cation was not a top priority for immigrants. At the age of five in 1904, he went to Public School 7 on Adams Street. The school system was deeply prejudiced against them and did little to encourage any interest in higher education, while the immigrant parents expected their children to leave school as soon as they were old enough to work. At about the age of eleven Capone became a member of a juvenile gang in his neighborhood. While this was taking place, around the year 1900, about eleven percent of all the foreign born population in the United States were Italian. Capone was forced to either deal with a miserable low wage job with a hopeless future or make an improvement for himself by committing first minor crimes, then moving on to bigger ones. While in the Bim Booms gang, Capone was taught ho to defend himself with a knife, and a gun. By the time Capone reached the sixth grade he had already become a street brawler. Capone never responded well to authority and for that very reason his schooling would soon come to an end. At fourteen, he lost his temper at the teacher, she hit him and he hit her back. He was expelled and never went to school again. After dropping out of school, Capone took up jobs such as working as a pinsetter at a bowling alley, and working behind the counter at a candy store. A few blocks away from the Capone house on Garfield Place was a small unobtrusive building that was the headquarters of one of the most successful gangsters on the East Coast. Johnny Torrio was a new breed of gangster, a pioneer in the development of a modern criminal enterprise. From Torrio, a young Capone learned invaluable lessons that were the foundation of the criminal empire he built later in Chicago. Al Capones philosophy was that laws only applied to people who had enough money to live by them. The Five Point Juniors was the most powerful gang in New York City and was the gang Al was now a part of. The gangs leader ...
