The Daily Alaska empire., 1932-03-17

Cmg Boss Capone Still Mm of Mystery;
 What's to Become of Mob?, Chicago Ponders
By F. A. REsCH

l some modern Sherlock Holmes gets busy, some of the most perplexing mysteries about Alphonse Capone i may never be solved. For no one-.except "Scarface Al" himself knows the whole story of this most notorious of all post-prohibition gangsters, whose exploits have made his name. Q synonym for organized crime and racketeering on five continellts
 Even now, as Capone faces fed eral prison sentence for the first time in his life, he still is man of mystery despite all the -'revela ] tions" made about him during al- most a decade in the public eye. His exact underworld power-and the exact scope of his gangs oper- ations-are almost as much of a secret today as when "Scarface' first grasped the reins of Chicago's underworld in 1925. Why He Was Convicted
 It was failure to pay taxes on irl- come from an admittedly huge liq- uor business that convicted the bur ly gangster and brought his Il year i federal prison sentence, but Just what was the extent of that underworld business of which the Capone liquor trade was only a 1 part?
 i Exactly what role did Capont play personally in what has beer called one of the most gigantic crime "syndicates" in history? i And what of that 'syndicate's' operations now-and in the future when Capone may be just anothel convict?
 Will the so-called @Capone mob disintegrate or will 1t continue tc 1aule the aindeaWoTld If ahtf4ss and other cities?
 Capone himself can't answer al those questions.
 The world came to know Scar face AT as the chief of a gang whose profits from widespread liq- uor trade ran into millions and whose guns were blamed-unoffi- cially-for scores, even hundreds of underworld murders.
 Underworld Boss
 It knows him as the man who became Chicago's underwood boss -nominally, at least-after Johnny Toriro gave up the helm nearly seven years ago.
 Capone himself has said, They have blamed me for everything but the Chicago fire!"
 Yet despite the millions of words printed about him, nobody except perhaps some of his own right hand men knows exactly what Ca- pone has done.
 Some have said he was merely the front man" for the gang-that others were the real power behind Capone's apparent throne. l The Big Eight"
 AIS brother Ralph. Jack and Sam Guzik, and Frank The Enforcer Nitti all have been mentioned as probable members of the so-called s-big eight" which allegedly con trolled the gangs affairs.
 But nothing about Capone gang leadership ever has been proved in a courtroom.
 Chicago has wondered for months what will happen to the Capone mob when and if "Scarface Ale is lodged behind prison walls. It still wonders.
 Absence of Crime
 Absence of major gang murders or other outbreaks since Capone's federal trial last summer has been mentioned as some evidence, at least, that the gang still rules the underworld roost.
 If Capone were through" it has been argued, rival minor vice lead CTS would be battling with guns to take over his business" Yet nobody outside the under world has claimed to know the an- swers to all these and dozens of other Capone riddles-and the un- derworld doesn't talk.