.Tinsel About A1 Capone Has Turned Tawdry Since He Entered Alcatraz

“Scarface” Al Capone when he had reached the height of his power’February 1929. At that time killings in Chicago had marked the end of the notorious North Side gang, founded by Dion O Bamon, and Capone was in coyimand of the underworld. Air view of Alcatraz Island Federal Prison, San Francisco Bay, which Al Capone left yesterday. —A. P. Photo.

The palatial Palm Island estate at Miami Beach, which Al Capone once owned. It was sold at auction by the Government

in 1936 to satisfy a Federal tax lien of more than $50,000 filed against his wife. p photo.

The Chicago gang leader happily fishing from the bow of a yacht in Biscayne Bay, Fla., long before the income tax evasion laws caught up with him. _A. p. Photo.

The wedding of Miss Mafalda Capone, sister of Scarf ace Al, and John Maritote at St Mary’s Church, Cicero. III., December 14, 1930. Maritote’s brother, under the alias “Frank Diamond ’’ was one of the 28 public enemies in Clycago. Reports of warfare between the Capone and Diamond factions were settled by this union of the dynasties of gangdom. _p and A Photo.

John Capone, brother of Al Capone, from a rogue’s gallery picture made of him by the Miami police.

—Wide World Photo.

In its heyday the Al Capone gang branded its own beer keg bungs. The “23” on these bungs, seized by dry agents in 1933, means that the beer was made and sold by that wing of the elaborate Capone beer kingdom, still in existence despite the

► >ac, that Capone was then serving his prison term in the Fed- eral prison at Atlanta. p. Photo. —--—------—

Albert Capone, Al’s brother, who was arrested in connec- tion with the bombing of the home of Mayor Joseph G. Cerny in 1932. —A. P. Photo.t

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Gangster Chief of Past Era Leaves Island a Broken Man

Some 250 Gang Deaths Credited To Baddest of Bad Men During Prohibition By John Lear,

Associated Press Staff Writer.

NEW YORK.—The legend that was A1 Capone is dead. It crumbled behind the walls of the island prison of Alcatraz, along with the twisted mind that reared it. A few weeks more and it will be gone, leaving behind it just another man-

Plain Alphonse Capone. Doctors who should know say that

4the disease which drives A1 mad one week in every four will pot permit him to live long at the Federal Cor- rectional Institution at San Pedro, where he was taken from Alcatraz yesterday. But even if he lives, A1 will never again be the Capone of the legend.

The machine-gunning gang he led when he was the baddest of the bad men has broken up in his ab- sence, victim of its own dark genius for organized assassination.

The prohibition law- from which ne derived his biggest racket, illicit alcohol, has been repealed. Boot- legging still goes on, but its income is picayune compared to Al's old- time “take” of $75,000 a month.

The glamour that covered under- world kings in Al's heyday has been transferred since to the hunters of criminals, the G-men. For it is hard to make idols of frightened creatures shot down like rats in the miserable manner of John Dillinger and "Ma” Barker's brood. * The old Chicago A1 knew is less flamboyant and less violent. Land- marks of the past, like "Bathhouse” Coughlin, have passed on. Gang deaths have declined from 701 in the 12 years of Capone activity to a

mere dozen in 1938. And the public temper has shifted to the point where Dwight Green, the former as-

sistant United States district attor- ney who sent A1 to jail, can make a serious bid for election as Mayor

«on the Republican ticket and a

"rid of rackets” platform. The tinsel about Capone has

turned tawdry, too. He was taken to Alcatraz from the Atlanta Peni- tentiary for fear his gang would free him. He made the trip west chained to a seat in a railroad car.

He was, indeed, a bold bad man.

He entered Alcatraz as one of the original “tough guys” in the "tough guys’ prison. He engaged in at least one fight behind the walls,

, and was sent at least once to soli- tary.

But soon the bold bad man be- came a model prisoner. The hater of law refused to take part in a

prison break plot. The foe of society subscribed to a magazine devoted to social progress, The Sur- vey Graphic. And now his “master mind” has fallen prey to the decay- science knows as paresis.

As long as he remained on “The Rock” something of the Capone legend would persist from the for- bidden nature of the place. But when he left secretly yesterday for Terminal Island for the year he has ettll to serve he was no criminal kingpin, but a broken man.

