Dealing with Capone

In the past three years the Federal government has spent $195,000 trying to put oily Gangster Alphonse Capone ("Snorkey" to friends) and his brother Ralph behind bars. So far it has not succeeded. Some day the Government may collect $700,000 from them in delinquent income taxes, penalties and interest. Meantime Brother Ralph has appealed a three-year sentence for tax evasion, will be tried for conspiracy to violate the Prohibition Act in September. Two months ago Snorkey pleaded guilty to indictments charging failure to pay a Federal tax on a $1,038,654 income during the years 1924-29, and conspiracy (with 5,000 offenses) to violate the liquor law during the same period (TIME, June 29 et ante). Scheduled for sentence last week, Snorkey settled his business affairs, went off with a large party of friends for one last fling at Benton Harbor, Mich. They shooed a sorority (Epsilon Sigma Alpha) banquet out of a hotel ballroom, made merry all night.

A very contrite Capone returned to Chicago on the eve of his sentencing early last week. He received reporters in his armor-lined room at the Lexington Hotel on South Michigan Avenue. Attired in black satin pajamas, mopping his pudgy face, he spoke of reforming after his "stretch" in Leavenworth Penitentiary, said he was through with crime, calmly announced that he was willing to take any punishment the Government meted. Expanding, he moralized: "You know, these gang pictures--that's terrible kid stuff. Why, they ought to take all of them and throw them in the lake. They're doing nothing but harm to the younger element of this country. . . . Now, you take all these youngsters who go to the movies. You remember reading dime novels, maybe, when you were a kid. Well, you know how it made you want to get out and kill pirates or look for buried treasure--you know. Well, these gang movies are making a lot of kids want to be tough guys, and they don't serve any useful purpose."

Swift developments of the next two days shed much light on Snorkey's previous composure. At the appointed hour and flanked by police guards, he marched confidently into U. S. District Judge James Herbert Wilkerson's court for his sentence. He wore a green suit, grinned, chewed gum. But to the attention of Judge Wilkerson--who sentenced Capone to six months in jail for contempt of court and to whom judicial dignity is important--came newspaper stories of a "deal" between Snorkey's lawyers and U. S. District Attorney George Emmerson Q. Johnson. Snorkey had volunteered to plead guilty, save the Government the expense and risk of losing a jury trial against him, in return for a recommendation for leniency. Leniency would probably mean a sentence not to exceed four years for both offenses.

Judge Wilkerson, bristling, declared: "The court will listen to the recommendations of the District Attorney . . . but in the end the duty of the court is to enter judgment on the evidence. If the defendant asks leniency, he must be ready to take the witness stand and answer all proper questionings concerning himself. There is no compromise agreement between him and the judge and it is utterly impossible for him to bargain with a Federal court."

This unexpected turn of events terrified Capone who broke into a nervous sweat at the thought of a 20 or 30-year sentence. In Washington the Department of Justice sheepishly admitted that Attorney General Mitchell had consented to a "deal" with Gangster Capone in return for his plea of guilty. In St. Paul. Minn., Senator Thomas David Schall, political foe of Attorney General Mitchell, demanded a Senatorial investigation "so that the people will know how such things can be accomplished."

Capone's attorneys said they were "non-plussed," asked to have their client's pleas changed to not guilty. They even suggested that they might try for a change of venue to get the case out of ironbound Judge Wilkerson's court. Next day the court allowed Snorkey to plead not guilty to the tax evasion charge. This case may come to trial next month. As for the liquor indictment, Judge Wilkerson had different plans. He called in the grand jury, directed them to have the evidence brought up to date; that is, to ferret out offenses committed by the accused since 1929. In that year was enacted the Jones ("5 & 10") Law under which Gangster Capone might get five year's imprisonment instead of the maximum two which he previously faced for conspiracy.

Prosecutor Johnson was disappointed by this latest twist in the Capone case. What he wanted was the seemingly impossible: to get Snorkey in jail.

"I was licked," Capone was reported as saying last week, "by the Secret Six."

The personnel of a private, extra-legal sextet of vigilantes organized by the Chicago Association of Commerce has never been fully made known. It has been commonly supposed that the Association's president, Col. Robert Isham Randolph, was the entire "Secret Six." Last week Col. Randolph said that he had been using the services of Alexander Jamie, released at the Association's request from leadership of the Federal Special Intelligence unit in Chicago. Sleuth Jamie organized a force of secret service men, cooperated and is still cooperating with Federal and local operatives in snaring the city's hoodlums. "It was recognized at the start . . . that a private force of detectives could obtain more evidence and operate among the gangsters with less chance of recognition than could the regular police.'' said Col. Randolph.*

*When the Federal evidence against Capone was first made known, credit for smashing his ring was lavished on "The Untouchables," eight young sleuths of the special Prohibition unit (headed by Agent Eliot Ness) who got their name for their resistance to bribery.

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