... ing Prohibition the to men accepted among others huge sums of hush money from influential criminal overlords, that anted to buy immunity from prosecution that ay.After the first orld ar Harding became the presidential candidate of the Republicans due to the backing of his to advisers and the lack of more convincing opponents.No it as Jess Smith s turn to play an important role as Hardings campaign manager.As people ere tired of heady interventionist days of oodro ilson, the trauma of the Great ar, and the unprecedentely violent ...strikesi9s of the previous year the people very positively responded to Smiths election campaign picturing Harding as the kind small- toner he as. Slogans used by Smith ere for example ith Harding back to normal. or Think of America first..Hardings election victory very clearly shos ho strongly the American ished to ithdra from the troubled scene of orld politics and explains hy Prohibition, that promised a return to small ton virtues such as a family- and church- orientated life, had a great force of attraction .Very soon after his election Harding realized that he as not able to cope ith the duties of a President even though he could fool the public.After his death during his third year in office Jess Smith and Daugherty ere questioned in series of investigations that exposed the huge depths of Hardings administration. Of course, even during Prohibition there ere some la- abiding officers as for example Eliot Ness, the head of an incorruptible nine-man team of la officers called the Untouchables, ho opposed Al Caponeas underorld netork in Chicago. 2.4.1.Behind Ne York, Chicago as the most populated city of the United States ith scarcely to millions inhabitants. Due to its location on the south- estern tip of Lake Michigan, Chicago became the main trading center for the grain and livestock of the groing Midest in the 19th century.Later heavy industry, arehouses and rail yards croded the banks of the Chicago River.The poet Car Sandburg once described Chicago as the stormy, husky, braling city of the big shoulder1i0s, hich is very correct as violence and corruption had alays been a normal part of the Chicagoans life due to its hasty groth hen the second European immigrant ave flooded America from 1880 to 1900 causing a very high population density and social tension the differences beteen the ne and the old lifestyle often undermined families.As the necomers outnumbered the old Anglo- Saxon establishment by about 75 they hardly adjusted to their value system. Furthermore many of them had great difficulties ith the language and hardly any knoledge of democratic principles therefore many politician consolidated their poer by sending out fello member, ho got special privileges if they collected many votes.Chicagos Mayor during the Prohibition era - Big Bill Thompson - as very similar to Harding. He only entered politics because of a lost poker game and oed his election to his great charm and popularity among the gangland. It is true that Thompson promised to reform the corrupt police department but after his election victory nothing changed.Usually bribed officers arned the oners of illegal bars or brothels before the search so the police ork as very pointless. If an underground figure as arrested by accident because the raid as led by an idealistic necomer, ho had not yet adjusted to the rules of the organized crime, he usually came free very soon as the gangsters also oned the greatest part of the administration of justice.Till the beginning of Prohibition most gangland leaders earned their fortune by oning several of the numerous brothels and casinos of Chicagos red light district, hich as greater and freer than any other one in the orld. 2.4.2.Al Capone as born in Brooklyn on January 17, 1899. His parents had immigrated from the slums of Naples to the ghetto of Brooklyns shipyard area ... Download