Rather than ramble on about the love of my life and struggle to put into words how much she means to me in honour of Valentine’s Day this past Monday, I’m going to take a very different route in this edition of my column. Nicole knows how I feel about her, as I tell her often. Any effort to express it in print would probably just both embarrass and tick her off in one fell swoop.
And so in light of that, I’ll take the far less dangerous route and offer some commentary on Feb. 14’s most notorious murder. A massacre, to be more precise.
In 1929, the Chicago Outfit was at war with the North Side Gang in Illinois’s most populous city. The latter, largely consisting of Irish-American personnel, was headed by George Moran, affectionately known as ‘Bugs’ (there was never a shortage of interesting nicknames for gangsters in the early half of the 20th century); the former was Italian based and led by someone you may have heard of before – Al Capone. The two were locked in an ongoing, bloody battle to control the hold on the Midwest alcohol bootlegging business at the height of U.S. Prohibition. Chicago, a key port for smuggling in whiskey from good old booze-flowin’ Canada, was the epicenter of that battle. There were few punches pulled.
Before I proceed any further, I need to point out that it has never been officially determined who was behind the notorious Saint Valentines Massacre of 1929; everything remains alleged nearly a century later, and no one was ever formally charged. Although for police, the media and the public living in Chicago at this time, it was pretty obvious. But no concrete evidence was ever found to link the killing of seven men at a north side garage with the Chicago Outfit. It just so happened that all seven were either directly or indirectly associated with Moran’s North Side Gang at a time when the organization was directly feuding with another organization that had a reputation for dealing with disputes with a Thompson sub-machine gun. Anyway…
Capone made it well known that he was at his Florida home at the time of the massacre, which took place around 10:30 in the morning on Feb. 14, 1929. Alibi secured for the man at the top. Five of those lined up against a wall and executed at the garage in question were known members of the North Side Gang, including Moran’s own brother-in-law; the other two were loose associates of the gang. Evidently Bugs was to be the main target of the group assassination, but luckily for him he was held up for the meeting. It’s been documented that the assailants proceeded with the hit because they believed someone else in the party to be Moran, and that he had been spotted wearing a similar coat and hat to the leader’s when entering the building for the ill-fated meeting.
The Saint Valentines Massacre was muddy, with a lot of facets involved. It’s believed the five main gang members who were killed were lured there under false pretences, as is the mafia’s classic way of presenting false trust – with the promise of a good deal or friendship, right before you get ‘whacked.’ An indicator of this is that the victims were all dressed in their best suits.
While no one was initially linked directly to Capone’s criminal organization during the subsequent police investigation, the cops were looking at a number of unsavoury characters involved with smaller gangs that the Chicago Outfit employed from time to time to get some of their dirty work done. The Saint Valentines incident is even said to have included members of the Chicago Police Department itself. In any case, two of the shooters that Feb. 14 were witnessed clothed in police uniforms. It may never be known exactly how things went down that morning.
The mafia has a skilled method for covering up or shushing any potential talkers or ‘rats.’ In short, the best way to silence them was to make sure it was permanent. Two hit men employed by the Outfit, John Scalise and Albert Anselmi, were amongst those that police apparently had some interest in in the days and weeks following the massacre. Three months later, both (and a third known associate) were found dead on a desolate Indiana country road. If you’ve ever seen a particular scene from The Untouchables starring Robert DeNiro as Capone, infamously swinging a baseball bat, it’s apparently derived from his real-life “handling” of these two unfortunate fellows. Yeesh.
If it was in fact the Chicago Outfit behind the Saint Valentines Massacre, Capone won the short-term battle with the North Side Gang, but it was also a big reason for him ultimately losing the war for Chicago and the millions to be made from the illegal liquor trade. The prominence of the killings and the fact that the city was being controlled by gangsters who had judges and police in their pockets directly led to federal government intervention. Treasury and Prohibition agents made it their mandate to nab Capone, his underlings and anyone on his payroll masquerading as a defender of justice.
They got him for the long haul in 1931, primarily for federal income tax evasion and countless violations of the Volstead Act – the government’s primary weapon in the losing battle to uphold Prohibition. After various prison stays that included the brand new Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, Capone was paroled in 1939. He would spend the rest of his years a very sick man, slowly dying of syphilis-related ailments at his Florida estate.
Capone died on Jan. 25, 1947, just shy of 18 years after one of the world’s most notorious mob hits took place. Did he actually give the order? That information most likely died with him, but you can draw your own conclusions.
Thanks for reading and I’ll see you back here in a fortnight.
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This is a bi-weekly opinion column; for question or comment contact Dan McNee at dmcnee@midwesternnewspapers.com.
