There are a million and a half of Italians in the United States, of whom
nearly six hundred thousand reside in New York City--more than in Rome
itself. Naples alone of all the cities of Italy has so large an Italian
population; while Boston has one hundred thousand, Philadelphia one
hundred thousand, San Francisco seventy thousand, New Orleans seventy
thousand, Chicago sixty thousand, Denver twenty-five thousand, Pittsburg
twenty-five thousand, Baltimore twenty thousand, and there are extensive
colonies, often numbering as many as ten thousand, in several other
cities.
So vast a foreign-born population is bound to contain elements of both
strength and weakness. The north Italians are molto simpatici to the
American character, and many of their national traits are singularly
like our own, for they are honest, thrifty, industrious, law-abiding and
good-natured. The Italians from the extreme south of the peninsula have
fewer of these qualities, and are apt to be ignorant, lazy, destitute,
and superstitious. A considerable percentage, especially of those from
the cities, are criminal. Even for a long time after landing in America,
the Calabrians and Sicilians often exhibit a lack of enlightenment more
characteristic of the Middle Ages than of the twentieth century.
At home they have lived in a tumble-down stone hut about fifteen feet
square, half open to the sky (its only saving quality); in one corner
the entire family sleeping in a promiscuous pile on a bed of leaves; in
another a domestic zoo consisting of half a dozen hens, a cock, a goat,
and a donkey. They neither read, think, nor exchange ideas. The sight of
a uniform means to them either a tax-gatherer, a compulsory enlistment
in the army, or an arrest, and at its appearance the man will run
and the wife and children turn into stone. They are stubborn and
distrustful. They are the same as they were a thousand or more years
gone by.
When the writer was acting as an assistant prosecutor in New York
County, a young Italian, barely twenty years of age, was brought to
the bar charged with assault with intent to kill. The complainant was a
withered Sicilian woman who claimed to be his wife. Both spoke an almost
unintelligible dialect. The case on its face was simple enough. An
officer testified that on a Sunday morning in Mulberry Bend Park, at
a distance of about fifty feet from where he was standing, he saw the
defendant, who had been walking peaceably with the complaining witness,
suddenly draw a long and deadly looking knife and proceed to slash her
about the head and arms. It had taken the officer but a moment or two to
seize the defendant from behind and disarm him, but in the meantime he
had inflicted some eleven wounds upon her body. No explanation had been
offered for this terrible assault, and the complainant had appeared
involuntarily before the Grand jury and afterward had to be kept in the
House of Detention as a hostile witness. The woman, who appeared to be
about fifty years old, was sworn, and on being questioned stated that
she had been married to the defendant in Sicily three years before.
She declined to admit that he had attacked or harmed her in any way,
constantly mumbling: "He is my husband. Do not punish him!"
The defendant, however, seemed eager to get on the stand and to tell
his story; nor did the introduction of the knife in evidence or the
exhibition of the woman's wounds embarrass him in the slightest degree.
His manner was that of a man who had only to explain to be entirely
exonerated from blame. He nodded at the jury and the judge, and scowled
at the complainant, who was speedily conducted to a place where no harm
could possibly come to her. When at last he was sworn, he could hardly
restrain himself into coherency.
"Yes--that woman forced me to marry her!" he testified in substance.
"But in the eyes of God I am not her husband, for she bewitched me! Else
would I have married an old crone who could not have borne me children?
When her spells weakened I left her and came to America. Here I met
the woman I love,--Rosina,--and as I had been bewitched into the other
marriage, we lived together as man and wife for two years. Then one day
a friend told me that the old woman had followed me over the sea and was
going to throw her spells upon me again. But I did not inform Rosina of
these things. The next evening she told me that an old woman had been
to the house and asked for me. For days my first wife lurked in the
neighborhood, beseeching me to come back to her. But I told her that in
the eyes of God she was not my wife. Then, in revenge, she cast the evil
eye upon the child--sul bambino--and for six weeks it ailed and then
died. Again the witch asked me to go with her, and again I refused. This
time she cast her evil eye upon my wife--and Rosina grew pale and sick
and took to her bed. There was only one thing to do, you understand. I
resolved to slay her, just as you--giudici--would have done. I bought
a carving-knife and sharpened it, and asked her to walk with me to
the park, and I would have killed her had not the police prevented me.
Wherefore, O giudici! I pray you to recall her and permit me to kill her
or to decree that she be hung!"
This case illustrates the depths of ignorance and superstition that
are occasionally to be found among Italian peasant immigrants. Another
actual experience may demonstrate the mediaeval treachery of which the
Sicilian Mafiuso is capable, and how little his manners or ideals have
progressed in the last five hundred years or so.
