Two Gun Hart: Law Man, Cowboy, and Long-Lost Brother of Al Capone

By Jeff McArthur

Born in Italy and raised in Brooklyn, Vincenzo Capone left home when he was a teenager. He traveled with a wild-west show and fought in Europe during the Great War where he earned a medal for sharp-shooting. Upon his return, he settled in Nebraska where he went by the name Richard Hart. He married, had children, and worked closely with the local Indian communities. He dressed like the type of cowboy he had seen in silent movies, rode a horse, and wielded two six-shooters at his side, which earned him the name “Two Gun” Hart.

When the Volstead Act made alcohol production illegal, Richard joined the ranks of law enforcement and became one of the most successful Prohibition officers in the country. He chased down criminals, busted alcohol stills, and protected the Indian reservations he served, all under an assumed name. But his past caught up with him when his younger brother, Al Capone, became one of the most infamous criminals in the country. They were two siblings on opposite sides of the law, both ambitious and skillful, and both of the same family.

To see a short documentary about this subject, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgKBJdr0QjI

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeff McArthur
• Release date: Mar 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311127969

Jeff McArthur

Jeff McArthur was born in Nebraska where he began writing before he could read. He went to school in New York, then moved to Los Angeles to begin a film career. In the past couple years he has written a comic book series and published three books. His most recent one, Pro Bono, has just been released, and his upcoming books include a new Relic Worlds novel, and The American Game, about a baseball game between enemy soldiers in the American Civil War.

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Prologue

Four men sat drinking and gambling at a lone, oak table in the lobby of the only hotel in Walthill, Nebraska. It was a small crossroads town left over from the old west. The hotel had once been its brothel complete with an overhanging balcony where the ladies plied their trade. The town sat within the borders of the Omaha Indian Reservation, a train stop from which to transport corn to Sioux City, and little had ever happened since its construction. It was primarily a place for white and Indian farmers to congregate, purchase supplies, and socialize before returning to their farms and ranches in the surrounding hills of northeastern Nebraska.

There was little to do in this quiescent section of the prairie, which made gathering at the hotel to gamble and buy drinks a popular pastime, despite the fact that both were illegal. Anti-gambling laws had never been heavily enforced, and went primarily unnoticed by the populace, who saw it as a common entertainment. In most places imbibing alcohol was not itself illegal. The recent passage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, backed by the passage of the Volstead Act to enforce it, had outlawed the manufacture, transportation, and selling of alcohol. It said nothing of its consumption.

However, laws on Indian reservations had gone farther, prohibiting consumption of alcohol within reservation borders. Ever since the introduction of alcohol into their cultures, many American Indian tribes struggled with alcoholism, and the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment had inspired a movement to dry up their populations. While most of the rest of the country regarded Prohibition as government overreach, it was a godsend for Indians who desperately needed to overcome what was, in effect, a cultural illness.

These restrictions caused people in the area who wanted to drink to look upon bootleggers, who transported alcohol, and moonshiners, who manufactured it on nearby ranches and farms, as heroes. They were willing to pay many times the amount they had previously paid for a single glass of beer or flask of whiskey. Oftentimes it was not clear what they were drinking. The concoctions moonshiners put together barely resembled beverages before Prohibition when it had been regulated. Now a drink could be almost anything. Thus it was often dangerous, not only because it was illegal, but the homemade alcohol sometimes resulted in a poisonous mix.

But such dangers didn’t stop men from gathering at the hotel and partaking of what the moonshiners smuggled in from stills they had hidden in the fields and ravines outside of town, or what bootleggers had driven in from distant regions. Purchases were discreet, but drinking was in the open. The law seemed far away and they would have plenty of warning if they saw those who enforced it coming.

So the four men who were gambling did as men always did at the Walthill Hotel, they sat their glasses on the table where everyone could see, making no attempt to hide what they were doing.

One of the men, who had a thick-set jaw and wide nose and wearing dusty overalls, was new to town. He was a migrant worker, like so many who had come through the area. The northbound train out of Omaha passed by on its way to Homer, and then on to Sioux City, Iowa, where a lot of drifters traveled to work. Though clearly a white man, the stranger’s skin had an olive complexion, something he explained as evidence of his Indian heritage and his constant work outdoors. Aside from clarifying this one mystery, he spoke little, mostly listening and watching the others at the table and studying them.

The others, men who knew one another, talked about their lives their families, eventually turning to the subject of the drink they were sharing. The one who had made it disclosed its name, what was in it, and how he had brewed it.

