Al Capone
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Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), popularly known as Al Capone or Scarface, was an Italian American gangster who led a crime syndicate dedicated to the smuggling and bootlegging of liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition Era of the 1920s and 1930s.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, to southwestern Italian emigrants Gabriele and Teresina Capone, Capone began his career in Brooklyn before moving to Chicago and becoming the boss of the criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit (although his business card reportedly described him as a used furniture dealer).[1]
By the end of the 1920s, Capone had gained the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation following his being placed on the Chicago Crime Commission's "public enemies" list. Although never successfully convicted of racketeering charges, Capone's criminal career ended in 1931, when he was indicted and convicted by the federal government for income tax evasion.
Part of the reason Capone was taken to task in this way was his status as a celebrity. On the advice of his publicist, he stopped hiding from the media by the mid-1920s and began to make public appearances. When Charles Lindbergh performed his famous transatlantic flight in 1927, Capone was among the first to push forward and shake his hand upon his arrival in Chicago.
Capone often tried to whitewash his image and be seen as a community leader. For example, he started a program, which was continued for decades after his death, to fight rickets by providing a daily milk ration to Chicago school children. Also during the Great Depression, Capone opened up many soup kitchens for the poor and homeless.
Capone retained a personal style, and hundreds of dollars worth of flowers were sent to the funerals of important opponents. On occasion even Capone and some of his men went to the funeral. In one instance, one of Capone's rival gang leaders was killed by his men, and Capone sent $5,000 worth of flowers to the funeral. In one fight between Capone's men and another gang, an innocent woman was shot, but not fatally, and required hospital treatment. Capone paid all her hospital bills.
Capone could often be seen sitting in box seats with his son and bodyguards at Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs games. He, his brother Ralph, and Gusik regularly went to the race tracks in Chicago, as well as during their security forays into Arkansas and Nebraska. He was also an opera fan and liked circuses and rodeos, where he would buy huge blocks of tickets and distribute them among low-income neighborhoods.
Capone and Nitti were both fans of "New Orleans" jazz music and were instrumental in the rise of such talents as Louis Armstrong and others, who regularly played at Capone speakeasies on the South Side. Bob Hope related performing, when he was an up and comer, at one of these clubs, where he was terrified of the prospects of bombing in front of such a crowd.
He gained a great deal of admiration from many of the poor in Chicago for his flagrant disregard of the Prohibition law that they despised. He was viewed for a time as a lovable outlaw, partially because of his extravagant generosity to strangers and often lending a hand to struggling Italian-Americans. His nightclub, the Cotton Club, became a hot spot for new acts, such as Charlie Parker and Bing Crosby. He was often cheered in the street.
Such efforts, however, did not change his reputation for violence and murder within the city. Capone did not help his own PR problems by being linked to an incident where two men were bludgeoned to death with baseball bats after they were thought to be disloyal to the Outfit: accounts of this incident put the bat in Capone's hands. The brutal murders of the St. Valentine's Day massacre also didn't help, as they made people view Capone as a killer and socially unacceptable figure.[citation needed]
Capone headed a list of "public enemies" corrupting the city compiled by the chairman of the Chicago Crime Commission, Frank J. Loesch, in April 1930. The list was published by newspapers nationwide, and Capone became known as "Public Enemy No. 1."
Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Capone