A photographer and his wife, both from Palermo, came to New York and
rented a comfortable home with which was connected a "studio." In the
course of time a young man--a Mafiuso from Palermo--was engaged as an
assistant, and promptly fell in love with the photographer's wife. She
was tired of her husband, and together they plotted the latter's murder.
After various plans had been considered and rejected, they determined on
poison, and the assistant procured enough cyanide of mercury to kill a
hundred photographers, and turned it over to his mistress to administer
to the victim in his "Marsala." But at the last moment her hand lost
its courage and she weakly sewed the poison up for future use inside the
ticking of the feather bolster on the marital bed.
This was not at all to the liking of her lover, who thereupon took
matters into his own hands, by hiring another Mafiuso to remove the
photographer with a knife-thrust through the heart. In order that the
assassin might have a favorable opportunity to effect his object, the
assistant, who posed as a devoted friend of his employer, invited the
couple to a Christmas festival at his own apartment. Here they all spent
an animated and friendly evening together, drinking toasts and singing
Christmas carols, and toward midnight the party broke up with mutual
protestations of regard. If the writer remembers accurately, the
evidence was that the two men embraced and kissed each other. After
a series of farewells the photographer started home. It was a clear
moonlight night with the streets covered with a glistening fall of snow.
The wife, singing a song, walked arm in arm with her husband until they
came to a corner where a jutting wall cast a deep shadow across the
sidewalk. At this point she stepped a little ahead of him, and at the
same moment the hired assassin slipped up behind the victim and drove
his knife into his back. The wife shrieked. The husband staggered and
fell, and the "bravo" fled.
The police arrived, and so did an ambulance, which removed the
hysterical wife and the transfixed victim to a hospital. Luckily the
ambulance surgeon did not remove the knife, and his failure to do so
saved the life of the photographer, who in consequence practically lost
no blood and whose cortex was skilfully hooked up by a dextrous surgeon.
In a month he was out. In another the police had caught the would-be
murderer and he was soon convicted and sentenced to State prison, under
a contract with the assistant to be paid two hundred and fifty dollars
for each year he had to serve. Evidently the lover and his mistress
concluded that the photographer bore a charmed life, for they made no
further homicidal attempts.
So much for the story as an illustration of the mediaeval character of
some of our Sicilian immigrants. For the satisfaction of the reader's
taste for the romantic and picturesque it should be added, however, that
the matter did not end here. The convict, having served several years,
found that the photographer's assistant was not keeping his part of the
contract, as a result of which the assassin's wife and children were
suffering for lack of food and clothing. He made repeated but fruitless
attempts to compel the party of the first part to pay up, and finally,
in despair, wrote to the District Attorney of New York County that he
could, if he would, a tale unfold that would harrow up almost anybody's
soul. Mr. Jerome therefore, on the gamble of getting something worth
while, sent Detective Russo to Auburn to interview the prisoner. That is
how the whole story came to be known. The case was put in the writer's
hands, and an indictment for the very unusual crime of attempted murder
(there are only one or two such cases on record in New York State) was
speedily found against the photographer's assistant. At the trial the
lover saw his mistress compelled to turn State's evidence against him to
save herself. She testified to the Christmas carols and the cyanide of
mercury.
"Did you ever remove this terrible poison from the bolster?" demanded
the defendant's counsel in a sneering tone.
"No," answered the woman.
"Have you ever changed the bolster?" he persisted.
"No."
"Then it's there yet?"
"I-I think so," falteringly.
"I demand that this incredible yarn be investigated!" cried the lawyer.
"I ask that the court send for the bolster and cut it open here in the
presence of the jury."
The writer had no choice but to accede to this request, and the bolster
was hunted down and brought into court. With some anxiety both sides
watched while the lining was slit with a penknife. A few feathers
fluttered to the floor as the fingers of the witness felt inside
and came in contact with the poison. The assistant was convicted of
attempted murder on the convict's testimony, and sentenced to Sing Sing
for twenty-five years. That was the end of the second lesson.
About a month afterward the defendant's counsel made a motion for a new
trial on the ground that the convict now admitted his testimony to have
been wholly false, and produced an affidavit from the assassin to that
effect. Naturally so startling an allegation demanded investigation.
Yes, insisted the "bravo," it was all made up, a "camorra"--not a word
of truth in it, and he had invented the whole thing in order to get a
vacation from State prison and a free ride to New York. However, the
court denied the motion. The writer procured a new indictment against
the assassin--this time for perjury--and he was sentenced to another
additional term in prison. What induced this sudden and extraordinary
change of mind on his part can only be surmised.
