Word: caponi
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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...There are four major gangs: one on the North Side (with a onetime assistant state's attorney as its adviser) ; two on the south side (one of which is led by "Polack Joe" Saltis) ; one on the far west side with headquarters in Cicero where famed "Scarface Al" Caponi is king (TIME, Oct. 11). Their wars are flamboyant spectacles-a multi-punctured body on the steps of the Holy Name Cathedral in broad daylight, two more corpses across the street at the door of a florist's shop . . . the funeral of Dion O'Banion, with...
...squirt machine guns at each other. On other days they go zooming into Chicago with truckloads of beer. And then, when the day's labors are done, they have their 60 "soft drink parlors," their brothels, and their roulette wheels. The Bad Lands have their king, "Scarface Al" Caponi, alias "Al-phonzo Brown," who has been on the throne since 1922. Never since the days of "Big Jim" Colosimo (the man with the diamond complex) has the underworld had so potent an organizer. "Scarface Al," except for the old razor gash on one side of his face, might easily...
Cicero has written history under the Caponi régime. There was the day when the Duncan Sisters, famed baby-talk gurglers of musical comedy, put on a street fight with two Cicero policemen, and later sued the town for rough treatment. There was the story of a young, able newspaper editor who refused to leave town. So, members of the Caponi gang beat him up at a busy street corner, and kidnaped his brother for a few days. There was the killing of Assistant State's Attorney William McSwiggin last April, a crime that has not yet been...
Industrialists decided several months ago that the performances and sideshows of King Caponi's regime were interfering with both the efficiency and nerves of their workers. Two vice presidents of a corporation were despatched to Washington to appeal to the Federal Government. Secret Service agents returned to wander around Cicero's grimy nooks. Suddenly, last week, a Federal grand jury indicted "Scarface Al" Caponi and his brother Ralph; Joseph Z. Klenha, president of the town of Cicero; Ted L. Svoboda, chief of police, and 75 others, for con-spiracy to violate the Volstead Act. Federal agents say they...