GOOD FOR CHICAGO

Taranaki Daily News, 15 August 1931, Page 5

GOOD FOR CHICAGO

CAPONE’S CONVICTION.

HOPE FOR BETTER DAYS. CITY RID OF THE GANGSTER KING, Chicago to-day is looking forward to a better future and an improved reputation. Such is the effect in the public mind of the fact that the city’s symbol of her organised crime, the chief single reason for her bad repute, is passing into oblivion —the fact that Scarf ace Al Capone is going to prison, writes Frank A. 'Smithers in the New York Times. The one fear expressed is that competition for the position he held in the underworld will lead to more gang warfare. . •

Capone’s plea of guilty in the Federal Court to indictments charging him with income tax fraud and vast bootlegging operations is regarded as the finest thing that has happened to the city since A. J.' Cermak defeated “Big Bill’ 1 ' Thompson for the Mayor’s chair in April. It is counted one of the best boons the city has received in years. And the collapse of the gangster has come as a fresh and encouraging portent at an especially good time. Chicago is in need of encouragement just now, what with the financial morass in which its municipal government is struggling and the string of small-bank closings which have troubled the metropolis. Now, whatever may be the ills of the depression, there is satisfaction in thinking upon Capone. The great point about his crumpling 1 up, as viewed in ’Chicago, .is the demonstration it affords that crime, no mat-, ter how powerful, no longer is immune from lawful punishment. Previously tho United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, George E. Q. Johnson, had obtained convictions against a number of Capone’s lieutenants on income tax charges. But they were incomplete in themselves. It remained to be seen whether the throng itself of Chicago gangland could be shaken. _

Such scepticism, lias been dispelled. Chicagoans to-day have in their minds a vivid picture, impressed by long newspaper descriptions, of Capone standing before Federal Judge James H. Wilkerson and whispering “Guilty”; a picture of the gangster, in liis expensively tailored clothing, surrendering to a power he could not master; and, standing near him in the courtroom, the. slight figure of Prosecutor Johnson. Johnson’s face is not crude like Capone’s. Instead, it is distinctly gentle and gentlemanly, Chicago sees it in the courtroom as the victor’s face, and Capone’s as the vanquished. The winner represents all that is orderly and law-abiding; the. loser has represented, at least in public im-. agination, all that is violent and scornful of law,

A year ago the average Chlcagoaif would have laughed had he heard a prediction of that courtroom scene of de-, feat for “Scarface.’’ Orderly citizen# and racketeers alike would have laughed. For Capone was immune. Did. ho' not have millions at his disposal? Had. he not “bought” public officials? Had he not “greased” his way wherever ho wanted to go in Chicago? Was he not the most powerful racketeer of all time ? Tho impossible has happened. Predicting the future is uncertain;; but it is felt that Capone will regain his throne in Chicago and national gang-; dom. District Attorney Johnson has stressed the point that a gangster’s im-. munity’is one of his chief powers. Take it away from him, show him th -t he is not above the law, and his prestigA falls. Loyalties of gangsters and their, trust in him also fall. True, Philadelphia put him in gaol for a year on ft? gun-carrying charge. But that was not. nearly so serious as that which Capone faces at present. Capone himself iq not taking the ordeal lightly. The maximum penalty possible under the indictments would be 34 years and a fine of 00,000 dollars. But much may happen in addition to his less of pres-, tige. / VICTORIES BY GOVERNMENT. 1 While Prosecutor Johnson’s earlier convictions of Capone henchmen, together with the fall of Capone himseF have served to cripple the Capone organisation badly, it is recognised that the recent victories of the Government are not a cure-all for the organised crime problem of Chicago. Colonel Robert Isham Randolph, president of the Chicago Association of Commerce and head of the “Secret Six/an organisation sponsored by the as-* ■sociatiou for fighting crime, in an inter-: view upon the hoodlum’s passing, cm' phasised the necessity for keeping up' the fight. “His conviction will go far toward breaking up the syndication of beer, gambling, whisky, and prostitution/ I '- said the Colonel. * “'He has been the knowledged head of a syndicate which' has practically controlled these activities in Chicago, and his control has extended to various other cities.

“But the conviction of Capone alone is not Going to break up the system. His organisation has been crippled, not killed. As long as the huge profits that exist in illegal importation, manufac-. ture, and distribution of beer and alcohol continue, we shall have traffic id •those commodities, and criminal organisations will operate them. The fight must go on. More gangsters must ba prosecuted. ! “The one thing I fear,” he went on, “is that what has happened may result In competition again in beer, and vice, since control has weakened. Competition would lead to more gang warfare. Capone really controlled things;' before his rise we had the ‘north side gang,’ the ‘south side gang,’ and iha ‘west side gang’ clashing with each other. We had violence. “Capone eliminated competition by killing off his rivals or consolidating them. In the end, really, there wds one. great syndicate in Chicago—-one invisible government that functioned well id its way. The control was so firm that a ealoon-neeper couldn’t even brew his own beer —or if he did, ho had to split with. Capone. Further, he had to buy) Capone booze.”

In Colonel Randolph’s opinion, Capone himself has had enough of the gang chi M’s life, and has wanted to get out i of it, And the Colonel believes that ’

s the reason ho was willing to plead

guilty. “He has money salted away to take, care of him when he gets out of prison,”he said,’ 5 though, had it not been for the mountain of evidence against hint’ other factors would not have prompted him to > accept a prison term'as a rqadt. to retirement,”-