These two cases are extreme examples of the mediaevalism that to a
considerable degree prevails in New York City, probably in Chicago and
Boston, and wherever there is an excessive south Italian population.
The conditions under which a large number of Italians live in this
country are favorable not only to the continuance of ignorance, but to
the development of disease and crime. Naples is bad enough, no doubt.
The people there are poverty-stricken and homeless. But in New York City
they are worse than homeless. It is better far to sleep under the stars
than in a stuffy room with ten or twelve other persons. Let the reader
climb the stairs of some of the tenements in Elizabeth Street, or go
through those in Union Street, Brooklyn, and he will get firsthand
evidence. This is generally true of the lower class of Italians
throughout the United States, whether in the city or country. They live
under worse conditions than at home. You may go through the railroad
camps and see twenty men sleeping together in a one-room built of
lath, tar-paper, and clay. The writer knows of one Italian laborer in
Massachusetts who slept in a floorless mud hovel about six feet
square, with one hole to go in and out by and another in the roof
for ventilation--in order to save $1.75 per month. All honor to him!
Garibaldi was of just such stuff, only he suffered in a better cause. In
Naples the young folks are out all day in the sun. Here they are
indoors all the year round. For the consequences of this change see
Dr. Peccorini's article in the 'Forum' for January, 1911, on the
tuberculosis that soon develops among Italians who abroad were
accustomed to live in the country but here are forced to exist in
tenements.
Now, for historic reasons, these south Italians hate and distrust all
governmental control and despise any appeal to the ordinary tribunals of
justice to assert a right or to remedy a wrong. It has been justly said
by a celebrated Italian writer that, in effect, there is some instinct
for civil war in the heart of every Italian. The insufferable tyranny
of the Bourbon dynasty made every outlaw dear to the hearts of the
oppressed people of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Even if he robbed
them, they felt that he was the lesser of two evils, and sheltered
him from the authorities. Out of this feeling grew the "Omerta," which
paralyzes the arm of justice both in Naples and Sicily. The late Marion
Crawford thus summed up the Sicilian code of honor:
According to this code, a man who appeals to the law against his fellow
man is not only a fool but a coward, and he who cannot take care of
himself without the protection of the police is both.... It is reckoned
as cowardly to betray an offender to justice, even though the offence be
against one's self, as it would be not to avenge an injury by violence.
It is regarded as dastardly and contemptible in a wounded man to betray
the name of his assailant, because if he recovers he must naturally
expect to take vengeance himself. A rhymed Sicilian proverb sums up this
principle, the supposed speaker being one who has been stabbed. "If I
live, I will kill thee," it says; "if I die, I forgive thee!"
Any one who has had anything to do with the administration of criminal
justice in a city with a large Italian population must have found
himself constantly hampered by precisely this same "Omerta." The south
Italian feels obliged to conceal the name of the assassin and very
likely his person, though he himself be but an accidental witness of the
crime; and, while the writer knows of no instance in New York City
where an innocent man has gone to prison himself rather than betray a
criminal, Signor Cutera, formerly chief of police in Palermo, states
that there have been many cases in Sicily where men have suffered long
terms of penal servitude and even have died in prison rather than give
information to the police.
In point of fact, however, the "Omerta" is not confined to Italians. It
is a common attribute of all who are opposed to authority of any kind,
including small boys and criminals, and with the latter arises no more
from a half chivalrous loyalty to their fellows than it does from hatred
of the police and a uniform desire to block their efforts (even if
a personal adversary should go unpunished in consequence), fear that
complaint made or assistance given to the authorities will result in
vengeance being taken upon the complainant by some comrade or relative
of the accused, distrust of the ability of the police to do anything
anyway, disgust at the delay involved, and lastly, if not chiefly, the
realization that as a witness in a court of justice the informer as a
professional criminal would have little or no standing or credence, and
in addition would, under cross-examination, be compelled to lay bare the
secrets of his unsavory past, perhaps resulting indirectly in a term
in prison for himself.* Thus may be accounted for much of the supposed
"romantic, if misguided, chivalry" of the south Italian. It is common
both to him and to the Bowery tough. The writer knew personally a
professional crook who was twice almost shot to pieces in Chatham
Square, New York City, and who persistently declined, even on his dying
bed, to give a hint of the identity of his assassins, announcing that if
he got well he "would attend to that little matter himself." Much of the
romance surrounding crime and criminals, on examination, "fades into
the light of common day"--the obvious product not of idealism, but of
well-calculated self-interest.
* Much more likely in Italy than in the United States.
