Was Al Capone a made guy?

We all know he huge organized crime figure...but was he ever straightened out?

Just curious

I've wondered that myself. I'm far from the expert i'm sure other people on here are but for what it's worth I don't think he was.

The Outfit seemed alot less stuck on the the traditions of the sicilian new york families. Capone and torrio were both from naples. The legendary 'Curly' Humphrey's was from Welsh decent and Capone himself was part of the more modern breed of gangsters,happily working with Jews and blacks etc.

I would be surprised if they even HAD an initiation ceremony.If they did perhaps it would be based on the whatever the Camorra used for theirs?

Capone didn't even make anyone in a traditional Cosa Nostra ceremony or didn't hold it much value if I remember correctly from "Five Families" by Selwyn Raab, so it's a possibility he wasn't made.

I don't think so. He wasn't Cosa Nostra.
Just a gangster of Italian heritage.

From what I've read and heard about the Capone era guys,and even latter day Chicago mobsters,there isn't really a formally structured ritual for making guys. You just knew who was in and who was not. The Outfit was non-traditional in that respect,and anyone who was part of that world understood who was who.

No. They didn't "make" guys in Chicago until much later. From what I've heard the old school Chicago guys thought it was ridiculous. Capone had a lot of non-Italians in his organization.

No,chicago didn't have a ceremony until the 1980's,the outfit thought that stuff was crazy.

capone came from ny to chicsgo though

I remember I read somewhere, that Chicago wasn't Cosa Nostra until much later. That's why Capone was doing business with everyone.

whether or not Al Capone was made is pretty much irrelevant, he sat on the commission, he and the chicago outfit were cosa nostra.

What made them change? Stronger links with New York or stronger pressure from New York?

You really think there was any "pressure" New York imposed upon the entire Outfit so they'd start having more traditional ceremonies? C'mon man

The FBI had a well-informed source in Chicago in the early 1960s who said new members were inducted into the Outfit at a formal dinner before other members. Each new member had a sponsor who was responsible for him. There was no mention of any finger pricking but the new member swore an oath to the Outfit.

The source appeared to be an inducted member who had connections going back to the Capone era.

Capone's rival Joe Aiello's gang was essentially the Sicilian Cosa Nostra. Capone's gang essentially beat Cosa Nostra and took control of the Unione Sicilia from the Sicilians.

I don't believe that Capone's gang really became part of the "mafia" until after Lucky Luciano established a national commission in the 1930s. However, since many of Chicago's leaders (Torrio, Capone, Nitti, Rica, etc.) were not Sicilian, they never adopted the Sicilian making ceremony. Joe Aiuppa brought the ceremony to Chicago supposedly in the late 1970s. His motive for doing so is still a mystery.

Good topic for discussion. So was it just an oversight on behalf of the rest of the commission that Capone hadn't been formally inducted into LCN?

At the time of the commission's founding, Capone's gang was the dominant Italian gang in Chicago and had essentially killed off all rivals (including Joe Aiello's Sicilian cosa nostra). The commission really had no alternatives to Capone's gang if they wanted Chicago included.

Nick Gentile said this about Al Capone and his entry into the Cosa Nostra sphere (this is from the translated manuscript of Gentile´s autobiography "Vita Di Capomafia":

"Tony Lombardo [the head of the Sicilian Mafia in Chicago at the time], a man of goodness and tremendous ability, alert and always remembering my counsel and the principles of the Mafia, having learned that Joe Masseria was making Al Capone pay a contribution of about $50,000 because he was not part of the Mafia, requested him not to pay the sum. The Governo Central [Control Government, the assembly of the most powerful bosses at the time] having found out the action of Tony Lombardo, called Al Capone to New York. They explained to him the organisation of the Mafia and conceded to him the privilage of becoming part of the family. [Most likely Gentile meant to say "part of the Mafia".] They elected him "Capo di decina" (head of ten) with the authority to select trustworthy youths. That ten, even though they operated in Chicago, were to be subject to the family of New York whose Capo (head) was Joe Masseria. All this was granted him with the condition that he would eliminate Lombardo and [Joe] Aiello. And they also gave him the authority to eliminate anyone else whom he disliked. [I understand this last part to mean that Capone was given the authority from the Cosa Nostra bosses to get rid of anyone within the Chicago Mafia without having to ask for permission.]"

