Page:Letter from Hodgins, Westrich, Clagett to IRS Agent in Charge regarding Al Capone, 1931.djvu/1



Internal Revenue Agent in Charge, Chicago, Illinois.

Alphonse Capone is, without a doubt, the best advertised and most talked of gangster in the United States today. Reams and reams of newsprint and magazine paper has been used up in exploiting Al. Capone as the "Big Shot" in his various activities as the boss of the so-called Cicero syndicate which carried on a very lucrative business in manufacturing and selling beer and alcohol, operating gambling houses, and houses of prostitution.

Al Capone has been mentioned in connection with practically every major crime committed in Chicago within the last few years; possibly some of the stories are true, but no doubt, a great deal of the stuff printed originated in the fertile brow of some newspaper reporter or magazine writer.

Al Capone, a punk hoodlum, came to Chicago from New York about 1920, as a protege of John Torrio, who, at the time was a lieutenant of Jim Colisimo. The first heard of Capone was as a bouncer in a notoriously tough joint called the "Four Deuces". In the course of time, Colisimo, following the path of all good gangsters, was "bumped off", and Torrio took control. True to tradition, the guns again began to blaze, but this time the person behind the gun evidently had poor eyesight, and Torrio, instead of going to the