As illustrating the backwardness of our Italian fellow-citizens in
coming forward when the criminality of one of their countrymen is
at stake, the last three cases of kidnapping in New York City may be
mentioned.
About a year and a half ago the little boy of Dr. Scimeca, of 2 Prince
Street, New York, was taken from his home. From outside sources the
police heard that the child had been stolen, but, although he was
receiving constant letters and telephonic communications from the
kidnappers, Dr. Scimeca would not give them any information. It is known
on pretty good authority that the sum of $10,000 was at first demanded
as a ransom, and was lowered by degrees to $5,000, $2,500, and finally
to $1,700. Dr. Scimeca at last made terms with the kidnappers, and was
told to go one evening to City Park, where he is said to have handed
$1,700 to a stranger. The child was found wandering aimlessly in the
streets next day, after a detention of nearly three months.
The second case was that of Vincenzo Sabello, a grocer of 386 Broome
Street, who lost his little boy on August 26, 1911. After thirty days he
reported the matter to the police, but shortly after tried to throw them
off the track by saying that he had been mistaken, that the boy had not
been kidnapped, and that he wished no assistance. Finally he ordered
the detectives out of his place. About a month later the child was
recovered, but not, according to reliable information, until Mr. Sabello
had handed over $2,500.
Pending the recovery of the Sabello boy, a third child was stolen from
the top floor of a house at 119 Elizabeth Street. The father, Leonardo
Quartiano, reported the disappearance, and in answer to questions stated
that he had received no letters or telephone messages. "Why should I?"
he inquired, with uplifted hands and the most guileless demeanor. "I am
poor! I am a humble fishmonger." In point of fact, Quartiano at the time
had a pocketful of blackmail letters, and after four weeks paid a good
ransom and got back his boy.
It is impossible to estimate correctly the number of Italian criminals
in America or their influence upon our police statistics; but in several
classes of crime the Italians furnish from fifteen to fifty per cent of
those convicted. In murder, assault with intent to kill, blackmail,
and extortion they head the list, as well as in certain other offences
unnecessary to describe more fully but prevalent in Naples and the
South.
Joseph Petrosino, the able and fearless officer of New York police
who was murdered in Palermo while in the service of the country of
his adoption, was, while he lived, our greatest guaranty of protection
against the Italian criminal. But Petrosino is gone. The fear of him no
longer will deter Italian ex-convicts from seeking asylum in the United
States. He once told the writer that there were five thousand Italian
ex-convicts in New York City alone, of whom he knew a large proportion
by sight and name.* Signor Ferrero, the noted historian, is reported
to have stated, on his recent visit to America, that there were thirty
thousand Italian criminals in New York City. Whatever their actual
number, there are quite enough at all events.
*Petrosino is a national hero in Italy, where he was known as "Il
Sherlock Holmes d'Italia"--"the Italian Sherlock Holmes." Many novels in
which he figures as the central character have a wide circulation there.
By far the greater portion of these criminals, whether ex-convicts or
novices, are the products or byproducts of the influence of the two
great secret societies of southern Italy. These societies and the
unorganized criminal propensity and atmosphere which they generate, are
known as the "Mala Vita."
The Mafia, a purely Sicilian product, exerts a much more obvious
influence in America than the Camorra, since the Mafia is powerful all
over Sicily, while the Camorra is practically confined to the city of
Naples and its environs. The Sicilians in America vastly outnumber the
Neapolitans. Thus in New York City for every one Camorrist you will find
seven or eight Mafiusi. But they are all essentially of a piece, and
the artificial distinction between them in Italy disappears entirely in
America.
Historically the Mafia burst from a soil fertilized by the blood of
martyred patriots, and represented the revolt of the people against all
forms of the tyrannous government of the Bourbons; but the fact remains
that, whatever its origin, the Mafia to-day is a criminal organization,
having, like the Camorra, for its ultimate object blackmail and
extortion. Its lower ranks are recruited from the scum of Palermo,
who, combining extraordinary physical courage with the lowest type of
viciousness, generally live by the same means that supports the East
Side "cadet" in New York City, and who end either in prison or on the
dissecting-table, or gradually develop into real Mafiusi and perhaps
gain some influence.
