ELLIOT NESS BIOGRAPHY

American lawman Eliot Ness leader of The Untouchables is known as the man who stopped Al Capone this was the last ride of the untouchables escorting a convicted Capone to Chicago's Dearborn station to get on a train where US Marshals would accompany him to an Atlanta penitentiary Eliot Ness was somewhere in the crowd but the cameras followed big al the truth is Eliot Ness was not the man who single-handedly brought down Al Capone there's more myths about Eliot Ness than there are about Loch Ness Ness was a hard-working honest a prohibition agent but he did not single-handedly put Al Capone away Eliot Ness is story was largely embellished by the writers of the book the TV series and the film pulp fiction that America loved the real Eliot Ness was full of contradictions a moral crusader is a shameless publicity seeker a prohibition agent who loved his scotch a family man who was never at home an honest man who became intoxicated with Fame and would chase it for the rest of his life you you he was so terribly good he never got a spanking his mother would later say Eliot Ness was born on April the 19th 1903 in Chicago's South Side his mother named him after one of her favorite authors George Eliot I don't know if she was aware George Eliot is a pseudonym for a woman Mary Ann Evans but just the same she liked the ring of the name Eliot he was the youngest child by far a brother and three sisters were already teenagers when he was born his mother Emma and father Ian were Norwegian immigrants they owned a successful bakery that served Chicago Southside markets the bakery provided well for the family but it kept hell it's farther away from home and he was raised largely by his sisters and mother he was kind of pampered maybe a little bit spoiled but he didn't show it really he was very likable kid very polite very bright his mother definitely doted on him she wanted him to be the best-dressed kid in the neighborhood she wanted him to get the best grades in school and some people stated that she felt he could do no wrong surrounded by women from birth his fondness for the opposite sex would never wane at pullman elementary elliott was thought shy his nose was always in a book he was a great reader he had a a a genuine love for novels read all the old classics read Shakespeare as a kid but he enjoyed Sherlock Holmes any type of detective work his sister klara married a young Justice Department agent named Alexander Jamie Elliot became infatuated with his g-man brother-in-law a real-life detective Alexander taught Elliot how to shoot at the government firing range and told him all about his exploits as a federal agent this is a time when the prohibition was going to kick in this is a time when the criminal element was on the rise in Chicago was very exciting times in Chicago to be a federal agent in junior high school Eliot dressed fairly well thanks to his mother but he was awkward and disorganized his nickname was elegant mess by high school the mess was noted for his love of cars but he was still quiet Elliott never shied from hard work throughout high school he maintained a paper round and helped out in his father's bakery certainly his father instilled in him a strong work ethic and his father encouraged him to pay attention to his studies as much as his father was around his father very much wanted him to go to college he had a good education and get a good job in autumn 1921 Elliott enrolled at the University of Chicago to study Commerce law and political science he lived here at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity away from his parents for the first time Elliot finally began to come out of his shell in college he was quite popular with the ladies he was very attractive he had a good upper body strength and I think he dressed in a way that displayed that he studied jiu-jitsu and he was a terror on the tennis court he graduated in 1925 with a degree in business but declined offers to enter Chicago's corporate world instead he went to work as an investigator for an insurance company and began studying for his civil service test Eliott wanted to be a lawman it was the middle of the Roaring Twenties and Chicago was a wild town prohibition was the law but drinking prostitution and gambling were everywhere and emperor of it all the Scarface Al Capone Capone was untouchable city cops City Hall and a lot of federal prohibition agents were on his payroll prohibition bureau was the most corrupt law enforcement agency in American history the agents were poorly paid they were incompetent many of them were on the take and in addition to that they were trigger-happy Eliot Ness chose to become a prohibition agent it was a move that disappointed his father and appalled his mother the idea prohibition was not held in high esteem and the idea that he would sacrifice a business career to take a job such as that was not pleasing to her at all I'm sure that Ness shortly after becoming a prohibition agent suffered an identity crisis he had a decision to make was he going to go along was he going to conform to the norm and the norm in his work group prohibition agents was to be on the take or was he going to be sort of the odd man out and stick by his moral scruples NASA took the high road and made a commitment to become a shining example of an honest prohibition agent it was one of the most important decisions he ever made his clean reputation and well-placed family connections put him on the fast track for the biggest prohibition assignment in America Al Capone when Eliot Ness chose to become a federal prohibition agent he put himself on a collision course with America's number-one bootlegger Al Capone every day thousands of barrels of Capone's product rolled into speakeasies and gambling dens there were a few crackdowns but they were mainly for show