Eliot Ness

Eliot Ness (April 19, 1903 – May 16, 1957) turned into an American Prohibition agent recognised for his efforts to carry down Al Capone↗ and put into effect Prohibition in Chicago. He turned into the chief of a group of regulation enforcement agents, nicknamed The Untouchables↗. His co-authorship of an autobiography, The Untouchables, which turned into launched rapidly after his death, released numerous tv and movement photograph portrayals setting up Ness`s posthumous repute as an incorruptible crime fighter.

Early life

Eliot Ness turned into born on April 19, 1903, withinside the Kensington community of Chicago, Illinois. He turned into the youngest of 5 kids born to Peter Ness (1850–1931) and Emma King (1863–1937). His parents, each Norwegian immigrants, operated a bakery. Ness attended Christian Fenger High School in Chicago. He turned into knowledgeable on the University of Chicago, graduating in 1925 with a diploma in political technological know-how and enterprise administration, and turned into a member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. He commenced his profession as an investigator for the Retail Credit Company of Atlanta assigned to the Chicago territory, in which he carried out heritage investigations for the reason of credit score information. In 1929, he again to the college to take a graduate route in criminology taught with the aid of using August Vollmer, a cited police reformer and leader of the Berkeley Police Department. Vollmer`s thoughts approximately professionalizing regulation enforcement could impact Ness at some point of his profession

Career

1926–1931

Ness in 1931

Ness`s brother-in-regulation, Alexander Jamie, an agent of the Bureau of Investigation (which have become the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 1935), inspired Ness to go into regulation enforcement. Ness joined the U.S. Treasury Department in 1926, running with the 1,000-sturdy Bureau of Prohibition in Chicago.[1]: 67–71, 96–105 [4]

In March 1930, lawyer Frank J. Loesch of the Chicago Crime Commission requested President Herbert Hoover to take down Al Capone. Agents of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, running below Elmer Irey and Special Agent Frank J. Wilson of the Intelligence Unit, have been already investigating Capone and his pals for earnings tax evasion. In past due 1930, Attorney General William D. Mitchell, looking for a quicker quit to the case, carried out a plan devised through President Hoover for sending a small group of Prohibition marketers, running below a unique United States lawyer, to goal the unlawful breweries and deliver routes of Capone whilst accumulating proof of conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act (informally referred to as the Volstead Act). U.S. lawyer George E.Q. Johnson, the Chicago prosecutor at once in fee of each the Prohibition and earnings tax investigations of Capone, selected the 27-year-antique Ness (now assigned to the Justice Department) to steer this small squad.[1]: 170–172, 239–241, 247–250, 265–269, 311–314

Ness in 1931

With corruption of Chicago's regulation enforcement marketers endemic, Ness went via the information of all Prohibition marketers to create a dependable group (to begin with of six, sooner or later developing to approximately ten) later referred to as "The Untouchables." Raids towards unlawful stills and breweries commenced in March 1931. Within six months, Ness's marketers had destroyed bootlegging operations really well worth an estimated $500,000 and representing an additional $2 million in misplaced earnings for Capone; their raids could in the long run fee Capone in extra of $nine million in misplaced revenue. The principal supply of statistics for the raids changed into an intensive wiretapping operation.

In 1931, a member of Al Capone's gang promised Ness that two $1,000 notes ($36,684.forty seven in 2022) could be on his table each Monday morning if he grew to become a blind eye to their bootlegging activities. Ness refused the bribe. Failed tries through participants of the Chicago Outfit to bribe or intimidate Ness and his marketers stimulated Charles Schwarz of the Chicago Daily News to start calling them "untouchables". George Johnson followed the nickname and promoted it to the press, setting up it because the squad's unofficial title.[1]: 317–331, 349–365, 419–421, 493

The efforts of Ness and his group inflicted important monetary harm on Capone's operations and brought about his indictment on 5,000 violations of the Volstead Act in June 1931. Federal choose James H. Wilkerson averted that indictment from coming to trial, as an alternative pursuing the tax evasion case constructed through George Johnson and Frank Wilson.[5][1]: 385–421, 493–496 [6] On October 17, 1931, Capone changed into convicted on 3 of twenty-two counts of tax evasion.[7] He changed into sentenced to 11 years in jail and, following a failed appeal, commenced his sentence in 1932. On May 3, 1932, Ness changed into many of the federal marketers who took Capone from the Cook County Jail to Dearborn Station, in which he boarded the Dixie Flyer to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary—the handiest time the 2 guys are recognised to have met in person.

