In Morrill County, in western Nebraska, a local newspaper, the Bridgeport News-Blade, estimated that between fifty and a hundred stills were in operation, the evidence being “dim lights flitting about at night in the breaks along Pumpkin Creek and in the hills that flank the Platt River where moonshiners were plying their trade.” That was enough to draw the attention of agent Hart. The paper’s account of his modus operandi leading to the arrest of two men was so detailed that only Hart himself could have supplied the particulars.
The agent went to the Bartling Ranch last Saturday and passed himself off as a returning soldier . . . looking for attractive land in which to file a homestead. There he met McArdle, who after some conversation asked if the agent ever “took anything.” The agent admitted that he sometimes indulged, whereupon McArdle invited him to look at his “place,” which was situated on the bank of a little creek that runs about 100 yards from McArdle’s house. The agent found the “place” nicely situated in the shade of the tree that grew beside the creek. The platform had been erected in the tree on which was resting a gasoline tank from which a feed pipe led to a gasoline stove burning on the earth. The stove was a large pressure cooker from the safety tube of which ran a copper coil that was buried in the water of the creek, the end opening into a jug of liquor. The still was in full operation. The liquor was running into the jug. The agent and McArdle arrived.
The arrest had proceeded according to plan until this point, when matters took an unexpected turn:
The agent began to question McArdle until McArdle became suspicious and backed off toward the tree in the fork of which a revolver was lying. The agent saw the revolver and at once drew his own automatic on McArdle and ordered him to hold his hands high and get away from the tree. The agent possessed himself of McArdle’s gun, phoned to a neighbor for a conveyance and loaded the still and McArdle and came to Bridgeport. Shortly after arriving here the agent arrested John Bartling.
Most of Hart’s arrests ended the same way, with a conviction. The guilty party either paid a fine or spent ninety days in jail.
As he gained experience in his new job, and possibly just to vary the routine, this man who was already living under an assumed name began a series of masquerades. On October 28, 1920, he arrived in Randolph, Nebraska, reputed to be a center of illicit alcohol activity, but instead of his badge and crisp Stetson, he wore the shabby overalls of a laborer. In this guise he managed to ferret out enough information to direct a raid on the city’s stills. Twenty men, including some of Randolph’s best-known names, were among the catch, and the enterprising brother of Al Capone earned himself a headline: “State Agent Hart Cleans Up Randolph!” Several weeks—and raids—later, it was followed by another headline: “State Agent Hart Cleans Up Cedar County!”
The consequences of the latter raid led Hart through enough twists and turns to pack a dime novel. He decided to drive one of his captives, “Slats” Pogonese, to Lincoln, Nebraska, and turn him over to the sheriff. They immediately got lost in a severe rain storm, and instead of traveling south to Lincoln they drove north to the tiny town of Spencer, close to the South Dakota state line. There Hart decided the two of them looked sufficiently scruffy to pass themselves off as outlaws. In this role Hart and his prisoner asked the owner of the garage in which he had parked his car where to buy a quart of moonshine—“white mule” they called it in these parts, on account of its kick. The man told him, Hart procured his moonshine, arrested the seller, and returned to the garage to arrest the informant. Everything went smoothly until Hart discovered that the seller was in fact the marshal of Spencer, Nebraska. Undaunted, Hart decided to turn in both men, but before he could, another marshal attempted to arrest Hart for disturbing the peace. The two fell into a shouting argument, and Hart left with only “Slats” in tow. The violator was duly charged and jailed, and Hart came away from the episode with an abiding mistrust of local law enforcement officials, who often as not operated in cahoots with the bootleggers, offering protection, skimming profits, and preventing honest men like agent R. J. Hart from doing their job.
Several weeks later, Hart devised another disguise; more flamboyant than anything he had previously tried, it revealed as much about the man as it concealed. He turned up in Schuyler, Nebraska, a fair-sized town about fifty miles east of Omaha, disguised as a handicapped veteran. It was the mustard gas, he told the curious; he hadn’t been the same since the war. One other thing about this lonely doughboy; he liked to roll the dice. Even better, his pockets bulged with cash. Within days he had managed to ingratiate himself with most of Schuyler’s high rollers. He then fed the information to other Prohibition agents, and on December 17 he joined them in a raid on the town’s liquor stills, one of which was camouflaged in a soft drink bottling facility. Once again he arranged for the haul to be photographed for the sake of posterity, and the result displayed an assortment of bottles and jugs, all looking harmless enough in themselves. Through these and other exploits, Hart’s fame increased weekly, and by the spring of 1921, scarcely more than two years after he had arrived in Homer, he had become known throughout Nebraska as a resourceful and feared lawman. The Homer Star marveled that its own R. J. Hart “is becoming such a menace in the state that his name alone carries terror to the heart of every criminal.”
