Diane Alden
Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2004

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The Secret Six

Unless you have been in a cave somewhere and never watched a movie or TV you will know about federal lawman Elliot Ness and the "Untouchables." You might also remember Al Capone, Frank Nitti, the St. Valentine Day's Massacre and Chicago gangland murders and corruption.

What most people don't realize is that the "Untouchables" were only one aspect of a much larger American story. Prohibition, tax evasion, political, civic, police and voting corruption were all part of that story. Nevertheless, there was a time in America, particularly in Illinois, when people were murdered, voters routinely intimidated, and candidates and politicians killed for who they were and how they voted. In the case of Chicago, particularly after World War I, being a Republican was a dangerous proposition.

That was the case until a few good men from Chicago decided to change history. When government fails to do its job, is corrupt, self-serving, short-sighted; America is often fortunate to find private individuals willing to fill the breach that government will not.

It is true that Elliot Ness along with his Untouchable squad busted the mobs and brought down Al Capone. In the '20s and '30s, Al Capone and others like him, had become the power behind the throne in Illinois and Chicago. Democratic politicians and mobsters used ethnic groups and labor unrest to build a power base. Meanwhile, Prohibition offered them the chance for making profits beyond their wildest dreams. Because of general corruption in the State of Illinois, Al Capone became one of the most powerful men in Illinois, if not the United States.

In any event, a network of prominent Chicago business men and civic leaders decided in 1919 that between the radical nature of labor unrest, the corruption endemic in the political system and the police, in addition to the growing influence of the Capone and mafia empire – it was safe to say that Chicago was becoming a chaotic and uncivilized place to live, work and raise a family. The Chicago Crime Commission was formed to deal with the problems in a post-war-world impacted by immigration, radical Marxism, and open-ended out-of-control corruption in high places.

Out of the Chicago Crime Commission evolved "The Secret Six." They were composed of Frank Loesch (leader of the Chicago Bar Association), Samuel Insull (owner of Commonwealth and Edison Power Co.), Julius Rosenwald (chairman of Sears), Robert I. Randolph (president of Association of Commerce), Edward Gore, George Padd. Of these men Frank Loesch was the most inspired and determined to restore some semblance of order to Chicago. Corruption was rampant from the governors office to the Mayor and police of Chicago. Elections were nightmares that included political killings of voters, poll workers, and opposing politicians.

In 1928, the Republican primary had been turned upside down. The opposing party, along with some in the crime syndicates, had murdered party members, candidates and terrorized voters with bombs and threats. Frank Loesch and the "Six" were determined this would not happen in the November election. Loesch was totally convinced the same tactics would be used against Republican office seekers and voters in November, 1928. Although it must have galled him, Loesch understood the meaning of the dictum: “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Loesch felt he had no alternative in the face of the opposition party's goal to terrorize Republicans into giving up control of a Republican district through murder and intimidation.

Enter Al Capone. Loesch made a deal with the devil - Capone. Al was the only person in Illinois Loesch could go to in order to ensure an election could be held without violence. Al's corruption was easier to deal with than the corruption of politicians, police, and the powers that be in the State of Illinois.

Loesch marched into Al's stronghold and asked him for help. Capone told Loesch: "I’ll give you a square deal if you don’t ask to much of me."

Election day: Capone had the police round up all the gangsters and ward bosses and disarm them. The election went off without a hitch.

But the Secret Six had no illusions about maintaining a cozy deal with Capone after the election. Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears, thought the civic and business community in Chicago had to take a stand against a gangster who seemed to run the State of Illinois. Because of the kind of man he was, his persona, intelligence and courage, Frank Loesch was chosen to help bring Capone down and to establish a system that was not totally corrupt. Charles Merriam, a professor at the University of Chicago described Loesch: "There is a simplicity and directness in his courage and in his behavior that reflect a widespread general attitude toward a perfectly obvious situation. The masses speak frankly of crooks and thieves, and so does he; have their opinion of feeble prosecutors and judges and so does he; and thus Loesch is their voice -- a voice their ears have been waiting to hear for many years."

In 1929, Loesch and other Chicago businessmen went to Washington to discuss with President Herbert Hoover the conditions of crime and corruption in Chicago.

Along with men like newspaperman Frank Knox of the Chicago Daily News, Herbert Hoover was amenable to trying to bring Illinois and Chicago closer toward the rule of law. Hoover asked Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon to "fix things." They would go after Capone on income tax evasion and bootlegging law breaking: Although these issues were only the tip of the iceberg of Capone's involvement in vice and criminal activity.

So it was, before the modern era of huge bureaucratic federal police agencies and power shufflers, turf wars and a lack of authority or accountability, there were a few good men. These men were willing to put their lives, fortunes and honor on the line to bring order out of the chaos that was their hometown and state.

The Secret Six gave the Chicago Crime Commission, the IRS and the newly created Bureau of Investigation a million dollars to fight Capone and organized crime in Illinois. The money was used to hire private investigators who developed informants, tapped telephones, paid witnesses, and generally collected information on mob activity that was passed on to federal authorities. It was the Secret Six who spent $10,000 sending star witness Fred Ries to South America until he was needed to testify against Capone in federal court on charges of income tax evasion (Hoffman, 1989:16).

Trying to find honest individuals in the Prohibition Bureau was nearly impossible. Elliot Ness was considered one of the few who was not corrupt. Nonetheless, it was actually Ness' brother-in-law, Alexander Jamie, who tasked Ness to help take Capone down – and with it, hopefully, the system of corruption that existed in the State of Illinois.