1932–1957

In 1932, Ness changed into promoted to Chief Investigator of the Prohibition Bureau for Chicago. Following the quit of Prohibition in 1933, he changed into assigned as an alcohol tax agent withinside the "Moonshine Mountains" of southern Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and in 1934 he changed into transferred to Cleveland, Ohio. In December 1935, Cleveland mayor Harold H. Burton employed Ness because the city`s Safety Director, which placed him in fee of each the police and hearthplace departments. Ness quickly started out a reform application stimulated with the aid of using the thoughts of August Vollmer, which centered on professionalizing and modernizing the police, preventing juvenile delinquency, and enhancing site visitors safety. He declared conflict at the mob, and his number one goals included "Big" Angelo Lonardo, "Little" Angelo Scirrca, Moe Dalitz, John Angerola, George Angersola, and Charles Pollizi.[1]: 493, 529–530

Ness changed into additionally Safety Director on the time of the murders referred to as the Cleveland Torso Murders, taking place withinside the Cleveland place from 1935 to 1938; aleven though he had oversight of the police department, he changed into most effective peripherally worried withinside the investigation.[10] Ness interrogated one of the top suspects of the murders, Dr. Francis E. Sweeney, the usage of a polygraph test. At one factor in time, our bodies of the sufferers of the serial killer had been located inside view of his workplace window.[11][12]

In 1938, Ness and his spouse Edna divorced. His in any other case a success profession in Cleveland withered gradually. He particularly fell out of style after he had the city's huge shantytowns evacuated and burned at some point of the Cleveland Torso Murders. Cleveland critics centered his divorce, his high-profile social drinking, and his behavior in a vehicle coincidence one night time whilst he changed into riding drunk. Although there had been no sufferers withinside the coincidence, Ness, frightened that he may lose his job, attempted to get the coincidence included up. Later, his involvement withinside the coincidence changed into found out with the aid of using a neighborhood newspaper and requires his resignation increased; however, Burton's successor as mayor, Frank Lausche, stored Ness on.[13]

In 1939, Ness married illustrator Evaline Michelow. In 1942, the Nesses moved to Washington, D.C., wherein he labored for the federal government. He directed the conflict in opposition to prostitution in groups surrounding army bases, wherein venereal disorder changed into a severe clinical issue. Later he made some of forays into the company world, all of which failed because of his loss of enterprise acumen. In 1944, he left to emerge as chairman of the Diebold Corporation, a protection employer primarily based totally in Ohio

Ad from Ness' 1947 campaign for Mayor of Cleveland

After his 2d divorce and 1/3 marriage, he ran unsuccessfully for Mayor of Cleveland in 1947,[15] and then he left Diebold in 1951.[14] In the aftermath, Ness become pressured into taking bizarre jobs to earn a living, inclusive of bookstall clerk and wholesaler of electronics elements and frozen hamburger patties.[16]: 255–256 By 1956, he got here to paintings for a startup corporation referred to as Guaranty Paper Corporation, which claimed to have a brand new approach of watermarking prison and professional files to save you counterfeiting. Ness become presented the activity due to his understanding in regulation enforcement and moved from Cleveland to Coudersport, Pennsylvania, wherein a whole lot of the funding capital for the corporation become located. Now ingesting extra heavily, Ness spent his unfastened time in a nearby bar, telling tales of his regulation enforcement career. Guaranty Paper started out to collapse while it have become clean that one in all Ness`s enterprise companions had misrepresented the character in their supposedly proprietary watermarking process, leaving Ness in critical economic jeopardy.[17]

In later years, Ness struggled financially; he become almost penniless on the time of his death, together along with his position in bringing down Al Capone having been in large part forgotten

Personal life

Ness became married to Edna Stahle (1900–1988) from 1929 to 1938, illustrator Evaline Michelow (1911–1986) from 1939 to 1945, and artist Elisabeth Andersen Seaver (1906–1977) from 1946 till his demise in 1957. He additionally had an followed son, Robert (1946–1976)

Death

Ness's cenotaph located at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland, Ohio

Shortly after his approval of the very last galleys for The Untouchables, on whose writing he and Oscar Fraley were taking part as a means, on Ness` part, of getting cash in his later years, Ness collapsed and died of a coronary heart assault at his domestic in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, on May 16, 1957. He turned into fifty four years of age.[15] His frame turned into cremated, and his ashes had been scattered in one of the small ponds at the grounds of Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.[19] An admirer later donated a plot close to the pond and erected a cenotaph in his honor there.[20]

Ness turned into survived via way of means of his widow, Elisabeth Andersen Seaver, and followed son, Robert.