and have a little impact in Chicago people loved to drink and most including Eliot Ness thought the Volstead Act known as Prohibition was a misguided law he thought there was damn foolishness he taught people as long as they used it moderately should have the barre what was the phrase he used to use legislate against human nature was his term for what prohibition was oleate Ness was known to enjoy a drink or two dating back as far as his college days that when he was a member of a college fraternity I think it's a pretty safe bet that even during Prohibition he was one of many millions Americans who were enjoying an occasional drink but Nez never publicly questioned the law and he had sworn to uphold it he despised the arrogance of Al Capone a silk suited gangster who laughed at the law his rackets grossed over a hundred million dollars a year mostly from bootlegging Capone spent hundreds of thousands bribing prohibition agents Ness was embarrassed by it as was his boss US Attorney George EQ Johnson the prosecutor had been given direct orders from President Herbert Hoover to do something about Chicago's alcohol problem the question was how do we actually gather evidence against Capone this was a huge obstacle that blocked Johnson's path to getting Capone the fact that the people that had actually gone get the evidence couldn't be trusted but Johnson had a master plan a flank attack they were going to hit Capone from two different directions the Treasury Department was going to collect information on Capone's tax evasion and then the prohibition Bureau was going to collect evidence that would be used to prosecute him for violating the Volstead Act each investigation was run by a small hand-picked task force absolute honesty was the key for a recommendation on who could lead the prohibition squad Johnson asked justice agent Alexander Jamie Elliott neeses brother-in-law with little hesitation Jamie recommended Eliot Ness was just 26 years old and straight as a die johnson hired him nasa's team would hit capone by locating his breweries and smashing them reducing Big Al's income and his ability to bribe cops and politicians in addition Johnson hoped the raids would restore public confidence in law enforcement and divert Capone's attention from the taxman Johnson knew the tax case was his best bet against the gang stone Chicago loved booze but there was much less sympathy for tax evasion while he needed the prohibition squad to be effective ultimately it was a decoy for Eliot Ness it was a great opportunity and he approached it with zeal he put together a team of nine men none older than 30 each with a specialized skill including a wiretap er a lox man and a car tailing expert all had impeccable reputations for honesty which would later give them their name The Untouchables in September of 1929 they began they started out looking for Capone breweries well just where do we find these things they essentially backtracked from the saloons when the saloons sell the beer the kegs then are put out and back the kegs are eventually picked up by a truck and taken back to the breweries to be reused so if you watch every step in the process long enough you will eventually find your way back to a brewery but when Ness and his men raided a brewery it took several minutes to break through the specially reinforced doors which Capone had installed in most of his locations by the time they finally got through the brewery doors everybody had fled I think he was a little disenchanted that there was no one there to arrest that there was just some beer in their first six months all the raids followed suit The Untouchables seized nearly a million dollars worth of bootlegging equipment barely a scratch for the Capone organization but they didn't make a single arrest Ness needed more information so he decided to tap the phones of Capone henchmen like Jake greasy thumb guzik and Al's big brother Ralph Capone it was a bold and dangerous investigative move for the time Capone had lookouts everywhere Ness himself stood guard while wiretapping expert Paul Rob's key put the tap on Ralph Capone's phones but the risks were worth it as information poured in nest transcribed some of the tapes by hand there were details of brewery locations how many barrels would be shipped to which bars and when with this information and a specially designed truck fitted with a snow plow that served as a battering ram the brewery doors came tumbling down in a raid on June the 13th 1930 they arrested six men took two trucks and destroyed 25,000 dollars worth of equipment newspapers picked up the story and Eliot kept the cuttings in a scrap but the raid and Eliot Ness would have little interest Al Capone I'm not so sure that it wasn't more of a diversion to Al Capone maybe an annoyance than it was a serious threat that Capone had to worry about he had many other things to worry about at the time from rival gangsters to the tax case the taxman were making progress IRS agent Frank Wilson had located some of Capone's secret Ledger's detailing parts of his illicit income all Wilson needed was to tie Capone directly to the ledgers he needed to find the accountant who had written the books but Eliot Ness had met the woman he wanted to marry her name was Edna Staley she was Alexander Jamie's secretary within months of dating Eliot proposed and she accepted but because of his work they put the wedding on hold this was unfortunately a time of his life where the scales had to tip or tilt in the direction of chasing Al Capone at the expense of his personal relations with the woman he would later marry by late summer of 1930 NASA's raids had begun to have some impact on Al Capone the gangster sent an associate to NASA's office in Chicago's Transportation Building with an offer of $2000 every week if nest would relax his still busting at the