His growing reputation and obvious daring brought him to the attention of the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, which offered him a far more hazardous appointment: the suppression of liquor traffic among the Indians. Given his identification with the Old West, it was an assignment that Hart was unable to resist. His new duties often took him away from home for days on end. Initially, he spent much of his time in and around the Yankton reservation, just across the border in South Dakota. The Indians were expert at hiding their stills, and he devoted many days on foot or on horseback to tracking their movements with only his horse for companionship. It was hardly the type of work in which a boy from the streets of Brooklyn was likely to excel, much less survive, but Hart quickly distinguished himself in these demanding circumstances. Within months, the superintendent of the Yankton reservation was moved to write to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C.: “I wish to commend Mr. Hart in highest terms for his fearless and untiring efforts to bring these liquor peddlers and moonshiners to justice. I have tried the county and state officers and even the Federal Prohibition officers in Sioux Falls with very discouraging results. This man Hart is a ‘go-getter.’ ”
While undoubtedly effective, Hart’s “go-getting” meant, in practice, using his fists. It must be remembered that he was often dealing with Indians who were armed with knives and guns, extremely intoxicated, and liable to be violent. His way of bringing them to heel was to drive straight to one of their drunken gatherings; as soon he emerged from his car, he would hit the first Indian he could reach, knocking him cold. Hart later explained his method of dealing with Indians this way: “You’ve got to get in the first lick.”
Even as he fought Indian moonshiners Hart steeped himself in Indian lore and took the trouble to learn the language of the tribes he was assigned to police. In time he befriended several of their chiefs, men known as Blackbird and Lone Wolf. Always fond of photographs, he liked to pose for portraits with the Indians. In one, an Indian child is dressed in his most elaborate garb, while Hart, his Stetson firmly in place, tries to stare down the camera. In another, he stands beside three Indians, the four men in a line, equal, warriors all. In time, most of the Indians—drinkers excepted—came to respect him, and they conferred a name on Hart that would stay with him until the end of his life: “Two-Gun.” The name was repeated by the whites, as well, and once it began appearing in the newspapers, which could scarcely resist such a colorful nickname, no one called him Richard anymore; it was always “Two-Gun.” Wherever he went, “Two-Gun” Hart wore pistols in holsters on either hip to live up to the name—and the reputation—he had won for himself in the West.
Hart was now poised for a major career in law enforcement. A
man with his drive, talent, and accomplishments was likely to wind up in the state capital, heading this or that state law enforcement agency, or even spend time in Washington, in a federal job. The future was bright, especially a future containing Prohibition. The identity he had forged for himself out of the legends of the American West continued to hold, and more than that, to carry him to heights he would otherwise not have attained in a country rife with anti-Italian prejudice. As an outsider, he developed a dual identification—with silver screen cowboys on the one hand and Indians on the other. He could play both outlaw and lawman at the same time, endlessly chasing aspects of himself, acting out on the stage of the American prairie the drama of his divided psyche. Yet no one suspected he was anything other than what he claimed to be, an Oklahoma-born veteran who had come to Homer in search of work and made good. No one realized that “Two-Gun” Hart’s real name was Vincenzo Capone, not his supervisors, his coworkers—not even his wife knew who he really was.
Until this point in his life—the summer of 1923—Hart’s early manhood resembled a saga of the Old West, worthy of William S. Hart himself. A stranger comes to town; he saves the life of a family, whose daughter he marries; and he then makes a name for himself as a gun-toting lawman respected by whites and Indians alike. All the while, he has an assumed identity, a past he refuses to reveal to anyone, not even his wife. But this was no silent movie scenario; this was the extraordinary balancing act Hart managed to maintain with remarkable control until the summer of 1923, when he stumbled into a misadventure that threatened to disrupt his livelihood and to reveal the identity he had so carefully concealed. It involved moonshine, a car chase, bad luck, even worse judgment, and before it ended, a man lay dead, and a mob was threatening to hang “Two-Gun” Hart.
