I am always startled at my own innocence and naiveté. Every Chicagoan knows that the police killed the Moran gang. The papers reported it as:
-Men in police uniforms.
This may be the origin of that journalist’s trick that persists to this day:
-Men in government army uniforms, etc.
Of course, who wears official uniforms? Officials, but that would be in poor taste, and might lead to misadventure. Yet I was surprised when I read Get Capone by Eig; I think most of us assumed that the hit had been ordered by the gangster establishment. This had always been puzzling, as Capone usually observed the proper and traditional forms.
What Eig suggests is that the Chicago police operation may have actually belonged to the Chicago police.
Capone was coming under indictment, his grip was loosening and the Police, with the backing of the FBI, wished to reassert themselves as equals rather than juniors. It seems perfectly logical. I admit I never would have considered it on my own. As Walter Arnold says:
-The Chicago mob is a front for city hall.
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