Al Capone Essay, Research Paper

In the 1920?s, John Torrio, a member of the Chicago underworld, discovered that there was large sums of money to be gained through bootlegging, during the Prohibition period. His mission was to monopolize the business of selling booze throughout Chicago. However, this proved difficult, due to the competition by other gangster organizations. Torrio had men who took care of other bootleggers through intimidation, murder, pay offs, and bribery, but he still needed more enforcement to expand his operations.

Torrio decided he wanted Al Capone to be the head man in his organization. He had heard of Capone?s reputation, as a ?graduate? of the Five Points gang. He was also notorious for being a bullet headed roughneck. He brought his intelligence and careful planning to Torrio?s business, and in exchange, received half of the profits. Posing as a furniture salesman, Capone ran the business out of his office. Capone was an excellent leader because of his skills in dealing with emergency situations. For example, when his propieters were threatened by men from other organizations, Capone used some of the 700 men at his disposal to ?bump them off?. All his men were adept with Thompson sub-machine guns and sawed-off shotguns.

Capone?s greatest accomplishment was having the mayor, that he put in office, in his pocket. He did this by intimidating people to vote for his canditate. After his mayor was put in office, he used his new political power to take control of a suburb called Cicero, which he ran his business out of. Al Capone was one of the most notorious gangster?s in history.