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Al Capone — Part 8
Page 39
39 / 70
Criminal court, the federal district ai
torney has no patience with the reck-
leg optimiass of the slack thinkers
who welcome every oturder of a gang:
ater by gangsters with the remark
y and a 00d riddance, too.” —~
’ Problem Is More Complex, _ -
: ~The problem,” said Mr. Johnson,
"16 not so simple as that. The short-
sighted view of it which the comment
‘wand sidttttonne* feoniteas bee arre hla
goes TES spa se Sats
Shese desperate Men to convey a sense
wecurity te thoee who take human
if# at thelr behest. It gives their
anrderers greater courage. Theowe
@ngage their services can point
the ghastly list of two hundred
guedived and wipuinished aasasaina-
Hons and (way, ‘ See how small thé risk
in. .
: “~The point that they wow make is
{ there are honest eccupations In
the haxsards of injury and death
tire greater. It is an awful thing for
2 “community when such a point can
be made against ft, for the point ¢is-
loess the appalling ramifications sf
érime that is fostered by privilege and
ret to last we are
with.
“Like Chiet Justice ae
oo ~
“4
ee
at
1°:
an
a you
mame of fh
mass S Une
#, aynonym tor vielency throughout
hieed work),
think haves made the
violations of ether laws, 1 am
sgt the Ddottormd of lawieaguess today.”
“Werk Done without Fasfare.
& perponality the federal district
ia the bast ‘known of the
ding crime fighters ef Chicago.
is partly because he bas never
] eleciive office and partly because
work has never been accompanied
Tenfares. Nor has be ¢ver been ex-
ited by the ‘That does pot
arked in the courm of thie i
sie "bert, lew viotation of ane =
Ts of his district attorneyship haé
3
6
and of his forthright manner of think-
ing you have to give heed to a few
bttehet ede Jenn Jonnen’e
kitchen gardem, + ‘
John Jobneon’s on ~ * het gvain
.| George Johnson and not, for quaint
reasons which you shall learn jater,
to become George B Q@ Jobnwn for
many & year—went to work In that
warden at the age of seven. =~
That was forty-nine years ago.
He's of Sturdy Merk,
of Webster county, Tewa, which 7:
Johnson took up in iséi,
emigrated the year before
ancient province of Bmaland
den, that province which bred
forbears of two of the most sffecti
and his friend and near nelghbor, John
A. dwanson, state's attorney, tor Cook
county. * ae
When -little ‘George Johnson went
to work in the xXitchen garden of the
Towa homestead he was teugit How
This, m his own words, was ths
wubstance of the lesson: -
“I was taught very early that to
keep the garden clean it was act
enough to cut off
ee a
a. Me Pyle
Taare a
at
them up.by the reots and shake out
in the bright glare of the morning
aun every bit of woil that eling=s ta
the tendrils of the roota.
“7 was taught thet I could not clean
the gerden by a method of sélection.
“I was taught that ] must not sey,
‘I will take that weed out and leave
this weed‘in,’ but that the only way to
clean the garden was to pull up all
the weeds by the rocta and shake them
out to the aun.”
Applies Lemson te deb,
That was the lessen of forty-nine
yeérs ago. In accordance with word
,| DF word of M George Johnaon did his
work weed by wetd in the one acre
kitchen garden for seven years, Then
he was considéred olq enough—for the
Smajand stock does not pamper its
yount—to go inte the Selds and fol-
low the plow, =~
Today he applies the eid lesson,
word by word and weed by weed, to
every new day of his work as tha
United States, government's premier
fighter ot orginteed rime fn the Cht
caro area.
He hammers ep the theme thet the
erime gituation in Chicago ts pot, as
he puts ft, “ going to be cleaned up as] or
long as public officials piuck op one
kind of crime weed and ignore sa-
other.” .
And he sdded: sot
“tf you are going to rié the elty ef
crime you must take crime without any
processes of selection. “Yeu wil] hare
te root it up Wherever pou And tt and
hes pedi. ee
leas pubdlicity.” - .
: OBrien Cote Beveled. .
were droken on the sighth floor of the
of incomes
sequentiy he faced the
a@ pentence of cighteon years
and a fine of .
tractor and a pel!
able influence, But
ne | EBAuence made him look any different
*)trom any other noxious weed wher
Mr. Johnsof’s comment en the
O’Brien verdict was intensely charac-
teristic of kim. When President Coél-
idge appointed Aim federa) distrigt at-
toroey in February, 1927, he was.
asked to tafk on plans and policies.
“TI wilt tlk,” he said, as be peered
benigoly at the reporters through his
sfiver bowed apectacitea, “only with
indictmenta and vetdicts*
Dropping his glance he aided in Bis
quiet, reflective way: --
“If wordg could drive the official
and criminal gangsters cut of Chicago
Johnson Searneéd his Bglish,
aftival in America—had a
they would have been gone long ago.’ [miration fer the writings | oh
Then be set himeelf to thinking. |watae Emerson sad that o
studying end planning how to combat his young son shared wit#uis-
organized crime in Chicago, and by |they decided on “ Emeraommith i
* organized crime “ be meant primarily | Hngulshing middie name
the doose and beer running wanes, andi George and Johneon. naod
the racketeers. fut when George study
His thinking, studying and plennug| arrived in Chicago $i sore
constituted a stow process. For George }iaw he found that the @irec-
E. Q Johnson ts slow. That, probably,/af George &. Johnso w his
ia why he te inexorably sure when be/tory, So he, offhand, an
finally ewings inte action fimee Bene fie . ere
rrrenpe Sesw Sweeerer Sresw Bene uaa, al
ator Deneen said of him, * ¥ea, George “and what,” T in
E. Q@ ts slower than the Second Com- ae edaral
ing, but he grinds end grinds ead] “tor no “ saving oO |
grinds all the dime.”
Stodies Problem 30 \wonthe,
On hie problem of how to fight er
triet attorney ground for twenty
sold months, studying H from every
angie, accumulating facts on gang:
dom’s far flung operations, finding eut
where i was most vuilnerable arid
where it bad been most lax én cover teacher of
ing ite tral.
The result of his studies and his
planning was that aazsiing tospira-
tion, the prosecution of gangsteré for
evasion of federal income tax,”
But be credits tne success of his
beitie to no inspirations of his ewn
of others He credits ¢ to what .
he calls “ the absolute ‘Horeachabilty
trict attormey, “ase ti, B.
questions as ta whic fy aout for.
som in Chicage
of the federal courts.”
“They,” he slid, “are the founda:
tion of whatever success we have bad.
I cahnot foe emphatically praise thd
high celibér of the federal judges
Some Some people talk of the harshneat of talk of thé harshness of *
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