The Myth of Eliot Ness and the Untouchables

Today we are traveling back to 1920’s Chicago to explore prohibitions and its most famous son so don your fedora’s get on your flats and remember the password is felicity.

Between 1920 and 1933 Prohibition was the law of the land in the states. Outlawing the production, importation, sale, or transport of liquor in the United States.

The ban helped give rise to massive, organized crime groups smuggling and producing alcohol across the country. Border cities like Chicago convulsed into all out-gang warfare as the criminal syndicates fought to dominate the lucrative trade.

The 1920’s gave rise to some of the most infamous and glamorous criminals in history from Charles Lucky Luciano to George Bugs Malone and as far up as possibly Joseph Kennedy the patriarch of the Kennedy family.

But by far the most famous of these outlaws was Al Scarface Capone. Who rose from a minor thug to be the kingpin of Chicago. And one of the richest gangsters in the nation.

Capone began his career as a minor thug in New York before moving to Chicago in 1919 as an enforcer where he quickly rose to become the right hand man of Johnny Torrio the head of the cities Italian crime syndicate. Torrio retired in 1925 after being shot several times. Between 1925 and 1931 Capone became the American Gangster.

Capone quickly bought off police and politicians while murdering or destroying those who stood in his way. However, among the public he won a reputation as a robin hood-esque figure. And the press of the day reported on his lavish life style like he was a Kardashian.

At the height of his fame Capone organized the 1929 St Valenetine’s day massacre. Gunning down 7 members of the North Side gang. The massacre however turned the public sympathy’s against Capone and brought down the wrath of the US government.

Now the police and state courts in Chicago Illinois were worse than useless. Having long been infiltrated and compromised by gangs.

So the federal government sent in their closers. The men you called when you were all out of options. That’s right the Internal Revenue Service.

And it is here that Al Capone met his nemesis. The most famous cop of the early 20’s. Treasury agent Elliot Ness. The man who took down all Capone with his team of untouchables.

Ness was born in Chicago in 1903 after graduating university he joined the US treasury department in 1928 at the age of 25, just as Capone was beginning his tenure as kingpin of Chicago. Ness worked in the Chicago Bureau of Prohibition tasked with taking down the illicit alcohol business in the city.

Between 1928 and 1931 Ness would work his way up in the Bureau till in 1930 at the age of just 27 he was appointed as the head of a special task force who would go down in history as the Untouchables.

The nickname came from reports they turned down bribes from Capone.

Over the next year they would engage in a series of high stakes busts of the Capone organization. Going head to head with the most dangerous man in America.

Leading a small team of ten Ness took down stills and smuggling operations costing Capone millions. Ness and his team faced threats from corrupt police and gangsters but in the end Ness starred the devil in the eyes and the devil blinked, and thanks to Ness’ tireless work Capone was sent down for tax evasion… is how the story goes because it’s how the Press, the Government, and Ness said it went.

Following the fall of Capone. Ness was thrown in front of the Camera, promoted as the Man who took down Capone. Ness would write a book to cash in on the fame of the fall. Though it wasn’t published till 1957 after his death it detailed how he had personally taken down Capone. And it became one of the most famous true crime book of all time.

It told the incredible true exploits of the daring Untouchables and their war against Capone. With a Tommy gun in one hand a badge in the other.

The book was smash hit and revitalized Ness’ national fame which had waned following the end of prohibition.

It was turned into a popular TV series in 1959 a movie in 1987 and another tv series in 1993. Ness even had a beer named after him and as of 2018 the town of Coudersport Pennsylvania holds an Elliot Ness festival… which is a bit weird because the only thing ness did in Coudersport was die.

In 2014 the ATF even proposed naming a building after him, eventually settling on renaming their main atrium after him.

It was a story too perfect not to tell almost like it was entirely made up… because it was… almost entirely made up.

Unfortunately the story of Elliot Ness and the Untouchables is just that… a story.

When the 2014 a proposal was put before the senate to name the ATF building after him prohibition author and historian Daniel Orkrent said:

“You may as well name it after batman”.

Ness is famous in American history as the nemesis of Capone, the incorruptible officer of justice. But in real life, Ness only ever met Capone once, and while he was a successful cop, he was a much more successful self-promoter.

In fact pretty much everything about Ness was a lie.

For starters let’s jump right back to the beginning of his career. Ness graduated with firsts from the University of Chicago and did join the Treasury at 25 and was appointed the head of the Capone task force at 27 which is all very impressive… except the man who gave him those jobs was his brother in law… Chief Investigator of the Bureau. Nepotism is slightly less impressive than prodigy.

Ness went on to lead a hand picked task force in taking down Capone's distilleries. However this isn’t that unusual.

Organised crime task forces are quite common in law enforcement precisely because of of corruption. The 1920’s saw criminal gangs become wealthier and more powerful and the need for specialized task forces was clear.

What initially set Ness apart from the rest was he became a media darling. See the real work to take down Capone was being done elsewhere. The untouchables were mostly a PR campaign. Press were brought in and lurid stories made up so that people would see something was being done.

Except like in modern organized crime the big flashy busts don’t stop the criminals, because they were more for PR than anything. And Capone… just kept going about business. In fact literally not a single thing Eliot Ness and the untouchables did contributed to Capone’s eventual fall in any meaningful way.

See the real work to take down Capone was happening behind the scenes at the desks of IRS agent Frank Wilson. Capone was extraordinarily good at avoiding being implicated in the various murders, assaults and other crimes he was involved in.