Legacy

Art, entertainment, and media

Actor Robert Stack portraying Ness in the series The Untouchables (1959

Numerous media works were advanced primarily based totally on Eliot Ness`s lifestyles and the legend surrounding his paintings in Chicago. The first of those ended in Ness's ultimate years in collaboration with Oscar Fraley in writing the ee-e book The Untouchables (1957), which turned into posted after Ness's death[18] and went directly to promote 1.five million copies.[22] Although the historic veracity of this ee-e book has been questioned, later studies indicates that it's miles extensively accurate.[1]: xii, 531–532, 588, 593, 608–610, 622, 627, 631–634, 640, 645, 649 [17] A 21-web page manuscript that Ness wrote for the ee-e book is housed withinside the information of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio

The ee-e book become tailored in more than one media and stimulated many extra works. The nice-recognized diversifications encompass the 1959 TV collection The Untouchables, which starred Robert Stack as Ness and become narrated via way of means of Walter Winchell, and the 1987 movie The Untouchables, directed via way of means of Brian De Palma, which starred Kevin Costner as Ness and featured Sean Connery and Robert De Niro as Al Capone. These fictionalized portrayals, greater than real history, have stimulated severa novels; a TV-movie, The Return of Eliot Ness, wherein Stack again to the role; a 2d, short-lived 1993 TV collection titled The Untouchables, which starred Tom Amandes as Ness and William Forsythe as Capone; degree performs which includes Peter Ullian`s In the Shadow of the Terminal Tower; and comedian books which includes Torso. Ness become portrayed via way of means of actor Jim True-Frost withinside the fifth-season episode "The Good Listener" of the HBO tv collection Boardwalk Empire.

Max Allan Collins used Ness as the "police contact/nice friend" person in his collection of ancient non-public eye novels proposing Chicago detective Nate Heller. Later he spun Ness off into his personal collection, set all through his tenure as Cleveland's Public Safety Director. The first ee-e book, The Dark City (1987), depicted Ness's getting employed and challenge a cleanup of the graft-ridden police force; the 2d, Butcher's Dozen (1988), his pursuit of the serial killer called the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run. Bullet Proof (1989) pitted Ness in opposition to hard work racketeers purpose on taking up Cleveland's meals provider industry. Ness is noted in lots of hip hop and rap tracks ("California Love", for example). Murder via way of means of the Numbers (1993) depicted Ness's research of the numbers racket in Cleveland. All of those novels, at the same time as fictionalized, have been carefully primarily based totally on real instances investigated via way of means of Ness and the Cleveland Police. Collins additionally wrote a one-guy degree play, Eliot Ness – An Untouchable Life, which become nominated for an Edgar Award. Collins wrote Ness into his picture novel Road to Perdition.[23]

In 2018, Collins collaborated with historian A. Brad Schwartz on a nonfiction twin biography of Ness and Capone entitled Scarface and the Untouchable: Al Capone, Eliot Ness, and the Battle for Chicago.[24] Collins and Schwartz are presently writing a 2d extent approximately Ness's years in Cleveland, entitled The Untouchable and the Butcher

Beer

Cleveland-primarily based totally Great Lakes Brewing Company, which claims numerous connections to Ness (which includes the brewery owners` mom having labored as his stenographer), named an amber lager "Eliot Ness"[26] and covered numerous diffused nods to his profession withinside the beer description and label art.

Proposed building naming

Ness's credentials as agent

On January 10, 2014, Illinois U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk and Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown proposed naming the headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington, D.C., after Ness.[29][1]: 545–547 If approved, it'd had been referred to as the Eliot Ness ATF Building. Brown stated in a statement: "Eliot Ness is possibly exceptional referred to as the person who helped to convey Al Capone to justice. But Eliot Ness become greater than only a Chicago U.S. prohibition agent. He fought for regulation and justice in Ohio, and fought for peace and freedom in World War II. He become a public servant and an American hero who merits to be remembered."[30]

Chicago Aldermen Edward M. Burke (14th Ward) and James Balcer (eleventh Ward) added a decision withinside the Chicago City Council to oppose the renaming. In a information release, Burke stated: "Eliot Ness had a checkered profession after leaving the federal government. I definitely do now no longer assume his picture suits the real truth of his legacy."[31]

Illustration of Ness

The authors of separate Ness biographies later disputed the accuracy of Burke`s claims, suggesting he mischaracterized Ness's profession.[1]: 545–547 [32] "If Hollywood has given Eliot Ness an excessive amount of credit score for buying Capone," Max Allan Collins wrote in a piece of writing for HuffPost, "he has obtained too little credit score everywhere else for assisting professionalize regulation enforcement withinside the mid-twentieth Century."[33]

Although the Senate decision become by no means adopted, the primary atrium withinside the ATF headquarters constructing become later renamed for Eliot Ness and capabilities a ancient show off approximately the Untouchables

Festival and museum

Illustration of Ness

Coudersport, Pennsylvania, the metropolis wherein Ness spent his very last months and died, has held an annual "Eliot Ness Festival" each 1/3 weekend in July seeing that 2018. Past activities have covered a public reunion of humans descended from the authentic Untouchables, a dramatization of Al Capone`s trial, movie screenings, creator talks, and vintage automobile shows.[34][35]

In 2019, an "Eliot Ness Museum" stimulated with the aid of using the once a year pageant opened in downtown Coudersport, presenting numerous vintage motors and reveals describing Ness's lifestyles and career.

Who Was Eliot Ness | American secret agent |Death | leader of Untouchables | Prohibition | bring down Al Capone