A security official walks in front of the entrance to the national headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Washington. Illinois’ two U.S. senators have proposed renaming the building after prohibition-era crime fighter Eliot Ness. But it won’t happen if Ed Burke, the dean of the Chicago City Council and others have their way. Portrayed over the years by Kevin Costner and Robert Stack as an incorruptible hero, Ness’ legend is now at risk, with some claiming his role in taking out Chicago mobster Al Capone is as mythical as Mrs. O’Leary’s cow starting the Great Chicago Fire.CHICAGO – In the pantheon of Chicago crime fighters, nobody has the worldwide reputation of Eliot Ness.
He’s the Prohibition agent who brought down Al Capone, the principled lawman in a city awash in corruption, the relentless investigator portrayed by actors Robert Stack and Kevin Costner and the legend who is said to have inspired comic-strip detective Dick Tracy.
Nearly six decades after his death, Ness is still so admired that Illinois’ two U.S. senators want to name a federal building after him in Washington, D.C.
But a Chicago alderman, citing a recent Capone biography, concludes that Ness had about as much to do with putting the gangster behind bars as Mrs. O’Leary’s cow had to do with starting the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, when the animal supposedly knocked over a lantern. And he’s trying to persuade the senators to drop the whole idea.
“There are literally hundreds of heroic law enforcement officials” who would be deserving of the honor, “but Eliot Ness is simply not one of them,” said Ed Burke, who hopes the senators will abandon the proposal much the way the council formally cleared Mrs. O’Leary’s cow in 1997 at Burke’s urging.