Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone (35 page)

HE did not abide long in limbo after his 1923 defeat by the reform candidate judge Dever. That summer he recaptured the public's fancy with a typically Thompsonian antic. He proposed to organize a yachting expedition to the South Seas to take motion pictures of mudskippers, the fish that can live on land for long periods, jump as high as three feet in pursuit of insects, and climb trees. The idea of hunting them had been suggested to Thompson by a press agent for the cypress wood industry. The latter's clients were happy to supply the material to construct a yawl for the expedition. Christened the Big Bill, it bore a cypress figurehead carved in the likeness of the corpulent ex-mayor. Thompson obtained the additional support of the Fish Fans Club, which he had founded the year before "to urge and encourage the propagation of fish in American waters." In early July the Big Bill, carrying an assortment of politicians, businessmen and beer-swilling sports, sailed down the Chicago River into Lake Michigan, cheered on its way by thousands lining the shores. It never left continental waters. The expedition having served its purpose as a publicity stunt, Thompson abandoned it midway to New Orleans.

Hurrying home, he began to rebuild his political strength, heartened by the realization that, as a case-hardened old politician jubilantly cried three decades later when Richard Daley became mayor, "Chicago ain't ready for reform yet." He campaigned for Governor Small's reelection, and he made peace overtures to State's Attorney Crowe, who accepted them despite his earlier declaration that "any man interested in protecting gambling and vice I refuse to travel along with, politically or otherwise."

He entered the Republican mayoral primary in the fall of 1926, against Edward R. Litsinger, a member of Senator Deneen's faction, and Dr. John Dill Robertson, a former health commissioner and a defector from the Thompson ranks. They inspired him to some of the crassest rhetoric ever to flow from a politician's mouth. Reacting to their cry of "Who killed McSwiggin?" and their accusations of collusion with criminals, Thompson ranted: "Litsinger is dry and Robertson is so dry he never even takes a bath. The Doc used to boast he hadn't taken a bath in years. . . . The Doc is slinging mud. I'm not descending to personalities, but you should watch Doc Robertson eating in a restaurant-eggs in his whiskers, soup on his vest. It's enough to turn your stomach. . . . Imagine anyone thinking of electing a man for mayor with a name like John Dill Pickle Robertson! . . . I'm not a mud-clinger, but the papers have been saying things about me that I can't let pass. And Ed Litsinger's been making statements about me. I've told you and I tell you again that he's the biggest liar that ever was a candidate for mayor. And you know what else? He plays handball in the semi-nude! That's right, with only a little pair of pants on. I know one thing. You won't find Bill Thompson having his picture taken in the semi-nude. . . .'

The Republican majority loved it. They chose Thompson by the biggest margin of votes, 180,000, yet recorded in a Chicago Republican primary-to the disgust of the Tribune, which commented editorially: "Thompson is a buffoon in a tommyrot factory, but when his crowd gets loose in the City Hall, Chicago has more need of Marines than any Nicaraguan town."

At the subsequent campaign rallies the crowds chanted an anthem written by an ex-vaudevillian, Milton Weil, celebrating one of the two major planks in the Thompson platform:

Hugging an American flag to his breast, Thompson shouted: "This is the issue! What was good enough for George Washington is good enough for Bill Thompson. . . . I want to make the King of England keep his snoot out of America! America first, and last, and always! . . . If you want to keep that old American flag from bowing down before King George of England, I'm your man. If you want to invite King George and help his friends, I'm not. . . . America First! The American who says `America second' speaks the tongue of Benedict Arnold and Aaron Burr.... There never was an Englishman who was the equal of an American and if there was, he could make a million dollars in an hour and a half by beating that brave Gene Tunney, our world champion fighter...."

Claiming that the history books used in Chicago's public schools were partial to the English, he attacked Dever's school superintendent, William McAndrew, and promised, if elected, to fire him. "Read these histories for yourselves. The ideals you were taught to revere, the great Americans you were taught to cherish as examples of selfsacrificing devotion to human liberty, are subtly sneered at and placed in a false light, so that your children may blush with shame when studying the history of their country. These men and others falsified and distorted facts to glorify England and vilify America. . . . When I went out of office, Washington fell out and the King of England fell in. This King George! If King George had his way, there'd be a million American boys in China today to fight the battle for the dirty Englishmen and help the King make a billion dollars in the opium trade. And McAndrew is his lackey. Didn't he refuse to let our schoolchildren contribute their pennies to preserve Old Ironsides? You know why? Because Old Ironsides kicked hell out of every British ship she met and the King of England wouldn't like to have us preserve that ship. So he gave orders to his stooge, this McAndrew, and our children were not permitted to solicit pennies to preserve a priceless heritage. It's up to us, the red-blooded men and women of Chicago, to stand fast until the city is rid of pro-British rats who are poisoning the wells of historical truth."

The issue could not have mattered less to Al Capone, but the sec and plank in Thompson's platform enlisted his wholehearted enthusiasm. It was unabashedly, wholeheartedly antireform. "I'm wetter than the middle of the Atlantic Ocean," Thompson brayed. "When I'm elected, we'll not only re-open places these people [the Dever administration] have closed, but we'll open 10,000 new ones." The prospect was so attractive to Capone that he contributed $260,000 to Thompson's campaign chest and applied every technique of bribery and terrorism in his behalf. He was credited with the slogan "Vote early and vote often."

