Eliot Ness In Trump's America
Eliot Ness was untouchable. He earned that name both the hard and the easy way; by taking on the Mob of Al Capone in Chicago during Prohibition, and by being incorruptible in a world of corruption. He was offered money, baited with women, power and fame; but he was Untouchable. He hired a squad of Ness’s, also untouchable… mostly. When graft refused to take hold, bullets were flung his way, and the way of his team, costing Ness one Untouchable.
Did he stop Capone? No, he built up a massive case against the Capone mob, but the government decided to go with the simpler charge of tax evasion. Ness and the Untouchables made the case possible; they closed up enough to Capone’s illegal businesses that his massive graft payroll (cops, prosecutors, politicians, etc) became harder to meet. With the corrupt cash trickled or cut off completely, the police, state and city were forced to do their jobs.
And in 1931, they did. Capone was sent to Alcatraz, where he would descend into syphilis-fueled dementia. Ness, Ness was sent out to capture the moonshiners of Appalachia. Eliot Ness became a ‘revenuer’ in a dying department dedicated to a soon to be obsolete law.
Ness needed an out, and Cleveland, Ohio needed a new Director of Public Safety.
In 1935, Eliot Ness became 'Director of Public Safety' in Cleveland Ohio, a job he kept until 1942. As Director of Public Safety, Ness was in charge of the police, fire department, and traffic. Ness went to work cleaning up one of the most corrupt police departments in the country, as well as one of the worst traffic records. And he took on the entrenched mob there as well.
He also walked into a series of brutal murders, credited to a serial killer nicknamed the ‘Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run’. Officially there were twelve Butcher victims (some say there could have been many more), and, officially, he was never caught. Ness actually had a prime suspect, a former doctor with severe mental health issues. His suspect was politically connected, and ‘untouchable’. The doctor committed himself to an asylum, and his relatives made sure he stayed there. He would continue to send threatening letters and phone calls to Ness for years.
After 7 years, with traffic deaths down, the most corrupt cops forced out or jailed, and the worst of the gangs routed, Ness left to work for the US government, working to reduce venereal disease in the armed services.
In 1947, Ness returned to Cleveland and unsuccessfully ran for mayor. He never liked politics much, and his run for mayor was out of character. That's where the painted sign in the picture came from.
Ness sank into obscurity and near poverty after this, failing at several different businesses. Like politics, business success eluded him, he was further sidelined by alcohol and heart disease. His friend, Oscar Fraley, a hustling sports writer, heard the stories Ness would tell about Chicago, Capone, and Prohibition, and begged him to write them down. Eliot scoured his memory and his scrapbooks, and he and Fraley collaborated on the proposed book. 'The Untouchables' was published in 1957, becoming a huge bestseller, with the hit TV series following soon after. Ness didn't live to see it. He succumbed to heart disease on May 16, 1957, in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, far away from Chicago and Cleveland, while the book was still in galleys. He was just 52, leaving behind a wife and son.
His story though, did not end there. He lived on in a TV series in the person of Robert Stack, in the movies played by Kevin Costner, on stage, in book after book (bios, historical fiction, mysteries, graphic novels), and as an example of the kind of square-jawed boy scout that has become almost a parody.
He was a hero.
Eliot Ness is not only a hero, but he was someone to look up too; industrious, honest, hardworking, with a progressive view of policing and community that we could sorely use today. He had faults; he often refused to listen to anyone else, he was too restless, too impatient, and his judgement could be questionable at times. As he aged, and as alcohol took its effect, his judgement became even poorer. But…
But… that should not stain a bright legacy of good, or work done selflessly, or people helped and crooks caught.
Why am I writing about Eliot Ness? A man long dead, but mythologized to the status of American Folk Hero? Because…
Because we need to know that such men were real, that they lived among us, walked the streets, did their jobs with diligence, passion, and competence. We need to know that there was a time when we didn’t denigrate competence, expertise, listened to those who knew more and learned. Ness was a civil servant for his entire career, because he lived to serve, to help, and to take nothing for it but a paycheck and the occasional thanks (and a few headlines here and there). Ness believed in service, in progressive reform, in helping people and asking nothing for it. He stood tall.
In today’s America, Trump’s America, we need Eliot Ness, we need a new ‘Untouchables’ in government now more than ever.