The stranger in the dusty overalls abruptly stood. You’re all under arrest, he said sternly enough for them to know he wasn’t kidding.

They looked at him surprised, but no one moved. Something in his voice made it clear he was not to be trifled with, and they knew they were going to jail. He might even be armed, and none of them wanted to get into a gunfight. Everyone in Nebraska had heard of the notorious lawman, a master of disguise who carried two pistols and could outshoot anyone. It was obvious to all the people in the room, who were now staring at him, that this was that famous Prohibition officer.

Then the man said something strange. Now I know who all of you are, and where you all live, so don’t you go anywhere or I’ll go find you. I’m going to be right back, so stay here. Then he left the room and walked up the stairs and out of sight.

The three men sat dumbfounded at the table, unguarded and unwatched. Others in the room who were not under arrest stared at the men to see what they would do. Aside from looking at each other, none of them moved. Where would they go? They knew the stranger was probably telling the truth. There weren’t many places to hide, and he likely did know where they lived, especially after they had been talking for some time. He had listened to their entire conversation and knew everything about the booze that was being made and consumed in town. They didn’t want any more trouble, so none of them tried to escape. None of them even budged from their seats. They just waited in the uncomfortable silence.

They were still seated when they heard footsteps on the mahogany stairs again, this time much thicker than before, sounding almost like a hammer coming down on each step accompanied by a faint clang. A pair of cowboy boots complete with spurs and embossed with a heart appeared, followed by white pants, a white button-down shirt, and finally, a tall ten gallon cowboy hat. Strapped to his waist were two ivory-handled six shooters. He looked like he had walked straight out of a silent western movie. This was the man they suspected; this was Two Gun Hart.

Little did anyone know that Officer Hart kept a secret bigger than anyone could imagine. His real name was Vincenzo Capone, and his brother Al was the most infamous criminal in the world.

In memory of

Vincenzo James Capone

a.k.a.

Richard Joseph

Two Gun Hart

Chapter One

The Immigrants

1892-1908

By the waning years of the nineteenth century emigration out of Italy had reached alarming levels. Some towns lost half their populations to other lands for what promised to be a better life. In the 1870s alone, an average of 117,596 Italians left Italy every year. By the end of the century more than 5.3 million Italians had abandoned the country.

The exodus occurred much as a river forms and flows into the ocean. It began in the high hills where small villages huddled on wrinkled plateaus, and little had ever changed. Now, everything happened rapidly, and young people hoping for more dynamic futures left their homes, and for the first time, a stark difference manifested as communities disappeared. The Italian author Grazia Dore later described it as the Italian rural world, formerly like a frozen immobile stream on which time had designed bizarre encrustations of archaic customs and magic rites, survivors of the death of culture that had created them, was beginning to manifest deep breaks and to flow, slowly at first, then more impetuously, in unprecedented directions.

This flow was moving down the mountains and lower hills, picking up speed and greater numbers as it rolled toward the coasts. Streams of people from the farms and towns joined the migration until the roads were clogged with men and women, their families in tow, heading toward the port cities. These municipalities in turn swelled beyond capacity until ships loaded with migrants left for other parts of Europe and the Americas, and occasionally Africa and Asia; anywhere but Italy.

The mass emigration out of Italy had been sparked by disillusionment over the unification of the country, which had not gone the way the public had hoped. The populace had remained divided ever since the Congress of Vienna had split Italy into eight municipalities under the conquering nations of Austria, Bourbon, and papal rule in 1814 and 1815. Any hope of liberation and unification that had been promised by the now defeated French was quickly quashed. For the rest of the century, Italy’s populace was under the thumb of foreign rulers.

In the late 1820s, the words of Giuseppe Mazzini ignited the imagination of the masses through his newspapers and periodicals as he called for risorgimento, meaning the resurgence, or more accurately referring to Italian unification. His printing presses were shut down each time he tried to open them, and he was eventually banished from Italian soil. From exile in Switzerland he led two Italian revolts. Then in England he tried twice more, but each attempt was thwarted. Mazzini was briefly successful in the middle of the century when an uprising in Milan kicked out the Austrian garrison and established a provisional government. Mazzini went to Rome where he was appointed as a member of the triumvirate to rule over the new republic. The success was short lived, however, and once again he was obliged to lead unsuccessful uprisings from exile.

