The Capone Week

At South Bend, Ind., Major General Smedley Darlington Butler U. S. M. C., just back in the Government's good graces after having branded Prime Minister Mussolini of Italy a hit-&-run driver (TIME, Feb. 9 et seq.), told the Knife & Fork Club; "When public opinion is aroused, Al Capone will go back to Italy--but I can't talk about Italy. God help anyone who gets in the way of public opinion, for I know." He then proceeded to explain how "any police force can clean any city in 24 hours if the Mayor and City Government want it done." Two days, later Alphonse Capone issued on tinted stationery from his Miami fortress a lofty reply to General Butler. Wrote he: "The General is ill-informed. He should know the laws of this country protect an American-born citizen and prevent the deportation of anyone who, like myself, was born in this country. General Butler says I am a criminal. The only charge that I know of, or any law abiding authorities know of, is of my being charged with vagrancy. "I have been feeding between 2,500 and 3,000 people daily in Chicago for the last fix months. If this is the act of a vagrant, I want to be classed as one. I leave the American people to judge between General Butler and myself. I am satisfied to abide by their verdict." If Citizen Capone had forgotten another old charge against him Judge Wilkerson of Chicago's Federal Court had not. Summoned before a Federal Grand Jury two years ago, Mr. Capone had remained in Miami, pleaded illness, gone to horseraces. Last week he was ordered to appear in Chicago Federal Court to answer a contempt charge.

Back to Chicago went Citizen Capone by swift and stealthy air jumps. He arrived in time for this week's bitter mayoral primary election in which he and his activities had become a hot campaign issue between Mayor William Hale ("Big Bill") Thompson and Judge John Homer Lyle, candidates for the Republican nomination. Ducking out of sight into his underworld, he supervised his "political interests" while in the upperworld sheriffs were deputized, American Legionaries recruited to preserve order. Judge Lyle challenged the police to serve his vagrancy warrant on Capone as the city's No. 1 Public Enemy.

Assuming the national chairmanship of the Anti Gang Rule League, new and obscure crime prevention organization, Cartoonist Percy Lee Crosby (Skippy), took a sling shot at gangdom's Goliath. Said Chairman Crosby, famed for his personal newspaper advertisements against Prohibition (TIME, Feb. 16): "If invited, I will go to Chicago to meet Al Capone in his own territory, without gun permit or bodyguard."

Meanwhile in Detroit the police banned the sale of Life of Al Capone, X Marks the Spot, Al Capone On the Spot.

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