Scarface

January 17 marks the 126^th anniversary of Al Capone’s birth. Everyone know the name of the notorious criminal but few are aware that the legendary hoodlum ran his infamous empire for only six years and only spent 48 years on our planet.
Alphonse Capone was the fourth of nine children born to Italian immigrant parents in Brooklyn. The son of a barber and a seamstress, Al did well in school until at age fourteen he punched a teacher in the face. Al stopped going to school and worked at a candy store and a bowling alley. He made quick money as a pool hustler and was a star pitcher for a Brooklyn semi-professional baseball team. He also belonged to street gangs that specialized in petty crime. He was hired as a bartender and bouncer at a saloon owned by gangster Johnny Torrio. One night, Capone allegedly insulted the sister of a local felon who promptly slashed Al with a pocketknife. The damage inflicted resulted in Capone’s nickname: “Scarface”.

ln 1918, the eighteen-year-old married Mae Coughlin. The couple had one child and remained together until Al’s death. Soon after the wedding, Capone followed his mentor Torrio, to Chicago where they became part of a criminal network headed by Big Jim Colosimo. Torrio took over the enterprise after the violent death of Colosimo (probably a hit ordered by Torrio). A few years later Torrio was shot outside his home. He survived the attack but left Chicago after naming his 26-year-old aide Capone as his replacement.

Capone’s crime syndicate pulled in an estimated $100 million a year from illegal activities ranging from bootlegging to prostitution. Capone became an international celebrity because he won over reporters with his charm and extravagant lifestyle. He claimed that he merely provided a “public service”, stating “Ninety percent of the people of Cook County drink and gamble and my offense has been to furnish them with those amusements.”
On February 14, 1929, seven men affiliated with the George “Bugs” Moran gang were shot to death inside a Chicago garage. Capone was in Miami at the time but there was ample speculation that he had masterminded the murders. The crime was never solved and Capone was never charged. Meanwhile the wily gangster generated favorable publicity by opening a soup kitchen that served 2.000 Chicagoans per day in the midst of a world-wide depression.

For many years, Capone managed to avoid prosecution by threatening witnesses and paying off police and public officials. He finally was criminally convicted in 1929 after being arrested on a concealed weapon charge in Philadelphia. He was freed from prison in March 1930 just before the Chicago Crime Commission released its first-ever list of the city’s worst criminals with Capone named as Public Enemy Number One.

The famous prohibition agent, Elliot Ness was diligently trying to get Capone indicted for his bootlegging operations. However under instructions from President Herbert Hoover the federal government focused on charging the mob boss for income-tax fraud. A jury found the gangster guilty of five charges He was sentenced to eleven years in prison and fined $50,000. In 1932, 33-year-old Capone began his sentence at the U.S. penitentiary in Atlanta. Two years later, Capone was transported to the recently opened federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island. Prison officials were pleasantly surprised by Capone’s good behavior- So much so, they allowed the gangster to play his banjo in the inmate band, the Rock Islanders.

Soon after Capone’s move to Alcatraz, he began showing signs of neurosyphilis and was later diagnosed with syphilis of the brain. The disease stemmed from Capone not getting treated properly when he contracted the disease as a young man. In 1939 he was released from Alcatraz and was admitted to a Baltimore hospital where doctors concluded that Capone had the mental capacity of a twelve-year-old. Capone was allowed to return to his Miami home where he died of heart failure at the age of 48 in 1947.

I guess if there is anything positive we can take from Al Capone’s life it is the importance of regular medical checkups. Other than that, I am stumped.

Have a great weekend and remember “crime doesn’t pay”.