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When you look at organized crime in Chicago you first see Alphonse Capone, aptly and accu- rately described by his vassals of the underworld as the “Big Feliow.”” You may be sure he is that to them. Gangland’s phrases are as full of mean- ing and as expressive as they are curious and ° original, and to be the Big Fellow is to be king. Capone’s rise to his present position of un- disputed leadership has been swift, remarkable and jnevitable; and the complete story of the beer wars of Chicago is his story, his biography. Other more picturesque figures have emerged from the shadowy realm of Gangland since prohibition and the Volstead Act threw it inte bloody strife. Dion O’Banion stands out a gaudy figure, and so does “Tittle UWirmia?® Waieo hath af wham srhallangvadn 241-0 ALY J4410 TEVA, LAR FARWELL WALA SIT LIC the rule of Capone for a short violent time, and they looked like Big Fellows while they lasted, but they didn’t iast. Today it is quite plain that nothing either of them ever achieved in Gangland history possessed finish and perfection in the same degree as did the deft and artistic method by which they were eliminated and laid away. O’Banion and “Little Hymie” and all the others, living and dead, are but thrilling paragraphs and chapters in the rise of Capone. With each suc- cessive death Capone stepped on closer to the position where Gangland was compelled to eall hint the Big Fellow. Whether you like it or not, and probably you don’t, Capone has become a figure of na- tional and even international interest. Reach for your daily newspaper, and you'll find him - duly chronicled along with Lindbergh, Will Rogers, Henry Ford, William Scott McBride, Bishop Cannon, Charlie Chap- lin, John Gilbert and all the others who romp daily across the front page. At thirty-three his position has become so firm and secure ag the Rig Fellow of the under- @o 84L0 Leis 2 bas Ua VEE Us = world that his vast affairs move machine-like even when he can’t be on the job. When the Philadelphia police gathered him in and laid him away in a boudoir in the county jail in 1929 his henchmen, devoted to him and trained in his methods carried on and when he was freed and had returned to Chicago there was a great celebration in Gangland in honor of the Big Fellow. From every province of the underworld came representatives to a great meet- ing and when it was over they all departed to their rackets crying “All for Al, and Al for Ail.” With no intention of eulogizing him, Capone unquestionably stands out as the greatest and most successful gangster who ever lived. What is significant is that he is really a gangster, as much so as the celebrated Monk Eastman and Big Jack Zelig of New York. As a youth he was himself a member of their notorious Five Points gang, and the difference between him and all other gang- sters is that he is possessed of a genius for organ- ization and a profound business sense. It was Edwin A. Olsen, United States District Attorney, ' who stated in 1926 that Capone operated on a gross basis of $70,000,000 a year which takes in only his illicit liquor business. What he profits from his prodigious gambling and vice syndicates can only be a speculative matter. This book looks at King Al purely from an objective standpoint. What goes on under his hat, or under the hat of any of his ilk, is a profound mystery as far as this hook is concerned. And, as Capone’s public utterances have been few and brief, they have been of little service in revealing his mental processes. Neither is this book inter- ested in the conditions which have made him a supreme sniffler of law and order. But he is a glamorous figure, an actual part of the American scene. Legends already are springing up around him, fiction writers have found him the inspiration for a vast production of current litera- ture. The magazine stands are aflame with under- world stories and Gangland stories about the man with the gat who wears a tuxedo and has a liver- ied chauffeur. Over in England Mr. Edgar Wallace has just evolved another thriller, this time in dramatic form, from material hastily gathered during a visit to Chicago. The visit included a crime tour of the city with | Commissioner sawn at his side calling ‘out the spots. And so this book will take you along the journey traveled by Mr. Capone in reaching his present height. It will show you What and When and How pone is the world’s outstanding gonmratar and for that raagnn gangster and ror (nat reason well worth writing about and looking at. Let’s have a look. 4O and Where, but not Why. Ca-