Free The Outfit by Gus Russo Page A

“respectable” bootlegger Roger Touhy in an effort to isolate the Capone gang. (As will be seen, Cermak was not a reformer at all, and his alliance with Touhy stemmed from his desire to grab his own share of illicit jack.) There were numerous arrests, gun battles, and shot-up gangsters, as Capone’s end appeared imminent.
    In the nation’s capital, momentum against Capone had been growing since 1926, when Vice President Charles Dawes had initiated a federal assault on the crime boss. President Calvin Coolidge’s second-in-command hailed from Illinois and, along with his brother Rufus, owned a family bank in Chicago’s Loop. In addition, Rufus was the president of the World’s Fair Corporation, which was formed to coordinate the Fair’s 1933 arrival in Chicago. Known as “A Century of Progress,” the Fair was viewed as critical to Chicago’s future growth and reputation. Over the next few years, Dawes lobbied Coolidge and his successor, Herbert Hoover, in his quest to dethrone Capone. Both presidents joined the fray by exploiting a 1927 Supreme Court ruling
(U.S. v. Sullivan)
- that illegal income was taxable. In March 1929, one month after the St. Valentine’s Day massacre,
Chicago Daily News
publisher Frank Knox led a citizens’ delegation to ask new president Herbert Hoover for help. Knox, accompanied by Chicago Crime Commission director Frank Loesch, informed the president that only federal help could save their city. Like the Dawes brothers, Knox knew that bank investors were becoming leary of depositing their money in Gangland, USA. At the time, there were some sixty-three gang murders per year in Chicago.
    Although Coolidge and Hoover may have been well-intentioned, the Chicagoans’ “crusade” was in large part a self-serving exercise in hypocrisy. The effort was funded in part by the Secret Six, a group of “crime-fighting” Chicago businessmen who put up hundreds of thousands of dollars (including $75,000 to IRS chief Elmer Irey). In fact, this cartel was just another xenophobic lynch mob that had no qualms about establishing its fortunes on the backs of the musclemen provided by Capone’s Syndicate. Their civic activism was a barely concealed attempt to improve their own business fortunes by getting the gangs off the streets in time for the upcoming World’s Fair. Worst of all, they backed Frank Loesch, an unabashed racist, who had earlier struck an election accommodation with Capone, and who now headed the Chicago Crime Commission (CCC).
    With Loesch at its helm, the Chicago Crime Commission was in high gear. It launched a brilliant PR campaign against the gangsters when it established the Public Enemy list. Of course, Capone was the CCC’s first Public Enemy Number One. But Loesch was also battling inner demons. Addressing students at Princeton University in 1930, Loesch disclosed his true agenda when he wailed, “It’s the foreigners and the first generation of Americans who are loaded on us . . . The real Americans are not gangsters.” He went on to explain that “the Jews [are] furnishing the brains and the Italians the brawn.” Of course, Loesch failed to inform his audience that he himself was a first-generation American of German parentage. But no one debated Loesch’s motives, since the Public Enemy list had struck a chord with the American public. Meanwhile, in Washington, Hoover’s inquiry was taking off. It was the beginning of the end for Capone.
    The special prosecutor sent from Washington, Dwight H. Green, received his marching orders from U.S. Attorney George Johnson: “Your job is to send the Chicago gangsters to prison. You can call on revenue agents, special agents, or agents of the Special Intelligence Division of the Treasury Department. You can have the staff you need as quickly as you can show the need for it. Go to it.” Green hired Agent Arthur Madden to direct the field operation, while Frank Wilson looked into Capone’s spending habits. The team pieced