Mob bosses often are.

But in 1927 Assistant attorney General Mabel Willebrand trialed a new way of getting at the Gangs. Through their taxes. Willebrand would take the case of a petty bootlegger tried for tax evasion to the supreme court, who in United States V Sullivan ruled that taxes had to be paid on illegal income.

This opened a new avenue to take down especially slippery criminals like Capone. Following this decision however higher up criminals began safe guarding themselves. Laundering cash and paying their taxes.

Frank Wilson came up with a fairly brilliant if incredibly mundane plan to take down America’s public enemy number 1. Check Capone's receipts.

Frank Wilson was an agent for the Treasuries Bureau of Internal Revenue, later called the Internal Revenue Service. In 1930 he helped take down Ralph Capone, Al Capone's brother for tax evasion and the same year he was put in charge of taking down Al Capone.

Unfortunately nerds in an office don’t make the papers. And in late 1930 the treasury department implemented a flashier plan being pushed for in Washington to tackle the PR crisis of Capone.

A small specialized taskforce tasked with making big flashy busts for the press. The Untouchables.

Now Ness' task force did do some incredible busts. And over the next year the Untouchables took the Capone organization for about 40 million dollars in today's money. Now in the popular story of the untouchables Ness uncovers Capones books, proving his income. Sending him down.

In reality the Frank Wilson over a long, slow, and boring, investigation leafed through thousands of receipts till they could prove that Capone had income he wasn’t paying taxes on. Then took him to court for tax evasion. He was charged with 22 counts of tax evasion and convicted of 5 and sentenced to 11 years in prison.

Ness to his credit tried to have him convicted on 5000 cases of violating the Volstead act, the act that created prohibition. However a judge decided against pursuing it.

So in May 1932 Capone was sent to a federal penitentiary in Atlanta thanks to the tireless but un-sexy work of Frank Wilson.

However the public didn’t want to see some paper pushing nerd on the front page so the Government and press awarded the title of the man who took down Capone to Ness. A man who did not in anyway take down Capone.

The only time in his life that Ness met Capone was on May 3rd 1932. When Ness was assigned to the detail transporting Capone from Cook county jail to Dearborn station. A journey of just 7 miles.

But as is so often the case the sexy story won out and Ness became nation and later world famous.

Ironically, though Ness was famous as the man who went toe to toe with the devil it was Wilson who actually drew Capone’s ire, Capone even took a hit out on him at one point.

Because… everything Ness was doing was just PR work.

Now unsurprisingly Elliot Ness’ career went well after the high of being called the man who took down Capone. He became the Chief investigator of the Bureau of prohibition before being assigned to tackle moonshine stills in apalachia

And it’s at this point that Ness, actually does some really noteworthy police work. First in the moonshine mountains then in 1934 in Cleveland.

When appointed as both the head of police and the fire department of Cleveland in 1934 one local paper said: Quote

“The mere announcement of his selection is worth a squadron of police in the effect it will have on the underworld’s peace of mind.” End Quote.

And between 1934 and 1938 Ness showed that his myth was not all myth. He would manage to convict 2 police captains and 7 officers of corruption while professionalizing the cities police. Also taking down 20 gangsters.

Unfortunately 1938 marked the height of his career.

1938 was a bad year for the poster boy of justice. The Cleveland newspapers had begun to turn on their hero following a series of unsolved brutal murders in the city.

The scandals kept coming, he cleared and burned the cities shanties, and worse got divorced. And then to top things off he got into a drunken car accident… which he tried to cover up. The resulting scandal or scandals forced him to resign in disgrace.

His career never really recovered he spent the last years of his life bouncing between businesses and jobs in the federal government. He briefly ran for mayor of Cleveland in 1947, losing. And in 1956 he moved to the small town of Coudersport to work with a watermarking security company… which fell apart almost immediately. The 54 year old Eliot Ness dropped dead of a heart attack on May 16th 1957. With his book the untouchables finally finished. Ness died penniless and disgraced.

A few months later Ness’ writing partner Oscar Fraley got the untouchables published. It would sell over a million copies.

As for Capone, well Capone continued not thinking about Eliot Ness, partially because he had nothing to do with him but also because Capone's syphilis was slowly driving him insane. In 1934 Capone was transferred to Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay.

Alcatraz by the way means pelicans

Capone was paroled in 1939 and died in 1947. The syphilis had damaged Capones brain to the point where he was noted to have the mentality of a 12 year old.

As for Frank Wilson, Capone's actual nemesis? Well he lived a significantly longer and more successful life than either Ness or Capone. After taking down Capone, Wilson continued being a behind the scenes bad ass. Investigating the Lindbergh kidnapping before joining the secret service. First going toe to toe with the notorious FBI director J Edgar Hoover, who wanted control of the presidential bodyguards then rewriting the rule book for how the secret service protected the president. He retired in 1947 and died in 1970 at the age of 83.

And with that we come to the end of the weird and depressingly human story of the, Eliot Ness the untouchables and Al Scarface Capone.

[This article is a modified script from the Historical Hysteria Podcast listen here: anchor.fm/historicalhysteria ]

https://medium.com/flexible-head/the-rise-and-fall-of-eliot-ness-91f556bbf876

IN:

OUT:

RUNS:

4

IN:

OUT:

RUNS:

3

IN:

OUT:

RUNS:

2

IN:

OUT:

RUNS:

1

IN:

OUT:

RUNS: