Organized Crime in Chicago

Johnny Torrio: 1882-1957 "The Brain" Background: Family immigrated in 1884 to NYC, joined the James Street Gang under the umbrella of the 5 Points gang. Fell in with Rothstein, buddy of Luciano. Sweet faced, cold blooded. Career in prostitution and narcotics. Moved to Chicago around 1915 to help out his uncle, Big Jim Colosimo, leaving his operations in NYC to his buddy Frankie Yale. In Chicago, he was Colosimo's muscle.

Moved into Chicago suburb, Cicero. He organized it, by doing the following: tried to move prostitutes into city, not because Torrio wanted to go into business, but as a ploy. Was shut down by other crime bosses twice, pulled out. Sneaky plan: Then started snitching to the cops just who and where slots were running, and cops dutifully busted the fronts and shut the slots down. Then Torrio sent a message to the other vice lords: if he couldn't do whores, they couldn't do slots, and he would see every one shut down. Offered compromise: he would not take prostitutes into Cicero, which he didn't want to do anyway, but the others had to give him room for gambling and anything except prostitution in Cicero. Deal.

When Prohibition came, he recognized the money to be made, but couldn't convince his uncle Jim to go into the bootleg business. Jim was recently remarried and content to live the good life. Obviously, he had to go. On May 11, 1920, as he waited in the foyer of his restaurant, he was shot dead, probably by Frankie Yale, Torrio's buddy from NYC. Torrio and Capone both had tight alibis elsewhere.

The next phase was for Torrio to call a meeting of the crime bosses in Chicago, in 1920, and lay out the plan: everybody gets his own turf, no double-crossing each other, no more fighting. Either sign up or he would wipe you out. Most complied. Two who didn't were the Gennas, whom he indeed wiped out, and the Northside gang under Dion O'Banion. O'B had merged his gang with a Jewish gang under Nails Morton. O'B's operation worked like this: he stole booze from others rather than make it himself or import it. If that wasn't enough to raise the ire of Torrio, O'B also double-crossed him by finally saying he was going to retire if he could just sell off an illegal brewery he had going. Torrio jumped at the chance to get rid of O and bought the brewery - within days of a federal raid, which O knew was coming. That did it. In 1924, Deanie was cut down in his florest shop by Frankie Yale, John Scalesi and Albert Anselmi.

Of course, this called for retaliation, and Torrio was soon severly wounded in a drive-by shooting in 1925. Upon recovery, he decided to retire and turned everything over to Capone. Torrio became one of the "Grand Old Men" of the national syndicate, he attended all the big conferences in the planning of the commission, and held permission on several significant hits in the next 25 years. He died peacefully in his bed.

Torrio's significance: had Rothstein's vision, and brought Capone to Chicago to help him carry it out. When he retired in 1925, he left to Capone a payroll of $300,000 a week, and 1000 employees.

Capone: By instinct a heartless, mindless murderer. Born 1899 to immigrant parents in Brooklyn, where he attended school to the 6th grade, when he beat up his teacher, was in turn beaten up by the principal, and quit school. Joined the James Street Gang and "adopted" by Johnny Torrio, the boss. Close friend in the gang: Lucky Luciano. Worked as bouncer in a saloon-brothel run by Frankie Yale and Johnny Torrio, got moniker Scarface in an altercation over a woman. He later told people he got it while serving in WWI, but he didn't serve in the military.

He left NYC for Chicago in 1919 because it seemed like a good idea, since the police were looking for him in regard to a couple of murders.

He called his operation "The Outfit," and set up his HQ in Cicero. Became Capone's base of operations. His HQ in the Hawthorne Inn, also 4 Deuces, which had a hidden door and tunnel, to make it easy to get a body outside to a waiting car, without being seen. Capone controlled politics in Cicero, from mayor to dogcatcher. Some 850 gunmen lived in Cicero - 800 of them Capone men, the other 50 the police.

The mayor of Cicero, Republican Joseph Z. Klenha offended Capone once, and C confronted him on the steps of town hall, proceded to kick the mayor repeatedly in the groin. There was a policeman stationed to guard the steps, but he just looked the other way.

Tried, but never quite brought all of Chicago under his control. Highlights:

City election of 1924, Cicero: Night before election, Town Clerk William Pflaum was beaten up in his office and the office demolished by Frank Capone, more brutal older brother of Al; where Al had learned from Torrio, "Try to deal before you have to kill;" Frank went around saying "You never get no back talk from no corpse." On election day, black stretch limos full of Capone men patrolled the streets, causing many honest voters to stay home. Those who ventured out had their opinions polled as they stood in line to vote; if they said the wrong name, the muscles took their ballots and marked them for the voters, while a well armed muscle stood at the ballot box to insure that the ballot was cast. Anyone who protested was kidnapped till polls closed. One guy was shot in both knees for good measure. Some voters went to a county judge, Edmund Jarecki, who deputized county men, and created an additional 8 squads of motor police and 5 squads of detectives. The day ended with pitched gun battles in the streets, hails of bullets, and the death of Al's brother Frank. But Capone's candidate won, so the day was not a total loss.

