Eliot Ness' Tenure As Cleveland, Ohio's Public
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International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 1 No. 12; September 2011 THE LAST BOY SCOUT: ELIOT NESS’ TENURE AS CLEVELAND, OHIO’S PUBLIC SAFETY DIRECTOR George E. Richards, Ph.D. CPP Associate Professor Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice Edinboro University of Pennsylvania Edinboro, Pennsylvania 16444 United States of America Abstract Following the success and subsequent notoriety of Eliot Ness as a Prohibition agent in Chicago, Cleveland Mayor Harold Burton appointed Ness Director of Public Safety in December 1935. During this era, the Cleveland Department of Public Safety, particularly the police division, was considered to be one of the most corrupt in America. Burton, elected on a law-and-order platform, had sworn to rid Cleveland of dishonesty within city government and to stamp out the influence of organized crime. He chose Ness due to the latter’s reputation for integrity and innovation. This paper is an examination of Eliot Ness’s administration of the Cleveland, Ohio Department of Public Safety with an emphasis on his personal style of management and qualities of leadership. Introduction In October of 1931, cartoonist Chester Gould introduced the American public to the square-jawed, fedora-wearing crime fighter, Dick Tracy. Since the Dick Tracy comic strip was launched in the Chicago Tribune, this archetype of the detective-genre has battled villains that have always been easy to associate with crime. According to Gould, “Violence is golden when it used to put down evil” (Cagle, 2001). The methods of Tracy, while draconian and harsh, were effective, at least in newsprint. Yet the character of Tracy was not totally dependent on brawn. A cold logic dictated the detective‟s moves and Tracy used whatever resources he had available in his ongoing battle against nefarious criminals. From a technological perspective, he was always ahead of his rivals. Tracy, through the benefit of Gould‟s imagination and pen, employed a portable surveillance camera, a magnetic air car, the atomic light, and the two-way wrist radio (Barrick, 2006). It was not by chance that Gould created a protagonist who, though faced with hardship and danger, always triumphed. In a 1936 interview, Gould stated , “I have always been disgusted when I read or learn of gangsters and criminals escaping their just dues under the law, and for that reason I invested in Dick Tracy a detective who could either shoot down these public enemies, or put them in jail where they belong” (Barrick, 2006). In the Chicago of Gould‟s early career, one could easily tire of reading in the press of how criminals not only walked away from their crimes, but did so openly and without fear of reprisal by public officials who were frequently found to be corrupted by the criminals they were expected to apprehend (Bergreen, 1994). A well-known Chicago Prohibition agent with a reputation for honesty and integrity served as an inspiration for Gould‟s character. The cartoonist later credited this son of Norwegian immigrants of providing the conceptual template for Dick Tracy. The young man was Eliot Ness (Cagle, 1991). This paper is an examination of the service of Eliot Ness as Cleveland, Ohio‟s Public Safety Director. This widely over-looked episode in his law enforcement career has been overshadowed by his more well-known earlier service as a Prohibition Agent in Capone-era Chicago. It is my contention that Ness‟ contributions to professionalizing the Cleveland Police Department and taking steps to reduce corruption among public officials there were more substantive and long- lasting than any long-term effects spent as a federal agent in Illinois. Although Ness‟ tenure as Public Safety Director did not end well, the steps he took to professionalize policing in Cleveland mirrored national efforts during the 1930s to improve the quality of law enforcement. EARLY YEARS Eliot Ness was born on April 19, 1903 to Peter and Emma Ness. The youngest of five children, Ness was considered a “bookish” boy who preferred milder pursuits rather than playing sports with other boys in Kensington, a suburb of Chicago. 14 © Centre for Promoting Ideas, USA www.ijhssnet.com Throughout his adolescence, he was noted for his neat appearance and the avoidance of cliques within his school. After graduation from high school, Ness worked briefly at menial factory jobs. However, the repetition of the tasks he performed held little appeal for him. He subsequently enrolled at the University of Chicago (Heimel, 2000). As a college student, Ness excelled at his studies. He was characterized as energetic and single-minded. Team sports held little appeal for Ness. The sport he played in college was tennis, at which he excelled. What he lacked in natural athleticism, he made up for with technique and strategy. He also enjoyed jujitsu for its emphasis on instilling mental discipline (Heimel, 2000). In 1925, Ness graduated in the top-third of his class from