So thin a shell of his one-time dangerous self remains that the man who directed Al's incarceration on “The Rock” four years ago says today:

“The best thing to do is to ignore him.”

To be ignored would {>e a new

experience for Al. He was in the limelight of the underworld from the time he came of age. He had Just turned 22—approximately 22, that is, for no one knows the exact date of his birth in old-world Naples -—when Johnny Torrio took him from New York to Chicago to be the bodyguard of “Big Jim” Colosimo.

Torrio was a gangster pal of “Lefty Louie” and "Gyp the Blood,” who with others were hired by Police Lt. Charles Becker in 1912 to slay the gambler, Herman Rosen- thal. in New York City.

Colosimo was a street sweeper who pulled himself up by his pol- itical bootstraps to a place of power in the night life of the “turbulent twenties” on Chicago’s South Side.

Torrio seized control of Colosimo's realm after that booze baron was

shot to death at the bar of his cafe. Capone became Torrio's aide, and Torrio Al’s tutor in the fine art of racketeering.

♦ Torrio organized vice and crime into, a $100,000 a week business, en-

forcing his rule with bullets. But he engineered his own downfall in the murder of a rival, Dion O'Banion. O'Banion’s followers shot him in retaliation, and Torrio fled to save what was left of his skin.

That brought Capone to power in 1925. He was only 28, but al- ready old in the profession. His apprentice mark was a scar on his left cheek. From it came the nick- name—“Scarf ace Al.”

Capone introduced the machine gun and extended racket rule to gambling, dog racing and politics.

To maintain this $1,000,000,000 syn- dicate. he waged constant war on the O’Banion. the O’Donnells, the Gennas and the Saltis until com-

petition from those mobs was stifled. It was a bloody business.

# There were some 250 gang deaths tn Capone territory between 1925 and 1930, and every one was blamed by the police on “Capone allies” or “Capone enemies.”

The vendetta legend grew to such proportions that it included more victims than any one man or gang •t men could have done away with lb the time allotted.'

As Al once put it: "They’ve blamed everything on

BM but the Chicago fire.” * Although a new death was laid at his door by public repute almost daily, he was legally charged with killing only twice. In those two cases, he went free.

The first was the shooting of old Joe Howard, derelict hi-jacker, who told police before he died that “Young Al” had done him in.

The second was the assassination Of William H. McSwiggin. assistant State’s attorney in Cook County Chicago), and two companions who happened to be beer-running rivals Of Al’s hoodlums..

In the latter case Capone is sup- posed to have been confronted by McSwiggin s old father, a police officer, and accused of the son’s death. Al’s storied reply was to hand il

the father Al’s gun with the ad- monition:

"If you think I did it, kill me.” Al was not so willing to trust his

life to others on other occasions. He appeared in the streets only in a reinforced steel car with bullet-proof windows. He is even believed to have had himself arrested, on a pis- tol-toting charge, in Philadelphia, and submitted to a year in jail there to escape death at the hands of rival bootleg bosses. He had been in conference with these rivals in Atlantic City, and they had failed to agree on a plan for peaceful divi- sion of territory.

In spite of hfs precautions, Capone was unable to remove himself far from the hail of lead which con- stantly whistled around him.

His closest call probably came as he sat at a table in a hotel in one of the Chicago suburbs which were his headquarters.

Eight automobiles went by, spit- ting fire in his' direction. When they were gone, 1,000 bullet holes were counted in the walls.

Al was safe, under the table. The most inhuman slaughter he

was accused of was the St. Valen- tine’s Day massacre of 1927. Seven members of the O’Banion mob were lined up in a Chicago garage and mowed down with machine guns.

Al, in jail in Philadelphia, denied any connection with the affair. But the Philly police took no chances. They hustled Capone out of Jail a few hours ahead of expiration of his sentence, and he was next seen sur- rounded by a heavy guard in his private beach-rimmed, 25-room villa at Palm Island, Fla.

He liked it there, he said, be- cause—

“It is warm, but not too warm.” Despite his record, Capone ex-

pressed a distaste for all the shoot- ing. On one occasion he exclaimed:

“I don't want to die, shot in the street. There's business enough for all of us without killing each other like animals. I don’t want to die in the street.”

That phrase—“there’s business enough for all of us”—was indica- tive of the way Al looked at his bootlegging. All he was doing, he contended, was supplying the popu- lar demand and he was no more guilty than the patrons of his far- flung commerce. But he was caught in the toils, and he knew it.