• • •
On the evening of October 23, Hart and another Prohibition agent named Walter Gumm; two young Winnebago Indians, Walter Tebo and Robinson Smith; and the town constable, Logan Lamert, gathered in South Sioux City. Their mission was straightforward: the arrest of a bootlegger by the name of John Haaker, who was reputed to sell moonshine to Winnebago Indians. Their plan was routine: the Indians would buy liquor from Haaker and the agents would move in to make their arrest. But when the two Indians tried to purchase liquor, Haaker, who probably suspected he was being set up, refused to deal.
Convinced that Haaker was indeed selling liquor, Hart, Gumm, and Lamert dropped off the Indians at a nearby filling station and returned to watch the suspect. At 10:30 that night, the men finally spotted a pair of cars approach Haaker’s place of business and crawl to a standstill. Several men left the cars, then reentered, and the cars pulled away. Hart, Gumm, and Lamert decided to follow one, a Buick. “We were satisfied in all probability they had whiskey in their possession which they had bought at Haakers,” recalled Hart’s companion, Walter Gumm, “and I called out to them that they were under arrest.” The words had no effect, and Hart decided to take matters into his own hands, to play the hero once again. Balancing on the running board of his car, he shouted at the men in the Buick that they were under arrest. But the Buick heedlessly continued on its way, and Gumm, who was driving the agents’ car, speeded up until Hart, still on the running board, drew even with the driver of the Buick. Hart was so close he could practically reach out and touch the suspect. Just then the Buick speeded up, and the two cars raced along the darkened streets of South Sioux City. When the Buick pulled into the lead, Hart and Gumm drew their weapons.
At that point, the two cars were about 150 feet apart, going about thirty-five miles per hour. The agents’ car was traveling along the bumpy shoulder of the road, and it was pitch dark. Despite these hazards, “Hart discharged two shots, apparently at the rear tires of the Buick,” Gumm recalled, “and then I reached around the windshield with my right arm and fired one shot down towards the ground and towards the rear tire of the Buick, although I could take no aim, and there would be no accuracy to my shooting.” The unmistakable implication was that the darkness, speed, and bumpy road, not to mention the distance between the two cars, had caused the shots to be wild.
The Buick came to a standstill, and when Hart reached it, he discovered the driver had been shot and was bleeding badly. The victim was not an Indian; he was a white named Ed Morvace—thirty-five years old, married, and the father of a seven-month-old son. He worked in the area as a mechanic; like Hart, he had served with the American Expeditionary Force during the war. Later that evening Morvace died. The coroner, in the presence of Hart, performed an autopsy and “determined the cause of death to be the gun shot wound and that the bullet entered at the back of Morvace’s neck and came out through the mouth.” The death of Ed Morvace was listed as accidental.
The death of Ed Morvace took place on a Saturday night, and within hours it polarized the community into vehemently pro- and anti-Hart factions. Gumm recalled, “Hart and I both heard that on Sunday evening after the shooting there was a gang of bootleggers who got together and got some rope and talked about going down to the agency and getting Hart and hanging him. On account of Hart’s activities in enforcing the liquor laws there is a very strong feeling against him among bootleggers and law violators generally.” A lynch mob was not the only threat Hart faced. On Tuesday, a warrant was issued for the arrest of R. J. Hart, who immediately surrendered to the sheriff of Dakota City, Nebraska, where he was formally charged with manslaughter; bail was set at $7,500.
Now the pendulum swung the other way, in Hart’s favor. Among steadfast Prohibitionists, and especially fervent members of the politically influential Women’s Christian Temperance Union, Hart’s arrest made him into a cause célèbre, a martyr to justice. The Union Worker of Lincoln, Nebraska, a Prohibition propaganda sheet, observed, “Now the bootleggers are filled with glee because this officer has been arrested and will go to trial. . . . If we do not stand by our conscientious officers where would the bootleggers place us in a short time? Would it be safe after sundown?” In the name of the Constitution, public safety, and all that was holy, dry bankers rushed to put up Hart’s bond, and he thereby avoided the humiliation of being locked up in jail. He was even allowed to keep his beloved gun. Still, he had to defend himself against the manslaughter charge, and even if he was exonerated, the incident would leave a blot on his record. Worse, the scrutiny he suddenly faced could reveal that “Two-Gun” Hart was in fact an Italian-born immigrant named Vincenzo Capone.
