Mobsters With Morals

No.207: April 19, 2024

Welcome to The Square Inch, a Friday newsletter on Christianity, culture, and all of the many-varied “square inches” of God’s domain. This is a paid subscription feature with a preview before hitting the paywall. Please consider subscribing to enjoy this weekly missive along with an occasional “Off The Shelf” feature about books, a frequent Pipe & Dram feature of little monologues/conversations in my study, and Wednesday’s “The Quarter Inch,” a quick(er) commentary on current events.

Dear Friends,

Monday was one of the two best days of the year. The first is the opening day of the Spring Book Sale at Central Christian Church in Billings, Montana. The second is the opening day of the Fall Book Sale at Central Christian Church in Billings, Montana.

We make it a family event—a holiday, even. We all go and buy books ($1 for a hardback, $.50 for a paperback) and when we get home we sit around and have a “show and tell” session. We pretty much always find real treasures, and Monday was no different. I will have more to share about that next week with an Off The Shelf feature.

This time my eyes landed on a book I didn’t know existed. And it happened to be a First Edition hardback—although it lacks the dust cover. The Untouchables, by Eliot Ness. I certainly knew there was motion picture called The Untouchables (Starring Kevin Costner, Robert DeNiro, Sean Connery, Andy Garcia, and others), but I had no idea that Eliot Ness, the protagonist of the story, had actually written the memoir that eventually, I guess, sort of became the film. I say “I guess” because the motion picture bears a very slight resemblance to this book; there is a character named Eliot Ness and another named Al Capone, but other than that it appears to be pretty much fiction. I’ve heard of creating “composite” characters and inventing plot lines, but David Mamet’s screenplay barely deserves to be called historical fiction.

Ness’s memoir was published in 1957 and Ness himself died of a heart attack just after approving the final galleys. It is an easy read, almost written like a modern page turning thriller you might find by Brad Thor or Lee Childs. Only it is the true story of how Ness and a small, tight-knit band of Treasury and Prohibition agents took down the biggest and most dangerous mobster in America: “Scarface” Al Capone. It was very dangerous work. Capone was a ruthless mob boss, as evidenced by the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.” He raided a rival gang’s headquarters using thugs dressed as police officers, who proceeded to line everyone up against a wall and summarily execute them. Capone was a big enough problem that the question of what to do about him was asked all the way up the chain of command to the White House, where Herbert Hoover was serving.

The reason Ness formed his small group of “Untouchables” to investigate Capone’s empire is that the mobster had the entire city of Chicago in his pocket—law enforcement, judges, politicians, even people in the Prohibition department. You wouldn’t believe how much money Al Capone had to throw around (thanks, Prohibition!) A hundred years ago Chicago was a gang-ridden, violent landscape full of gunfire and corrupt politicians—so nothing much has changed. But anyway, back then no one could be trusted. Ness needed men who could not be compromised or bought off. Sure enough, after causing enough financial and economic pain by raiding and shutting down numerous clandestine breweries (through excellent investigative work!), Capone attempted to bribe Ness and several of his men with $2,000 per week if they would just lay off. For context, these guys made $2,750 per year. When they all refused, Ness himself decided to tell the press about Capone’s “offer.” A newspaperman coined the term: Ness and his associates were “The Untouchables.”

Things got very intimidating. Ness was pretty certain Capone would hesitate to simply “rub out” Federal agents, but he couldn’t really be sure. “The Untouchables” were constantly followed and monitored and harassed. Their cars were routinely stolen. His phone lines were wiretapped. He caught a thug peering through the window of his girlfriend’s house late at night. Another followed him into an elevator and rode up to his office floor with him, just to threaten him and send a message. He took two bullets to his windshield while leaving her house.

Ness’s mother stayed up late in her rocking chair every night during this detail, terrified for her son—who was only 25 years old, keep in mind. (Men grew up a lot faster back then.)

And that is something intriguing I noticed.

Al Capone knew where Eliot Ness lived: with his mother and father at their family home. He knew where Eliot’s girlfriend, Betty, lived. A henchman was watching her house and peering into the windows. And it seems to never have occurred to Eliot Ness that his parents and girlfriend (and her parents) were in danger.