But Mazzini’s efforts inspired the infamous Giuseppe Garibaldi, who, after his own exile in South America, led a resurgence of uprisings against the Austrian leadership in the Italian provinces. He first fought in the north with the help of French allies, then with the help of the British he led what was called the Expedition of the Thousand. It was supposed to be the Expedition of a Million, but only about one thousand volunteered. This small army (which had no uniforms and wore red shirts to distinguish themselves) invaded the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Despite being greatly outnumbered in both campaigns, Garibaldi emerged victorious. As he moved north to join with the armies already consolidating around Rome, people everywhere rallied to his side. On February 18, 1861, they officially achieved unification and independence from foreign rulers. But in their victories came the seeds of dissent and distrust. Famine and a terrible economy, magnified by the disruption of ongoing insurgencies and crime, all climaxed in the massive exodus of much of Italy’s population.

Mazzini, Garibaldi, and most of the volunteers in their armies were from the north. They knew very little about the southern regions of Italy they were liberating. Nearly a century of segregation under various foreign rulers had resulted in great ignorance and misunderstanding of southern Italy. The southerners, for their part, were equally nescient of the northerners who were marching through their territory.

Even language was a barrier as people from northern territories, such as Piedmont, which was leading the war efforts, spoke a form of Italian so different from the southern reaches, such as Sicily and Naples, that they could barely understand what was being said. Far from comprehending the implications of unification, many in the south actually thought the word Italia was merely the name of the northern king’s daughter. They saw the war as an effort to liberate them from their overbearing rulers and not necessarily as a struggle for unification. Many believed they would continue to be separate countries, each with its own independent leadership.

Some understood that what Garibaldi was forming was a republic and believed that all regions would have an equal voice in the new government. But when that government began to form in Turin, the monarchists of the north imposed a different form of rule on the south, installing leaders who did not understand the cultures, or sometimes even the language. Despite protests from the people, and even Garibaldi himself, who warned that a civil war could result, the policies of the new prime minister, Camillo Benso di Cavour, and King Victor Emmanuel II, were imposed on the unhappy south.

Policies such as new taxes and military conscription resulted in protests in areas around Naples, Sicily, and other southern cities. These protests were met with force from the regional police which was run mostly by northerners. This force was met by uprisings. The uprisings were met with military strength. The government wanted to show outside nations that it could handle its own population and clamped down on it worse than the former Austrian or Bourbon authorities. Entire armies were dispatched to deal with the insurgencies. They executed civilians and threatened everyone who refused to pay homage to the king. A newspaper in England reported, No savages in the most barbarous parts of Africa ever treated their prisoners with more summary violence than the Piedmontese troops have in Southern Italy.

The southerners retaliated with brute force. In Sicily, soldiers were crucified, policemen burned alive, and the flesh of carabinieri, military police of the region, was sold in the marketplace.

Violence escalated even further as troops burned down entire villages and shot on site everyone who did not show proper respect to the flag, or to a picture of the king. Executions took place all across the southern provinces. As more than 2,000 people in Palermo were being arrested, military commanders gave the order to arrest anyone of military age with the face of an assassin.

One former prime minister of Piedmont summed it up the best when he said, unification was a process of making Italians dislike one another… it was like going to bed with someone with smallpox.

Garibaldi himself admitted defeat, lamenting, It is a different Italy than I had dreamed of all my life, not this miserable, poverty-stricken, humiliated Italy we see now, governed by the dregs of the nation.

The violence over the next five years spiraled into an unwinnable war on both sides. Half the Italian army was utilized in the fighting of battles that took up entire towns. The armies of both sides were fed with raw recruits who had no way to eat unless they were in an army. And even then they often went hungry because the soil used to grow the food had been trampled so badly from constant movement of thousands of men.

Uncertain who to trust, southerners turned to solidarity, relying more heavily on family ties and l’ordine della famiglia, (the rules of the family behavior and responsibility.) These ties superseded loyalty to the government and spread to anyone trusted as much as a blood relative.

It was out of this unrest that the Sicilian Mafia, or Mafiosi, was born. It had begun as self-help and mutual aid (mutuo-soccorso) societies intended to help those who felt unrepresented by their government, and worse off under the Turin regime than they had been under Bourbon rule. As more and more authoritarian edicts were imposed, the populace ignored the law on a more frequent basis. This passive civil disobedience was so rampant that the police and the army, an entire corps of which was on the island of Sicily, did not attempt to enforce many of the regulations. The Mafia, made up of individuals from the local neighborhoods and the nearby countryside, took over, supporting new rules that were created by the populace to keep order in their own fashion.

