| Chicago’s South Side Mob – Concluded #4 The FBI and Fun Facts |
What effect did the government and law enforcement have on the Mob? Among the skills developed by the Outfit was the ability to avoid, minimize, and overturn criminal punishment. Money was spent wherever necessary: payoffs for looking the other way, bribes, top legal defense, whatever it took. It’s common knowledge that the only successful effort to penalize Al Capone was to charge him with tax evasion. Even while imprisoned, Capone was able to effectively influence the operations of the Outfit. This was typical throughout the organization. Business as usual. After the efforts carried out by Eliot Ness (facts now hint he was less instrumental than is represented in the movies and television), J. Edgar Hoover directed his agents to targets outside of organized crime, focused on bank robbers, Communists, and Cuba. It is said this was because he didn’t want to wreck his reputation for always getting his man, and the Mob had a way of making fools of government efforts by trial manipulations and overturned verdicts. An interesting fact was that law enforcement routinely flew small planes over suspect areas in the winter, looking for roofs with no snow, as snow would melt if alcohol was being cooked. In Chicago Heights the mobsters painted their roofs white. Organized crime seemed always able to find people willing to work outside the law and cooperate to spread corruption, with fingers that reached into a vast array of entities. Not only were police departments and judges made to “go along,” but union money was said to be used to build mob casinos, and politicians often played ball with the Mob for a variety of reasons. Not only was it said that the Mob had a lot to do with getting the “right” politicians into office (some say including John Kennedy), but it is rumored that there are mob ties to Watergate, and that high-level members of the Mob were paid informants for the FBI and CIA. With those connections and potential, it’s no wonder mobsters often escaped prosecution and conviction. Despite this, today’s Outfit has been largely affected by Federal prosecution. Other factors have come into being, such as legalization of gambling, ethnic changes that shifted the effectiveness of organized crime on a larger level to street level and community gang activities, and a reformed population that no longer tolerates visible traditional organized crime and violence. Interesting Facts In the 1890s Chicago had a population of 1.2 million, but only 1100 policemen. Today Chicago’s population of 2.7 million has 12,000 police officers. In the early 1900s, Chicago’s consumption of alcohol was three times the national average. In 1927 Cicero was the “wettest” spot in the U.S., with Chicago Heights being #2. At that time, bootlegging brought in $183 million ($103 million from beer, $56 million from hard liquor, and $23 million from the production of pure alcohol), while gambling brought in $65 million, vice $52 million, and labor racketeering $26 million. Of these totals, the Capone Outfit brought in 30%, which was more than double the next most profitable crime organization. During the Prohibition Era (1919-1933) 729 people were killed gangland-style in Cook County. At the 1933 World Fair in Chicago, Ralph “Bottles” Capone, Al Capone’s brother, controlled the market on bottled water and soda. The term “underworld” in Chicago reportedly came from the fact that a large percentage of organized crime originated from an area of Chicago where the streets had been raised by ten feet in 1850, leaving the buildings that had lined these streets significantly below street level. It is rumored that between Prohibition and the 1990s the mob had so much cash overflow that it’s likely that to this day undiscovered stashes are buried all over Chicagoland. Such cash, after being dug up, was routinely exchanged at racetracks, since the money would have gotten moldy and the smell would have given it away. With the exception of casinos in Las Vegas and in the West, the Chicago Outfit controlled all mob activities west of Chicago across the United States. In 1950 and 1951 the estimated annual illegal gambling take alone was $15-20 billion. In those same years, the annual U. S. Military budget was $13 billion. During that period, Chicago was the crime capital of America. The Freehauf Building in Lemont at the northeast corner of Talcott and Stephen housed in its deep basement a large “alky cooker” that turned out alcohol for Lemont’s many “soft drink parlors.” A raid there in 1925 by Sheriff Hoffman and his men found nothing but equipment after breaking down the door, except for a few gallons of alcohol in a shed behind the building. The still had been taken down and the operators were nowhere to be found. In the 1950s a bookie joint operated on the building’s upper floor. I hope you’ve enjoyed this trip into the Underworld. If you found it interesting, please check out my newest book, The Mystery of Mount Forest Island, which is based on much of the material covered here. You can also read one of my older posts from April 1, 2015, “Lemont and the Capones.” The link is: https://www.patcamallierebooks.com/2015/04/lemont-and-the-capones/ If you question something in my articles, please look to these authorities, the real experts who know so much more than I ever will about organized crime. Some of the books I used, from which I derived notes used to write this article, are: The Chicago Outfit – John J. Binder Al Capone’s Beer Wars – John J. Binder The Neighborhood Outfit – Louis Corsino The Boys in Chicago Heights – Matthew J. Luzi The Outfit – Gus Russo |
I remember as a kid I meeting Ralph “Bottles” Capone at the Hickory Hills Country Club in connection with his beverage business. Hickory Hills also had strong mob influence. I remember that most of the police force were involved and they had a strike. All the cops went out on strike leaving Hickory Hills with one squad car and no radio, one of the cops said he owned the radio.
I also remember as a kid finding the first Argonne Lab out in Palos woods. There were still a few buildings, a big pile of black something or other that we later figured out was carbon. There were pipes sticking out of the ground with a couple of inches of lead around them. At that time we did not know what we had found but were pretty much convinced we should not have been there. I tried taking photos of the area but the the radioactivity was high and it exposed my film.
I enjoyed your articles which were brought to my attention by my sister, Karin Anderson Cavanaugh, who I believe knows you. We grew up in Oak Lawn and lived across the the Starlight Drive In on Ridgeland Avenue.
Thank you for the comments. Although it’s been many years, Karin and I were classmates at Oak Lawn High. You were exploring the Palos Woods much sooner than I was – I didn’t get out here until about 25 years ago, but I’ve loved exploring out here ever since I discovered it. All my books are set here, and there are many more articles about the area on my website. I hope you enjoy browsing through it!
I always enjoy hearing from people who have appreciated my writing, and hope to hear from you again!
Pat