“I’ve been in the liquor racket five years,” he asserted near the end of his reign. “The last two trying to

get out. Once you're in, there is no out.”

Only the law he flouted could pro- vide the "out.” Four times it tried to do so, twice for murder, once for election fraud and once for con-

spiracy to violate the dry laws. Each failed. Then, at last, came the in- come tax evasion trial and Capone’s conviction and sentence in 1931 to 11 years in jail.

Federal agents at that time esti- mated that Capone was worth $200,- 000,000 or more. He was so rich he could afford to squander $7,500,000 in eight years of gambling, mostly shooting craps. Yet he went to jail for a small item of $215,080, the tax he failed to pay on a $1,038,654 in- come for the years 1925-29.

A1 rode to the Atlanta Peniten- tiary in the spring of 1932 on the same railroad he traveled in his palmy days from his Chicago beer baronetcy to his playground in Miami. He was pleased at the curi- ous crowds which ringed his train at every stop, but annoyed at the ignominy of being handcuffed to a “small-time” auto theft suspect.

A day’s growth of beard offset the dapper effect of his rich blue suit, shiny black shoes, blue silk tie and pearl gray hat.

Of his own case, he muttered something about a “bum rap.” He talked freely of other things—pro- hibition, corn likker, dogs and the then unsolved Lindbergh kidnaping.

Behind the bars he became a sub- ject of speculation. He was buying special favors, rumor said. The ru- mor grew until it reached the floor of Congress. The Atlanta warden replied that Capone was only No. 40,886 to him and was a normal pris- oner in every respect except that his visiting privileges had been curtailed, due to fear of a jail break.

Inside the "pen” A1 could spend no more than $10 a month at the commissary. Outside he spent a small fortune on a battery of attor- neys, trying to win freedom through the statute of limitations. But it could not be done, and the scar- faced one had almost dropped from the public consciousness by August 18. 1934.

That night a special iron-barred railroad car slipped secretly into a

siding at the prison. An escape plot

had been discovered. In the dark of the next midnight Capone and 52 other dangerous or incorrigible pris- oners were hurried on their way to the newly finished American “Devil's Island” in San Francisco Bay.

At their destination they remained in manacles while the car was moved onto a waiting barge. A Coast Guard cutter, guns ready, hovered near as the barge moved to the Alcatraz Dock.

Since that day Capone has been completely shut off from his "public and applause.”

He has achieved a reputation as a model prisoner, but he has been involved in several brawls, one of which, officially confirmed, gave him one more scar, this time on his back.

That happened on a June day in 1936. James C. Lucas, Texas bank robber, seized a pair of scissors from the prison barber shop and plunged one blade into Al’s back. Capone turned and sent Lucas reel- ing with a blow of his fist, then was led away to the hospital.

Roy Gardner, mail robber released in 1938, related that he had a fight with Capone. He said it followed one of Capone’s “hell nights”—sleep- less nights of prisoners. As they lined up for breakfast, Gardner said, he stood next to Capone.

‘What’s the matter, Al?‘ Gard- ner said he asked. ‘Can’t you take it?’

“He peered at me through blood- shot eyes and let go a haymaker at my chin. I saw a guard point- ing his rifle at us from a guard toward, dragged Capone under the tower, and we finished the fight.”

Formal confirmation of that com- bat is not to be had. But a prison official said Capone was placed in solitary confinement for four days because of a fistic encounter.

Unofficial accounts of an upris- ing at Alcatraz in Jannuary, 1936, said leaders of the mutiny branded Capone a “yellow rat” because he refused to join them.

As far as his criminal colleagues were concerned, then, the “tough guy” was no longer so tough. The legend of the great gangstej, the brave bad man, was riddled in the eyes of those to whom It meant the most.

Instead of the desperate moves

these cronies had hoped for. Capone made his conduct exemplary. He hoped, in vain, to thus win parole when he became eligible for it in

| 1935. But he did succeed in having three years lopped off his 10-year Federal sentence for good behavior.

»

Only a year in jail on a misde- meanor count and payment of $50,000 in fines and court costs re- mained before him after his release yesterday from Alcatraz, 12 days ahead of the scheduled time, Janu- ary 19.

