Al Capone: A Life From Beginning to End by Hourly History

Author:Hourly History [History, Hourly]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, pdf
Publisher: Hourly History
Published: 2018-12-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Public Enemy Number One

“I’ve been accused of every death except the casualty list of the World War.”

—Al Capone

For most of 1928 you might think that perhaps Al Capone was on an extended vacation. For starters, it was in 1928 that he forked over $40,000 (equivalent of around $560,000 in 2018) to purchase a 14-room mansion getaway in Palm Island, Florida near Miami Beach.

But it wasn’t all fun and games in the sunshine state, because in the midst of vacationing that year Capone’s son Sonny took a turn for the worse. His ear infection had returned with a vengeance, and he had to receive emergency treatment from the Capone family physician. Once again Sonny went through a successful surgery, and the infection went into remission, but an ear infection was apparently not the only thing that his attending physicians were worried about. The doctors in his care also insisted that the boy be tested for syphilis. Not only that, they suggested that Capone’s wife Mae be tested as well.

The family doctor had heard it through the grapevine that Al Capone in the past had been seeing a mistress who in later years had come down with full-blown syphilis and was concerned that this dreaded illness had long ago been passed to his wife and child. Fortunately for Sonny and Mae, they proved to be completely free of the malady. Although not tested at the time, Capone himself would not prove to be as lucky, famously finding himself completely ravaged by the disease in his last years of life.

The fact that his physician was worried about the illness makes it clear that Capone’s extramarital dalliances were well known. It is said that Mae was, of course, well aware of them too, but she and her husband came from a time and place that taught them to minimize such things as being irrelevant to the state of their matrimony. For the Capones, being faithful had nothing to do with sex; for them, a faithful marriage meant financially taking care of the family and treating each other with respect, which Capone is said to have done in spades. He is remembered as treating his wife with the utmost reverence. For the Capones, his flings with showgirls were trivial and meaningless as long as all privilege and priority were given to his wife.

Besides the brief crisis of his son’s returning illness, Capone spent most of the time at his Floridian estate in luxury. He also spent it plotting and planning. It is said that Capone, wishing to shake up his rivals back in Chicago—especially one of his enemies, North Side gangster Bugs Moran—concocted the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre from this sunny locale. Carried out on February 14, 1929, this bloody valentine delivered courtesy of Capone took no prisoners. On that day a group of Capone’s hitmen strong-armed seven members of the North Side Gang.

Apparently lured to a warehouse through subterfuge and deception, the duped gangsters believed they were there to receive an illicit shipment of stolen liquor.

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