituencies, they go so far as to empty the ballot boxes to stuff them with their candidate's ballots [ref. desired.
The violence of these operations and the rumor of the fraud go back to the county judge, Edmund J. Jarecki, who deploys a force of 70 police officers, in civilian clothes and in unmarked cars, with orders to pick up those responsible in Cicero. The first person they see as they pass the power plant is Frank Capone, Al's brother. They brake and get out of their vehicles. Believing in an attack from a rival gang, Frank tries to draw his gun, but he is literally cut in half by the discharge of several guns. The police empty their weapons on his corpse and leave him there. Frank Capone was 29 years old. The gang hold a stunning funeral for him, in a silver-plated casket and the little Capone house on South Prairie Avenue is decorated with $20,000 worth of flowers. Al Capone is now the master of Cicero.
Al Capone's empire
The Lexington Hotel in Chicago:Al Capone's offices nicknamed the "castle Capone”, photographed in the early 1990s. It was demolished in 1995.
Al Capone then built a real empire. The base of operations is the Hawthorne Inn at 4833 22nd Street in Cicero. The attack that cost the life of Frank Capone has resulted in the securing of the place:armed men stand guard in the hall, armored shutters are placed at the windows. Al Capone now controls 161 speakeasy and 150 gambling dens in Cicero. One of them, the Hawthorne Smoke Shop, located in Hawthorne Inn, brings in $50,000 a day. He also owns 22 brothels, no longer feeling tied to the deal with the O'Donnells. These are last class establishments where the girls sold for 5 dollars and where customers waited seated on wooden benches. The turnover of Al Capone's empire is around $105 million a year, but the costs of running it are high. Bribes to the police alone amount to 30 million. Nevertheless, the benefits remain colossal. The men working for Capone earn around $250 a week. Compared to employees of Western Electric, they are wealthy. Al Capone, 25, wears $5,000 suits.
He therefore continued to prosper for years, eliminating several opponents such as Dion O'Banion and Hymie Weiss in his path. From 1925 to 1932, at the height of Prohibition, Al Capone was the boss of the vice industry in Chicago. He amassed an immense fortune (his annual income reached USD 105 million at the time[ref. needed]) through the operation of speakeasies (speakeasy bars), jackpots, brothels, nightclubs, fishmongers and butcher shops and its activities in the community. His methods of intimidation are such that, for lack of prosecution witnesses, he is never prosecuted, even for notorious crimes.
In 1927, following the lawsuit pitting Sullivan (a gangster operating in the sale of illicit alcohol) against the United States Crown, the Supreme Court passed a law authorizing the IRS to tax the income from the illicit sale of alcohol like any other income. The law quickly became a powerful weapon against traffickers. They can now be sent to prison for tax evasion if they do not declare all of their income. On the other hand, if they declare them, they themselves admit their participation in illegal activities. The federal prosecutor's office in Chicago then estimated the turnover of Capone's organization at $105 million, from liquor trafficking, gambling, pimping and racketeering on which no one had paid any money. taxes. A law that could undo Al Capone's empire. Al Capone then had a very expensive lifestyle and often borrowed false identities; it is therefore difficult to charge him.
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Al Capone has several adversaries. One of them, Bugs Moran, leader of a predominantly Irish gang called the Northside Gang, is particularly tenacious. This is why, in 1929, Al Capone's team set up an operation probably imagined by Jack McGurn, with the aim of eliminating Bugs Moran and the key members of his gang from the northern districts. Al Capone leaves Chicago for Florida, leaving the execution of the plan in charge of McGurn, carving out a perfect alibi for himself. Moran's headquarters was the SMS Cartage Company garage at 2122 North Clark Street. Al Capone must be certain that Moran and his men are all together before acting. To initiate the trap he asks a Detroit cargo robber to offer Moran to sell him a truckload of contraband whiskey (from Canada). Moran agrees to buy it and asks that the truck be brought to the garage at ten-thirty in the morning on February 14, Valentine's Day.