As the controversy grew, Hart defended his actions. He insisted that he, a decorated sharpshooter, could not possibly have fired the shot that killed Morvace. The implication was that Gumm, not Hart, had fired the fatal bullet, but no matter who was to blame, nothing could bring Morvace back to life. From the viewpoint of the victim’s widow, Olga, it scarcely mattered which agent had murdered her husband. She sued them both for $50,000, and she further alleged that “the officers accused of the killing gathered around the dead body and referred to it in vile and obscene names.” Newspaper accounts of the pointless killing and the manner in which it occurred fanned the flames of public anger with Hart. For several nights running, mobs assembled on the streets of Dakota City, and the threat of a lynching hung in the crisp autumn air.
The most likely occasion for a lynching would have been when Hart appeared at the Dakota County courthouse to testify at an inquest, but he foiled the mob by appearing a day earlier than scheduled. Immediately afterward, the county attorney declared, “The verdict of the jury at the inquest was that either Hart or Gumm, the Indian agent, had shot Morvace while in pursuit of his duty. The law says they are not guilty of any crime and there will be no charge brought against the officers.” The resulting headline, “CORONER’S JURY HOLDS SHOOTING WAS JUSTIFIED,” further inflamed the anti-Hart contingent, who demanded an eye for an eye. Fearing for his life, Hart went into hiding on the Winnebago reservation.
Militant prohibitionists persisted in their support of Hart. The WCTU took up a collection to pay for his legal expenses. A lawyer named Harry Keef
e served as their mouthpiece. “This is not a question of the guilt or innocence of Hart,” Keefe argued, “so much as it is the issue of the enforcement of the law. If an enforcement officer is convicted of such a charge, it will materially affect the future operations of other enforcement officers. Many of them are too timid now. If Mr. Hart is eliminated from the field, it is going to make the bootleggers more secure in their position.” Keefe’s position sounded extreme, and it was; blinded by self-righteousness, the WCTU appeared to advocate the shooting or killing of anyone who was even suspected of violating the Prohibition laws. Right or wrong, the influence of the WCTU forestalled further local investigation of the matter.
Meanwhile, news of the shooting reached Washington, D.C., where the Justice Department launched an inquiry that eventually concluded that Hart, whether or not he actually fired the fatal bullet, was “guilty of careless indifference to consequences.” James Kinsler, the U.S. attorney for Nebraska, offered the opinion that Hart, being a better marksman than Gumm, was less likely to have shot Morvace, but in any event, “all the shooting, both by Hart and Gumm, was wholly uncalled for.” As a result of the Department of Justice’s inquiry and the public controversy back in Nebraska, “Two-Gun” Hart’s sterling reputation was badly tarnished. He eventually surfaced and resumed his duties policing liquor traffic among the Indians, but the rapid rise he had enjoyed in his profession was now permanently stalled.
In one respect, however, Hart could be grateful. The controversy failed to uncover his true identity. No one had thought to question where he had been before his arrival in Homer, so the fiction of Richard Joseph Hart remained intact—at least for now. However, pressure to disclose his past came from Hart himself, who gradually tired of living a lie, especially now that the lie had let him down. At about the time Ed Morvace was shot to death, Hart—along with the rest of the Midwest—heard startling news of the family he had fled fifteen years ago. The news came not from New York, but from Chicago. Through newspaper headlines and photographs, Hart discovered what had become of the brothers he had deserted fifteen years before. As in his own situation, violence and gunplay were involved, “GUNMAN KILLED BY GUNMAN” read one headline, and the accompanying article made it plain that Hart’s brothers were on the opposite side of the law. The Chicago newspapers took to calling Al a “vice lord.” Now that “Two-Gun” Hart knew where his brothers were, it was only a matter of time until he went to Chicago to see for himself what had become of his family, and especially his extraordinary younger brother Al, whom the newspapers called “Scarface” and whose career was about to eclipse his own.
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