the University of Chicago with degrees in business administration and political science (Bergreen, 1994). His first job after graduating was as a credit and insurance investigator. It was during this time he first showed an interest in law enforcement. His brother-in-law, Alexander Jamie, had been appointed chief investigator for the Prohibition Bureau in Chicago. Jamie was also charged with investigating corruption within this agency. Ness routinely spent time with his sister and brother-in-law and quickly became intrigued by the work of federal investigators (Heimel, 2000). This growing interest prompted him to enroll in a criminology course at the University of Chicago taught by August Vollmer (Fisher, 2004; Heimel, 2000). Vollmer, who was instrumental in professionalizing American policing, promoted the hiring of college-educated personnel. As a college graduate, Ness demonstrated qualities that appealed to the professionalism movement emerging in law enforcement. As his ideas about the education needed for policing grew more ambitious, Vollmer decided that it was fruitless for the department itself to attempt to provide college-level material that established institutions were better able to teach … he came to believe that the ideal police officer would be one who had already received academic training before he was recruited and who could be trained in the technical aspects of police work after joining the force (Carte & Carte, 1975, p. 42). Ness began his federal career in August 1926 when he was hired as a trainee with the U.S. Treasury Department‟s Chicago office. Ness was soon transferred to the Prohibition Enforcement Unit where he began his career as a Prohibition agent. His initial duties consisted of finding locals who, in violation of the Volstead Act, were operating stills or making home-brew in their residences or places of business. He quickly became adept at ferreting out violators. Yet the work was not without risk. A member of Ness‟s squad, Frank Basile, a former bootlegger with first-hand knowledge of the process of making and distributing illegal liquor, served as chauffeur for the group. Due to his ability to speak Italian, Basile helped to interpret some of the dialogue the group heard from suspects. On December 11, 1928, Frank Basile‟s body was discovered in a ditch in Chicago Heights. Upon examination, it was found he had been beaten and shot (Heimel, 2000). This act altered the manner in which Ness and those working with him conducted their duties. In his biography of Al Capone, author Lawrence Bergreen (1994) interviewed a former Capone associate who confirmed the aggressive manner of Ness and other Prohibition agents following the Basile murder: “One time two truckloads of merchandise were coming in,” recalls Sam Pontarelli, a longtime resident of the Heights and confidant of Al Capone. “Ness and his men stopped the trucks, grabbed the drivers, squeezed their balls, and beat the shit out of them. Hit them with clubs. It looked as though the shipment would not be delivered, but then money changed hands, and the trucks got through.” This behavior convinced the racketeers that Ness “wanted to be a fifty percent partner in the stills and the whorehouses” maintained by the organization. “He was on the take,” Pontarelli insists (Bergreen, 1994, p. 347). Ness had not been corrupted, but used this ploy to insist on meeting Joseph Martino, the boss of bootlegging enterprises in Chicago Heights. Ness was a known Prohibition agent who made no secret of his identity. Meeting with a Prohibition agent who wanted a percentage of an illegal liquor operation was not generally considered unusual, especially in Capone‟s Chicago. Ness himself doubted the effectiveness of enforcing a policy that went counter to the wishes of so many (Ness & Fraley, 1957). Beyond the difficulty of enforcing the Volstead Act on an unwilling public was the characterization of Prohibition agents. Seen as a tool of federal, state, and local governments, Prohibition Bureau service did not entail passing a civil service examination. Thus, it was routinely filled with political appointees with little or no law enforcement experience (The noble experiment, n.d.). The pay was minimal. In 1920, starting pay for a Prohibition agent was $1200 annually (The Wickersham Commission Report on Alcohol Prohibition, 1931). Lack of agent training also characterized the bureau. In addition, techniques of agents, such as poisoning industrial alcohol that could be diverted into the hands of bootleggers, met with public disapproval (The noble experiment, n.d.). 15 International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Vol. 1 No. 12; September 2011 From the information gleaned from his meeting with Martino, he obtained warrants for eighteen stills and participated in the raids. This effectively ruined his ability to operate as a corrupt agent (Bergreen, 1994). However, Ness was soon to begin the part of his career that would bring him national attention and to the eventual notice of Mayor Harold Burton of Cleveland, Ohio.