◆ SpookStack

Declassified Document Archive & Reader
Log In Register
Reader Ad Slot
Reader Ad Slot placeholder
If you would like to support SpookStack without paying out of pocket, please consider allowing advertising cookies. It helps cover hosting costs and keeps the archive free to browse. You can change this choice at any time.

Al Capone — Part 8

70 pages · May 08, 2026 · Broad topic: Organized Crime · Topic: Al Capone · 69 pages OCR'd
← Back to feed
IOODAYS and lol 4 Where is iSMr. SALTIS Pollack” Joe Saltis lost a great deal of prestige in Boozedom in 1928 when he submitted to capture and was “settled” in the Cook County jail for two months on a charge of violation of the liquor laws. The feat of clamping a beer baron in the “can” was not accomplished with all the ease of falling off a log, however, for Mr. Salttis made himself scarce except to his beer clients for 139 days, by actual newspaper count, before he was finally ap- prehended. The newspapers made a great deal of noise about the search for Mr. Saltis and, every day for 139 days, you could open up your newspaper and see in very large type the numbers 102 days and no Mr. Saltis or 103 days and no Mr. Saltis and so on and on up until the day Joe was brought in mumbling “I’m out of the beer racket, and this is a bum rap.” The public took a great deal of interest in the newspaper count, which, until the Dempsey-Tunney fight was leoked upon as the longest count Chicago had ever seen. It had all the wallop of a serial story with the hot stuff continued until tomorrow. When Joe was emptied from the jail cell he made straight for the flower shop in the back-of- the-yards district where his affairs were being ably directed by his lieutenants, amiable John “Dingbat” Oberta and Paddy Sullivan. Joe was in a tranquil condition of mind for the next few weeks, but panic struck him and the “Dingbat” © when they came upon a newspaper story which said that all hoodlums in Chicago were to be submitted to a mental test. If found of unsound mentality, as most assuredly they would be, sug- gested the story, they would be confined for treatment. Joe and the “Dingbat” may not have been afraid of machine guns, pistols, automatics and pineapples, but words like psy- chology, phychiatry, psycho- pathic, were monstrous and Twmnun Vinakhi, tasenes ana thsi AMITA PHILA LEE ULS, An wieéir first quarrel is said to have been precipitated when the “Dingbat,” who pretended to be book-learned couldn't rattle off a definition of psycho- paresis. But Little Johnny re- stored himself in his boss’s estimation when he hit on the scheme of having their own personal psychiatrist examine them and give them a certifi- Frankis Bic, body guard cf the Big Fellow, ankie Alphonse Capone. Fr: Philadelphia with Al and sentenced to a year's imprisonment in jail for ‘Weapons. cate of high and normal intelligence. And so, a few days later, Chicago was treated to the spec- tacle of “Pollack” Joe and Johnny ‘“Dingbat’” Oberta in the office of the police commissioner proudly waving certificates of mental health. “We won't have to play with no blocks,” said Johnny and Joe as they walked away, and then, catching himself, he said, “I mean we won’t have to play with any blocks.” Safe from confinement in the “bug” house Joe and Johnny and their henchmen now began to look around for Edward “Spike” O'Donnell. Joe hadn’t had a shot at “Spike” for many months and the strain was telling on him. Besides rumors were reaching Joe that “Spike” was about to make a great beer offensive and had surrounded himself with a formidable gang of muscle men. One of them, strangely enough was the redoubtable Frankie MacEarlane and his kid brother, Vincent. The underworld gossiped for a long time about the split between Saltis and Frank who had been pals from the very beginning. The truth was that MacEarlane could no longer endure the nasty-nice “Dingbat.” As we have seen Mac- Earlane was at heart a bank-robber and, just to keep in practice, used to wander around knocking over a safe here and there. When Saltis was in jail the “Dingbat” tried to clamp down on Frankie, telling him that he would spoil the real dough for all of them if he persisted in the bank-busting tendency. “Aw, hell,” responded Frankie, “It takes real brains to hoist a bank. And to hell with this Sunday School outfit. I’ll make some real con- nections.” The fact that his boss, Saltis, was in jail was proof enough to Frankie that he was in with a wrong bunch of guys. Saltis saw no real obstacle from the Sheldon mobsters who, it was then being rumored, were having internal trouble. Sheldon, suffering from tuberculosis aggravated by constant breathing of gun-powder, was ordered by his physician to seek strength in the purer atmosphere of Arizona. He did so, leaving his mob in charge of Danny Stanton, an arrangement which was okeyed by the Big Fellow, Al Capone. Stanton, a former member of the “four horse- men” group of taxi-cab slug- gers which also included John “Mitters” Foley, had for his right hand men, Hugh “Stub- by” McGovern: and William “Gunner” McPadden, both tough boys de luxe who had been brought up from baby- hood in the famous Ragan Colts gang. At this time Joe Saltis, finding it difficult to buy beer elsewhere and im- possible to manufacture it, made connections with the Big Fellow. King Capone wel- comed Big Joe but told him to behave himself and to stay out of Danny's territory. 7 was serrested in # concealsd ok Se, forme, ag a ,
OCR quality for this page
Community corrections
First editor: none yet Last editor: none yet
No user corrections yet.
Comments
Document-wide discussion. Follow the Community Standards.
No comments on this document yet.
Bottom Reader Ad Slot
Bottom Reader Ad Slot placeholder
If you would like to support SpookStack without paying out of pocket, please consider allowing advertising cookies. It helps cover hosting costs and keeps the archive free to browse. You can change this choice at any time.

Continue Exploring

Use the strongest next step for this document: continue reading, jump to the topic hub, or move into the matching agency collection.
Continue Reading at Page 7
Jump straight to page 7 of 70.
Reader
Al Capone — Part 20
Stay inside Al Capone with another closely related document.
Topic
FBI Documents & FOIA Archive
Open the FBI agency landing page for stronger archive context.
FBI
Al Capone Topic Hub
See the topic overview, related documents, and linked subtopics.
Hub

Agency Collection

This document also belongs in the FBI Documents & FOIA Archive landing page, which is the stronger starting point for agency-level browsing and for searches focused on FBI records.
FBI Documents & FOIA Archive
Open the agency landing page for introduction text, topic links, and more FBI documents.
FBI

Explore This Archive Cluster

This document belongs to the Organized Crime archive hub and the more specific Al Capone topic page. Use these hub pages when you want the broader collection context, linked subtopics, and more documents around the same archive thread.
bureau
Related subtopics
Bugsy Siegel
32 documents · 2877 known pages
Subtopic
Carlo Gambino
14 documents · 1532 known pages
Subtopic
Carmine Galante
12 documents · 1245 known pages
Subtopic
Abner Zwillman
7 documents · 600 known pages
Subtopic
Arthur Flegenheimer Dutch Schultz
6 documents · 166 known pages
Subtopic
The Hells Angels
6 documents · 480 known pages
Subtopic