THE RISE OF AL CAPONE IN THE 1920s

Photo by Eugenia Porechenskaya

Magazine

Capone had a custom-made, bulletproof green version of this model

Prejudice, Prohibition & Pride THE RISE OF AL CAPONE CULTURAL CLASH..…….……………..1 BONDING TOGETHER.…………….…4 PROHIBITION WINDFALL………….…5 FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES……….…9 MEDIA LOVE AFFAIR…..………….….11 CAPONE STYLE..……….………….…12 CAPONE’S RISE……………………….14

RESOURCES…….…………………….15

CULTURAL CLASH “It would be foolish to expect such

After leaving school first, Al Capone tried the straight and narrow, hard-working lifestyle to obtain the American Dream. Evidence from the Brooklyn Citizen and Brooklyn Times Union newspapers about the Young Men’s Catholic Club in Park Slope shows Capone attending charity events, social functions and at a muscular 5-foot-10 and 200 pounds, playing on a semi-pro baseball team. Capone was a strong pitcher and solid hitter.

Despite these challenges, Capone received good grades while attending P.S.7 and P.S.133. Though in 6th grade, poor attendance led to Capone being held back a year. During this time, teachers and other kids often looked down on immigrant children and an incident occurred where Al’s teacher hit him. In retaliation, Al hit her back. Immediately sent to the principal’s office, Al was sadly beat again. While corporal punishment was common in 1916, it was detrimental to the young Al Capone’s academic future

as he left and never returned to school.

Banning alcohol didn’t stop the flow of drinking in America.

It geared the party up in a bigger and more flamboyant way.

Manhattan had 5000 illegal speakeasies during Prohibition, double the previous amount of legal saloons.

The 18th Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919 and prohibited the manufacturing, distribution and sale of alcohol in the U.S. As soon as Prohibition began on January 17, 1920, it became liquid money for the gangster world, which had already geared up to produce and traffic their own liquor. Gangsters became “organized,” employing brew masters, bar managers, truckers, accountants plus crafty lawyers. Though it was the “torpedos,” armed men who intimidated, bombed or killed the competitors that gave the lead mobsters their competitive edge. New York and Chicago had the largest syndicates profiting from Prohibition.

Both cities had

hundreds of willing customers in the teaming masses of downtrodden immigrants

from Italy, Ireland, Poland and other parts of Europe.

After his father’s untimely death, when his former boss, Torrio invites Capone to join him in Chicago, Al agrees and moves his wife, his son, his mom and his younger brothers and sister to Chicago. Thanks to prohibition, Torrio was running a very profitable bootlegging business. With a combination of loyalty, business experience and street smarts, Capone is quickly promoted to partner of Torrio’s Chicago operations, The Outfit, which also ran brothels and illegal gambling. He was, then, able to buy his first house in the middle-class South Side for his extended family.

With the windfall of prohibition money available in Chicago, Capone watched and learned as Torrio made every effort to negotiation with other major gangs to avoid bloodshed and make deals with most of them. Under Torrio’s leadership, The Outfit was a mostly ItalianAmerican group controlling the South Side. The Irish and Polish gangs controlled bootlegging on the city’s North Side. However, as huge profit were at stake, the peace did not last long. During the Chicago “Beer Wars” from 1922 to 1926, over 450 mob men were killed. When Torrio is nearly killed in a retaliatory shooting in 1925, he retires to Brooklyn and turned over the business to Capone.

Under Capone’s leadership, The Outfit would jettison from a $800,000 a year business to an estimate $100,000,000 a year global syndicate.

$100 million a year

With little funds in politics, local politicians and police were highly susceptible to bribes from local gangster who were flourishing from illegal bootlegging, brothels and racketeering. Capone and other gang leaders bought legal immunity through bribes to police and politicians. At the height of 1920s prohibition era, Capone is estimated to have spent over $8 million a year to police, law enforcement agents, and politicians around the Chicago area. High officials and politicians such as Mayor William Hale Thompson could receive up to a quarter of a million dollars a year.

For these generous contributions, Capone’s gambling establishments were rarely bothered by police raids. However, his competition were often searched and shut down by those same local law enforcement agents. Once a friendly politician or union President was in office, Capone’s enforcers would help secure re-elections through intimidation, bribes and other shady tactics.

Capone’s connections ran so deep that judges, congressmen and police official often attend charity, funerals and social events with Capone.