time NASA's annual salary was just $2,900 his response was telling NASA that moment was enraged that he'd be offered a bribe and he took the money and stuffed it back into the young mobsters pockets literally threw him out of the office and that pretty much summed up what NASA is all about the fact that he couldn't be corrupted when his money was rejected Capone tried scaling nest he was once almost run down by a car he had a couple shots fired at him once while he was when he was getting out of his car Capone you know would do things like that he was a master at chicanery he was a master at intimidation I frankly doubt if nest was in great danger the Capone gangsters were smart businessmen wherever else they were and I think they would have realized that there's no percentage in killing a federal agent nevertheless the intimidation took its toll Eliot worried about Edna's safety and would keep away from her during particularly tense times sometimes for months nests pressed on with his raids and his scrapbook filled up reporters didn't know Ness was leading a secret scored against Capone they thought he was just a rare prohibition agent actually doing his job and if he was going to do a major raid he didn't just sneak in he made sure that the media was there to cover it every whack of the axe he was such an egotist but anytime an investigator tells the press ahead of time that I'm going to raid 1010 North State Street so that they're there at the time he comes in and he gets headlines it's not exactly a good way to get convictions but US Attorney Johnson never ordered Nass to curb the press relations it created the impression that work was being done against Capone yes I think really wanted to give the public a hero that was opposite Capone's somebody who was incorruptible who wasn't tainted and who was out there dealing for the public good Eliot Ness was the perfect foil for Al Capone a fair-haired boy Skype type taking on a burly dark villain excellent PR casting for a government set on getting the gangster but behind the front page news the tax men were finally getting the breaks they needed IRS agent Frank Wilson had finally located the bookkeeper who had entered the numbers into one of Capone's secret Ledger's but he convinced him to testify a tax case was made Capone was indicted on June the 5th 1931 Nessa's prohibition case was ready - a week later Capone and sixty eight others were indicted on over 5000 bootlegging counts there was a very serious winnable prohibition case against Capone however what a jury comprised of Chicagoans during that era have convicted Al Capone of prohibition violations the most likely answer was no Ness knew it and so did his boss US Attorney George Johnson who chose to prosecute Capone on his tax charges first keeping NASA's prohibition case as a backup Eliott mask was a spectator not a witness during the trial of Al Capone for five weeks Eliot watched the trial until after a short deliberation the jury convicted Capone of tax evasion the judge sentenced him to 11 years in prison the prohibition case would never be tried Eliot later told friends of his disappointment at never getting his shot at Capone the closest he got was the very public delivery of Capone to the train station but Elliot's boss George Johnson wanted him to be credited so in an interview with the Chicago Tribune he described publicly for the first time the special prohibition squad which Ness had led the reporter run with the story and called the squad The Untouchables because of their refusal to accept payoffs the press response was greater than Johnson had expected the story ran across America touting Ness as the primary batterer of Capone giving the tax men a backseat Ness never corrected the mistake and traded on the misconception whenever it served his purpose but the lie had a haunting consequence the false image cast a long shadow no matter how great his accomplishments were for the rest of his life and there were many history would remember him for the wrong thing with his workload slowing Elliott and his longtime girlfriend Edna Staley were finally married but it was not an easy time for the couple because Elliott was unsure of his professional future in 1932 he was promoted to chief investigator of the Chicago prohibition Bureau but prohibition would be repealed just a year later he stayed with the Treasury Department until 1935 when he was offered the position of Public Safety Director of the city of Cleveland a job which would place him in control of the police and fire departments as well as traffic safety matters nests readily accepted he and Edna were on their way to Cleveland at the time it was the seventh largest city in America and through the Depression had retained some financial clout barges brought iron ore up the Cuyahoga River and steel and heavy machinery rolled out the city's landmark terminal tower overlooking a tall Cleveland relative prosperity brought with it organized crime the mob was well entrenched gambling was very common police were on the take and it was official corruption from the cop on the beat all the way to City Hall it wasn't different than Chicago it wasn't much different there was an Al Capone but there certainly was the criminal element and it was rising rapidly NASA's appointment was the talk of the town newspapers sold him as the man who got Nepal and in a mistake that could not have pleased Edna as a bachelor Ness wasted little time in taking action five days into the job he stoned police by firing two officers for drinking on duty a common occurrence at the time the police department was his first priority he realized if he were going to do anything in Cleveland to enforce the law the police department had to be clean eight days later he undertook a huge departmental shake-up he replaced the head of the detective