The Mafia had gained experience in enforcement before the revolution. When the Bourbon aristocracy left on frequent holidays to Palermo, which was known as the ‘party town’ of Europe, they left in charge of their estates the Gabellotti, an organization whose specialty was protection. The skills for this job came in handy during the upheaval, when the Gabellotti was already positioned both politically and geographically to take charge.

Police and military officials who tried to interfere with the new self-rule were bought off and those who refused the bribes found themselves threatened by those that had taken them, and by the Mafiosi itself which was growing in strength. Their numbers had expanded by the men of the villages who saw the Mafia as a kind of underground militia intended to protect the public.

The Mafia further consolidated power by controlling ballot boxes to rig elections. Since reunification voting had gone from 1.6 percent of the population to 30 percent.  The Mafia had grown with it, its members standing outside of polling locations, handing out ballots that were already filled in for the candidate they wanted elected to those going into the voting booths.

Much like the Risorgimento revolution, which was meant to unify and liberate the people, but then repressed them more than their former overlords, the Mafiosi also turned on the very people it was intended to protect. Ironically, while overthrowing the corrupt government, they were in turn corrupted themselves.

They had found the Turin government easier to manipulate than the Bourbons. The leadership of the Mafiosi found power too intoxicating to resist as they bribed, cajoled, and threatened the officials into doing their bidding.  What began as a method of protecting the way of life for the local population became a way of siphoning off resources and money from it instead.  Protection, for one, soon changed from the Mafiosi safeguarding a citizen from others to them protecting the citizen from the Mafiosi itself.  Blackmail and extortion became prime methods of making money; though both paled in comparison to the amount of money made from the more common kidnapping.

The people of Sicily now found themselves beholden to two masters who did not always agree. While both claimed to have their best interests at heart, both were using them to their own ends. And as this wave of organized crime spread into Naples, people all over southern Italy felt the drastic push and pull with no one caring for the well-being of the common man or woman.

To add to their woes, the new economic structure was abhorrent for the south. It was designed by northerners, who understood the economics of their own region, but had no idea of the trade practices of the south. Rural farmers, so common in the south, found it difficult to get by. The new government also created tariffs that benefited the north over the south, and the north was given priority access to sources of coal and iron, while the south received leftovers. The south was also left behind in education, and soon there became a large gap where more than 70 percent of the southern population was illiterate, compared to less than half of that in the north.

These troubles were aggravated by a perfect storm of problems that arose in a short time period. The price of Italian wheat plummeted in 1887, when American and Russian supplies flooded the world market. Three years later, a plant parasite called Phylloxera swept through the southern Italian grapevines, destroying much of their wine production. The Mezzogiorno region was further hit with a cholera epidemic which claimed 55,000 lives. There were even volcanic eruptions of Vesuvius and Etna which demolished surrounding villages. All this had come after a population boom which had taken place over the latter half of the century. When this generation reached adulthood they found few jobs even for the numbers of people that had existed before them.

The unified Italian government had immediately begun to alleviate the overpopulation problem when it took control in 1861. They had passed laws that would allow Italian citizens to travel freely to any country they desired. This overturned Bourbon law, which had greatly restricted travel, and released the pressure by allowing those in regions brimming with overpopulation to go see other shores. Aware of the animosity many southerners felt toward the government, officials sometimes encouraged migration to people from areas such as Naples and Sicily.

At first this seemed like a good idea. Many of those most displeased with the way Italy was being ruled left the country, weakening the opposition to the authorities, and lowering the cries of dissent until they was reduced to a whisper. But then the ripple of migration swelled into a wave of departures which in turn surged to a near tsunami. Between the Italian government’s encouragement to leave, and America’s invitation to give them their huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the stage was set for a mass emigration to all but empty the homes of one shore, and fill the homes of another. By the time Rome surrendered, and the final regions joined Italy in 1870, the numbers leaving southern Italy had grown to an alarming number. The government which at first had bidden them good riddance was now searching desperately for ways to keep their populace at home.

Addressing the prime minister, a deputy of the south decried, I warn you that if the State doesn’t deal with the situation, prosperity will curse you, and he referred to the mass numbers leaving as our lifeblood, which is denying our people nutrition.

