Wednesday, May 09, 2012

"Prohibiton has made nothing but trouble..."

For this shortened week, I decided to do a couple of vintage criminals from a stash of old photos I came across.  We'll start with Alphonse Gabriel "Al" Capone, known to some as "Scarface," and perhaps the best known of American gangsters, who came to prominence through smuggling and bootlegging liquor.  It's still a fascinating irony to me that the outlawing of liquors greatest achievement was to cement the foothold of organized crime in America (although, when you think about it, the suppression of one evil does often open the door for a larger one to move in).  Also, I'm equally fascinated by the contradiction by which Americans detest crime and criminals, and yet adores gangsters and outlaws...but more on that next tme.

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