CRIME: Spectator

Last month the Press chuckled when Alphonse (“Scarface Al”) Capone went to a charity baseball game in Chicago, sat in a front box, shook hands with the players, had his picture taken. For in another front box was sitting Chief Investigator Pat Roche, who had said he was looking for Gangster Capone for a fortnight but could not find him (TIME. Sept. 7).

Last week Gangster Capone, with a bodyguard of eight including “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn, attended the Northwestern-Nebraska football game at Evanston, Ill. This time the players did not greet him. And when the spectators learned of Capone’s presence among them they raised a storm of angry booing. “I came to see the game,” said Gangster Capone. “I’m going to stick it out.”

Northwestern’s President Walter Dill Scott asked Chief William O. Freeman of the Evanston police to evict Gangster Capone & party.* Chief Freeman said they had tickets, were committing no offense. He did not see how it could be done. The student booing continued, however, and at the end of the third quarter Capone & henchmen left. A crowd of 400 followed him out. A band of Boy Scouts gamboled about him shouting: “Yea, Al!”

* Fortnight ago, Col. Robert Isham Randolph, president of the Chicago Association of Commerce, told Northwestern students: “I could have any man I designated killed for $200 or $300. I could have President Scott put on the spot but it would cost a few hundred dollars extra.” (TniE, Oct. 5.)