It´s not always easy to understand Gentile, and there may be vital information lost in the translation (those of you who have read the manuscript or the book may agree) but if Gentile is right, this means that Capone was connected to Masseria but was given power to handle stuff in Chicago as it pleased him. Gentile never mentions Capone being made though. After the Castellammarese war and after the elimination of Masseria, the new boss of bosses Salvatore Maranzano, recognized Capone´s group as a Cosa Nostra Family, most likely as a way to reach agreement for peace, because Capone had fought on Masseria´s side.

None of Capone's biographers says he was a made man, nor do they associate the Outfit under Torrio and Capone with the Mafia. And with good reason: neither was Sicilian at a time when Mafia meant Sicilian. There was a Mafia of sorts in Chicago at the time--the Unione Siciiliana, a kind of civic association with muscle. Capone treated them with respect, and constantly tried to get his own Sicilian guys to head the Unione.

You shouldn't so easily dismiss what HairyKnuckles pointed out. There's a lot of misinformation about Capone and the Unione Siciliana. I dealt with some of this in an article I wrote called "The Dreaded D'Andrea" in Informer journal. And just because previous biographers have neglected Capone's connection to Masseria doesn't mean that future ones won't. I can guarantee that.

I think Dellacroce sums this up perfectly.

I also believe that there was a "Black Hand" operating in Little Hell before Torrio. The (reported) stastic is that one year they dumped somewhere around 40 or 50 bodies on the corner of Oak and Larabee, or Oak and Cleveland, or Sedeweick and Locust (I've read all three), and it was called Death Corner.

This would have been circa 1910s in the area that later became Cabrini. Not sure if they were connected to the Unione etc.

It was Oak and Milton back then. The killings in that area (not just the corner) went on for many years. Some of the killers and some of the victims were Mafiosi, but not all were. I wonder if the killings have decreased lately in the Cabrini Green area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9vllPFPd2o

http://chicagocrimescenes.blogspot.com/2008/09/death-corner.html

Well, I have read the different corners on similar sites, none of them really seem vigorously researched or better than the other in terms of sources, thus my throwing them all up there.

Cabrini is just a shadow of what it was. Interestingly the only part left are the original rowhouses--which were all, originally, Sicilian. And they are nearly abandonded, except for, at the most, a thousand or so (potentially less) people who still live in the far west row. They'll be gone soon.

It is still a dangerous area, relatively speaking, with a fair amount of crime and the ocassional shooting/homicide, though most of them these days seem to be on the south side of the project at the Chicago Avenue entrance. From what I've heard there is still a fair amount of drug dealing there.

Oak St. ain't s**t now, you can walk through it pretty much without worry, at least during the day. Probably would still avoid it at night. It's the far northern end of the row houses.

Back in the 60s, 70s and 80s that place was a veritable war zone.

Capone was running things back when there was a free for all with different gangs trying to control things.

Similar to NYC with Masseria, Maranzano, and the independent Luciano crew. When Luciano joined up with Joe the Boss, did he and his top guys (Italian) get their fingers pricked? What about when he joined Maranzano's organization, taking over Joe the Boss' rackets?

Luciano never joined Maranzano's organization. He was a Masseria member.


Here's some more info on Little Sicily:

http://www.uic.edu/depts/hist/hull-maxwe...h/zorbaugh8.htm

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/876.html

I meant when Maranzano became Capo de tutti capi, I figured all of the leaders under him were part of his organization. And Lucky ran a family under him. Since Maranzano was old time Sicilian, did they all have to participate in the ceremony of being made? I guess he didn't live long enough to find out.