bureau and reassigned over a hundred officers many of whom he suspected but couldn't prove were on the take then there's got an unusual chance to prove himself in the field county prosecutor Frank Cullerton had made the bold move of going to one of the area's most entrenched gambling dens known as the Harvard club for the purpose of serving warrants for gambling and prostitution but when Cullerton knocked on the door he was met by the barrel of a gun the man behind it telling him to get lost his law enforcement credentials were worthless a flustered Cullerton called Eliot Ness to help out Nash recruited some off-duty cops and as practiced in Chicago he rounded up the press then he walks right into the Harvard club and met no resistance just as in his early untouchable raids most of the gamblers and prostitutes had already fled there were a few arrests but Eliot Ness was front-page news it was kind of like the frontier marshal of course that's mostly mythical image that we have you know of lawmen the guy who comes into town and cleans takes care of all the bad guys and he gave the people a hero to look up to again an example of honesty that they usually have at that time but two weeks after the Harvard club raid parts of a dismembered woman were found on Cleveland's Eastside the bizarre killing was not given much coverage and Eliot Ness made no comment on it but the murder would come to test his skills Cleveland seemed dazzled by Ness he was in the paper almost every day his scrapbook was overflowing with articles and cartoons chronicling his exploits Nair set his sights on organized crime he employed a lesson from Chicago cut off their income instead of smashing stills this time he busted up gambling dens he led scores of raids to get information on who was running them and who was being paid to look the other way nez put together a secret investigative team like The Untouchables called the unknowns like their predecessors there were officers with a reputation for incorruptibility the result was a series of police corruption convictions including two precinct captains ness was beginning to win back public confidence in the police on September 10th 1936 in the train yards where hobos jumped on and off trains one tripped over another body it was the sixth victim killed in such a manner the city looked to the man who had got Al Capone to solve the case but both Ness and the police were stumped other than the fact that most of the victims seemed to be vagrants the killer left very few clues murder cases were not Elliott's speciality after a storm of building searches and an exhaustive canvass of the homeless population no real leads turned up Ness was putting in tremendous hours and like his father before him was really home if he was home before 10 o'clock at night it would be odd Edna didn't work outside the home she had no other career and together they weren't able to have any children so she didn't have much to fill her days I'm sure it was very lonely for her the couple's inability to conceive bothered Elliott greatly on weekends he often went over to the neighbor's house to see their kids oh it would knock on the back door and just ask can I come in and play with the children for a while he loved children Elliott was 35 he and Edna lived quietly with their six cats in this lakeside cottage he seemed to use his time at home to recharge from a furious pace of work and would relax by reading classics listening to music are simply staring at the waters of Lake Erie he didn't seem to have enough energy for his marriage ever since the time of their engagement Eliot's work had got the best of him he and Edna filed for divorce in 1938 nests for a short time there actually became really played --lens most eligible bachelor is still young man actually became a Playboy sort of for short I'm an accomplished dancer he was often seen at Cleveland's top nightclubs with a drink in his hand and a date on his arm he liked being around women and women really liked being around him he was a ladies night ladies he did kind of have boyish looks about him his stature wasn't all that large he was 5 foot 9 and definitely not looking like a fullback or anything that way exciting perhaps to women they said it was more his um demeanor and he just kind of felt at ease and trusted him he stepped up his attack on organized crime by investigating labor rackets that had infiltrated the cleveland unions in addition to convictions against the city's top labor racketeers he revitalized other aspects of Public Safety urging the community and his officers to get tough on drunk drivers within a year Cleveland went from the deadliest to the safest city in America insurance premiums were slashed he was fulfilling all the promise he had ridden into town on except for one case on August the 16th 1938 the torsos of two more vagrants victims 11 and 12 turned out the city was panicking nest took extreme action the next night using all his power as safety director he took fire engines policemen and ambulances to the shantytown near the railway where most of the victims had lived and had been found he cleared out every vagrant sending them to the Salvation Army and then burned the site it was the source for the victims and he knew that if he could remove that convenient source for victims that hopefully the crimes would end Ness was attacked in the press for his arrogance in burning the meager lots of broken man but the killing stopped and meses reputation survived the incident by 1941 Cleveland's torso murders had faded from public memory and Eliot Ness was one of the most popular men in the city local Republicans encouraged him to run for mayor but Ness declined he'd always voiced a disdain for politics oh we could have run for mayor in 1941 and been elected easily and very popular and very effective I think he