Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone (68 page)

"Do you know why you did it?" the judge asked when Sonny appeared in Criminal Court and pleaded nolo contendere to the charge of petty larceny. "No, Your Honor." Considering his exemplary past, the judge passed no sentence but put him on probation for two years. "Everybody has a little larceny in him, I guess," Sonny said with infinite sadness as he left the courtroom.

The supermarket manager had, meanwhile, kept his perishable purchases on ice. "I bet you have contempt for me," Sonny said, when he returned for them.

"No," the manager replied, "but I will have if you don't come back next week and get your groceries from me."

The following year Albert Francis Capone, only son of Alphonse Capone, changed his name.

For access to a mine of material about Al Capone and his associates, much of it unpublished, I am thankful to the Internal Revenue Service, which allowed me to examine its investigative files on Capone, Torrio and others, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which turned over to me invaluable documentation and photographs; and the General Services Administration, which granted me permission to visit Alcatraz.

I am deeply indebted to Herman Kogan, John J. McPhaul and Ray Brennan of the Chicago Sun-Times for sharing with me their special knowledge of the Capone era;

Robert St. John, owner and editor of the Cicero Tribune during Capone's heyday;

Ralph Daigh, vice-president of Fawcett Publications;

James V. Bennett, former director of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons;

Morris "Red" Rudensky, reformed safecracker, who was Capone's cellmate in the Atlanta Penitentiary, and Alvin Karpis, Capone's fellow prisoner on Alcatraz; Dr. William E. Ossenfort, medical officer at Atlanta during Capone's term there; Loring P. Mills, former general administration manager of Alcatraz; John Hart, Alcatraz guard and latterly security contractor on the island for the General Services Administration;

The late Frank W. Wilson, the Special Agent of the Internal Revenue Service, who directed the investigation of Capone's tax delinquencies, and his colleagues Nels Tessem and James N. Sullivan;

William Makepeace, a member of the U.S. Attorney General's team that prosecuted John Torrio;

Captain William Duffy of the Chicago Police Department, Ralph Salerno, former sergeant of the New York Police Department, and Edward J. Allen, chief of police, Santa Ana, California, formerly chief of police, Youngstown, Ohio, three of the country's leading authorities on the Mafia;

William F. Parker, one of Capone's Miami lawyers, and George Bieber, the Chicago lawyer who represented Sam "Golf Bag" Hunt and George "Bugs" Moran;

Joe E. Lewis, one of Capone's favorite entertainers; George Jessel, who also came to know Capone when he played Chicago; Louis Armstrong, Eddie Condon, and Austin Mack, veterans of Chicago's great jazz era;

Marvin L. Hayman, owner of Chicago's New Michigan Hotel (formerly the Lexington), once Capone's Chicago headquarters, and Roy Fowler, the present owner of Capone's Miami Beach mansion;

And the numerous lawyers, prison officials and acquaintances of Capone who prefer to remain anonymous.

For their patient and generous help I wish to thank Miss Margaret Scriven of the Chicago Historical Society Library, Palmer Brynildsen of the Brooklyn Public Library and the staffs of the New York Public Library's American History, Local History and Genealogy, and Newspaper Microfilm divisions.

For allowing me to range at will through the libraries of their respective publications I wish to thank John G. Trezevant, executive vice-president of the Field Enterprises; John G. McCutcheon, Jr., editorial writer of the Chicago Tribune; Lawrence Jinks, editor of the Miami Herald; and Albert P. Govoni, president of True Detective Corporation.

I wish especially to thank my editor, William Targ of Putnam's, who taught me what creative editing means.

I am immensely grateful to my wife, Evelyn, for her tireless help in research and in the preparation of the final typescript.

BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS

ANONYMOUS, Alcatraz. San Francisco, E. Crowell Mensch, 1937.

ALLEN, EDWARD J., Merchants of Menace-The Mafia. Springfield, Ill., Charles C. Thomas, 1962.

ALLEN, FREDERICK LEWIS, Only Yesterday. New York, Harper & Brothers, 1957.

ALLSOP, KENNETH, The Bootleggers. London, Hutchinson, 1961.

