Eliot Ness: The Rise and Fall of an American Hero
By Douglas Perry
New York: Viking Press, 2014
As reviewed by Ted Odenwald
The name had died before the man; and yet in a few years after the man’s death, his name was resurrected through a hack biographer, a TV series, and a Hollywood movie. Eliot Ness became the epitome of law enforcement officers: intelligent, dedicated, relentless, courageous, and incorruptible. Oscar Fraley, a UPI journalist, had interviewed Ness two years before the lawman’s death; the resulting biography, according to Douglas Perry, was a reinvention of Ness—a pulp fiction effort to elevate a good officer to the pedestal of a superhero. Perry’s purpose is to put aside the embellishments of Fraley’s “novel” while revealing Ness’s accomplishments in both Chicago and Cleveland. Perry also documents Ness’s fall from greatness—his pathetic, inexorable march into self-created oblivion.
Ness’s legend was begun by the press in Chicago, who gave him credit for disrupting Al Capone’s crime syndicate. A news blurb earned him exaggerated accolades across the nation—much to the chagrin and envy of FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, who detested being upstaged by anyone. The press gave the team which Ness led the moniker, “The Untouchables,” signifying their immunity to corruption. The press was incorrect on two counts: the team was not hand-picked by Ness, and some of the members proved to be susceptible to bribes.
Ness’s mission in Chicago was to disassemble the bootlegging industry primarily through locating and destroying breweries. His busts, though dramatic and effective, affected a small portion of Capone’s “hydra-like” operations, which included extortion, racketeering, prostitution, and gambling. In truth, Ness and his Untouchables proved to be more like gadflies than raptors.
Ness’s work in Chicago concluded when he was 30—though it basically ended two years earlier with the repeal of prohibition. He continued to do some work pursuing bootleggers who were in business to avoid paying liquor taxes. Eventually, the work became too slow for him, and he welcomed a transfer to the Justice Department’s Alcohol Tax Unit in Cincinnati, another boring assignment which he barely endured.
One year later, he was hired by Cleveland to serve as Director of Public Safety, responsible for overseeing the police, fire, and building departments for the sixth largest city in the U.S. While the responsibilities were enormous, there were several serious impediments: Cleveland was the “most mobbed up city in the country with the most corrupt police department.” Accustomed to hands-on leadership, Ness went on several patrols to observe how the police operated, thereby “rattling” many of the officers who were involved with the criminal elements. Two patterns quickly emerged: organized raids were thwarted as brothels and gambling establishments were tipped off by police; gangsters showed no respect for or fear of the law, often moving into a standoff while brandishing weapons. Ness assembled a six-man team, “The Unknowns,” to locate brothels and gambling establishments and to determine where corruption existed within the police department. The Unknowns discovered not just bribe takers, but “well-organized cliques in about every precinct [operating] as miniature crime families.” Some of the guilty parties were also enforcers for racketeers, while others ran their bosses’ competition out of business through repeated raids.
“In Eliot [the public] saw a white knight galloping forth to save them from an entrenched corruption that had paralyzed the city for years.” Encouraged by his successes, Ness expanded his approaches: he focused on young gang members, demonstrating to them the worthlessness of their behavior; he tried to halt a “city-wide tire –theft ring… the marijuana trade,… and pornographic magazines.” He gained national notoriety for going after union racketeers who kept workers off jobs until bribes were paid.
Eventually, Ness’s fortunes took a sharply negative turn for a number of reasons. Democrats opposed his efforts, believing that he was showboating in order to set himself up as a Republican candidate for Mayor. His Unknowns, in trying to apprehend a serial killer, had investigated a doctor who had mental issues; their efforts succeeded in raising the ire of a congressman who was related to the doctor. Newspapers attacked Ness for persecuting the homeless; he had overseen the destruction of shantytowns, figuring that the serial killer would gravitate to such areas where he could operate easily. Ness lost popular support as citizens felt harassed when he conducted “door-to-door safety inspections,” looking for a “killing room.” Eliot’s “…cloak of invincibility was suddenly gone.”
Eliot’s personal troubles contributed to his downfall. He drank heavily: “drink muddied his judgment…he became reckless.” After a night of drinking, he was involved in an auto accident, which he was able to cover up. His personal relationships suffered: he divorced twice because of his addictions to his work, booze, and both single and married women.
He made a pathetic run for Mayor of Cleveland. Underfunded, he conducted a number of mini- parades. “…some old friends worried if he was pursuing a quixotic political campaign…to jolt himself out of an alcoholic torpor, a desperate attempt to reclaim his old life, his old drive and ambition.”
The election disaster was his final tipping point, as he slipped into oblivion until 1955, when Fraley interviewed him and began to write the “biography,” which made Ness and his “Untouchables” American icons. Perry’s book is not exactly iconoclastic, as it gives balanced praise where it is due; it is, however, a dismissal of Fraley’s embellishments of a mixed career.
Ted Odenwald and his wife, Shirley have lived in Oakland for 44 years. He taught HS English at Glen Rock High School for all of those years plus one more. Now he is enjoying time spent with his family, singing in the North Jersey Chorus and quenching his wanderlust. Ted is also the Worship Leader at the Ramapo Valley Baptist Church in Oakland.