Eliot Ness

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Eliot Ness

Bureau of Prohibition

Eliot Ness
April 19, 1903–May 16, 1957 (aged 54)
Place of birth Chicago, USA
Place of death Coudersport, Pennsylvania, USA
Rank Chief Investigator of the Prohibition Bureau for Chicago in 1934
Director for Public Safety for Cleveland Ohio

Eliot Ness (April 19, 1903 – May 16, 1957) was an American Prohibition agent, famous for his efforts to enforce Prohibition in Chicago, Illinois, as the leader of a legendary team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables.

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[edit] Birth and early life

Ness was born in Chicago, the youngest of five, to Norwegian bakers Peter and Emma Ness. Because his four older siblings were almost grown by the time he was born, Eliot received a large amount of attention from his parents growing up. As a boy, Ness was interested in reading, especially Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. He was educated at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1925 with a degree in business and law. He began his career as an investigator for the Retail Credit Co. of Atlanta. He was assigned to the Chicago territory, where he conducted background investigations for the purpose of credit information. He returned to the University to take a course in criminology, eventually earning a masters degree in the field.

[edit] Career

In 1926, his sister's husband, Alexander Jamie, a Bureau of Investigation agent (this became the FBI in 1935), influenced him to enter law enforcement. He joined the Treasury Department in 1927, working with the 300-strong Bureau of Prohibition in Chicago.

Following the election of President Herbert Hoover, Andrew Mellon was specifically charged with bringing down Al Capone. The federal government approached the problem from two directions: income tax evasion and the Volstead Act. Ness was chosen to head the operations under the Volstead Act, targeting the illegal breweries and supply routes of Capone.

Seeing the endemic corruption in Chicago law-enforcement, Ness went through the records of all the treasury agents to create a reliable team, initially of fifty, later reduced to fifteen and finally to just eleven men. Raids against stills and breweries began immediately; within six months Ness claimed to have seized breweries collectively worth over one million dollars. The main source of information for the raids was an extensive wire-tapping operation.

An attempt by Capone to bribe Ness's agents was seized on by Ness for publicity, leading to the media nickname "The Untouchables." There were a number of assassination attempts on Ness, and one close friend, Luke Levulis, was killed.

The efforts of Ness and his team had a serious impact on Capone's operations, but it was the income tax evasion which was the key weapon. In a number of federal grand jury cases in 1931, Capone was charged with 22 counts of tax evasion and also 5,000 violations of the Volstead Act. On October 17, 1931, Capone was sentenced to eleven years, and following a failed appeal, he began his sentence in 1932.

[edit] After Capone's conviction

Ness was promoted to Chief Investigator of the Prohibition Bureau for Chicago and in 1934 for Ohio. Following the end of Prohibition in 1933, he took a job with the local government of Cleveland, as Director of Public Safety, which put him in charge of both the police and fire departments. He headed up a campaign to clean out police corruption, and to modernize the fire department, and also tackled illegal gambling and other entertainments. Things started to change dramatically for Eliot Ness in 1938 and 1939. His personal life was completely transformed, while his career began to have some ups and downs. Ness, who had a reputation for partying,[citation needed] concentrated heavily on his work, which was a contributing factor in his divorce from his wife. Ness was able to recoup some of his glory by doing the thing that he did best, catching gangsters. He declared war on the mob and his primary targets included Big Angelo Lonardo, Little Angelo Scirrca, Moe Dalitz, John and George Angersola, and Charles Pollizi, representing most of the city's gang activity. Ness's inability to capture the Cleveland Torso Murderer, a vicious serial killer operating in the Cleveland area during the mid-1930s, may have contributed to his exit from what was otherwise a reasonably successful career in Cleveland.[citation needed]

Ness then moved to Washington, D.C., and worked for the federal government. In 1944, he left to become chairman of the Diebold Corporation, a security safe company based in Ohio. He ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Cleveland in 1947 and was forced from his job at Diebold in April 1951.[1] He eventually came to work for North Ridge Industrial in Coudersport, Pennsylvania. With friend Oscar Fraley he co-authored the book, The Untouchables, which was published in 1957 shortly after his death at the age of 54 following a heart attack. According to author Howie Carr, Ness was involved in a late night drunk driving accident and his heavy alcoholism contributed to his early death.[citation needed]

He was married three times, divorced twice, and had only one child (by adoption). He was married to illustrator Evaline Ness from 1938 to 1946. His ashes were scattered in one of the small ponds on the grounds of Lakeview Cemetery in Cleveland.

