Image: “Scarface” Al Capone is shown here at the Chicago Detective bureau following his arrest on a vagrancy charge as Public Enemy No. 1
On this day in history, January 25, 1947, American gangster Al Capone died eight days after his 48th birthday. After suffering for years from paresis (a late stage of syphilis), which reduced him to the mental capacity of a 12-year-old, he finally died of an apoplectic stroke complicated by pneumonia and heart failure.
Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in New York City in 1899 to Italian immigrant parents who came to America from Naples in 1893. Al was the fourth of nine children who grew up in Brooklyn, New York. He went to school until the sixth grade when he dropped out at age 14 for hitting a teacher. He would work at several menial jobs – as a candy store clerk, a bowling alley pin boy, a laborer in an ammunition plant, and a cutter in a book bindery – all while being a member of a couple of youth gangs named the South Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors. They were groups of delinquent children known for vandalism and petty crime that was rampant in New York at the time.
He joined the Five Points Gang as a teenager, and then he became a bartender and bouncer in organized crime establishments such as brothels and bars. In 1917, while working at both jobs at a Coney Island bar, Capone insulted the sister of a man who retaliated by cutting Al’s face with a razor. As a result, he earned the name “Scarface,” which he always detested, but a name that would last for his entire life.
In his early twenties, he went to Chicago, where he worked for Johnny Torrio, head of the Unione Siciliana, the predecessor to The Outfit. Not long after, Torrio retired after nearly being murdered in a gangland hit, and he gave the reins to Capone. Soon Al became the most formidable gangster in Chicago as he expanded his reach and influence in the criminal underworld.
It is estimated that “The Outfit” under Capone was bringing in over 100 million dollars annually. But Al always maintained he was providing a public service. He stated, “Ninety percent of the people drink and gamble, and my offense has been to furnish them with those amusements.”
In order to ensure that he could continue doing his criminal business, Capone ordered hits on many of his enemies, and he never hesitated to get rid of those who threatened his enterprises. The most famous retaliation attributed to him was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929. Six members of rival gangland leader George “Bugs” Moran, in addition to a garage attendant, were lined up against a wall and summarily executed by men carrying shotguns and Tommy guns. Two of the gunmen were also dressed as police.
Leading citizens in Chicago and Government officials demanded something be done. Capone was given the moniker of “Public Enemy No. 1”. Capone had been bribing city and state officials for years, so there seemed like little would be done. However, President Herbert Hoover was determined to make Capone pay for his crimes.
Unable to find any evidence against Capone for murder, racketeering, extortion, or other crimes, they noticed that Al had not been filing tax returns. Capone was therefore charged with tax evasion, and on October 17, 1931, Capone was found guilty on five of twenty-three charges against him. He was sentenced to eleven years in prison and a $50,000 fine (equal to $780,000 in 2020). At the time, it was the harshest penalty ever given for tax evasion.
In May 1932, a 33-year-old Capone began serving his sentence in an Atlanta prison. After two years and several bribe attempts made toward guards, Scarface was transferred to the maximum-security prison at Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay.
By 1939 the lingering effects of syphilis had ravaged Capone’s body and mind, and he was released to seek medical treatment. After several weeks of inpatient and outpatient care at a Baltimore, Maryland hospital, Capone was released, and he went to live at his Florida mansion. In 1942, after mass production of penicillin began, Capone was among the first to receive a course of the drug. While it helped with the syphilis, it did nothing for the brain damage that he had suffered. He still had the mentality of a 12-year-old child.
On January 21, 1947, Capone suffered a stroke. He began to improve but contracted pneumonia. He took a heart attack on January 22, and on January 25, with his family at his side, Capone died of heart failure due to apoplexy. His body was taken to Chicago for burial the following week.
His obituary stated that “He was 48. Death had beckoned to him for years, as stridently as a Cicero whore calling to a cash customer. But Big Al had not been born to pass out on a sidewalk or a coroner’s slab. He died like a rich Neapolitan, in bed in a quiet room with his family sobbing near him and a soft wind murmuring in the trees outside.”
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