GANGLAND KINGS

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 39, 16 February 1931, Page 7

GANGLAND KINGS

AL CAPONE'S RIVALS

WEALTH IN RACKETEERING

UNEXAMPLED PROBLEM

One by one the rival kings of gangland have been mowed down by professional assassins, but Al Capone, "the biggest shot of all," remains the crime Tsar of Chicago, writes Percy Bullen in Ihc "Daily Telegraph." The talo of Chicago as told in recent narratives is more lurid than tho rest in its details, more devastating in its revelations of tho sinister connections between the underworld and the police, local political leaders and the Courts, but it ia tho same in substance in scores of big American cities, including New York. In each case the rise of crime in the United States to the status of a business almost as well organised as the motor-car industry, with ramifications extending to all parts of the country, dates from the time when Prohibition became law. Here, as elsewhere, crime has always existed, but by comparison with recent years it was more spasmodic than chronic, more of a retail business with comparatively small profits than wholesale with enormous annual revouues estimated at many millions of pounds. Of all tho rackets tho liquor and beer running is by far the most valuable to the gangster. Its rewards are worth all tho others combined. Bootlegging in Chicago and elsewhere has supplied the cash with which its practitioners and beneficiaries have corrupted the police, and, by means of local leaders posing as "politicians"— men who farm the votes of the ignorant for delivery to their favourite at the p O ]] s —have secured almost complete immunity before tho Magisterial Courts. POLISHED BANDIT. In America the city judges are elected, and I quote the, words of Mr. Bay ]lansen, the veteran Chicago prosecutor, now a member of President Hoover's Crime Commission, in proof of flic statement, never seriously disputed, that the stark alliance between gangland and politics is a story of "the prostitution of tho ballot box." Tho three live leaders of Chicago gangland until quite recently were Al Capone, Joe Aicllo, and George ("Bugs") Moran. Last month Joe Aiello was found wtih fifty-seven bullets in his crumpled body. With his death and reported retirement of Moran, whose power was broken when his seven chief followers were riddled, Al Capone's reign was for a brief period unchallenged. The Tsar of the underworld, the " self-made" man who was born in Brooklyn 32 years ago, ivas making profits which his biographer estimates at nearly £6,000,000— not dollars, but pounds—per annum, ninetenths of which went for "protection." Capone has his personal bodyguard, his private secretary, his bookkeepers and auditor, and an immense body of paid underlings, and considers himself Just a good business man. He has a town house, a country house, and an estate in Florida. He is described by those who know him well as a keenniinded fellow, who dresses like a fashion plate, observes social rules, and looks more like a banker than an outlaw. COMPETITORS. Within a week after Joe Aiello's body had been carried to the grave in a sAver casket costing £1200, signs accumulated that Capone's reign would not go unchallenged, A monopoly in crime apparently is much tho same as a monopoly in any other form of business —-it provides the basis for competition. To date several "big shots" are named as rivals for sovereignty in the Kingdom of Backets, and Capone, always threatened by death, moves about constantly, leaving no address. He is reported one day as flying in his private 'plane to his luxurious villa at Palm Beach, and another time he reaches Bermuda in his private yacht. It is probably truo that he lives usually on the outskirts of Chicago, where he can. always be in close contact with his numerous lieutenants. Through them he distributes his instructions and largessee, and collect his revenues, quite untroubled by police, who say they can prove nothing against him except vagrancy. The present position of gangdom in Chicago and a dozen other American cities is precisely the same to-day as yesterday. "Big' Shots," as the leaders are' called, may come and go, but while the "rackets" last the profits remain, and .while- the profits are on the present colossal scale the successors to the hierarchy of crime will always bo on hand. Tho rackets will last apparently just as long as Prohibition provides the sinews of war for the racketeers. Last yoar, according to the Prohibition Cornmissionci1, the organised and murderous American bootleg industry had an income of £000,000,000, and tho estimated cost of Prohibition "enforcement," added to a. loss of revenue to the. Government, was £187,000,000. Less than a third of the income of the bootleggers! ONE OF MANY. But "booze" is but one of more than 200 rackets now in operation in the United States from liquor to midget golf courses. The money collected by hundreds of gangs is available for bribing the police, "fixing" of cases which come to Court, corrupting elections, and tainting the Judiciary. In Chicago alone nearly 5000 murders have occurred, a record unexampled in tho history of civilised countries, and figures prove that, judged by the ratio of murders, there are twelve American cities worse than tho metropolis of the middle west. Organised crime is responsible for tho establishment in Chicago of "the Secret Six," an organisation of citizens pieuged to "clean up." Nobody doubts their good will, but few only have confidence in their promises of reform. "In Chicago, as elsewhere, unemployment is a. serious problem, and from the unoroployed come new recruits to the army of bandits. New York and other cities are also working to solve an unexampled problem by establishing committees of investigation. Other ways to slop the ganglords besides attacking the problem at its source .ire urged, but they receive scant notico. One is to pass a. law to disfranchise tho ignorant and illiterate voter. In the Chicago slums a gang leader can buy either directly or through his intermediaries the votes of an entire district. Thcso are given to the candidates favoured by the purchasers. Today the underworld is better organised than the great body of the respectable voters.