It is, in addition, an ultra-successful criminal political machine,
which, under cover of a pseudoprinciple, deals in petty crime, wholesale
blackmail, political jobbery, and the sale of elections, and may fairly
be compared to the lowest types of politico-criminal clubs or societies
in New York City. In Palmero it is made up of "gangs" of toughs and
criminals, not unlike the Camorrist gangs of Naples, but without their
organization, and is kept together by personal allegiance to some
leader. Such a leader is almost always under the patronage of a "boss"
in New York or a 'padrone' in Italy, who uses his influence to protect
the members of the gang when in legal difficulties and find them jobs
when out of work and in need of funds. Thus the "boss" can rely on the
gang's assistance in elections in return for favors at other times. Such
gangs may act in harmony or be in open hostility or conflict with one
another, but all are united as against the police, and exhibit much the
same sort of "Omerta" in Chatham Square as in Palermo. The difference
between the Mafia and Camorra and the "gangs" of New York City lies in
the fact that the latter are so much less numerous and powerful, and
bribery and corruption so much less prevalent, that they can exert no
practical influence in politics outside the Board of Aldermen, whereas
the Italian societies of the Mala Vita exert an influence everywhere--in
the Chamber of Deputies, the Cabinet, and even closer to the King. In
fact, political corruption has been and still is of a character in Italy
luckily unknown in America--not in the amounts of money paid over (which
are large enough), but in the calm and matter-of-fact attitude adopted
toward the subject in Parliament and elsewhere.
The overwhelming majority of Italian criminals in this country come from
Sicily, Calabria, Naples, and its environs. They have lived, most
of their lives, upon the ignorance, fear, and superstitions of their
fellow-countrymen. They know that so long as they confine their criminal
operations to Italians of the lower class they need have little terror
of the law, since, if need be, their victims will harbor them from the
police and perjure themselves in their defence. For the ignorant Italian
brings to this country with him the same attitude toward government
and the same distrust of the law that characterized him and his
fellow-townsmen at home, the same Omerta that makes it so difficult
to convict any Italian of a serious offence. The Italian crook is
quick-witted and soon grasps the legal situation. He finds his fellow
countrymen prospering, for they are generally a hard-working and thrifty
lot, and he proceeds to levy tribute on them just as he did in Naples or
Palermo. If they refuse his demands, stabbing or bomb-throwing show that
he has lost none of his ferocity. Where they are of the most ignorant
type he threatens them with the "evil eye," the "curse of God," or even
with sorceries. The number of Italians who can be thus terrorized is
astonishing. Of course, the mere possibility of such things argues a
state of mediaevalism. But mere mediaevalism would be comparatively
unimportant did it not supply the principal element favorable to the
growth of the Mala Vita, apprehended with so much dread by many of the
citizens of the United States.
Now, what are the phases of the Mala Vita--the Camorra, the Black Hand,
the Mafia--which are to-day observable in the United States and which
may reasonably be anticipated in the future?
In the first place, it may be safely said that of the Camorra in its
historic sense--the Camorra of the ritual, of the "Capo in Testa" and
"Capo in Trino," highly organized with a self-perpetuating body of
officers acting under a supreme head--there is no trace. Indeed, as has
already been explained, this phase of the Camorra, save in the prisons,
is practically over, even in Naples. But of the Mala Vita there is
evidence enough.
Every large city, where people exist under unwholesome conditions, has
some such phenomenon. In Palermo we have the traditional Mafia--a state
of mind, if you will, ineradicable and all-pervasive. Naples festers
with the Camorra as with a venereal disease, its whole body politic
infected with it, so that its very breath is foul and its moral eyesight
astigmatized. In Paris we find the Apache, abortive offspring of
prostitution and brutality, the twin brother of the Camorrista. In New
York there are the "gangs," composed of pimps, thugs, cheap thieves, and
hangers-on of criminals, which rise and wane in power according to the
honesty and efficiency of the police, and who, from time to time, hold
much the same relations to police captains and inspectors as the various
gangs of the Neapolitan Camorra do to commissaries and delegati of the
"Public Safety." Corresponding to these, we have the "Black Hand" gangs
among the Italian population of our largest cities. Sometimes the two
coalesce, so that in the second generation we occasionally find an
Italian, like Paul Kelly, leading a gang composed of other Italians,
Irish-Americans, and "tough guys" of all nationalities. But the genuine
Black Hander (the real Camorrist or "Mafiuoso") works alone or with two
or three of his fellow-countrymen.
Curiously enough, there is a society of criminal young men in New York
City who are almost the exact counterpart of the Apaches of Paris. They
are known by the euphonious name of "Waps" or "Jacks." These are young
Italian-Americans who allow themselves to be supported by one or two
women, almost never of their own race. These pimps affect a peculiar
cut of hair, and dress with half-turned-up velvet collar, not unlike
the old-time Camorrist, and have manners and customs of their own. They
frequent the lowest order of dance-halls, and are easily known by their
picturesque styles of dancing, of which the most popular is yclept the
"Nigger." They form one variety of the many "gangs" that infest the
city, are as quick to flash a knife as the Apaches, and, as a cult by
themselves, form an interesting sociological study.
