Bill Helmer
| True Detective, waiting until Mr.Capone was safely locked up (on a minor accounting technicality), blamed him for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in language so vile and gruesome that many contemporary readers were so overwhelmed by the lurid details that they tossed their cookies! |
| "When I sell booze, they call it bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on silver trays, they call it hospitality." --Al Capone |
| "We can't all be saints." --John Dillinger ________________ |
| "The electric chair yawns for its fodder of calloused human beasts whose warped minds prompt evil deeds. The wages of sin is death! Sooner or later it will get JOHN DILLINGER That, or the searing death of hot bullets fired from eager guns!" |
"Don't get the idea I'm one of those goddam radicals. Don't get the idea I'm knocking the American system..." "My rackets are run on strictly American lines and they are going to stay that way..." "If machines are going to take jobs away from the worker...we must care for him during the period of change. We must keep him away from Red literature, Red ruses; we must see that his mind remains healthy." Mr. Capone was no less opposed to the political and police corruption he confronted in his line of business: "Graft is a byword in American life today. It is law where no law is obeyed. It is undermining this country. The honest lawmakers of any city can be counted on your fingers. I could count Chicago's on one hand." Which is not to say he was without his critics: "There's always some wiseacre who stands in the wings and criticizes. You've got two choices. You either buy these wiseacres off by giving them jobs...or you scare them off. If they don't scare, you take them in the alley. When they get out of the hospital, if they still want to squawk, you get rid of them." I didn't mean to include that one, which was merely lighthearted banter, perhaps inspired by a little Chianti, that might be taken out of context and misconstrued. This one is much better: "I've been spending the best years of my life as a public benefactor. I've given people the light pleasures, shown them a good time. And all I get is abuse." Let us not forget his legacies that are all the more important today: The power to tax is the power to destroy; and always practice Safe Sex. |
| Today this would be called a Hostile Takeover |
| This offensive T-shirt design has been seen on the streets of Chicago and in other cities. People who wear them should be burned. Not the people; just the T-shirt. |
| After looking at this smiling father-and-son photo, who can imagine Big Al being implicated in the killing of Joe Howard, Dean O'Banion, Hymie Weiss, Albert Anselmi, John Scalise, Joe Guinta, Joey Aiello, Assistant State's Attorney Bill McSwiggin, two of Bill's bootlegger friends, and much of the Bugs Moran gang? Nearly all these alleged murders were perpetrated in self-defense! Okay, so maybe he was declared Public Enemy No. 1. All they could ever nail him on was a piss-poor tax beef! |
| This site, or URL, or whatever it's called, has been constructed largely by Mr. Helmer's beautiful young granddaughter Jessie Rekemeyer whose mother is going to blow her top when she learns that I have already rewarded her with a slinky outfit from |
| As Doctor Naismith has often pointed out (too often, some might say): CRIME DOES NOT PAY, but it can be a shortcut to immortality |
| William J. Helmer |
Never pick up
HITCHHIKERS
HITCHHIKERS
| helmer@gangstersandoutlaws.com Put "Gangsters" in the subject line so he won't think it's spam. (His pecker is fine just the way it is...) |
| Author or coauthor of The Gun That Made the Twenties Roar; The Quotable Al Capone; Public Enemies; John Dillinger: The Untold Story; Baby Face Nelson; The St. Valentine's Day Massacre; and now THE COMPLETE PUBLIC ENEMY ALMANAC! |
| Obviously this is a SITE IN PROGRESS as its founder is stumbling around in it like a boob in the woods. Most of the Yahoo people are worthless when it comes to talking 'digital' to an old-fart analog guy. |
We have John, and a few
others, to thank for the vast
improvements in today's bank
security, as well as for the
prominent role he played in
transforming the FBI into our
country's premier
crime-fighting organization.
others, to thank for the vast
improvements in today's bank
security, as well as for the
prominent role he played in
transforming the FBI into our
country's premier
crime-fighting organization.
URGES YOU TO
| While driving from Davenport, Iowa, to the city of Dubuque we encountered this pathetic old-fart hitchhiker near the town of Lost Nation, and of course we stopped, hoping he might be able to tell us how to find the historic old Julian Hotel once owned by Al Capone and which provided many a Chicago mobster with a home away from home. He remembered the Julian from his youth, told us exactly where to find it, and described how Capone’s influence and protection had long extended up and down old U.S. 67 when it enjoyed its share of roadhouses and corruption. Out of curiosity we asked him how the local hamlet of Lost Nation got such an unusual name, and he explained that in the late 1800s a wagon train set out from Philadelphia, had gotten lost thanks to bad directions from Red Indians, realized they could never make it across the Sierras before winter closed in, said the hell with it, and settled on the west bank of the Mississippi River. We thanked him and drove on. |
A 1934 documentary film
titled Crime Never Pays!
concludes with this
malicious monument to
purple prose:
titled Crime Never Pays!
concludes with this
malicious monument to
purple prose:
John's little stunt ended
the careers of
Prosecutor Estill and
Sheriff Holley.
the careers of
Prosecutor Estill and
Sheriff Holley.
Al tries to restore peace
to war-torn Chicago
to war-torn Chicago
The wooden pistol used by
John during his escape from
the jail at Crown Point.
John during his escape from
the jail at Crown Point.
The "lost" .380 Colt automatic,
carried by John the night FBI
bullets "set him free," finally
tracked down by retired G-man
Larry Wack!
carried by John the night FBI
bullets "set him free," finally
tracked down by retired G-man
Larry Wack!
| Okay, so that other picture was taken a few years ago, in his glory days as a Playboy senior editor, devoted to the Forum section and the Playboy Defense team, and otherwise giving the magazine its redeeming social value. Here he is today in the Heart o' Texas with his neighbor, Alejandro, who took one look at his get-up and cried out, "Ayee! Cheekahgo! All-Caponey! Da-da-da-da-dat!" |
Your Benefactor
| KANSAS CITY MASSACRE & The Killing of Pretty Boy Floyd Breathing New Life Into Chester's Smith's Account |
| SHOW A LITTLE RESPECT! |
...and his friends.
The writer...
| Incidentally, anybody hot for gangster-era costumes oughta check out these |