Al Capone’s Ghost
“Where
are you from?”
“Chicago.”
“Oh,
the gangster city where Al Capone lived.”
Photographs and text copyright © 2019 by Thomas
McNulty
That
snippet of conversation has occurred in Mexico City, Los Angeles, Deadwood,
Nashville and so many other places in my travels. Al Capone did indeed live in
Chicago, and he did leave an indelible mark on Chicago history. Chicago cannot
escape Al Capone, or John Dillinger or Baby Face Nelson or Dean O’Banion or
Bugs Moran. Here there be gangsters.
Chicago’s
rich history has a texture unlike so many others, often punctuated by intense
acts of violence, from the Fort Dearborn Massacre to the St. Valentine’s Day
Massacre to the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and multiple
stunning incidents in between. Chicago is the embodiment of corruption.
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| Recommended Reading |
My
grandfather, Andrew McNulty, encountered Capone once when he worked as
conductor on the streetcars for the Chicago Transit Authority. This was in the
late 20s or early 30s and prior to Capone’s imprisonment for tax evasion in
1932. My grandfather, or Mac as his family and friends called him, had no time
for Capone or the men that surrounded him. Mac told me, “They were all goons
and thugs, punks that thought they were tough.” Mac’s distaste for Capone and
his henchmen was extended a few years later with some brief encounters with
John Dillinger and his roughneck coterie. “Dillinger was full of himself.” Mac
told me. He described how common, if not ordinary, riding a streetcar was in
those days, even for people with money, because when the weather was good the
goons could show-off, make contact with people, and brag a lot. “The streetcars
were for everybody,” he said, “until the buses came, and that changed
everything.”
According
to my grandfather, Capone’s ride was brief, maybe a block, and they got off,
and I have never found a similar published statement that Capone used the
streetcars. In fact, during this period Capone stayed out of sight and
routinely traveled by automobile with guards. Yet my grandfather was no liar,
and he clearly encountered Capone. The circumstances will never be known, and
Mac is long gone, but one day all those decades past Al Capone got on a
streetcar and rode about a block. Capone paid for everyone that got on with
him, and that is consistent with published reports about Capone’s behavior.
People greeted Capone warmly. “Hello Al!” or “Thanks Al!” were tossed at Capone
like verbal bouquets.
Mac’s
solitary encounter with Capone was brief, but his henchmen rode the streetcars
all the time, and the goons wanted everyone to know whose payroll they were on.
Those “punks that thought they were tough” made a lasting impression on Mac,
and he recalled them with distaste decades later. There was one career criminal
from this period that did leave a slightly favorable impression on my grandfather.
This was Joseph Weil, better known as the Yellow Kid, a notorious con-man who
once reportedly swindled Benito Mussolini, and lived to tell the tale. “He was
a gentleman,” Mac said, “He was the kind of well-dressed and polite man that
would lend you a few bucks and never expect to get it back if you were down on
your luck. Everybody liked him.”
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| Al Capone's Final Resting Place |
Capone
had a reputation for being flashy, and down-to-earth, even with Mac, who wanted
nothing to do with Chicago’s underworld. By comparison, Dillinger “got what he
deserved” when he was gunned down by the FBI on July 22, 1934 outside the
Biograph Theatre on Lincoln Avenue. Capone was larger-than life; he courted the
press, found himself being cheered at baseball games, and cultivated the image
of a colorful and well-dressed businessman. Al Capone opened soup kitchens for
the needy and made himself into a folk hero. This is a vital fact that demands
attention. During the Depression the general feeling was one of distrust toward
banking institutions and the government. They had failed the American people.
Al Capone not only put people to work, but he fed people. Al Capone’s soup
kitchens became the stuff of legend.
Deirdre
Bair’s biography, Capone: His Life,
Legacy and Legend, published in 2016, is among the better books devoted to
Capone’s amazing life. Bair’s biography is an attempt “to look at his public
behavior within the context of his personal life, to see how the two might possibly
be interrelated, and how the one might have had influence or bearing on the
other.” Bair chose to give little attention to such historic events as the St.
Valentine’s Day Massacre in favor of interpreting Capone’s life, and so her
book is not a useful chronology for those seeking details on the Chicago’s turf
war. It does, however, delve deeply into Capone’s public behavior, her stated
goal all along. She succeeds and I consider this among the top evaluations on
Capone.
Jonathan
Eig’s 2010 best-seller, Get Capone: The
Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster, offers a fresh
perspective on Capone’s involvement in Chicago’s gangland, including a new
theory that purports the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was an insider job
orchestrated by the police, and not Capone. Eig’s theory is compelling, if
unprovable. I believe Eig’s contention that Capone had nothing to do with the
massacre. Read his book.
When
Capone died in 1947, his mind ravaged by neurosyphilis, his body was
transported to Chicago and interred in Mount Olivet Cemetery. In 1950 his body
and those of his father and brother were moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery in
suburban Hillside. His gravesite is a popular destination for history buffs. Mount
Carmel Cemetery is also home to the remains of Dean O’Banion, yet another
Chicago gangster, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn (aka Vincent DeMora), Frank Nitti,
Earl Weiss, and others. It is also the resting place of Julia Buccola Petta,
better known as “The Italian Bride” who died at age 29 in 1921. Her body was
exhumed six years after her death, and photographed by her mother revealing a
lack of decomposition. Her mother had the photo affixed to her grave. Tales of ghostly wanderings have occurred routinely by locals who claim to have seen her spirit. In
Chicago, the dead don’t stay in one place long.
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| Julia Buccola Petta's grave with close-up of exhumation photo |
In
the decades since Capone’s death the corruption and exploitation of vice remain
as strong as ever in the Windy City. The goons, thugs and punks are still
around, although these days we call them politicians. For Illinoisans holding
onto a sliver of hope, you should be heartened by the fact that Illinois has
sent more governors to prison than any state in the union.