[edit] Popular culture

[edit] Real life nicknames

  • Eliot Spitzer, Governor of New York from 2007 to 2008, acquired the nickname "Eliot Ness" on account of his reputation as an aggressive and moralistic prosecutor of financial crimes as New York Attorney General (1999-2006).[citation needed]
  • Great Lakes Brewing Company makes a beer in his honor, "The Eliot Ness", because Ness allegedly "frequented the Brewpub's bar during his tenure from 1935-1941 and, according to popular legend, was responsible for the bullet holes in the bar still evident today."[2]

[edit] Novels

Max Allan Collins used Ness as a supporting character in a series of mystery novels set in Depression-era Chicago. Ness was the law enforcement contact and best friend of the protagonist, hard-boiled private eye Nate Heller, a role similar to the one played by Captain Pat Chambers in Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer novels or Sergeant Dennis Becker on the television series The Rockford Files. Later Collins spun Ness off into his own series, based on the period when he was Cleveland's Director of Public Safety. The first book in Collins's Ness series, The Dark City (1987), begins as Ness is hired as Safety Director by the newly elected mayor, and attempts to uncover the identity of the so-called "Outside Chief," the high-ranking police officer in charge of police corruption in the city. The second, Butcher's Dozen (1988), fictionalizes Ness's investigation of the "Mad Butcher" serial murders. The third, Bullet Proof (1989), depicts Ness's investigation into labor racketeering. The fourth, and, thus far, last novel in the series, Murder by the Numbers (1992), fictionalizes Ness's campaign against illegal gambling. Collins has also used Ness as a supporting character in his best-selling graphic novel Road to Perdition and its prose sequel Road to Purgatory.

Eliot Ness was also the protagonist of the graphic novel Torso by Brian Michael Bendis and Marc Andreyko and a film is reportedly in development with David Fincher attached to direct.[3]

[edit] Television and film

  • Ness also appeared in an episode of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, "Mystery of the Blues" as Indy's roommate at the University of Chicago. They, along with a young Ernest Hemingway, attempt to solve a mystery surrounding the murder of Indy's boss. Al Capone is found to be responsible, but he cannot be brought to justice, as police corruption has started to take hold. While this is theoretically written to be part of Eliot's motivations later in life, all accounts of him, Hemingway, and Capone here are obviously fictional.
  • Ness is mentioned in the film Smokin' Aces, when he is compared to the one of the film's antagonist Freeman Heller, though unlike Ness and the Untouchables, Heller died.

[edit] Animation

[edit] Music

  • Eliot Ness has been mentioned many times in music, including but not limited to the following songs:
    • In the 1999 song performed by Dog Eat Dog titled "Gangbusters".
      Gangbusters... Guys like Al Capone who loved being unknown. Made themselves at home and still got away... The law couldn't catch him or none of his hit men. So he died in prison for taxes unpaid... Screw prohibition. Crimes go unsolved, Elliot Ness, Couldn't wrap up the mob...
    • In the 1992 song performed by Eric B. & Rakim titled "Know The Ledge" which is the theme to Juice starring Tupac Shakur:
      Bulletproof down in case brothers try to bomb me,
      Putting brothers to rest like Eliot Ness
      Cause I don't like stress
    • In the opening of the 1996 Tupac Shakur and Dr. Dre song "California Love":
      Now let me welcome everybody to the wild, wild west
      A state that's untouchable like Eliot Ness
    • In the 1996 Fugees song "Ready or Not" in Lauryn Hill's verse:
      Rap orgies with Porgy and Bess
      Capture your bounty like Eliot Ness
    • In the 1999 Prince Paul song featuring Everlast titled "The Men in Blue":
      I got spics sellin' nicks in the LES
      I stay untouchable like my name's Eliot Ness
    • In the second verse of the 2005 Proof song "Clap Wit Me":
      Eliot Ness to these fucking gangstas and killas,
      bankin they millions they all wankstas and squealas
    • In the 2005 Phatal song "Outlaws":
      So picture that, me and Chin resemble the best,
      We outlaws, while y'all kids is Eliot Ness
    • In the 2006 song "Untouchables" by DMX:
      U-N-T-O-U-C-H, A-B-L-E-S,
      Sheek the new Eliot Ness
    • In the 2006 Styles P song featuring Snype Life, Straw and Bully titled "Discipline":
      Knockin' A Tribe Called Quest
      I'm comin for you bad guys like I'm Eliot Ness
    • In the Plan B song "Kidz", featured on the soundtrack of Kidulthood:
      I'm untouchable like Eliot Ness
    • In the 2007 song "Comfortable" by Lil' Wayne Ft Babyface,the verse:,
      "I am no Elliot Ness, I don't handcuff I don't arrest"
    • In the 2008 song "Pedigree" by Example:,
      "He's the finest Eliot since Eliot Ness''"

[edit] Video games

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ NY Times April 14, 1951 "Executive Changes"
  2. ^ Great Lakes Brewing Company, Cleveland, Ohio
  3. ^ David Fincher Uncovers A "Torso" (January 12th, 2006)