The original members of the Chicago Crime Commission, an organization born to combat crime in the Roaring '20s when the police couldn't and/or wouldn't, are all dead now. But at least they went to their graves knowing they helped take down Al Capone and the mob which basically ran the city for a decade or more.

After that big splash, it figured that there would be a letdown, and while the CCC exists to this day, the members have had to be satisfied with ratting out an occasional street gang and running their annual golf tournament (June 20, if you're interested).

But now the crime busters have a new signature issue, devoting their PR machine toward warning the citizens of northern Illinois that organized crime will re-emerge from under the concrete and poison the lives of the city's millions of residents if the government allows them to play nickel slots at a proposed new casino.

The crime fighters don't seem to have much of a problem with the state's nine riverboat casinos, which have yet to shown any signs of a mob takeover. But if a bricks-and-mortar casino gets the approval of the governor and is built in downtown Chicago, then apparently it's just a matter of time before someone Tony Spilatro does to Chicago what Spilatro himself did to Vegas in the 1970s and '80s.

"Pure and simple, [if a casino is built] law enforcement can expect the entrance of the Crime Syndicate," says J.R. Davis, the CCC chairman. "Federal prosecutors should plan for a steady stream of federal corruption indictments against government officials, gambling operators and members of the Crime Syndicate."

I wish Mr. Smith a long and fun-filled life, but when he goes to his Great Reward and has a cool one with his counterparts who took down Capone's gang some nine decades ago, his talk about preventing grandmothers from playing a Wheel of Fortune slot machine probably will probably draw more than a few snickers.