Editing Eliot Ness (section)

=== 1932–1957 ===
In 1932, Ness was promoted to Chief Investigator of the Prohibition Bureau for Chicago. Following the end of Prohibition in 1933, he was assigned as an alcohol tax agent in the "Moonshine Mountains" of southern Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and in 1934 he was transferred to [[Cleveland, Ohio]]. In December 1935, [[Mayor of Cleveland|Cleveland mayor]] [[Harold Hitz Burton|Harold H. Burton]] hired Ness as the city's Safety Director, which put him in charge of both the [[Cleveland Division of Police|police]] and fire departments. Ness soon began a reform program inspired by the ideas of August Vollmer, which focused on professionalizing and modernizing the police, stopping [[Juvenile delinquency in the United States|juvenile delinquency]], and improving [[Road traffic safety|traffic safety]]. He declared war on the mob, and his primary targets included "Big" [[Angelo Lonardo]], "Little" Angelo Scirrca, [[Moe Dalitz]], John Angerola, George Angersola, and Charles Pollizi.<ref name="Collins & Schwartz" />{{Rp|493, 529-530}}

Ness was also Safety Director at the time of the murders known as the [[Cleveland Torso Murderer|Cleveland Torso Murders]], occurring in the Cleveland area from 1935 to 1938; though he had oversight of the police department, he was only peripherally involved in the investigation.<ref name="Run">{{cite news |last=Bovsun |first=Mara |date=June 30, 2013 |title=Pile of bones: Eliot Ness hunted Cleveland serial killer, but mystery remains |website=[[New York Daily News]] |url=http://www.nydailynews.com/news/justice-story/ness-hunted-cleveland-killer-mystery-remains-article-1.1386136 |access-date=November 27, 2018}}</ref> Ness interrogated one of the prime suspects of the murders, Dr. Francis E. Sweeney, using a [[polygraph test]]. At one point, two bodies of the victims of the serial killer were placed within view of Ness's office window.<ref name="Real Ness1">{{cite web|url=http://www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/collections/torso-murders/|title=Torso Murders – Cleveland Police Museum|access-date=November 27, 2018|archive-date=November 28, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181128181825/https://www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/collections/torso-murders/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>"Haunted History'' – Season 1 Episode 6 ''The Torso Murders"</ref>

In 1938, Ness and his wife Edna divorced. His otherwise successful career in Cleveland withered gradually. He especially fell out of favor after he had the city's large [[Shanty town|shantytowns]] evacuated and burned during the Cleveland Torso Murders. Cleveland critics targeted his divorce, his high-profile social drinking, and his conduct in a car accident one night when he was driving drunk. Although there were no victims in the accident, Ness, fearful that he might lose his job, tried to get the accident covered up. Later, his involvement in the accident was revealed by a local newspaper and calls for his resignation increased; however, Burton's successor as mayor, Frank Lausche, kept Ness on.<ref name="ech">{{cite encyclopedia
|url = http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=NE
|title = Eliot Ness
|access-date = May 8, 2012
|date = July 21, 1997
|encyclopedia = Encyclopedia of Cleveland History}}</ref>

In 1939, Ness married illustrator [[Evaline Ness|Evaline Michelow]]. In 1942, the Nesses moved to [[Washington, D.C.]], where he worked for the federal government. He directed the battle against [[prostitution]] in communities surrounding military bases, where [[venereal disease]] was a serious medical issue. Later he made a number of forays into the corporate world, all of which failed owing to his lack of business acumen. In 1944, he left to become chairman of the [[Diebold Corporation]], a security company based in Ohio.<ref name="Diebold.com">{{cite web
|url = http://www.diebold.com/150/featurestories_1944.htm
|title = A Man of Steel Leads a Company of Iron
|access-date = May 8, 2013
|year = 2009
|work = Diebold, Inc.
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120508024112/http://www.diebold.com/150/featurestories_1944.htm
|archive-date = May 8, 2012
|url-status = dead
}}</ref>

[[File:1947 campaign sign on building at 36th Street and Cedar Avenue, Cleveland. - NARA - 550133.jpg|thumb|upright|left|Ad from Ness' 1947 campaign for [[Mayor of Cleveland]]]]
After his second divorce and third marriage, he ran unsuccessfully for [[Mayor of Cleveland]] [[1947 Cleveland mayoral election|in 1947]],<ref name="McFarland">{{cite web
|url = http://www.clevelandpolicemuseum.org/collections/eliotness.html
|title = Eliot Ness
|access-date = November 24, 2021
|last1 = McFarland
|first1 = Marilyn
|last2 = Stone
|first2 = Mark Wade
|date = January 2012
|work = Cleveland Police Museum/Cleveland Police Historical Society
|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160828173435/http://clevelandpolicemuseum.org/collections/eliotness.html
|archive-date = August 28, 2016
|url-status = dead
}}</ref> after which he left Diebold in 1951.<ref name="Diebold.com" /> In the aftermath, Ness was forced into taking odd jobs to earn a living, including bookstore clerk and wholesaler of electronics parts and frozen hamburger patties.<ref name="Heimel">{{cite book |last1=Heimel |first1=Paul |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4QWCvgEACAAJ&q=eliot+ness+the+real+story |title=Eliot Ness: The Real Story |date=2000 |publisher=Cumberland House |isbn=1-58182-139-5 |edition=2nd |location=Nashville |oclc=1033582735}}</ref>{{Rp|255-256}} By 1956, he came to work for a startup company called Guaranty Paper Corporation, which claimed to have a new method of watermarking legal and official documents to prevent counterfeiting. Ness was offered the job because of his expertise in law enforcement and moved from Cleveland to [[Coudersport, Pennsylvania]], where much of the investment capital for the company was located. Now drinking more heavily, Ness spent his free time in a local bar, telling stories of his law enforcement career. Guaranty Paper began to fall apart when it became clear that one of Ness's business partners had misrepresented the nature of their supposedly proprietary watermarking process, leaving Ness in serious financial jeopardy.<ref name="Pearl VF">{{Cite magazine |last=Pearl |first=Matthew |date=2017-12-27 |title=Behind The Untouchables: The Making of the Memoir That Reclaimed a Prohibition-Era Legend |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2017/12/the-untouchables-the-making-of-the-memoir-prohibition-era-legend |access-date=2023-06-10 |magazine=Vanity Fair |language=en-US}}</ref>

In later years, Ness struggled financially; he was nearly penniless at the time of his death, with his role in bringing down Al Capone having been largely forgotten.<ref name="Collins & Schwartz" />{{Rp|359-360, 531-532}}<ref name="ask.yahoo.com">{{cite web|url=http://ask.yahoo.com/20051020.html |title=Whatever happened to Eliot Ness after the trial of Al Capone?|website=Ask Yahoo!}}</ref>