The 5 Canonical Eliot Ness Criticisms

Even 60 years after his death, iconic lawman Eliot Ness continues to take slings and arrows from people promote his irrelevance in taking down Al "Scarface" Capone. Ness's character in later chapters of his life have also had more than its share of fingers waved at it.

We can simplify the canonical Eliot Ness criticisms into the following 5 allegations:

• "No dude, Eliot Ness didn't get Scarface! The guy in dark shades shot him in the back, then he fell into a swimming pool!"
• "and dude was like, married during the day ya know? But still like, doin' some serious pimpin at night. I mean full fu#kin' throttle!"
• "Dude, he got busted once for drunk driving! Yeah and he like, hit a car and killed a bunch of people and sh#t!"
• "All he cared about was fame! He like, gave up his badge so he could host "Unsolved Mysteries."
• "He once torched, like, an entire YMCA while chasin' Jack the Ripper and sh#t!"

Listen, I understand the need for historical accuracy as much as the next guy, but I also understand the need to remember that not only is everyone human--but that we're all guilty of committing many of the sins that Eliot Ness has been routinely crucified for doing.

On a personal level, it wasn't "The Untouchables," or Ness's achievements in Chicago that made me admire him as much as it was it was his post-Capone years spent in my own hometown of Cleveland, Ohio that made me really admire Eliot Ness the man.

To me, Ness's legacy was never tarnished by his human imperfections. Rather, it were these imperfections and flaws that solidified my admiration for Ness the man. Rest assured, his critics are quick to circle like vultures over his Cleveland years too, all too eager to pick at the bones of one of this incorruptible public servant.

I see him like Batman...if Bruce Wayne only had $20,000 in the bank. His Batmobile is a truck with a battering ram attached to it. He may be unlikable, unorthodox in tactics, he may have no super powers, and the bad guy may get away in the end, but he basically uses all his earthly means to combat evil, which--at least in Cleveland--would flourish in his absence.

We all have egos; the problem is most of us don't possess enough selflessness to balance out that trait--so we end up seeing zero benefit in having narcissist qualities. There is such a thing as healthy ego, a beneficial narcissism.

I can forgive a man for idiosyncrasies, faults and personal vices if he dedicated his life to fighting evil men. Ask the families of murder victims if they care whether or not the cop that solved their loved one's case is a narcissist or not and see what they say.

Keep this in mind as we go through the 5 canonical Eliot Ness criticisms.

Regardless of what Brian De Palma's movie suggests, it's probably safe to assume that Eliot Ness never challenged Al Capone to a fist fight in the lobby of a five-star hotel. But that's the problem with Hollywood--it fails to see the badassery in real police work. Unfortunately, part of that badassery lies in less dramatic qualities that would fail to keep the brain of the typical moviegoer awake for 90 minutes.

For this reason, the film compensates for omitting all the less cinematically appealing real life work of Eliot Ness's Untouchables--with the more dramatic, fictionalized drama of Keven Costner's Untouchables.

In contrast, even Al Capone--the no-good thug that he was--has undeniably been virtually apotheosized into icon status to those who glorify criminals and the destructive "gangster" lifestyle. This, in part, is why I have no qualms about Eliot Ness's legacy getting a boost for the right reasons.

It's true that Ness was only one prong in a multi-pronged attack on Capone's empire, however, no one man could have imploded such an empire on his own. However, this fact does little to diminish Ness's part in that downfall. It seems that while the taxman quietly chopped away at Capone's finances, Ness utilized the media and was embarrassing Capone by making public Capone's private bribe attempts to newspaper reporters.

With the newspapers crediting Ness as besting Capone, and the Untouchables' raids to be making a bigger dent than they actually were--Ness and the Untouchables played the perfect distractor--the perfect muleta for the bull to chase. Whether intentional or not--the newspapers used the word "Untouchable" to poke at Capone's ego, and bait him with annoying premature claims of victory, and get him focusing on something other than the IRS. It was either a very smart move, or a very serendipitous mistake, in a high stakes chess game.

But Eliot Ness the icon wouldn't be conceived until, when his personal biographer, Oscar Fraley, published the book "The Untouchables." And though Ness wouldn't live to see the book's success, he did take issue with the extent of Fraley's artistic freedom in the manuscript, leading to the two eventually parting ways.