Pineapple Primary - state Republican Party primary, April 1928. Pineapples = bombs, so many thrown by Caponw and co. Capone's man, Big Bill Thompson, had a challenger, who had the backing of Diamond Jim Esposito, a mobster wanting to dethrone Capone. Both sides turned to violence and lots of homes of prominent politicos were destroyed. "The rockets red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night, That Chicago's still there." One of most creatively corrupt elections in state history: ballot box stuffing, voting under assumed names, voting multiple times, scaring potential voters with threats of violence. The nation was horrified, and local leaders called on Capone, asking him to allow a peaceful general election. He not only agreed to do it, he ordered that the police should sweep the streets the night before the election, arresting all the thugs. And so it was. Capone's man lost the election, but Capone was so deeply entrenched in power that it didn't matter who was in office. He shared Torrio's dream of a huge syndicate, and continued to work with all ethnic groups and gangs, as long as they obeyed his rules, which for the most part were fair and sensible. He is often compared to the CEOs of his day, the giants in industry, and he did run things in a business-like manner. The violence didn't quite disappear, but things did quiet down on the streets, and the people did appreciate the services he provided in gambling, booze, and prostitutes. He became a socially acceptable public figure, cheered when he went to baseball games.

The old O'Banion Northside Gang continued to give him trouble, though, and renewed the violence in the streets. In 1926 a motorcade of Northside gunmen passed in front of the Hawthorne Inn and poured over 1000 rounds into the place. Capone was not hurt because his bodyguard had thrown him to the floor and covered him with his own body. Who was the bodyguard? The man who had scarred Al's face in NYC. Capone eventually eleminated most of the Northsiders, the most famous episode occuring on February 14, 1929: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre. Bugs Moran was leader of O'B gang by then, and he called a meeting of his top capos in a garage that was part of his operations. As soon as the meeting started, police cars drove up and uniformed officers got out. They entered the garage and announced it was a bust. The men in the garage co-operated, moving over to the brick wall, which is now for sale, by the way, and put their hands up. The uniformed men were not police at all, but were Capone hitmen, and they proceeded to shoot everybody up good with shotguns and machine guns. Unfortunately, Bugs Moran himself was not there, and escaped. End of his power, though.

Public unhappy at the violence. Pressure from Washington to bust him came in two ways: Elliot Ness harrassed him, Frank Wilson of Treasury finally nailed him on income tax evasion.

NESS: Eliot Ness, 1902-1957. Graduate of University of Chicago, influenced to join law enforcement by brother in law. In 1928, put in charge of a special Prohibition detail to harass Capone. Combed hundreds of files of police officers and pulled out 9 who were totally clean and specialists in something - wiretapping, truck driving, etc. All were crack shots. Slow start, had to develop the truck with the ramming head, then able to enter buildings fast. Capone tried to buy him off, dubbed them the "Untouchables." Ness publicity hound, worked well with press, even when the press messed up raids.

What they accomplished was to cost Capone a lot of money, and distract him enough to allow penetration of his operation and collection of the evidence needed to convict him on income tax evasion.

After Prohibition ended, Ness went to Cleveland, where he did actually more good than in Chicago. As Public Safety Director, he cleaned up the police and the courts, got rid of a vicious gang known as the Mayfield Road gang (Jewish-Italian mix). Ness was threatened with beatings and death, but not harmed. Ran for political office, didn't have much of a platform, just vote for me, I am a hero. Lost, lost sterling reputation, started living high. DUI hit-and-run in 1955, end of his reputation. Memoirs published after his death have restored some of his luster.

Back to Capone, Frank Wilson of Treasury nailed him. Built a careful case, documenting his lifestyle, and estimating how much money it cost to live his life - furniture and houses including his Palm Island estate in Biscayne Bay off Miami Beach; clothes, food, famous diamond ring, etc. Then presented him with the bill. Wilson made use of a 1927 Supreme Court case which established that the gov't could tax income that was illegal. Wilson also made use of a "plant" in Capone's empire. Capone tried to kill him, against the advice of Torrio; feds went to Torrio and told him if Capone didn't pull the contract, there would be war in the streets. Torrio convinced Capone to back off on killing Wilson. Wilson went on to become head of the Secret Service. Capone went on to jail, sentenced to 11 years in the federal pen in Atlanta. It was left to his chauffer, Tony Accardo, to unite Chicago after WWII.

In 1934 Capone was transferred to Alcatraz, where he had a real hard time, not from prison officials, but from other inmates who were not impressed with who he was, without his army of killers. He got off on the wrong foot with a bank robber named James Lucas. The men were lined up in the barber shop getting their monthly trim, when Capone, being Mr. Big in his own eyes, stepped to the front of the line, in front of Lucas. Lucas sweetly said, "Hey lard ass, get back at the end of the line."

To which Capone responded with "the look" that was famous for freezing blood, on the outside. "You know who I am, punk?" he asked, not politely. Lucas grabbed the scissors and stabbed Al in the neck and said, "I know who you are, greaseball, and if you don't get back to the end of that f-ing line, I'm gonna know who you WERE." He refused to support an inmate strike over the death of a fellow prisoner, earning him several assassinations attempts, one of which sent him to the hospital (Lucas got him in the back, and someone tried to poison his coffee. He was transferred to clean-up and given a mop, and the nickname "Wop with the Mop." He literally went stir crazy and his mind turned to mush due to syphilis. He was released in 1939, in pretty sad shape, "nutty as a fruitcake," was how his business manager, Jake Guzik described him. He lived out his days, fishing, at his Florida home, and died January 25, 1947.