At the turn of the year Capone was momentarily diverted from the political conflict by a resumption of gang warfare. Hilary Clements, a beer runner for Ralph Sheldon, had been selling his brew to saloons inside the Saltis-McErlane territory. Instead of referring this breach of the Hotel Sherman treaty to arbitration, as stipulated, Saltis ordered Clements' death. A shotgun blast killed the beer runner on December 30, shattering a peace that had lasted seventy days. Sheldon protested to Capone, who reluctantly acknowledged the necessity for stringent disciplinary measures if the treaty was to be saved. As a result, Lefty Koncil and another Saltis henchman, Charlie "Big Hayes" Hubacek, were executed on March 11. The O'Banionites, meanwhile, restive under the restraints imposed by the treaty and unable to reconcile themselves to Capone's supremacy, renewed their attack against him. They struck first at a man he cherished.

Theodore "the Greek" Anton ran a popular restaurant above the Hawthorne Smoke Shop. His feelings for Capone verged on idolatry. He never tired of extolling his virtues. As an instance of the gang leader's tenderheartedness, he liked to recount the incident of the newsboy who wandered into the restaurant one winter night, blue with cold. "How many papers you got left, kid?" Capone asked him. "Abouty fifty," the boy replied. "Throw them on the floor and run along home to your mother," said Capone and slipped him $20.

On the night of January 6 Capone was eating a late snack in Anton's restaurant. Anton got up from the booth where they were chatting and went to the entrance to greet some customers. He never returned. The O'Banionites, lurking outside, pulled him into their car. When Capone understood what had happened, he burst into tears and for the rest of the night sat in the booth, weeping inconsolably. Anton's body was found encased in quicklime. Like Tony Cuiringione, he had been tortured, then shot.

In March Capone took a short pleasure jaunt to Hot Springs, Arkansas. Drucci, who somehow got wind of it, followed him there, fired a shotgun at him, but missed.

As April 5-election day-drew near, Capone's Hotel Metropole suite became a covert annex to the Thompson campaign headquarters on the sixteenth floor of the Hotel Sherman. To and fro between them, carrying messages and money, scurried such middlemen as Daniel Serritella, ex-newsboy, founder of the Chicago Newsboys' Union and First Ward politician, a particular Capone friend; Morris Eller, the Twentieth Ward boss; Jack Zuta, the whoremaster, a member of the William Hale Thompson Republican Club, who contributed $50,000 to the campaign chest and bragged: "Pm for Big Bill hook, line and sinker and Bill's for me hook, line and sinker." Capone, hunched over a mahogany conference table behind a battery of nine telephones, a cigar in his mouth, issued orders to his forces scattered through the city, to triggermen, sluggers, kidnappers, bombers....

The first act of violence had not been planned by Capone, but the end result could scarcely have gratified him more. The O'Banionites, too, like most Chicago gangs, were cheering Thompson and his wideopen town policy. The day before the election a band of them, led by Schemer Drucci, broke into the offices of the Forty-second Ward's Alderman Dorsey R. Crowe, a Dever champion, bent upon mayhem. Finding no sign of Crowe, they beat up his secretary, toppled over filing cabinets, and smashed windows. The police picked up Drucci that afternoon. One of his captors, Detective Dan Healy, enraged him by laying rough hands on him. In the squad car taking him to the stationhouse, Drucci yelled: "I'll get you for this!" and tried to grab the detective's gun. Healy pulled back, freeing the gun, and holding it close to Drucci's body, killed him with four shots. "Murder?" said Chief of Detectives Schoemaker when a lawyer retained by the gangster's widow demanded an investigation. "We're having a medal struck for Healy." The police had thus rid Capone of one of his deadliest foes.

Drucci was buried in unconsecrated ground at Mount Carmel Cemetery under a blanket of 3,500 flowers. Though denied the last rites of his church, he was accorded military honors by the Harold A. Taylor Post of the American Legion, to which he belonged, having served in the World War. A squad of uniformed Legionnaires fired a salute over the flag-draped casket, and a bugler blew taps. Capone, who had sent one of the showiest floral offerings, stood unshaven at the graveside.

Mayor Dever's chief of police reduced the likelihood of further violence by assigning more than 5,000 men to special election day duties. A police detail guarded every polling place, while detectives in squad cars, carrying machine guns and canisters of tear gas, patrolled the adjoining streets. The day was exceptionally peaceful for a Chicago election. Only two bombs were thrown, both of them at Fortysecond Ward Democratic clubs, only two election officials beaten and kidnapped, and about a dozen Dever supporters prevented from voting by hoodlums with guns. Only one polling booth and one private home were shot at.

In the Hotel Sherman's Louis XIV Ballroom that evening Thompson leaped up on a chair, brandishing a ten-gallon hat, and in a voice furry with bourbon bellowed: "The lead is now 52,0001 I thank you one and all, I thank you. Tell 'em, cowboys, tell 'em! I told you I'd ride 'em high and widel" The final count gave him a plurality of 83,072 votes.