At the appointed time, instead of the truck, three men wearing Chicago police uniforms and Thompson submachine guns showed up accompanied by two men in civilian clothes. Their car drives through the garage door. There are 7 people there, 6 gang members and a respectable oculist from Chicago, whose only crime is to like to associate with gangsters. The gang members do not worry too much about it, thinking of a simple police raid. They are ordered to line up facing the wall. Then the "police" (actually Capone's men) open fire, killing them all. Ballistics experts later found between 80 and 100 .45 caliber bullets. Bugs Moran, the leader of the clan targeted by the attack but who, miraculously, had not been on the scene at the time of the massacre, said:"Only Capone kills people like that."
Quickly exaggerated by the press of the time, the Saint Valentine's Day massacre had an immediate impact and demonstrated the violence of Al Capone who, until then, enjoyed a good image.
Public enemy number 1
Al Capone's first arrest is actually arranged. To calm public opinion following the publicity of the Saint Valentine's Day massacre, it is decided to give him a sentence of at least one year. Al Capone accepts this "sheltering" because he has already been the subject of several murder attempts by his competitors and there are still many "contracts" against him. Al Capone and Hoff, the chief of a Chicago police station, agree to a charge of illegal possession of a weapon. Sentenced to nine months in prison in August 1929 in the Eastern State Penitentiary, he had his cell arranged in a luxurious way (carpeting and antique furniture). He was released after ten months in prison. Each police officer who arrested Capone receives $10,000 for his capture.
Several anti-prohibition demonstrations take place and public opinion, following the Saint Valentine's Day massacre, has changed in the face of the mafia. Prior to the massacre, crime syndicates enjoyed significant popularity. Providing alcohol to people despite Prohibition, they had popular support. But the bloody massacre shocks public opinion. Anti-prohibition and anti-Mafia demonstrations follow one another.
In 1930, as the repeal of Prohibition loomed, Capone associate Murray Humphreys suggested another source of income. He noticed that the margins on milk are higher than on contraband whiskey and the market is bigger, since children are consuming it. Al Capone appreciates this idea. Humphreys has the president of the local Milk Delivery Workers' Union kidnapped and uses his $50,000 ransom to set up his own delivery business - Meadowmoor Dairies - and undermine competition by employing non-union drivers. Prices fell, and Meadowmoor has a de facto monopoly in this market.
Soup kitchen
At 31, Al Capone is Chicago's most powerful man. His net income from racketeering and pimping is estimated at $6 million per week. necessary]. However, it was the beginning of the Great Depression of the 1930s. All over the country companies went bankrupt and crazy sums were swallowed up by the stock market which collapsed on October 23, 1929, dragging down the financial markets of the world. entire. At the beginning of 1931, as the crisis worsened, thousands of unemployed found themselves on the streets of Chicago. Al Capone seizes the opportunity to combat his image as public enemy number one and opens a soup kitchen on South State Street during the winter months. On Thanksgiving Day, he fed more than 5,000 people. This evidence of goodwill helps improve its image with the American people, but does nothing to calm the tax authorities who wonder where the money comes from.
The end of Al Capone
The federal government having reinforced repression in tax matters, Eliot Ness, agent of the Bureau of Prohibition, assisted by his "Incorruptibles", as well as Frank J. Wilson, agent of the tax service, enter into action. The tax administration and the police, who are investigating Al Capone, have already arrested his brother Ralph Capone and the financier of his organization Jake Guzik for tax evasion, are still unable to prove either his murders or his drug trafficking. alcohol, nor his rackets. Investigators therefore focus on the latter's expenses, meticulously comparing them to his declared income. The taxman also investigates in the shops of Chicago and Miami to calculate the price of his furniture, his dishes and even his underwear. After hundreds of interrogations, it is clear that his income is much higher than what was declared. His net income was calculated in 1924 and 1929 at $1,035,654 and 84 cents, or $215,080.48 in tax. Understanding that he will be arrested for tax reasons, Al Capone has sent a lawyer for more than two years to negotiate with the tax authorities. But the tax authorities remain firm in asking him to pay all the amounts due. Al Capone refuses.
