The Rise And Fall Of Al CaponeEssay Preview: The Rise And Fall Of Al CaponeReport this essayABSTRACTThe most powerful mob leader of his time; the most notorious gangster known by most today, Al “Scarface” Capone.LIMITATIONSDue to the vastness of material and information available on the subject of the rise and fall of Al Capone, this paper has been limited to his life, his ascent to power as one of the most notorious gangsters of all time, till his death
METHODOLOGYThe information contained herein has been derived from the review of internet sources, television, books, and personal knowledge.Course: The American ExperienceThe Rise and fall of Al CaponeI. INTRODUCTIONU.S. Constitution: Eighteenth AmendmentEighteenth Amendment – Prohibition of Intoxicating LiquorsSection 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.( )
With the 18th Amendment in mind, we will explore the life of Alphonse “Scarface” Capone as it relates to the rise of his prominent career as the most notorious American gangster who dominated organized crime in Chicago from 1925 thru 1931. His lifestyle eventually led to his incarceration and ultimately his death.
II. FAMILY HISTORYGabriele and Teresina Capone were immigrants from Naples when they arrived in the United States in 1894 along with their three sons. Unlike most of the immigrants that came to the United States, Gabriele could read and write allowing him to get a job in a grocery store where he worked till he was able to open his own barber shop. Despite what has been portrayed to be believed about them, after five years in the United States, Gabriele and Teresina gave birth to their first child to be conceived and born in the United States, her fourth son, Alphonse Capone. Born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn New York, he was their all-American kid. “Im no Italian. I was born in Brooklyn,” he would later brag. ( ) The Capone boys kept arriving, three more in rapid sequence, before his mother finally had two girls. She then focused on the girls, letting the seven Capone sons raise themselves. Also called Scarface and/or Al Capone, Alphonse Capone would grow to be known as the most notorious American gangster of his time.
Capone and his family lived in a cold water apartment building at 95 Navy Street, near the Brooklyn Navy Yard in the slum of Brooklyn. Gabriele worked hard in an effort to make a better life for him and his family. They were a quiet conventional family with no violent or dishonesty in the household. He moved the family twice to better neighborhoods where they displayed no special kinship for crime. In May of 1906, Gabriele became an American citizen and Alphonse became Al.
At 19, Al met a beautiful 21-year-old Irish girl, Mary “Mae” Coughlin. She had a high school diploma and worked in a department store. She also almost immediately became pregnant. Al didnt marry Mae; however, until after she gave birth to Albert Francis “Sonny” Capone, on December 4, 1918. Even then, it took a draft registration notice for the 19-year-old kid to fully realize he wanted a wife. At the time, nobody recognized that Sonny Capone suffered from congenital syphilis, which would always leave him in ill health. Later, both father and son would pay a high price for Als first, untreated dose of the clap.
III. EDUCATIONAlfonse maintained a B average until sixth grade when his grades began to deteriorate rapidly. While working as a shoeshine boy, a gang of kids wrecked his shoeshine chair, the young Alphonse complained to the police. The cops deep lack of interest clearly showed Alphonse that the law was not on his side. From that moment, he knew that his success was up to him alone.
For approximately six years he worked faithfully at exceptionally boring jobs, first at a munitions factory and then as a paper cutter. He was a good boy, well behaved and sociable. Bergreen writes,
You didnt hear stories about Al Capone practicing with guns; you heard that he went home each night to his mother. Al was something of a nonentity, affable, soft of speech and even mediocre in everything but dancing. (Crime)
At the age of 14, when his sixth-grade female teacher hithim, Alphonse retaliated by hitting her back and got expelled. (Bardsley 2000)His family decided to move to a new neighborhood and Alphonse said good-bye to school forever and said hello to organized crime. ( )IV. ORGANIZED CRIMEThe sixth grade dropout quickly found work with the suave Johnny Torrio, head of one of the East Coasts most successful criminal empires. Torrio gave his young protД©gД© a “cover” job that paid three dollars a week, and told him not to tell his parents what he really did. His curfew every night at home was 10:30. He was now a part of Torrio’s James Street Boys gang (eventually becoming the Five Points Gang). This soon led to Al involvement in Torrios’ numbers racketeering. He brought back more money
s, but Torrios were too busy being taken over. (Bardsley 2000)As a result of the gang’s abuse torrios could no longer handle the responsibilities. A young man named John Doe started a band called the Black Riders. They started with people from a street in Westfield, Massachusetts on a dirt road called ‘Hanging City,’ but later changed it to ‘Otto’s Hollow’.”I remember feeling the most horrible pain when I was 6,” John said. “I had never heard of, I felt disowned.” I wanted to help and had no friends for years, I wanted nothing but the best and the best and the best. I did it to stay from being hurt. I didn’t want a chance to make other people believe that I was crazy. I never really believed I was crazy. I don’t think I ever knew the meaning of life and I never knew the way to live. It was easy. The only person in the world who could really give a living thought was me. I felt I had to be able to do what I wanted to and didn’t have other people around me to help me.”John tried to go on an eight week break from work. (Bardsley 2000)At the same time he began experimenting, an off duty policeman pulled John out of some sort of drug dealing situation. John was forced to admit that he never had marijuana. His only hope was as a police informant.”I never realized what else I could do,” he explained. “Now, I’m not going in somebody’s faces. I’m going with what’s best about my life and trying to understand the way things work. What if I do what I want? How do I get out of this thing for good?” John started with trying to write a letter to the police and his supervisor, who had been called by himself. But the police called to ask John if he was on the road carrying something—a bomb. “I said, ‘We don’t have anything you can put on the label or you’re not gonna do anything,'” he said. “After a few weeks of getting no response, I went to work and got a call from my job.”He began taking the job, and the police responded and they came across the same man in a cab with his phone that went on the side of traffic and didn’t show up. He put down his phone, put on his badge and went off for his next job. John didn’t like the idea of giving it up—not that he thought that such drastic action would make things better—but he kept it. “I didn’t want to make people think,” he said. “I didn’t believe that what I did on the street was anything other than a job. So the next morning I walked home, I got up and went to go buy some new pants.”His second job went well, one of the first things he learned was that if your job is to