Flory 1
Courtney Flory
April 24, 2013
Research Paper
Al Capone the Gangster of the 1920’s
What is a gangster? A gangster from the 1920’s is a criminal who is a member of a gang, who distributed alcohol illegally during the prohibition period, and does more complex criminal actions than a normal person. There have always been gangsters in America, but over the years with police and the development of better security, gang activity has been cut down. Usually each gang has to do an initiation or wear something certain to be a part of a gang, to show what gang they represent. Al Capone was one of the greatest gangsters known in the 1920’s and even today because he knew how to get around the law for the most part and how to run a gang.
Al Capone was born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York (Capone Online). He and his family grew up in a rough neighborhood and he began getting into gangs. When he was fourteen in the sixth grade he dropped out of school and officially joined into some kid gangs along with a few jobs to make some money. When he got older, he joined the notorious Five
Points gang which was based off in Manhattan (Famous Online). When he was in Manhattan, he got his nickname Scarface. He got his nickname when he was working at the Harvard Inn, and was attacked by a patron and her brother.
In 1920, Capone joined Torrio and his gang in Chicago (Linder Online). This is where Capone became a very well known gangster. When the Prohibition Amendment was passed, he and the gang began illegal distribution of alcohol. When Torrio saw what Capone was capable of and what skills he possessed, he taught Capone all his tricks to get away from the law and avoid being arrested. Capone then later considered Torrio to be one of his main men.
Sometime in 1925, Capone became boss when Torrio was wounded severely by some rival gang

Flory 2 members (Famous Online). When Capone was boss, he built a fearsome gang by getting rid of some other big gangs. Capone then came up with an organization plan to expand the city’s industry in 1925 to 1930. While doing this he had control of a gambling house, horse tracks, nightclubs, illegal alcohol distribution, and brothels to make a total income of 100,000,000 a year
(Capone Online). What made him really known was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre was the beginning of the Chicago violence. Capone’s only real threat in 1929 was “Bugs” Moran, who would take Capone’s business and mock him.
On February 14, 1929 a few of Capone’s gang members went to one of Moran’s illegal trading garage and gunned them down against the wall of the garage. Two of Capone’s members were dressed up as police and the others in all black. Then all at once the men shot with open fire and killed everyone but Moran, who then ended his career as being gangster. No one was every convicted for the crime because the eye witnesses didn’t have enough description, also Capone had an alibi of being in Florida at that time. This massacre made an uproar on how safe Chicago was and how bad gang violence actually was. Capone was now the boss of Chicago and the best known gangster of his time. He had newspapers talking about him and marked him as “Public
Enemy No. 1.” (O’Brien Online)
In the 1920’s Capone made some illegal gambling taxable incomes. He made about $30 million dollars but never made a tax return. Capone never had filed a income tax, owned anything in his own name, and never told anyone about his income besides his tax lawyer of where he was getting this money. He did all his business through his men and so no one would be able to catch him with what he was doing. Capone thought he had the best plan to make money without paying income tax but it eventually caught up to him. The government got involved in 1927 and they found that Capone had never paid income tax (Capone Online). The government then sent Wilson from the IRS to focus on Capone and figure out what he has been

Flory 3 doing with his money. Sometime in the late 1920’s Wilson stumbled upon some of Capone’s receipts from the gambling house with his name on it (Linder Online). When Wilson got a hold of the government about this they contacted Capone’s tax lawyer who told them everything. In
1931, Capone was charged for tax evasion charges during 1925-1930 and was sentenced to eleven years in federal prison, 6 months in jail, fined 50,000 dollars, and charged $7,692 dollars for court cost with the $215,000 dollars due in interest (Famous Cases Online). After serving all this time, Capone went back to his family in Florida where he died from cardiac arrest and was buried with his parents (Beniot pg 450).
Some say Capone wasn’t the greatest gangster known and he just got lucky he didn’t get caught; the people beside him were the ones who did all the work. He got away with all of his crimes until the government came into play and caught up with what he was doing. The government took five years to figure out what he was doing but they never caught him for his gang violence. Everyone in Chicago was terrified of him after the St. Valentine’s Massacre and he became well known. After Capone died the government began to lock down with security and kept gang violence under control. Is Capone the greatest gangster known in the 1920’s?