ARMBRUSTER, EUGENE L., Brooklyn's Eastern District. Brooklyn, 1942.

ASBURY, HERBERT, The Gangs of New York. Garden City, Garden City Publishing Co., 1928.

Gem of the Prairie: An Informal History of the Chicago Underworld. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1940.

The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition. New York, Doubleday & Co., 1950.

AUDETT, JAMES HENRY ("Blackie"), Rap Sheet. New York, William Sloane Associates, 1954.

BENNETT, JAMES O'DONNELL, Chicago Gangland. Chicago Tribune, 1929.

BENNETT, JAMES V., I Chose Prison. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

BERGER, MEYER, The Eight Million. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1942.

BIDDLE, FRANCIS, In Brief Authority. New York, Doubleday & Co., 1962.

BOETTIGER, JOHN, Jake Lingle. New York, E. P. Dutton & Co., 1931.

BURNS, WALTER NOBLE, The One-Way Ride. New York, Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1931.

BuscH, FRANCIS X., Enemies of the State. New York, Bobbs-Merrill, 1954.

CASEY, ROBERT J., and DOUGLAS, W. A. S., The Midwesterner-The Story of Dwight H. Green. Chicago, Wilcox & Follett Co., 1948.

CHURCHILL, ALLEN, A Pictorial History of American Crime. New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1964.

COHN, ART, The Joker Is Wild: The Story of Joe E. Lewis. New York, Random House, 1955.

CONDON, EDDIE, We Called It Music. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1947.

COOPER, COURTNEY RYLEY, Ten Thousand Public Enemies. New York, Blue Ribbon Books, 1935.

CRESSEY, DONALD R, Theft of the Nation. New York, Harper & Row, 1969.

CUMMINGS, HOMER, Selected Papers. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939.

DEDMON, EMMETT, Fabulous Chicago. New York, Random House, 1953.

DEMARIS, OVID, Captive City. New York, Lyle Stuart, 1969.

DOBYNS, FLETCHER, The Underworld of American Politics. New York, Fletcher Dobyns, Publisher, 1932.

ELLEN, MARY; MURPHY, MARK; and WELD, RALPH FOSTER, A Treasury of Brooklyn. New York, William Sloane Associates, 1949.

ELLIS, STEVE, Alcatraz Number 1172. Los Angeles, Holloway House Publishing Co., 1969.

ENRIGHT, RICHARD T. (Earl Buell), Al Capone on the Spot. Graphic Arts Corporation (Fawcett Publications), 1931.

FEDER, SID, and JOESTEN, JOACHIM, The Luciano Story. New York, David McKay Co., 1954.

FEDERAL WRITERS' PROJECT, The Italians in New York. New York, Random House, 1938.

GLAZER, NATHAN, and MOYNIHAN, DANIEL PATRICK, Beyond the Melting Pot. Cambridge, Mass., M.I.T. Press, 1963.

GODWIN, JOHN, Alcatraz 1868-1963. New York, Doubleday & Co., 1963.

Hearings Before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. Organized Crime and Illicit Traffic in Narcotics. U.S. Senate, 1963.

Hearings Before the Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce. U.S. Senate, 1950.

HECHT, BEN, A Child of the Century. New York, Simon & Schuster, 1954.

HELMER, WILLIAM J., The Gun That Made the Twenties Roar. New York, Macmillan Co., 1969.

HYND, ALAN, The Giant Killers. New York, Robert M. McBride & Co., 1945.

IREY, ELMER L. (as told to William J. Slocum), The Tax Dodgers. Garden City, Garden City Publishing Co., 1948.

JESSEL, GEORGE, So Help We. New York, Random House, 1943.

JOHNSTON, JAMES A., Alcatraz Island Prison. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1949.

KEFAUVER, ESTES, Crime in America. New York, Doubleday & Co., 1951.

LANDESCO, JOHN, Organized Crime in Chicago. Part III of the Illinois Crime Survey. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1929.

LEWIS, LLOYD, and SMITH, HENRY JUSTIN, Chicago: The History of Its Reputation. New York, Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1929.