The majority of the followers of the Mala Vita--the Black Handers--are
not actually of Italian birth, but belong to the second generation. As
children they avoid school, later haunt "pool" parlors and saloons, and
soon become infected with a desire for "easy money," which makes them
glad to follow the lead of some experienced capo maestra. To them he is
a sort of demi-god, and they readily become his clients in crime, taking
their wages in experience or whatever part of the proceeds he doles out
to them. Usually the "boss" tells them nothing of the inner workings of
his plots. They are merely instructed to deliver a letter or to blow
up a tenement. The same name is used by the Black Hander to-day for
his "assistant" or "apprentice" who actually commits a crime as that by
which he was known under the Bourbons in 1820. In those early days the
second-grade member of the Camorra was known as a picciotto. To-day the
apprentice or "helper" of the Black Hander is termed a picciott' in the
clipped dialect of the South. But the picciotto of New York is never
raised to the grade of Camorrista, since the organization of the Camorra
has never been transferred to this country. Instead he becomes in course
of time a sort of bully or bad man on his own hook, a criminal "swell,"
who does no manual labor, rarely commits a crime with his own hands, and
lives by his brain. Such a one was Micelli Palliozzi, arrested for the
kidnapping of the Scimeca and Sabello children mentioned above--a dandy
who did nothing but swagger around the Italian quarter.
Generally each capo maestra works for himself with his own handful of
followers, who may or may not enjoy his confidence, and each gang has
its own territory, held sacred by the others. The leaders all know each
other, but never trespass upon the others' preserves, and rarely attempt
to blackmail or terrorize any one but Italians. They gather around them
associates from their own part of Italy, or the sons of men whom they
have known at home. Thus for a long time Costabili was leader of the
Calabrian Camorra in New York, and held undisputed sway of the territory
south of Houston Street as far as Canal Street and from Broadway to the
East River. On September 15, last, Costabili was caught with a bomb in
his hand, and he is now doing a three-year bit up the river. Sic transit
gloria mundi!
The Italian criminal and his American offspring have a sincere contempt
for American criminal law. They are used by experience or tradition
to arbitrary police methods and prosecutions unhampered by Anglo-Saxon
rules of evidence. When the Italian crook is actually brought to the
bar of justice at home, that he will "go" is generally a foregone
conclusion. There need be no complainant in Italy. The government is
the whole thing there. But, in America, if the criminal can "reach" the
complaining witness or "call him off" he has nothing to worry about.
This he knows he can easily do through the terror of the Camorra.
And thus he knows that the chances he takes are comparatively small,
including that of conviction if he is ever tried by a jury of his
American peers, who are loath to find a man guilty whose language and
motives they are unable to understand. All this the young Camorrist is
perfectly aware of and gambles on.
One of the unique phenomena of the Mala Vita in America is the class of
Italians who are known as "men of honor." These are native Italians who
have been convicted of crime in their own country and have either
made their escape or served their terms. Some of these may have been
counterfeiters at home. They come to America either as stokers, sailors,
stewards, or stowaways, and, while they can not get passports, it is
surprising how lax the authorities are in permitting their escape. The
spirit of the Italian law is willing enough, but its fleshly enforcement
is curiously weak. Those who have money enough manage to reach France or
Holland and come over first or second-class. The main fact is that they
get here--law or no law. Once they arrive in America, they realize their
opportunities and actually start in to turn over a new leaf. They work
hard; they become honest. They may have been Camorrists or Mafiusi at
home, but they are so no longer. They are "on the level," and stay so;
only--they are "men of honor." And what is the meaning of that? Simply
that they keep their mouths, eyes, and ears shut so far as the Mala
Vita is concerned. They are not against it. They might even assist it
passively. Many of these erstwhile criminals pay through the nose for
respectability--the Camorrist after his kind, the Mafius' after his
kind. Sometimes the banker who is paying to a Camorrist is blackmailed
by a Mafius'. He straightway complains to his own bad man, who goes to
the "butter-in" and says in effect: "Here! What are you doing? Don't you
know So-and-So is under my protection?"
"Oh!" answers the Mafius'. "Is he? Well, if that is so, I'll leave him
alone--as long as he is paying for protection by somebody."
The reader will observe how the silence of "the man of honor" is not
remotely associated with the Omerta. As a rule, however, the "men of
honor" form a privileged and negatively righteous class, and are let
strictly alone by virtue of their evil past.
