Guys, I'd recommend slowing down on saying who was who in the early years of the Outfit. I've been researching this for over 20 years, know a bunch of Outfit relatives and insiders and can tell you that there are conflicting stories about who ran the Outfit in the 1930s and 40s. The consensus is that Al Capone ran it from 1925 to 1931/32, but after that there's confusion. Traditionally most think the top spot went to Frank Nitto, but there are many good sources who say that Ricca was the top boss, and there's a minority position who says it was Louis Campagna. I tend to go with Ricca and Campagna. Accardo was the Outfit boss from around 1947 to 1956, then Giancana, however the guy ultimately in charge was Ricca. I also found out that the Chicago Outfit isn't set up the same as other crime families: each crew is almost like its own Family and the most powerful one is in charge. Ricca, Campagna and Giancana were all part of the Taylor Street Crew and Accardo and Cerone with the old Grand Avenue/Elmwood Park one. After Ricca died the power went to Cicero (where Aiuppa was from), then back to Elmwood Park. Taylor Street was also broken up to 26th Street/Chinatown and Grand Avenue (different from old Grand Avenue) to dilute its power.

But do you think Aiuppa was a power on his own or did he just do what Accardo told him to?

Accardo was mostly retired by the time Aiuppa was in power. Accardo was respected and influential, but he was only in charge when there was no one else available. The question to ask is if Accardo was so powerful and had anything to do with the killings of all those Taylor Street members, why did they only happen after Ricca died and not before? The answer is that Aiuppa gave the orders and that's what he wanted done, and that he didn't succeed to that position until Ricca was out of the way.

Ricca was indeed a clever gangster. It's strange why did he go to prison twice while Accardo not even once.

The problem with Ricca is that he stole someone's identity in coming to America which made him subject to deportation while Accardo was born in Chicago. Ricca was also either the top or number two guy at the time of his arrest in the Hollywood extortion case and Accardo was out of the loop.

Nitti was in charge and ricca did things behind his back to undermind him, nitti and ricca never liked each other, ricca was one sneaky s.o.b

accardo respected ricca and ricca helped keep accardo outta the can

so why would accardo betray ricca

ricca died and accardo, aiuppa, and cerone took over....thee end

If you read Gus Russo's book he doesn't pay a whole lot of attention to the structure at the very top. (Ricca, Accardo, Giancana, Humpreys.) Obviously he was most impressed with Humphreys.

I think that is a mature and realistic approach. These guys, particularly back then, were into making money and little else. They weren't acting out a scene from the Godfather. Presumably at all points one person did have ultimate authority but it almost seemed to be a nonissue. There didn't seem to be a lot of "don" shit going on.

I think sometimes people get a little too hung up on the formal authority.

Just like in a company you can have a lame duck CEO, there may have been times during the Outfit's history when the nominal "boss" was more of an advisor.

No matter what the chart says, the smartest person is generally in charge, because everyone else relies on them to pull their ass out of the fire, etc.

Although I do take Rudy Fratto at his word that he "is da bos of dis place... no one else!"

What was Capone's cause of death? I had always thought it was advanced Syphilis.

Yes it was. Stroke > pneunmonia > heart attack.

Interesting thing I learned in my career, if the ME doesn't want to cause trouble they can always check "cardiac arrest" as COD. (Not saying that's what happened with Capone.)

Everyone dies of cardiac arrest, ultimately. I remember going through some old death certificates and there was a specific note on it: "DO NOT CHECK CARDIAC ARREST IF OTHER CAUSE DETERMINABLE." etc. Something like that.

Well, I knew, from other circumstances, this person had died of something other than cardiac arrest, but there it was, checked: "Cardiac arrest."

He was indigent, had died of something sordid, and they probably just did not want to deal with it, embarrass his family etc.

I thought it was because of syphallis that he was crazy at the end.