Then came the final blow, the disclosure that Capone is suffering from paresis—decay of the brain tissues—and consequently was de- ranged to a “dangerous" extent one week in each four.

The legend, like a will-o'-the- wisp, was flickering away.

LAFAYETTE PARK (Continued From Page C-4.)

from Lafayette Park to Florida ave- nue, up to at least 1870, the writer will quote from James Croggon, whose reliable articles on old Wash- ington, written about 30 years ago, are well worth reading by those in- terested in early Washington. Says Mr. Croggon:

“It is not beyond the recollection of the oldest inhabitants that what is now known as the leading neigh- borhood of the northwest section of Washington was once traversed by a small stream of water called Slash Run. There was appropriateness in that name because of the boggy ground skirting it, but the title of Zigzag Would have suited better.

“This run is, however, out of sight, the modem sewer having superseded it to carry off the drain- age by more direct route, and the question of a suitable name is no longer of importance. Few if any parts of the city can be said to have undergone such a complete meta- morphosis as that portion drained by Slash Run in antebellum days.

JThe stream entered the city limits at Florida avenue between Seven- teenth and Eighteenth streets, crossed the Avenue and ran south- ward to a point near L street; thence westward to New Hampshire avenue; thence north and north- westward to Rock Creek, entering the latter stream west of the head of Twenty-third street.

“Slash Run, with a few of its branches, drained much of what is now a beauty spot of the metropolis, and many of the old men of today feel young when recalling adven- tures in the tangled growth along its bank" Along the stream, near the city l'mits, there was a profusion of blackberry bushes, which In season

attracted large numbers of ‘pickers,’ and though the water was clear, and ran over hard bottom, with firm ground on either side, there was

considerable marsh to be found. In more than one stretch the bushes and vines, with other growth, were

almost impenetrable. There was

small game to be found and the man with dog and gun often enjoyed a day’s hunting in that portion of the city. Boys were wont to spend hours in exploring the mysteries of the section, fishing for suckers and other small fish; catching frogs or

•bludnouns,’ or hunting birds and snakes.

"As the stream coursed southward some little springs added their waters to the general volume. Among these were what in the beginning of the last century was known as Brown’s spring, near Florida avenue and east of Fifteenth street; one on the south side of Rhode island ave- nue. east of Connecticut avenue, and one from what are now the grounds of the Louise Home, on Massachu- setts avenue between Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets.

"The territory south of Florida avenue, bounded by the stream, where now are beautiful parks, im- proved streets and buildings of a

palatial character, was improved in spots by the erection of a dwelling house here and there, slaughter pens and in other ways by the tiller of the soil. Possibly, however, the aggregate of buildings of all classes did not exceed a score.

"It will readily be understood from this description how difficult it was 70 years ago to obtain a bid at pub- lic auction of a mill per foot on

ground within a stone's throw of Dupont Circle, for with the excep- tion of a wagon road or, two, and

perhaps half a dozen winding foot- paths leading to some isolated dwelling garden or slaughterhouse, many places were nearly inacces- sible.”

The Arlington Hotel, mentioned by the claimant to the Corcoran buildings, is in square 200. and stood on the site of the Veterans’ Admin- istration Building.

It was built in 1869 by that emi- nent Washingtonian. W. W. Cor- coran, and for several years there- after was known as the Arlington House, subsequently being simply called “The Arlington.” though popularly referred to as the “Arling- ton Hotel.”

Before the hotel was erected here the site was occupied by at least three dwellings, the first one having been the home of such distinguished Americans as Reverdy Johnson, Senator from Maryland and Min- ister to England, and James Buch- anan before he became President.

This house faced Vermont avenue and was near the comer of I street. It had as its close neighbor to the south the home of William L. Marcy. who served as Secretary of War during the administration of James K. Polk and later as Secre- tary of State in the Cabinet of President Franklin Pierce.

Lewis Cass lived in the third house south of I' street. He was a man who achieved great honor on the battlefield during the War of 1812- 15 under Gen. William Henry Har- rison, who promoted him to be a brigadier general for his part in the decisive victory over the British under Gerr. Proctor and the Indians under Tecumseh. President Jack- son made him Secretary of War, and President Buchanan made him Secretary of State.