Joe Bonanno says that after the Catelemarrese war and they had their big meeting in Chicago, Capone accepted Maranzano as top boss and in turn Capone was accepted into "their world"...whatever that meant

Do you recall where you saw this info, cooler?

I'm not completely sure that the vast majority of the guys in the Five Families at the time of Castellamarese were probably not "made" in the traditional sense.

Luciano, Costello, Adonis, Capone... These were just guys who happened to be of Italian/Sicilian stock who rose to the top of the underworld pile. I think that the tradition of "making" only gained prominence once the family lines had been firmly drawn and they had become the national Cosa Nostra.

Were Capone and Torrio surviving Camorrista from the New York Mafia-Camorra was of 1915?

Capone lived on Navy Street in Brooklyn, where one of the major Camorra gangs were based and he was 15 at the time, a good opportunity to make a name for himself.

I've read they were both with the Bowry Boys but haven't seen anything connecting them with the Camorra which were pretty heavy players in NYC before the Mafia and police wiped them out.

Yes he was at a making ceremony in Atlantic city

Thanks, Great post. Interesting with the swedish/irish youth clashing with their sicilian counterpart before 1910.

just because Chicago didn't prick fingers doesn't mean they didn't make people

Chicago ain't new york

This is what caused me to make the thread...I started thinking about Capone while watching Boardwalk Empire and wondered if he was made when he was in NY

I was thinking about this the other day, and I wondered if Capone was ever officially made.I'm induced into the conception of absence of proof is not proof of absence. But still, Capone was a Neapolitan and the Outfit never really divulged when their members where being made or when they had already been made.I don't think the reason for this was to be subtle .I think it was because the Outfit wasn't really a formal family,hence the name ''The Outfit''.

I'm sure at one point or another he was made by johnny torrio

in this case I don't believe Tony Accardo was ever made ceremony style either

Theres no proof al capone ever got made at all, he did'nt have to get made everyone in new york respected him

Interesting point about Accardo being made too. Was Paul Ricca made? Was Joey Aiuppa made?
I think Chicago did it differently. I think the making ceremony was much less formal than other east coast families at the time. It was more "You're one of us now. Your loyalties lie with us above all else." And that was it.
The non Italian members if the outfit like Gus Alex and Murray humphries had great power but they could never be the head boss of the organization. An Italian would have the position of ultimate authority. Its like they didn't need a making ceremony. Everybody knew the rules already. They were more into making money than ceremony and tradition at that time. This is just my theory though.

Capone may have gone through some sort of initiation to become a Five Pointer but the Chicago organization under Torrio and Capone did not adhere to any dogma other than "Can you earn?" and "Keep your mouth shut."

The Atlantic City deal was just an acknowledgement that Torrio was stepping down and Capone was in as boss, nothing more.

The Calabrese kid that squealed mentioned some BS about a ceremony but I wouldn't believe much of anything that momo has to say. There might have been some of that greaseball shit among the inner circle of Italians in Chicago at some point but I sincerely doubt it's anything like what the East coast guys do.

That's the deal in Chicago, make money, keep quiet. Always has been always will be.

It wasn't just Calabrese that said there was a ceremony.

^This. Before 1931 some followed the tradition from Sicily and some didn't. It wasn't until Marazano won the war that there were formal rule that you had to be made to be part of a family. Obviously that meant none or few Chicago Outfit guys including Capone were formally made. Like someone said, the Outfit was accepted as a Mafia family by Maranzano.

I read somewhere that in order for capone to be recognized as the godfather of him family he had to make a deal to share some of his rackets with the new york family

Joe Aiuppa was a Sicilian himself, so perhaps he wanted to stay true to this roots.

No, but for him and his outfit to be recognized as part of the Mafia and men of honor, Capone and his group had to give up the prostitution rackets.