The number of south Italians who now occupy positions of respectability
in New York and who have criminal records on the other side would
astound even their compatriots. Even several well-known business men,
bankers, journalists, and others have been convicted of something or
other in Italy. Occasionally they have been sent to jail; more often
they have been convicted in their absence--condannati in contumacia--and
dare not return to their native land. Sometimes the offences have been
serious, others have been merely technical. At least one popular Italian
banker in New York has been convicted of murder--but the matter was
arranged at home so that he treats it in a humourous vein. Two other
bankers are fugitives from justice, and at least one editor.
To-day most of these men are really respectable citizens. Of course some
of them are a bad lot, but they are known and avoided. Yet the fact that
even the better class of Italians in New York are thoroughly familiar
with the phenomena surrounding the Mala Vita is favorable to the
spread of a certain amount of Camorrist activity. There are a number of
influential bosses, or capi maestra, who are ready to undertake almost
any kind of a job for from twenty dollars up, or on a percentage. Here
is an illustration.
A well-known Italian importer in New York City was owed the sum of three
thousand dollars by an other Italian, to whom he had loaned the money
without security and who had abused his confidence. Finding that the
debtor intended to cheat him out of the money, although he could easily
have raised the amount of the debt had he so wished, the importer sent
for a Camorrist and told him the story.
"You shall be paid," said the Camorrist.
Two weeks later the importer was summoned to a cellar on Mott Street.
The Camorrist conducted him down the stairs and opened the door.
A candle-end flaring on a barrel showed the room crowded with
rough-looking Italians and the debtor crouching in a corner. The
Camorrist motioned to the terrified victim to seat himself by the
barrel. No word was spoken and amid deathly silence the man obeyed. At
last the Camorrist turned to the importer and said:
"This man owes you three thousand dollars, I believe."
The importer nodded.
"Pay what you justly owe," ordered the Camorrist.
Slowly the reluctant debtor produced a roll of bills and counted them
out upon the barrel-head. At five hundred he stopped and looked at the
Camorrist.
"Go on!" directed the latter.
So the other, with beads of sweat on his brow, continued until he
reached the two thousand-dollar mark. Here the bills seemed exhausted.
The importer by this time began to feel a certain reticence about his
part in the matter--there might be some widows and orphans somewhere.
The bad man looked inquiringly at him, and the importer mumbled
something to the effect that he "would let it go at that." But the bad
man misunderstood what his client had said and ordered the bankrupt to
proceed. So he did proceed to pull out another thousand dollars from an
inside pocket and add it to the pile on the barrel-head.
The Camorrist nodded, picked up the money, recounted it, and removed
three hundred dollars, handing the rest to the importer.
"I have deducted the camorra," said he.
The bravos formed a line along the cellar to the door, and, as the
importer passed on his way out, each removed his hat and wished him
a buona sera. That importer certainly will never contribute toward a
society for the purpose of eradicating the "Black Hand" from the city of
New York. He says it is the greatest thing he knows.
But the genuine Camorrist or Mafius' would be highly indignant at being
called a "Black Hander." His is an ancient and honorable profession;
he is no common criminal, but a "man peculiarly sensitive in matters
of honor," who for a consideration will see that others keep their
honorable agreements.
The writer has received authoritative reports of three instances of
extortion which are probably prototypes of many other varieties. The
first is interesting because it shows a Mafius' plying his regular
business and coming here for that precise purpose. There is a large
wholesale lemon trade in New York City, and various growers in Italy
compete for it. Not long past, a well-dressed Italian of good appearance
and address rented an office in the World Building.
His name on the door bore the suffix "Agent." He was, indeed, a most
effective one, and he secured practically all the lemon business among
the Italians for his principals, for he was a famous capo ma mafia, and
his customers knew that if they did not buy from the growers under his
"protection" that something might, and very probably would, happen to
their families in or near Palermo. At any rate, few of them took any
chances in the matter, and his trip to America was a financial success.
In much the same way a notorious crook named Lupo forced all the retail
Italian grocers to buy from him, although his prices were considerably
higher than those of his competitors.
Even Americans have not been slow to avail themselves of Camorrist
methods. There is a sewing machine company which sells its machines to
Italian families on the instalment plan. A regular agent solicits the
orders, places the machines, and collects the initial dollar; but the
moment a subscriber in Mulberry Street falls in arrears his or her name
is placed on a black list, which is turned over by this enterprising
business house to a "collector," who is none other than the leading
Camorrist, "bad man," or Black Hander of the neighborhood. A knock on
the door from his fist, followed by the connotative expression on his
face, results almost uniformly in immediate payment of all that is due.
Needless to say, he gets his camorra--a good one--on the money that
otherwise might never be obtained.
