Al Capone Essay Research Paper The roaring

Al Capone Essay, Research Paper

The roaring 20.s for many people may bring to mind flappers or changing times of a positive nature. But on the flip side of the coin during that decade were a lot of activity in the crime world as well and in magnitudes no one could predict beforehand. Breweries, smoking, swearing, cheating, gambling, frequenting places called speakeasies which sold alcohol during the Prohibition, brothels and murder were headline news for much of this time for a man by the name of Alphonse (Al) Capone.

Al Capone was born the fourth child to Gabriele Capone and Teresina (called Teresa) Capone on January 17, 1899. A seemingly normal family who was striving in the .New World. after Gabriele and Teresa arrived in the United States in 1894 with 43,000 Italian immigrants. Al.s father was a barber by trade and Teresa raised her family and also took in sewing piecework for extra income. Laurence Bergreen wrote in his biography called Capone: The Man and the Era. in regards to Capone.s upbringing that ..nothing about the Capone family was inherently disturbed, violent or dishonest.. He further stated that the family, as a whole, .were law-abiding, unremarkable Italian-American family with conventional patters of behavior and frustration; they displayed no special genius for crime, or anything else, for that matter..

One of the main downfalls, in my opinion, was a move Gabriele Capone made for his family to a neighborhood they could afford. Their apartment was above his barbershop he had opened but the neighborhood opened his eyes to a different world other than the seemingly more strict, traditional upbringing of the solidly Italian family. The schools that he was raised in seemed to be of a lower class of people. Educational goals for Italian children were very poor; the school system didn.t help with their prejudices of immigrants. Immigrant families expected their children to quit attending school as soon as they felt they were old enough to bring in money to the home.

In elementary school, Al did very well bringing home mostly A.s and B.s on his report cards. At the age of 12 or so his grades started deteriorating quickly and he started to learn lessons on what the criminal empire could be about and he learned these lessons off the streets of his neighborhood. Many 12 or 13 year old boys at that time were earning pocket money by running errands for others, Al fell under the wings of a pioneer in the development of the modern criminal world, his name was Johnny Torrio.

In Brooklyn at that time, the immigrants mostly ran in gangs (Jewish, Italian, etc.). John Kobler said it best in his book called The Life and World of Al Capone; he said, ..the street gang was escape. The street gang was freedom. The street gang offered outlets for stifled young energies. The agencies that might have kept boys off the street, the schools and churches, lacked the means to do so. Led by some older, forceful boys, they pursued the thrills of shared adventure of horseplay, exploration, gambling, pilfering, vandalism, sneaking a smoke or alcohol, secret ritual, smut sessions, fighting rival gangs.. There was absolutely an interest in the world for Al but he was caught for a while in between the parents. guidance and the .other. world. Eventually, as Al turned 18 or so, he turned for the .other. world.

Years after running errands and gaining the trust for Torrio, who seem to be involved discreetly in the criminal world, he met a man who was nothing like that character, his name was Frankie Yale. Capone eventually went to work as a bartender for a bar Yale opened up, he was given the position because Torrio was a friend of Yales and recommended Capone for the job. He was employed there for a few years where he learned even more lessons on how to build a criminal empire including how to bootleg or gamble for large amounts of money or how to open brothels and promote sexual promiscuity. Al was enthralled with this world and frequented the places as often as possible. I believe, although it is not proven exactly what time frame it was, that young Al contacted a sexually transmitted disease called congenital syphilis. Al wanted to move towards a different place and chose to move in location to Chicago, Illinois.

Chicago, Illinois was known as a flourishing city of organized crime and Al very much was

intrigued by it all, he knew he wanted a part of it. When Al came into town, he was drawn to the .kingpin. of a major part of the criminal world; his name was Jim (.Big Jim.) Colosimo. Colosimo and his wife, Victoria were highly successful in their brothel business, it was not unusual for the earnings for a single month to be well of $50,000.00. Many high profile people were involved in their world that made it all seem to be the exact world that Al seemed to long for. Political corruption was running strong, lawyers, judges, policemen, congressmen and even a reported assistant state attorney were all involved with Colosimo.s world. To see these people seemingly so successful and being able to make a fantastic financial living was exactly what Al wanted.

By 1921, Colosimo turned against Victoria and married another leaving their empire behind. At that point, Frankie Yale took over and Yale actually ended up assassinating Colosimo in his nightclub. With Colosimo out of the picture, he hired on Torrio to take over many of the brot