I don't get it.
Capone and Torrio are making millions a month and O'Bannon wants him to buy him out for $500,000? He's gotta be making millions too. Sounds AWFUL cheap. Think he'd be suspicious? DUH!
shareCapone and Torrio are making millions a month and O'Bannon wants him to buy him out for $500,000? He's gotta be making millions too. Sounds AWFUL cheap. Think he'd be suspicious? DUH!
shareYou have to put yourself in Dean O'Banion's shoes.
First, Dean is Illinois born and raised - Chicago was HIS city.
Born in central Illinois in 1892, then moving nearby to Aurora, Illinois for a bit, he finally settled here in Chicago, after his mother's death in 1901, at 9 years old. They settled in "Little Hell," a heavily Irish area on the North Side that's notorious for crime.
(Just to put that in perspective, Capone was born in Brooklyn in 1899.)
So Dean was in Chicago,developing many politician and police connections for nearly 20 years before Capone even arrived. Alphonse would have remained an accountant/bookkeeper (ironically enough) in Baltimore if it weren't for Torrio relocating here and asking Al to come out.
O'Banion also felt he was invincible, that he had a lot more muscle, connections, and 'roots,' being born here (compared to guys like Torrio and Capone from Brooklyn.)
Then you have the cultural aspects; as an Irish American gangster, he feels he's tougher, smarter, and better than Italians. While neither were regarded very highly back then -the only large groups here that were looked down upon as 'lower' were the Polish and African American in Chicago here during that time period. However, between the two, each side felt the same and, overall, the Irish were seen as slightly 'better' than the Italians. Now Dean feels superior, smarter, and that the Italians were lucky to even control what little they began with on the Southside.
Specifically looking at it through the time when being tough and street-status meant it was earned with fists in "Little Hell," along comes the Italians picking up scraps on the Southside and Torrio (who's the Godfather of the mafia-company structure) wants to avoid warfare at all costs.
Instead of bloodshed, like O'Banion craved, Torrio and Capone run business like a fortune 500 company. They say murder is bad for business. They want to sit down and work out a deal.
As much as that's true, it's a sign of weakness, especially when Torrio leaves a young Capone to run home to Italy. OB knows this 'businessmen attitude' and took full advantage with the sale of his brewery.
Now why the 500k only ? Feeling as the superior, all powerful, O'Banion learned that the police were planning to raid that brewery on a particular night. Before the raid, O'Banion approached Torrio and told him he wanted to sell his share in the brewery, because
(and the show skipped these details) :
Thank you for explaining that. Show did leave some out. Now I don't feel so dumb! LOL!
shareI immediately thought the same thing, but remember Torrio and Capone were 'bringing in' millions. That doesn't mean it was all profit. Out of that income goes expenses and cash to buy more supplies to sell. So maybe the buyout is accurate. What they are buying is the territory which includes buildings and what else?
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