Al Capone

Chicago

Chicago was a perfect place to build a criminal empire.  It was a rowdy, pugnacious, hard-drinking town that was open to anyone with enough money to buy it.   In the words of one of her top journalists, "She was vibrant and violent, stimulating and ruthless, intolerant of smugness, impatient with those either physically or intellectually timid."  It was a bloody and brutal city where tens of millions of cows, hogs and sheep were slaughtered by men wading through blood on the killing floor.  It was strictly a commercial town with no appetite for snobbery or "old money."

Big Jim Colosimo with Dale Winter (A. Berardi)

Political corruption was a tradition in that vast prairie city, creating an atmosphere of two-fisted lawlessness in which crime flourished.  The city became known for its wealth and sexual promiscuity.  When Al Capone came to the city in 1920, the flesh trade was becoming the province of organized crime.  The kingpin of this business was "Big Jim" Colosimo along with his wife and partner, Victoria Moresco, a highly successful madam.  Together their brothels were earning an estimated $50,000 per month.

Big Jim owned the Colosimo Cafe, one of the most popular nightclubs in the city.   Nobody cared that he was a pimp.  It never stopped him from hobnobbing with the rich and famous.  Enrico Caruso was a regular, as well as the distinguished lawyer Clarence Darrow.  Big Jim, with huge diamonds glittering on every one of his fat fingers and diamond-studded belts and buckles, was a true product a Chicago society --handsome, generous, gaudy, larger than life.

Colosimo's Cafe (Chicago Historical Society)

As his family vice business grew, Big Jim brought in the discreet Johnny Torrio from Brooklyn to operate and grow their empire.  It was the best decision he could have made because Torrio expanded their business without attracting attention.  Torrio was a serious businessman with no interest in hanky-panky.  In stark contrast to Big Jim, Torrio didn't drink, smoke, swear or cheat on his devoted wife Ann.

The downfall of Big Jim was a pretty young singer who stole his heart.  He foolishly divorced Victoria and married the young immediately afterward.  Word of Colosimo's folly got back to Brooklyn where Frankie Yale took notice of opportunity and decided to muscle in on Colosimo's huge empire.  On May 11, 1920, Yale assassinated Big Jim in his nightclub.

Bergreen describes the first of Chicago's great gangster funerals:  "the last rites became a gaudy demonstration more appropriate to...a powerful political figure or popular entertainer...an event that priests and police captains alike attended to pay their last respects to the sort of man they were supposed to condemn.  Colosimo was universally recognized as Chicago's premier pimp, yet his honorary pallbearers included three judges, a congressman, an assistant state attorney, and no less than nine Chicago aldermen."

Eventually the police figured out who the murderer was and they arrested him in New York.  However, the only witness to the murder was a waiter, who refused to testify against Frankie Yale.  While Yale was able to avoid prosecution, his attempt to take over Colosimo's empire failed.  Torrio was able to maintain his grip on the vast multimillion-dollar-a-year business he had built for Big Jim.  With a big boost to business from Prohibition, Torrio oversaw thousands of whorehouses, gambling joints and speakeasies.

Jack "Greasy Thumb" Guzik (Historical Society)

It was into this vast criminal enterprise that Torrio brought twenty-two-year-old Al Capone from his honest bookkeeping job in Baltimore.  The money and opportunity for advancement was an order of magnitude greater, but the disgrace of managing brothels bothered Al.  It was 1921 and Capone had turned his back on respectability forever.   With his business acumen, soon Al became Torrio's partner instead of his employee.   Al took over as manager of the Four Deuces, Torrio's headquarters in the Levee area.  The Four Deuces was a speakeasy, gambling joint and whorehouse all in one.   Soon his brother Ralph would come to join him in Torrio's business.

At this time, Al became associated with a man that would be his friend for life, Jack Guzik.  Incredibly enough, Guzik's large Jewish Orthodox family made their living through prostitution.  Closer in lifestyle to Torrio, Guzik was a devoted family man who acted like an older brother to Al.  Once again, Capone showed his ability to step outside the Italian community as he had in marrying his Irish wife.  Now his closest friend was Jewish.  Capone's lack of prejudice and ability to create alliances outside of the Italian gangster community would be invaluable in creating his destiny.

Capone House on Prairie Ave. (Chicago Historical Society)

Al was doing quite well financially and bought a house for his family in a respectable neighborhood.  To this modest home at 7244 Prairie Avenue, he brought not only Mae and Sonny, but his mother and other siblings.  Al posed to his neighbors as a dealer in second-hand furniture and went out of his way to maintain a facade of respectability.   Bergreen was convinced that the house on Prairie Avenue, Mae and Sonny represented Capone's striving for redemption.  "Although he preyed on other people's weaknesses for a living, his reputation and standing in the community mattered deeply to him.  The deeper he went into racketeering and all its associated sins, the more he idealized his family, as though they, in their innocence, were living proof that he was not the monster that the newspapers later insisted he was."