In far-flung corners of the globe, if you say you come from Chicago, the first thing the natives do is a pantomime of a gangster firing a machine gun.
For this cruel caricature of us classy, cultured Chicagoans, for this bum rap of our cosmopoli-town, you can thank Eliot Ness, the least touchable of all the Untouchables.
That’s right, it was Ness–defender of Prohibition and heralded foe of Al Capone–who promoted the image of Chicago as a wicked den of mobsters who needed a G-man like himself to curb the shameful practice of selling illegal booze.
Thanks to Ness–and his embellished autobiographical account of his fight against the Capone gang–Chicago is forever linked with Scarface and the forces of evil.
So, finally, Ness gets his comeuppance. On Wednesday, he’s going to his eternal resting place and it’s . . . Cleveland.
Cleveland might be the final indignity for Ness, but it’s not the only one. After leaving Chicago, Ness had several careers. Among them was a fearless fighter of venereal disease.
Rebecca McFarland, vice president of Cleveland’s Police Historical Society and an ardent Ness supporter, said that after he heroically cleaned up her town as Cleveland’s safety director, he was conscripted to vanquish VD. During World War II, his job was “to help curb venereal disease in Army camps,” says McFarland.
Since his death in 1957, Ness’ ashes have been gathering dust in somebody’s garage. It was only recently that those remains were turned over to the police historical society. The society spearheaded Wednesday’s memorial service, where an honor guard will cast Ness’ ashes upon the waters of Lake Wade at Cleveland’s Lake View Cemetery.
Paul W. Heimel, author of the new book “Eliot Ness, The Real Story,” says of Ness: “He symbolized honesty and efficiency in police work” in an era when law enforcement was synonymous with corruption, says Heimel.
That may be. But Ness’ 1957 memoir led to the TV series “The Untouchables,” which reinforced the stereotype of Chicago as a place of urban warfare, not urbanity.
For that, Ness meets his long-delayed final reward in Cleveland.
And Capone? No dusty garage shelf for him. They planted Scarface in Chicagoland.
