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RARA-AVIS: Re: RARA-AVIS Digest V1 #35
On Tue, 18 Mar 1997, Ken Yousten wrote:
> What, in real life, were "The Secret Six"? I first heard mention of them
> in a bio of Al Capone, it said they were a secret group of wealthy
> businessmen who worked behind-the-scenes against Capone, letting Elliot
> Ness and his Untouchables take the headlines. Or something like that.
The Secret Six were a group of Chicago businessmen who had grown concerned
about gang violence in Chicago as a threat to commerce in general. They
raised a lot of money and then declared themselves anonymous. (The move
worked both to keep them from having to fear reprisals and to give them an
identity they might not otherwise have had.) Laurence Bergreen reports that
they footed the bill for sending Capone accountant Fred Ries out of town to
safety in preparation for Capone's income-tax-evasion trial.
They did start to identify themselves after a while. Col. Robert Isham
Randolph was their leader; Bergreen also reports that he once even went to
the Lexington Hotel to parley with Capone. Julius Rosenwald was also a part
of the group as was Samuel Insull, at least as big a crook as Capone himself.
I also seem to recall that the Secret Six had some link to the Chicago Crime
Commission. Whether they founded the commission or worked with it, I'm not
sure.
There is a history of the Chicago Crime Commission that should have
something on the group. (I'm sorry not to have the citation on hand.) You
might also take a look at Randolph's manifesto "How to Wreck Capone's Gang"
from Collier's March 7, 1931.
In any case, the group was probably not as significant as its own propaganda
would have it, but I think it's fascinating because it shows business
stealing from organized crime: when the group's founders recognized that
much of a gangster's power came from his low-profile, they determined to
rely on a kind of secrecy themselves.
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