Al Capone Essay, Research Paper
Alphonse Capone was born in New York City by two parents Gabriel
and Teresa Capone. Capone’s parents immigrated to the United States in
1893 from Naples, Italy. Capone came from a large family and was the
fourth oldest of nine children. (Kobler 10). As a child, Capone was very
wise when it came to living on the streets of New York. He had a clever
mind when it came to street smarts. As far as school goes, Capone was a
near-illiterate. He came from a poor neighborhood in Brooklyn, so education
was not a top priority.
At about the age of eleven Capone became a member of a juvenile
gang in his neighborhood. While this was taking place, around the year
1900, about eleven percent of all the foreign born population in the United
States were Italian. Capone was forced to either deal with a miserable low
wage job with a hopeless future or make an improvement for himself by
committing first minor, then serious crimes. Al Capone’s philosophy was
that laws only applied to people who had enough money to live by them.
While in the Bim Booms gang, Capone was taught how to defend himself
with a knife, and with a gun. By the time Capone reached the sixth grade he
had already become a street brawler. Capone never responded well to
authority and for this very reason his schooling would soon come to an end.
While attending school, Capone was responsible for beating a female teacher
and knocking her to the ground. The principal of the school rushed in and
punished young Capone and for this very reason he would never return to
school again. (Sifakis 603)
After dropping out of school, Capone took up jobs such as working as
a pin-setter at a bowling alley, and working behind the counter at a candy
store. Capone was terrific at pool, winning every eightball tournament held in
Brooklyn. He also became an expert knife fighter. Although the Bim
Booms gang was the first gang Capone ever entered, he was quickly picked
up by the Five Pointers. The Five Pointers was the most powerful gang in
New York city. The gang was headed by Johnny Torrio, and was made up of
over 1,500 thugs who specialized in burglary, extortion, robbery, assault, and
murder. While working as a strong arm enforcer under Torrio, Capone
learned all the lethal tricks that would help him get from rags to riches in no
time at all. Capone was very grateful to Torrio. Torrio first set Capone out to
do all of his dirty work. Capone was sent to beat up loan shark victims
behind on their payments, then a pimp, beating up girls who were holding out
on their nightly take. Torrio finally got Capone a job as a bouncer at the
Harvard Inn. By this time Capone was recognized by his gang as being a
vicious fighter with both fists and knives. He also became an excellent
marksman with both a revolver and automatic weapons. This was due to
many months of shooting empty bottles in the basement of the Inn. Capone
was later promoted to bartender at the Harvard Inn. At this time capone
recieved the scar which would give him his famous nickname, Scarface. It
is really not known how Capone ended up with a scar that extended four
inches across his left cheek. Capone often lied about how he got the scar.
On December 18, 1918, Capone was married at the age of 19, to a 21
year old Irish girl named Mae Coughlin. A short time later Albert Francis
Capone was born to the couple. At the same time this was going on, in New
York, Johnny Torrio moved his operations to Chicago. Torrio’s prospects in
New York looked low because Capone was charged for two murders. He
was released when a witness lost her memory, and evidence suddenly
vanished from the court. Al Capone knew that he had Torrio to thank for
this. A few days later, Capone got into a fight with another man and killed
him. Rather than being charged again, Capone called Torrio and received an
invitation to move to Chicago. (Nash 604)
As Capone arrived in Chicago, Capone was given a job as a bouncer at
Torrio’s newest club, The Four Deuces. Capone was known as an aggressive
man, hospitalizing most of the drunks he evicted. Men were hospitalized
with broken arms, broken legs, and skull fractures. Capone was repeatedly
arrested for assault, but was always released thanks to Torrio’s police
connections. While working at The Four Deuces, Capone strangled at least
twelve men with his bare hands. The bodies were dragged to the basement
through a trap door that led to the alley behind the club. There a fast getaway
car would always be waiting for Capone to flee in. The underworld of
Chicago at the time was being run by a fellow named “Big Jim” Colosimo.
Colosimo was a flamboyant man. He dressed in expensive suits and was
covered in diamond jewelry. He was always seen eating at expensive
restaurants, and owned all the brothels, saloons, and gambling dens in
Chicago. (Nash 605)
Johnny Torrio grew very jealous of Colosimo and soon sent for his
most loyal hitman, Al Capone. When Capone arrived in Chicago, he was
assigned the small jobs as a bouncer and bartender to disguise Torrio’s real
reason for sending for him, to kill off “Big Jim” Colosimo. “Big Jim”
Colosimo was killed on the night of May 11, 1920. (Nash 606) The reason
for his death was due mostly to the prohibition act to be passed in 1920. The
act forbid alcohol to be distributed to all the bars in Chicago. Torrio, the
nephew of Colosimo, often asked him to start an underground operation that
could supply all the bars with beer and liquor, but Colosimo always answered
with a firm no. In this, Al Capone was soon to become the great distributor
of alcohol in Chicago during Prohibition. (Allsop 56)
Al Capone’s mob ran the streets of Chicago. While Capone’s street
mob was at its peak, it consisted of over 1,000 members and half of the
Chicago police force. Capone’s payroll at the time consisted of police
officers, state’s attorneys, mayors, legislators, governors, and even
congressmen. (Nash 608) At the time Capone was known as the “King of
Chicago”. Being the king of Chicago had its downfalls. Numerous threats
on his life were made, he was shot at in streets, and even had poison slipped
into his food at clubs. In a near death experience a rival gang member, Dion
O’Banion, shot 1,000 rounds into the Hawthorn Inn where Capone was
staying. After he had cheated death, the arranging of O’Banion’s death
would be marked as one of Capone’s greatest accomplishments. This
assassination was done by Capone’s two best hitmen, John Scalise and Albert
Anselmi. Unfortunately for Al Capone all was not well after the murder of
Dion O Banion. Capone s last effort was to kill the last major leader of the
O’Banion’s street gang, Bugs Moran. This was ordered as the St. Valentine’s
Day Massacre. Capone’s men dressed as police officers and lined seven of
O’Banion’s gang members up across a garage wall. The gang offered no
resistance because they thought it was a regular police routine. Instead
Capone’s men opened up over 1,000 rounds of machine gun fire slaughtering
the members. Unfortunately for Capone, Bugs Moran was not present among
the seven men who were killed. (Nash 112)
Capone’s downfall was caused by one of his own business agents who
ran Capone’s dog and horse race tracks. The man’s name was Eddie O’Hare,
one of the best undercover men hired by the IRS. He informed the IRS
where books reflecting Capone’s income could be seized. Capone had never
paid any type of income tax and for this very reason he was brought up on
charges of tax invasion in front of the federal court. Capone offered the
federal government $400,000 to drop the case against him, but they rejected
the offer. Capone was convicted and given the maximum sentence which
was a $50,000 fine, court costs of $30,000, and eleven years in jail. (Nash
116 ) Capone started his sentence in an Atlanta prison. In 1934 he was
transferred to Alcatraz, also known as The Rock. Five years later he was
released from Alcatraz as a helpless paretic, due to the untreated syphilis he
got from prostitutes. Later that year, Al Capone was judged insane and was
released to the care of his family. (Sifakis 613 )
In January 1947 Capone had a massive brain hemorrhage and died.
His body was removed from his estate in Florida and transferred back to the
seen of his underworld triumph, Chicago. The family held a private
ceremony at the cemetery, but were affraid of grave robbers taking the corpse
so they reburied Capone in a secret place in Mt. Carmel Cemetery. (Kobler
122)