Eliot Ness

Eliot Ness was an American federal agent known for his efforts to bring down the gangster Al Capone while enforcing Prohibition in Chicago in the 1930s. He was leader of a team of law enforcement agents nicknamed The Untouchables, handpicked for their incorruptibility.

Eliot Ness was born on April 19, 1903 (123 years ago), in the Roseland neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. His parents, both Norwegian immigrants, operated a bakery. 

Ness attended Christian Fenger High School in Chicago. He was educated at the University of Chicago, graduating in 1925 with a degree in political science and business administration.

Ness began his career as an investigator for the Retail Credit Company of Atlanta assigned to the Chicago territory, where he conducted background investigations for the purpose of credit information. 

In March 1930, attorney Frank J. Loesch of the Chicago Crime Commission asked President Herbert Hoover to take down Al Capone. Agents of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, working under Elmer Irey and Special Agent Frank J. Wilson of the Intelligence Unit, were already investigating Capone and his associates for income tax evasion.

In late 1930, Attorney General William D. Mitchell, seeking a faster end to the case, implemented a plan devised by President Hoover for sending a small team of Prohibition agents to target the illegal breweries and supply routes of Capone while gathering evidence of conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act. 

U.S. attorney George E.Q. Johnson, the Chicago prosecutor directly in charge of both the Prohibition and income tax investigations of Capone, chose the 27-year-old Ness (now assigned to the Justice Department) to lead this small squad.

With corruption of Chicago's law enforcement agents endemic, Ness went through the records of all Prohibition agents to create a reliable team (initially of six, eventually growing to about ten) later known as "The Untouchables." 

Raids against illegal stills and breweries began in March 1931. Within six months, Ness' agents had destroyed bootlegging operations worth an estimated $500,000 (almost $9.9 million in 2022) and representing an additional $2 million ($39.5 million in 2022) in lost income for Capone.

Failed attempts by members of the Chicago Outfit to bribe or intimidate Ness and his agents inspired Charles Schwarz of the Chicago Daily News to begin calling them "untouchables". George Johnson adopted the nickname and promoted it to the press, establishing it as the squad's unofficial title.

^{On October 17, 1931, Capone was convicted on three counts of income tax evasion.  He was sentenced to eleven years in prison (where he died) and began his sentence in 1932.} 

^{Beginning in 1959 there was a TV series called The Untouchables, which starred Robert Stack as Ness and was narrated by Walter Winchell.  In 1987 there was a film called The Untouchables, directed by Brian De Palma, which starred Kevin Costner as Ness, Sean Connery, and Robert De Niro as Al Capone.  As a result, Eliot Ness has become an American folk hero.}

Ness died of a heart attack at his home in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, on May 16, 1957. He was 54 years of age.