LYLE, JOHN H., The Dry and Lawless Years. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., PrenticeHall, 1960.

LYNCH, DENIS TILDEN, Criminals and Politicians. New York, Macmillan Co., 1932.

MAAS, PETER, The Valachi Papers. New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1968.

MARIANO, JOHN HORACE, The Second Generation of Italians in New York. Boston, Christopher Publishing House, 1921.

MATTFELD, JULIUS, Variety Music Cavalcade. New York, Prentice-Hall, 1952.

MCCLELLAN, JOHN L., Crime Without Punishment. New York, Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1962.

MCPHAUL, JOHN J., Deadlines & Monkeyshines: The Fabled World of Chicago Journalism. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1962.

MERZ, CHARLES, The Dry Decade. New York, Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1931.

MESSICK, HANK, The Silent Syndicate. New York, Macmillan Co., 1967.

Secret File. New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1969.

MEZZROw, MILTON ("Mezz"), and WOLFE, BERNARD, Really the Blues. New York, Random House, 1946.

NATIONAL COMMISSION ON LAW OBSERVANCE AND ENFORCEMENT. Report on the Enforcement of the Prohibition Laws of the U.S., 1931.

NEss, ELIOT (with Oscar Fraley), The Untouchables. New York, Julian Messner, 1957.

PASLEY, FRED D., Al Capone: The Biography of a Self-Made Man. New York, Ives Washburn, 1930.

Muscling In. New York, Ives Washburn, 1931.

PETERSON, VIRGIL, Barbarians in Our Midst. Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1952.

REDSTON, GEORGE, and CROSSEN, KENDELL F., The Conspiracy of Death. New York, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1965.

REID, ED, Mafia. New York, Random House, 1952.

The Grim Reapers. Chicago, Henry Regnery Co., 1969.

RICHMAN, HARRY (with Richard Gehman) , A 'Heil of a Life. New York, Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1966.

Ross, ROBERT, The Trial of Al Capone. Chicago, Robert Ross, Publisher, 1933.

RUDENSKY, MORRIS, My Keeper's Brother. An unpublished manuscript.

RUDENSKY, MORRIS (Red), and RILEY, DON, The Goniff. Blue Earth, Minn., 1970.

ST. JOHN, ROBERT, This Was My World. New York, Doubleday & Co., 1953.

SALERNO, RALPH, and TOMPKINS. JOHN, The Crime Confederation. New York, Doubleday & Co., 1969.

SANN, PAUL, The Lawless Decade. New York, Crown Publishers, 1957.

SHAPIRO, NAT, and HENTOFF, NAT, Hear Me Talk in' to Ya: The Story of Jazz and the Men Who Made It. New York, Rinehart & Co., 1955.

SMITH, ALSON J., Syndicate City. Chicago, Henry Regnery Co., 1954.

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Rattling the Cup on Chicago Crime. New York, Vanguard Press, 1929.

The Snatch Racket, New York, Vanguard Press, 1932.

THOMPSON, CRAIG, and RAYMOND, ?ALLEN, Gang Rule in New York. New York, Dial Press, 1940.

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TOLAND, JOHN, The Dillinger Days. New York, Random-House, 1963.

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TURKUS, BURTON B., and FEDER, Sip, Murder, Inc. New York, Farrar, Straus and Young, 1951.

VANDERBILT, CORNELIUS, JR., Farewell to Fifth Avenue. New York, Simon and Schuster, 1935.

VITRAY, LAURA, The Great Lindbergh Hullabaloo: An Unorthodox Account. New York, Wm. Faro, 1932.

WALDROP, FRANK, McCormick of Chicago. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1966.

WALLER, IRLE, Chicago Uncensored. New York, Exposition Press, 1965.

WENDT, LLOYD, and KOGAN, HERMAN, Lords of the Levee. New York, BobbsMerrill Co., 1943.

Big Bill of Chicago. New York, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1953.

WHITEHEAD, DON, The FBI Story. New York, Random House, 1956.

WHYTE, WILLIAM FOOTE, Street Corner Society. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1943.

WILSON, FRANK J., and DAY, BETH, Special Agent. New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1965.