felt good about himself he felt like he was accomplishing some of his life's goals finally it was the pinnacle of his life he had a strong if not fully deserved reputation from the Capone years and he had in fact cleaned up Cleveland a Safety Director the really tragic thing about his Cleveland years that yes had created this larger-than-life image of himself and a lot of it was his own doing and that he eventually couldn't live up to it critical stories began creeping into the papers rumors about his drinking in public and heavy social schedule he was spending less time at the office many attributed this to his new marriage to artists and fashion illustrator Evelyn McAndrew like Eliot she loved to socialize the couple often through large parties at their lakeside home or dance till dawn at Cleveland club's as was the case in Elliot's first marriage he and everline were not able to have children but their relationship remained strong she sketched him at home relaxed drinking his scotch but the portrait of Eliot easing comfortably towards middle-age would not last on March the 4th 1942 Elliott everline and some friends were out for a night on the town the drinking and dancing lasted well into the morning before the couple headed for home the roads were icy and when Elliott tried to negotiate a car the car skidded out of control and crashed into another car there's conflicting stories about what happened after the cars collided Nessa's account was that he had gone over to make sure that the other driver was okay and then I checked without a line who complained that she had hit his hit her head and that she better get some medical attention nest old the other driver to meet him at the hospital but Elliot never drove there he later said that everline changed her mind on the way and just wanted to go home he admitted that he called the hospital to check on the other driver but didn't give anyone his name when the story hit the papers Ness admitted to the accident there was little sympathy for him it seemed that the safety director ness had broken one of his own ten commandments of traffic safety no charges were brought but two months later he submitted his resignation he left Cleveland a tarnished hero he and everline moved to Washington DC where he became the head of the federal social protection program aimed at preventing venereal disease but again his marriage soured in 1944 Evelyn left him this time it was his wife's job as a children's book illustrator that got in the way her career was really on the upswing and not having children she was probably very tempted to follow the path that her career was going whereas his was still rather questionable Eliot left Washington and made his way back to Cleveland he tries his hand at the business world working for a safe company and then an import-export firm but according to friends Ness wasn't happy in business he was just floundering a little bit when he was interested in something really interested he really worked like hell at it but if he wasn't particularly interested he really goofed off back in Cleveland he met his third wife sculptor Elizabeth Seaver soft spoken and gentle she reminded friends of his first wife Edna they weren't able to have children either but it was with Elizabeth that they adopted a boy named Robert finally Elliott had a son predictably he lavished attention on the boy but professionally Elliott was still looking for a foothold in 1947 in Cleveland Republicans again asked him to run for mayor this time he considered it I did my damnedest to persuade him not to do it because here he was he had a reputation in the country being a police administrator and most of the cities the country needed that so he had a sort of an automatic life work of cleaning up everything all over the country and I told him that would be lost and he would also lose the other profession but I didn't get anywhere with it at all and he finally right in this room he decided he was going to do it it was a campaign that was six years too late Cleveland had forgotten NASA's heroics and he no longer looked the part he was noticeably older and was a poor orator in November Ness was crushed in a landslide he had invested his personal fortune in the effort it was a terrible blow Eliot Ness felt like he was a victim in many ways even going back to the Capone days he had this great case against Al Capone he never got a chance to put it out into court in Cleveland so many accomplishments and all wiped away by the car crash and then to see that the voters rejected him two-to-one after he'd done so much for the city I think was real hard for him to take his political ambitions also ruined his chances of becoming Aloma and elsewhere when there was an opening for a Safety Director in Detroit his friend Don Moore made an inquiry to the city manager on Elliott's behalf and he said oh isn't Elliott the fellow that becomes Safety Director and then runs for mayor on the reputation he gets threatened and I had to admit he was and so he did there's no chance of in getting the job Ness had narrowed his employment options but eventually he would be faced with a decision that would cut the core of who he was would he trade his honesty for the chance to make some badly needed money out of the story of by 1956 the work of Eliot Ness had faded from popular memory ever since the doomed mayoral race he had been struggling to make ends meet searching for the break that would give him some financial security and return him to the spotlight he had recently been hired by the fledgling guarantee paper corporation to promote a new cheque watermarking process designed to prevent fraud the company hoped the old crimefighter still had some value left in his name and would attract investors Elliott was 54 as he and his family headed for the company headquarters in the