But soon, Eliot Ness the man would die an untimely death, and Eliot Ness the legend--conceived from a marriage of convenience between a desperate city''s need for a hero and a talented writer's desire to deliver one--had been born...and there was no stopping it now.

Ness was married to his high school sweetheart, Edna Staley, from 1929 to 1938, from 1939 to 1945 he was wed to artist Evaline McAndrew, and from 1946 until the day he died, he called Elisabeth Andersen Seaver his wife.

Ness's love life was saturated in domestic turmoil, and though it would be very careless for me to speculate on the intricate details of private romantic relationships from over half a century ago, and what may have led to his or his wife's decisions to have alleged extramarital affairs, it's clear that Ness was haunted by some recurring domestic issues throughout his life.

What is clear, is Ness desperately wanted children, but was unable to conceive. By all accounts, his obsession with his work had become the biggest obstacle to domestic happiness, and it was his absence that eventually drove a wedge between him and his wives--as opposed to the often pushed assertion that Ness's alleged "womanizing" was to blame for his poor matrimonial record.

March 4th, 1942 was an icy winter night in Cleveland, with nighttime temperatures dipping into the low teens. While Eliot Ness and his wife were returning home from a late night banquet, Ness lost control of the car and skidded into another vehicle.

Apparently, the accident resulted in no serious injuries, and all occupants resolved the situation on scene.

Not knowing Ness's blood alcohol level during the accident, we can't claim with certitude that he was actually impaired. We do, however, know when and where it occurred. And to be fair, anyone who's lived in Northeast Ohio during winter knows that sliding on icy roads is something that happens to stone sober motorists on a routine basis.

Cleveland's shoreline is known to freeze over at least once every winter due to dangerously low temperatures and nothing blocking the bombardment of unrelenting, freezing Canadian air that sweeps over Lake Erie. A quaint cottage on these very shores is where Ness and his wife called home. Being born and raised near this lake myself, I'd go as far as to say that every year from November to March--everyone in Cleveland drives like they're drunk.

As you'd expect with a fender bender that occurred some 7 decades ago on a dark and icy Ohio street during the wee hours of the night, the specific facts of the otherwise commonplace accident are a bit hazy to say the least.

If Ness had been drinking that night, then I'd see the incident as a clear sign that he needed to seriously consider closing the chapter of his life as a public servant. If he hadn't been drinking, the entire incident can be credited as an unfortunate occurrence that helped push a devoted lawman out of the career he was born to serve in.

The claim that Ness was a publicity hog or narcissist of sorts is usually followed by his interactions with the press in Chicago (previously covered), his collection of newspaper clippings regarding his professional achievements, or his unsuccessful run for mayor of Cleveland.

Take a quick look at the Twitter accounts of all your friends; I guarantee that the vast majority are inflating themselves in the very same way that people denounce Ness for doing. Let's be real; in the end, all our social media profiles are nothing but meticulously sensationalized, unrealistic representations of our lives.

Nobody says "Hmm, this will lower my social standing. I think I'll post it onto Facebook." With the help of social media, we get to play the part of both hero and ghostwriter. We write our own personal Untouchables book everyday of our lives--our own narcissistic legacy. There's no need for any biographer; these days we sensationalize ourselves just fine.

As Cleveland Safety Director, Ness's efforts in gutting corruption from the Cleveland police force, and his gambling busts practically extinguished Cleveland's organized crime malignancy.

Thanks to Ness' efforts, the city had turned itself around and could now claim itself one of America's safest big cities, and a dramatic drop in crime. That is.....with one gleaming exception.

Kingsbury Run is an ancient ravine that begins near Lake Erie, and led southeast through the city of Cleveland. In the 1930s it was also the hunting grounds for a homicidal maniac who preyed on locals, transients and those down on their luck who called the Run home.

With decapitation as the Mad Butcher’s modus operandi, the gruesomeness of the murders only panicked the people of Cleveland that much more. At least twelve people died at the hands of that faceless murderer, and the case was never closed.

Some victims were beheaded, others were beheaded and fully dismembered--their body parts wrapped in burlap or placed in baskets, and sometimes their heads were never found.