On June 5, 1931, he was charged with tax evasion, the indictment included 21 counts written on 3,680 typed pages. Faced with charges of tax evasion and violation of Prohibition laws, Judge James Herbert Wilkerson refuses to plead guilty to lawyers who hope to get their client off the hook by paying bail, this procedure being, according to him, impossible in a federal court15. But, after the rejection of the lawyer's request, change of strategy of Al Capone who finally pleads not guilty and it is also the failure of an attempt at bribery of the jury (the latter being exchanged with that of another case at the last moment):the trial of "public enemy no. 1" begins on October 6. He was declared guilty by the jury on three counts on October 17 and Judge Wilkerson, on October 24, sentenced Al Capone to 17 years in prison, including 11 years, a fine of 50,000 USD, and 30,000 USD. court costs. Eight days before his arrest, he distributes to his main lieutenants checks for $4,500 to $327,000.
Bail was denied and Al Capone was transported to Cook County Jail and then, once his appeal was dismissed, transferred on May 4, 1932, escorted by Eliot Ness, to Atlanta State Prison from where he can then continue to manage its affairs. Placed in detention on August 19, 1934 in Alcatraz prison, he was then subjected to a more severe regime and placed in solitary confinement, in particular in a dungeon for having attempted to bribe a guard, thus eliminating all his possibilities of action. . Due to the end of Prohibition and the absence of its leader, the "Empire" that Al Capone built is swallowed up by his successors.
Suffering from syphilis since his youth, Al Capone's condition worsened in detention, evolving into the form of neurosyphilis which deteriorated his physical and mental health. Penicillin treatment did not exist at the time, the doctors of the penitentiary center practiced malaria therapy on Capone. After being stabbed in the back by a fellow prisoner, he was sent on January 6, 1939 to Terminal Island, near Los Angeles, then transferred to Lewisburg Prison (en) on November 13 to be returned to his family:he was released under conditions on November 16, 1939. On January 21, 1947, in his Palm Island property in Miami Beach, Al Capone suffered a stroke which knocked him unconscious. Three days later, in a coma, he contracted pneumonia. He died the next day, January 25, 1947, of cardiac arrest. Al Capone is first buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago, next to his father Gabriele and his brother Frank. But in March 1950, his ashes were transferred to Mount Carmel (Hillside) Cemetery near Chicago, where many gangsters were buried.
After Al Capone
When Al Capone arrived in Chicago in 1921, the city was a hodgepodge of gangs from different backgrounds fighting for territory. Ten years later, when he was sent to prison, the situation had changed a great deal. And when Prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933 by the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, the old gangs disappeared, absorbed into Al Capone's organization. The authorities and the American people believed that by eliminating Capone and confining him to Alcatraz, his gang would crumble as the Chicago Outfit's new godfather is his lieutenant Frank Nitti. The press gave the gangster the image of the genius of crime, solely responsible for the political corruption and violence that then held the city. But all are wrong. Of course, Al Capone established a model of hierarchy in criminal organizations but with his death, the organization does not disappear. Al Capone shaped Torrio's organization into a modern enterprise meant to outlive its creators. Prohibition allowed her to raise enough money to be able to create and diversify a network linking her to other criminal groups:in New York, New Jersey, Buffalo, Cleveland, Kansas City, Canada and in the Caribbean:all were involved to varying degrees in the production and logistics of contraband alcohol. These groups, initially independent, are now in permanent contact. All modern technology (telephone, car, etc.) allows them to facilitate contacts and create a very extensive network of organized crime in different areas:drugs, prostitution, construction.
Popular culture
Al Capone is arguably the most famous and popular American gangster of the 20th century. It is in this capacity that he has been the subject of numerous articles, books and films. The interpreters of Al Capone in the cinema are numerous:in particular Wallace Beery, Rod Steiger, Neville Brand, Jason Robards, Robert De Niro and Ben Gazzara.
On television, the "legend" of Al Capone is one of the themes of the series The Incorruptibles, begun in 1959 and later adapted to the cinema by Brian De Palma, which gave birth to the myth of a personal rivalry between the infamous "Scarred" and the Incorruptible Eliot Ness.
On April 21, 1986, 181 channels around the world broadcast live the opening of Al Capone's vault in the basement of the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, the headquarters of his organization, thinking of discovering there the gangster's hoard never found by the US tax. The much publicized mystery of Al Capone's vault leads to... an empty vault.