“Be careful who you call your friends, I’d rather have 4 quarters than a 100 pennies.”

Al Capone 1929 by Clive Weed

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Friends in High Places

Capone often frequented baseball games and was as much of a noted celebrity as the players.

During a charity exhibition game with the Chicago White Sox in Comiskey Park, catcher, Charles Hartnett chatted with Capone and even signed a baseball for his 12-year-old son Sonny. The next day, Hartnett boss insisted he take no more photos with Capone. The famed catcher simply replied “OK, but if you don’t want me to have my picture taken with Al Capone, you tell him.”

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Media Love Affair

Capone struck up mutually bene

Capone Style

Illustration by Jace Rea

During the “Golden Age of Men’s Fashion,” Al

REWARDING LOYALTY

“Snorky” Capone took great pride in his appearance.

Capone rewarded 30 close associates with a

In fact, his nickname “Snorky” is slang for ‘sharp

Christmas gift of a diamond studded, gold belt

dresser.’ Capone often wore custom-made, silk dress

buckle costing $275 in December 1927. In return,

shirts with French style double cuff for his cufflinks

the men gave Capone his famous high backed,

and brightly colored suits in his favorite colors, green

bullet proof chair for his Lexington Hotel office.

or canary.

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Capone Style $135 (1920s) = $1900 (2022)

Average Joe $9.98 (1920s) = $139 (2022) 13

Capone’s Rise

Capone took great pride in his rise from his poor Italian immigrant roots to his $100 million dollar a year syndicate. He often entertained in his Florida home to show his associates all he had achieved. Battling against prejudice, prohibition had given him the opportunity to grab part of the America Dream. While Capone’s own pride which boasted at any chance of his wealth, his connections and his charity work had the mass media writing endlessly about his every move. His fame eclipsed most Hollywood Stars. After the St. Valentine's day massacre in 1929, where seven mob guys were gunned down in a garage by four men, two dressed as police officers, Capone emerged as the undisputed boss of Chicago. By 1930, Capone still ran about 6,000 speakeasies and made $6 million a week.

”Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness, I am kind to everyone,

Though the massacre started a public outcry against gang violence across the United States. This public attention caused a major problem for all the major mob bosses. Though Capone had a rock solid alibi as he was being questioned in Florida about the death of Frankie Yale and Arnold Rothstein by NY Assistant District Attorney, Louis Boldstein, Chicago authorities still subpoenaed him on February 21, 1929. National support for Prohibition then quickly started to deteriorate and President Herbert Hoover decided to order federal authorities to go after Capone. In 1930, Capone became the Chicago Crime Commission’s (CCC) Public Enemy Number One one.

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Resources Balsamini, Dean. “Al Capone Played Semi-pro Baseball in Brooklyn before Turning to Crime.”

New York Post, New York Post, 17 May 2020, https://nypost.com/2020/05/17/al-caponeplayed-semi-pro-baseball-before-turning-to-crime/.

Cengel, Katya. “Inside the Global Cult of Al Capone.” Smithsonian.com, Smithsonian Institution, 18 Oct. 2021, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/inside-the-global-cult-of-alcapone-180978876/.

Humbert, Nelli. “Italians and Crime in Chicago: The Formative Years.” JSTOR, American Journal of Sociology, Jan. 1969, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2776058.

History.com Editors. “Al Capone.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 14 Oct. 2009, https:// www.history.com/topics/crime/al-capone.

“Italian : Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History : Classroom Materials at the Library of Congress : Library of Congress.” The Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/ classroom-materials/immigration/italian/.

Lerner, Michael. “Unintended Consequences.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, https:// www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/unintended-consequences/.

Lombardo, Robert M. Organized Crime in Chicago beyond the Ma a. University of Illinois Press, 2013.

“Prohibition - CCEA - GCSE History Revision - CCEA - BBC Bitesize.” BBC Prohibition, BBC, https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zqp7pbk/revision/5.

Schneider, Sven Raphael, et al. “What Men Really Wore in the 1920s.” Gentleman's Gazette, 6 Sept. 2021, https://www.gentlemansgazette.com/what-men-wore-1920s/.

Sullivan, Edward D. Rattling the Cup on Chicago Crime. New York: The Vangaurd Press, 1929.

“The Speakeasies of the 1920s Scroll to Read More.” Prohibition, https:// prohibition.themobmuseum.org/the-history/the-prohibition-underworld/the-speakeasies-ofthe-1920s/.

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