At the northwest comer of Ver- mont avenue and H street lived Charles Sumner, Senator from Mas- sachusetts and one of the most ardent and active anti-slavery mem- bers of the United States Senate. It was during the bitter discussion on the repeal of the Missouri Com- promise in May, 1856, that Senator Sumner was assaulted by Repre- sentative Preston S. Brooks, a nephew of Senator Butler of South Carolina, to whom Sumner had re- ferred in his speech. So severely injured eras the Massachusetts Senator that he was unable to ap- pear in the 8enate for nearly four years thereafter.

At hie H street residence, where he died March 11,.1874, were many

portraits of celebrated men, en-

graved by masters of the art of en-

graving, to which he would some- times call the attention of his visi- tors, and after speaking of their artistic merits would proceed to give biographical sketches of the origi- nals, together with brief histories of the times in which they lived, thus making each picture the text ol a historical and biographical dis- course, to which it was both pleas- ant and instructive to listen.

His love for children is said to have been a prominent trait of his character, and few men possessed a

happier faculty of inspiring their confidence and winning their- affec- tion. His influence over them is be- lieved to have been truly magnetic.

Other residents of the Sumner home were Walter Q. Gresham, who was Secretary of State under Presi- dent Cleveland, and whose remains now lie in ty-lington National Ceme- tery, and Henry C. Payne, Postmas- ter General in Theodore Roosevelt's cabinet.

Adjoining the Sumner residence to the west was the home of Senator Samuel C. Pomeroy of Kansas, an- other enthusiastic Republican. Some time after the Arlington Hotel was built these two residences were com- bined and formed the H street en- trance, though they were not a part of the main building.

When the Arlington Hotel was erected it was considered an uptown hotel, and, Indeed, judging from the following description of the neigh- borhood, made by George Alfred Townsend, as it appeared in 1865, we might even be justified in calling it suburban. Mr. Townsend in speak- ing of the assassination of President Lincoln and the attempt made upon the life of his Secretary of State, William H. Seward, says:

“Vermont avenue was such a sluice of desolation that in 1865, after stabbing Mr. Seward, the assassin, Payne, galloped half a block and disappeared out this street among the stables, shanties, dumping piles and ditches which pressed close up to Lafayette square.”

Christian Hines dates his recol- lections back to a much earlier period when he tells us that in 1800 there were in this block two 2-story brick houses called the “two sisters," one of which was occupied by Capt. Andrews and the other by a Mr. Middleton as a cabinetmaker’s shop, where some of the first mahogany

T tet 0°"-

gress that met here. The nearest house then to the north was a one- story wooden farmhouse. i2 a mile away, occupied by Thomas Dove.

The erecting of the Winfield Scott Statue at the intersection of Massachusetts and Rhode Island avenues in 1874. had its influence in building up this neighborhood. Senator James Donald Cameron be- ing one of the pioneer residents here when he built the palatial home on the northeast corner of Sixteenth street and Rhode Island avenue about 1881. This house has for a

long while been the residence of Mrs. Henry T. Dimock.

The house opposite, at 1601 Massachusetts avenue, was erected about the same time as the Dimock residence by Senator William Win- dam, who was President Garfield's Secretary of the Treasury. It was later occupied for many years by the Charles A. Munn family.

Number 1603, which adjoins the Munn residence, was the home of Stilson Hutchins, founder of the Washington Post. Some of the house numbers in this square or the one to the west may have been changed since they were recorded in the city directory as early as 1885. but since that time the direc- tories indicate that Senator Orville H. Platt resided at 1625 and Zebulon B. Vance at 1607.

In the 1700. square, at No. 1701 (the building just removed) lived Bishop John F. Hurst, followed by Charles Francis Adams, jr., and in 1918 by former President Hoover when United States Food Adminis- trator. By 1919 Mr. Hoover had moved around the comer to 1720 Rhode Island avenue.

Abraham Lisner, founder of the Palais Royal, resided at No. 1723. The Canadian Legation is now at 1746 Henry Cabot Lodge's old home is at 1765, and Mrs. Francis H. Bur- nett occupied 1770, which, it is said, she built with the profits from what was probably her best seller, “Little Lord Faunteleroy.” In 1885 William Walter Phelps was making his home at 1777.

At the southeast comer of Seven- teenth street and Massachusetts avenue was once a school. On the northeast comer lived Henry E. Pel- lew. The building on the southwest corner of this intersection was built by Beriah Wilkins, and here resides his son, John F. Wilkins.

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