The prime minister was unable to ignore him. Tens of thousands were leaving during this emigration fever, emptying towns and creating vacuums in the economy. Parliament grew into an uproar, all crying out their own suggestions of what should be done. Some proposed that emigration from the country be made illegal, calling it a significant evil, and an immoral disease. Some blamed agents of other countries, particularly America, for promising great opportunities, often far beyond what could possibly be delivered. But a populace desperate for hope was willing to take its chances on a story.

Opponents of emigration spread their own tales, describing the horrors that had befallen people who had gone to places such as America. Apasquale Antinibon of the Chamber of Deputies read from a sheaf of letters ostensibly from emigrants to America who described the horrors of life away from home. I am nailed to the cross, read one letter. Of the 100 paesani who came here, only 40 of us have survived. And who is there to protect us? We have neither priests nor carabinieri to look after our safety. The signori in Italy treat us badly, but we were better off in Italy. Their efforts paid off to a few, but mostly it fell on deaf ears, people who felt that anything was better than their current status.

Thus was the world Teresina Raiola and Gabriele Capone found themselves in on May 21st, 1891 when they were married in the Church of San Giovanni Battista in the tiny town of Angri, just east of Naples in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. Their small apartment rested on the second floor along a narrow road at 52 Via Concilio where their windows were so close to the neighbors’ across the way one could almost step across from one small balcony to the other.

The apartment was owned by Teresina’s family. The Raiolas were long-time pillars of the community. Originally named Rajola, with a J, they had been descendants of Slavic nomads who had fled from regions further north. They had settled in and around Angri where they became well-established among the local population. Gabriele worked as a pasta maker, a business he had been born into, alongside his father and mother, Vincenzo and Marzia Calabrese Capone, who ran their own shop in the small community. Gabriele had left for a time to live on his own in the seaside city of Castellammare di Stabia six miles to the west where he worked as a lithographer. But it was a rough, even violent neighborhood, and Gabriele returned to the peacefulness of Angri to begin his family.

Teresina, his newlywed wife, three years younger than Gabriele, was the daughter of a farmer and the youngest of four girls. Her sisters all became nuns, but she determined that was not the life for her, and married Gabriele when she was 20.

A year after they were married, Gabriele and Teresina had their first child, Vincenzo, born March 28, 1892. They named him after Gabriele’s father, Vincenzo, which was the custom. The first boys in Italian homes were traditionally named after the father’s father. They worked hard to make ends meet. Teresina worked as a seamstress while Gabriele worked with his family.

Two years later, on January 12, 1894, they had their second child, Raffaele, whom they named after Teresina’s father, also part of the Italian custom.

Though they brought in two incomes, and Gabriele made a comfortable living, they would go on struggling if they continued as they were, especially if they decided to have more children. Promotions for America were tempting with their promises of greater wealth and a brighter future. Many Italians had gone there with the intention of returning to Italy after they had made some extra money at a job, but had never returned, instead sending back letters telling of their more comfortable lives in the new world.

Meanwhile, the Mafia’s influence had spread into nearby Naples where the Camorra, inspired by the Sicilian crime syndicates, was now solidifying control in the form of racketeers, extortionists, pimps, gamblers, and above all, kidnappers. Unlike many other organized crime organizations, the Camorra worked openly, utilizing their fame as a weapon of intimidation. They levied taxes on the public, divided among their capo’ntrine, local captains who kept order with an iron fist on their communities. Anyone who resisted the Camorra was cut from ear to ear, leaving a scar that warned others what would happen to them if they disobeyed the wishes of the organization. Prostitution, gambling, and other vices were spread openly across the Neapolitan streets as an accepted way of life, which was advancing into the outlying communities. It would not be long before the quaint hamlet of Angri would fall under this influence.

It is not known exactly why Gabriele and Teresina Capone decided to immigrate to America; but it is likely a combination of all the problems in Italy and all the promise of America which caused them to set sail. Ironically, it was probably the growing crime that most encouraged them to leave; the same sort of organized crime which some of their own sons would use in their careers.

Steamship SS Werra set sail from Naples on her month-long voyage in the early summer of 1895. Werra was a 13-year-old iron hull, double-funneled ship. She boasted four masts, a single screw, and traveled at a speed of 16 knots. It carried 125 first-class, 130 second-class, and 1,000 third-class passengers, many of them Birds of Passage, a phrase given to the growing number of Italian immigrants who traveled to the US as migratory laborers. Among these were Gabriele and Teresina Capone with their two small children.

Travel across the ocean, while tedious and lengthy with little change in scenery, had become common enough to remove most thoughts of danger