ABSTRACT
The 1920s are commercial radio; Ku Klux Klan rallies in the heart of Washington, race riots in big cities; debates about the benefits and dangers of immigration, leading to immigration restriction; fear of communism and interest in communism. In 1920s, gangs and gangsters smuggled bootlegged booze in hollowed-out cavities underneath rear-facing rumble seats. In every major city where jobs were hard to come by and immigrant groups clustered together in their neighborhoods, young men formed gangs for mutual protection: Italians, Sicilians, Jews, Irish, African-Americans, and more. Alphonse Capone was born in 1899 in a tough Brooklyn neighborhood of New York City and earned his own reputation for nasty valor. Expelled from school for hitting his teacher, he ran the neighborhood pool tables, worked as strong-arm bartender, and joined the infamous Five Pointsers gang. Capone was the first notorious inmate doing time in America's first war on drugs, though it was not called that at the time.