The rest is history and should serve as a lesson and a standard for our own era. Good men who love their country and community - and are forced to watch it being destroyed - are willing to do what needs to be done at some cost to themselves.

No More Heroes - No More Giants

Heroes always have feet of clay, some heroes more so than others, and Elliot Ness and Frank Loesch were no exceptions. Most people who do more than exist do have feet of clay; unless they are saints or fools. Nonetheless, men like Ness and Loesch wear the mantles of giants. They stand tall above lesser men of their era and ours.

Since we have entered the silly season known as the election cycle the paucity of heroes has become apparent. The senses cry out to glean from a torrent of words and sound bytes something real and vital about American dreams, ideals or ideas. Instead we get a grab-bag of blather taken from cultural Marxism or some cant fashioned by a corporate think tank or a highly paid "advisor" more familiar with the Beltway than with Minneapolis, Chattanooga, Denver, Asheville, Helena, or Montgomery. We get a rehash of old war records when we are in a new and more dangerous war for our survival.

Face it, these movers and shakers don't give a big hot damn about the American spiritual, civic, cultural, or political future. They care even less about American greatness or sovereignty. When was the last time you heard someone mention the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the rule of law? No one mentions these things any longer lest they be marginalized as kooks, protectionists, nativists, nazis, or knuckle draggers from the boonies.

Since the end of the Cold War in particular, the two parties and their corporate sponsors have given up on the "shining city on a hill." Instead they give us abominations like HR S. 1645 in the Senate and H.R. 3142, which are little more than subsidies for agri-business or transnational corporations. I mention these particular bills because they spit in the face of the rule of law, citizenship, American sovereignty, borders, and doing what is right by the American who works for a living. These bills provide Helots, cheap labor, indentured servitude to establishment projects on the cheap.

Meanwhile, corruption abounds and it permeates both parties. McCain-Feingold is a singularly bad joke played on the Constitution and our system. To add insult to injury, our politicians doggedly ignore the basic issues facing the American people and this nation. Instead we get more propaganda about the "melting pot" or an “unfree" market. Nonetheless, I suspect in their secret hearts they know better.

In our own era, the corrupt have gotten to be better marketeers for their clients’ agendas as well as their own. These same politicians and establishment groups, don't give a hang that "diversity" and "tolerance" have spun out of control. Nor do they care that badly negotiated trade deals and a whorish transnational corporate business culture sell American technology and interests to the highest foreign bidder.

As it is, modern political bosses may not be shooting people at voting booths: yet they are just as destructive. In fact because they no longer care about citizenship, the rule of law, justice and fairness, they provide us with a slow agonizing death of the body politic. Thanks to establishment politicians, certain corporate interests, cultural Marxists, think tanks and foundations, America is not at the beginning of its greatness as a free nation under God - but at its end. We are splintering as a people because we have lost a common or standard view of who we are and where we are going. The blame may be shared by the left and the right. It can be shared by those who make men dependent on government for largesse as much as those who refuse to see the darker side of the corporate/beltway/political party connection. There is enough of this kind of corruption to go around and it covers both parties and the establishment in D.C. and New York as it once covered Chicago.

Our establishment and professional politicians have forgotten we are a nation under God, a nation that tolerates differences but not to the point of self-destruction. Furthermore, we are not, nor should we be, primarily a "commercial republic" as writer Charles Krauthammer suggests. In fact, we once were a nation of small entrepreneurs, farmers, small towns and dreams. Unfortunately, the establishment that created our economic greatness lost touch. The influence that Judeo-Christian notions of right and wrong that should have guided corporations and industrialists, now and in the past, were overwhelmed by materialistic goals and concentrating power into fewer and fewer hands.

Over the years, our system has been made a mockery as the rules of commerce replace the rules of God. The thinking of Bill Gates, George Soros or Warren Buffett have more meaning than the guidance of the Almighty or the Founding Fathers.

Neither socialism aligned with cultural Marxism nor modern corporatism/capitalism have the answers. All are selling this nation into darkness. As I read history it is not the great corporations that accomplished great things for commerce and for America. Rather it was the type of men and women Thomas Jefferson believed to be the lifeblood of commerce and freedom and civic virtue - the individual, the small businessman and farmer, independent of government help or promotion.

How unrealistic of me? Not really. Big is not better whether it is big government, big business, big unions or big bureaucracies. The "big" makes them unaccountable, corporate, and dangerous to individuals and freedom.

Imagination, drive, courage, foresight and deep thought appear beyond any of our recent establishment leaders in government or out of government. Since both political parties seem to have thrown out the constitutional principles upon which the nation was founded, the rest of us are obliged to carry-on as though things are as they always were. If we did not carry on we would be driven to hopelessness.

America is cursed with "progressives" and "pragmatists" more involved in advancing power systems and structures than American principles of self-rule, national sovereignty, rule of law, imagination, courage, and independence. The great national divide can be directly linked to political parties and their resident ideologues who ruined the language, promoted self-hatred and division, gave preference for one American over another, and put American interests and our basic guiding principles... last.

For these reasons and others, some of us find it difficult, if not impossible, to feel much enthusiasm for the 2004 election or those involved in it.

Remember the Sean Connery character in the Kevin Custer version of "The Untouchables?" The Connery character is portrayed as a tough honest Chicago cop who joins the group. A worn out soul, Connery provides Ness and the younger men with insight into Chicago politics, the mob, and life. Connery's tutorials end in the same way. He states: "And so endeth the lesson." One hopes that our American history provides sufficient lessons in order to proceed into the future without too much damage to the American people or the social contract that holds us together. I believe that some of us have learned these lessons. Unfortunately, the establishment and leadership have not. "So endeth the lesson."