During the time of the murders, the Run gained an ominous reputation among locals, and no one dared go near it after dark. Kingsbury Run had become Cleveland’s own Sleepy Hollow, and Eliot Ness would soon be hoisted as Cleveland's own Ichabod Crane.

Since the killer had a preference for transients, and the hobo camp in the center of the city near Kingsbury Run seemed to serve as his own personal victim buffet, Ness took a rather unorthodox route to stop the murders. He evacuated the camp, sending all its residents to shelters. Then he burned the entire thing to the ground.

The media was also ablaze with criticism of Ness's tactics, writing articles denouncing the burning of feeble shacks that down-and-out Americans called home. What the papers weren't writing after the flames died out, however, were more reports of headless bodies. As Ness had hoped, after destroying the shanty town--the murders abruptly stopped.

Did Ness go too far in burning down the hobo jungle? Was the person who would have been the Mad Butcher's next victim among the many transients moved out of harm's way by Ness's actions. Would any of the killer's previous victims have still been alive had the shanty town been destroyed sooner?

Well, I guess the answer depends on two things: Who you ask, and whether or not their head is still attached to their body.

Had the book “The Untouchables” never been written, and the name Eliot Ness never to have been printed in ink, Al Capone may have still been eventually imprisoned. But what would be lacking would be the icon, exaggerated or not, that would inspire countless potential crime fighters throughout the decades to join the academy and, as Kevin Costner would say, “Do some good.”

The benefit of sensationalism in Eliot Ness's case, is the public having a hero from the good side. Say what you will about Eliot Ness; but frankly, he was never Al Capone's bi#ch like so many cops and politicians in Chicago.

In this world, one's morality is tested only by one's capability. Nobody can claim to be untouchable if nobody tries to touch them. In Ness' case, they did try, very hard, but failed to tempt him.

As Ness himself elucidated upon in a detailed account of Capone's bribery tactics, discovered in his personal writings:

"I was informed that if I would leave the breweries alone, I would find two crisp one thousand dollar bills on my desk every Monday morning. This was a pretty good sum of money--considering that they would pay me weekly a large part of what the government was paying me a year.The offer, of course, was not considered." --Eliot Ness

Keeping in mind that Ness was only in his mid 20s when this offer was made, and that $1,000 in the 1920s was the equivalent of about $13,000 today, ask yourself: Out of the people you know--how many twenty-somethings would possess the level of devotion, self-respect, integrity, and fortitude needed to refuse an extra $13,000 cash every week for simply turning a blind eye to one person's illegal activity? I myself have worked with, and for, people who, if they were to turn a blind eye to cold blooded murder for free pack of cigarettes, it wouldn't surprise me. This is the stuff--the rare moxie--Eliot Ness was made of, and why he deserves every syllable of the earned nickname "Untouchable."

Shakespeare said "So shines a good deed in a weary world," and this rings true when you truly examine the life of Eliot Ness and the era he lived in. Even his published critics owe their literary paychecks to the remarkable man who's life their works ravenously magnify and discredit.

I can overlook the exaggeration of a man of Ness's great accomplishments way more than I can someone who's greatest accomplishment in life is digging through other people's dirty laundry for profit or literary prestige. In our modern era, where seemingly everyone is corruptible, where everyday we're flooded with stories of everyday people who cheat, rob, and steal with every breath in their lungs, make Ness's actual achievements that much more meaningful by comparison.

Moreover, exaggeration seems to be perennially linked to those who die young--regardless of occupation. Untimely death can solidify both the great and the mediocre to legendary status, and throughout the last century, has propelled countless actors, athletes, rock musicians, revolutionaries, pop musicians, reggae musicians, royalty, writers and artists into exaggerated, and almost divine cultural effigies of their actual imperfect selves.

People can stare at Eliot Ness through an ethical microscope day and night, and complain that we shouldn't glorify a chemically dependent seeker of fame trying to make himself into a superhero--but then lets hold off a bit on writing that movie review of how great Robert Downey Jr. was in Iron Man.

Eliot Ness may have drank too much, he may have made bad decisions, he may have been a playboy, and may have had narcissistic qualities like me, you, and the rest of us. However, he did succeed in honing his almost superhuman discipline into one very worthy area: As a lawman, he was--is--and always will be untouchable.