rural Pennsylvania town of Cuyler sport it had been 25 years since Al Capone went to jail and NASA's name didn't bring a bell with the locals he had this old beat-up I think it was maybe a 50 Ford convertible and this was in 56 but the car was you know we thought this guy didn't always things why is he driving this old car in his new office above the hardware store it soon became apparent to Elliott that guarantee paper wasn't on solid ground the company had very little capital Elliott tried to push the product but he wasn't like the Ness of old he usually knocked off at five o'clock and went to the local bar for a drink it was clear that the former prohibition agent was an alcoholic friends would say that they always see him with a drink in his hand at this time he was biting his fingernails I think the alcohol was taking a big toll on him I think financially the the concerns were terrible as he really wanted to provide for his wife and his son even though the company was struggling Ness was taken with counter support he felt it was a good place to raise his ten-year-old son Bobby the family began attending the local Presbyterian Church but one Sunday Elliott was forced to stop on the church step with chest pains he went to see the town's doctor complaining of nervousness and anxiety the doctor put him on a sedative to calm his nerves the standard treatment at the time not long after Elliott went on a sales trip to New York while staying at the Waldorf Astoria he was introduced to a sports writer Oscar Fraley fairly didn't recognize neces name but after a night of drinking Elliott began to tell the old Capone stories Fraley was amazed and told Elliott he should write a book and maybe make some money off the story it was just what Ness had been waiting for he started writing 25 years later the stills busting and the old names were back in play friends say it was the happiest they had seen Elliott in years mez sent his manuscript to Frehley and it was that which is a very straightforward telling of I did this I did this I did this that Oscar Fraley then took and spun into the book what Fraley came back with was quite different from the original Fraley had written that it was the untouchables more than anyone else who broke Capone that they had gathered the evidence that led to the tax conviction Nath's read the draft to his friends I contradict him on some one he would get a little grin on his face and say well we've got to embellish these things a little to make me to rest flat broke and drinking heavily Ness was betraying the one asset that had defined him all his life his honesty the question is didn't s have any idea that this would create such a legend or was he just trying to sell a few books to rescue himself financially I think it's the latter he was very desperate to support his family it was really Fraley I think that who embellished it more really did not have a reputation as a very good journalist but he had connections and was able to use and help get the book published when nurse got word from Frehley that the book could be accepted for publication he shared the news with everyone from Kairos port just two months later on May the 16th 1957 he reviewed some final book proofs he left the office at 5:00 and walked a few blocks to his home but on the way the chest pain returned he was having trouble breathing he went to the kitchen and began to pour himself a glass of water when he collapsed Betty who had been working in the garden heard the noise rushed in and found Eliot on the floor dead from a massive heart attack he had left instructions to be cremated and wanted his ashes scattered over water there was barely enough money to pay for it he had died so deeply in debt he had a car he had to guarantee paper company paychecks in his wallet uncashed because it was not sufficient revenue to utter those checks at the bank he owed creditors more than $7,000 his advance on the book was only $200 in the end he got very little money from the untouchables The Untouchables as a book was not an outstanding success but it was the seed from which the legend grew Eliot Ness is one a few guys who gets to create his own myth to write his own book that creates this myth of I dried up Chicago which is the myth part and what happens in the first TV show with Robert Stack is they start with that material and then they run out of material very quickly so they expand on the myth it gets embellished a little bit further in the Kevin Costner movie in 1987 somehow his death prior to the release of his book made his myth more permanent he wasn't around to be criticized there's the old saying speak no ill of the Dead if Neffs would have been alive people might have been willing to speak ill of him publicly the Chicago newspaper reporters from the 20s and 30s many of whom were still around might have come out of the woodwork and said who's this guy who says he dried up Chicago few remember anything about Ness but the Chicago days he told a seemingly small lie so people would remember him and perhaps buy his book but the lie grew so big it eclipsed the rest of his life if there's any lesson that can be learned from the life of Eliot Ness perhaps it's this once you find something that you're good at stick with it Eliot Ness was a great police administrator and when he left that he did it at great cost Ness was a very decent man he had some very legitimate accomplishments it's a shame that the only Eliot Ness that most of the world is familiar with is the Eliot Ness that went after Al Capone

Channel: Don Tomleone

Views: 227,898

Rating: 4.6575079 out of 5

Keywords: mafia, gangster, organized, crime, tommy, agro, mobster, john, gotti, gambino, scarfo, philly, mob, AL CAPONE, ELLIOT NESS

Id: Np9uwdQK6AY

Length: 43min 33sec (2613 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 22 2015