It is probable that we should have this kind of thing among the Italians
in America even if the Neapolitan Camorra and the Sicilian Mafia had
never existed, for it is the precise kind of crime that seems to be
spontaneously generated among a suspicious, ignorant, and superstitious
people. The Italian is keenly alive to the dramatic, sensational, and
picturesque; he loves to intrigue, and will imagine plots against him
when none exists. If an Italian is late for a business engagement the
man with whom he has his appointment will be convinced that there is
some conspiracy afoot, even if his friend has merely been delayed by a
block on the subway. Thus, he is a good subject for any wily lago that
happens along. The Italians in America are the most thrifty of all our
immigrant citizens. In five years their deposits in the banks of New
York State amounted to over one hundred million dollars. The local
Italian crooks avail themselves of the universal fear of the vendetta,
and let it be generally known that trouble will visit the banker or
importer who does not "come across" handsomely. In most cases these
Black Handers are ex-convicts with a pretty general reputation as
"bad men." It is not necessary for them to phrase their demands. The
tradesman who is honored with a morning call from one of this gentry
does not need to be told the object of the visit. The mere presence of
the fellow is a threat; and if it is not acceded to, the front of the
building will probably be blown out by a dynamite bomb in the course of
the next six weeks--whenever the gang of which the bad man is the leader
can get around to it. And the bad man may perhaps have a still badder
man who is preying upon HIM. Very often one of these leaders or bosses
will run two or three groups, all operating at the same time. They meet
in the back rooms of saloons behind locked doors, under pretence of
wishing to play a game of zecchinetta unmolested, or in the gloaming
in the middle of a city park or undeveloped property on the outskirts.
There the different members of the gang get their orders and stations,
and perhaps a few dollars advance wages. It is naturally quite
impossible to guess the number of successful and unsuccessful attempts
at blackmail among Italians, as the amount of undiscovered crime
throughout the country at large is incomputable. No word of it
comes from the lips of the victims, who are in mortal terror of the
vendetta--of meeting some casual stranger on the street who will
significantly draw the forefinger of his right hand across his throat.
There is rather more chance to find and convict a kidnapper than a
bomb-thrower, so that, as a means of extortion, child-snatching is less
popular than the mere demand for the victim's money or his life. On
the other hand it is probably much more effective in accomplishing its
result. But America will not stand for kidnapping, and, although
the latter occurs occasionally, the number of cases is insignificant
compared with those in which dynamite is the chief factor. In 1908,
there were forty-four bomb outrages reported in New York City. There
were seventy arrests and nine convictions. During the present year
(1911) there have been about sixty bomb cases, but there have been none
since September 8, since Detective Carrao captured Rizzi, a picciott',
in the act of lighting a bomb in the hallway of a tenement house.
This case of Rizzi is an enlightening one for the student of social
conditions in New York, for Rizzi was no Orsini, not even a Guy Fawks,
nor yet was he an outlaw in his own name. He was simply a picciott'
(pronounced "pish-ot") who did what he was told in order that some other
man who did know why might carry out a threat to blow up somebody who
had refused to be blackmailed. It is practically impossible to get
inside the complicated emotions and motives that lead a man to become an
understudy in dynamiting. Rizzi probably got well paid; at any rate,
he was constantly demonstrating his fitness "to do big things in a big
way," and be received into the small company of the elect--to go forth
and blackmail on his own hook and hire some other picciott' to set off
the bombs.
Whoever the capo maestra that Rizzi worked for, he was not only
a deep-dyed villain, but a brainy one. The gang hired a store and
pretended to be engaged in the milk business. They carried the bombs in
the steel trays holding the milk bottles and cans, and, in the costume
of peaceful vendors of the lacteal fluid, they entered the tenements and
did their damage to such as failed to pay them tribute. The manner of
his capture was dramatic. A real milkman for whom Rizzi had worked
in the past was marked out for slaughter. He had been blown up twice
already. While he slept his wife heard some one moving in the hall.
Looking out through a small window, she saw the ex-employee fumble
with something and then turn out the gas on the landing. Her husband,
awakened by her exit and return, asked sleepily what the matter was.
"I saw Rizzi out in the hall," she answered. "It was funny-he put out
the light!"
In a moment the milkman was out of bed and gazing, with his wife, into
the street. They saw Rizzi come down with his tray and pass out of
sight. So did a couple of Italian detectives from Headquarters who had
been following him and now, at his very heels, watched him enter another
tenement, take a bomb from his tray, and ignite a time fuse. They caught
him with the thing alight in his hand. Meanwhile the other bomb had gone
off and blown up the milkman's tenement.
There is some ancient history in regard to these matters which ought
to be retold in the light of modern knowledge; for example, the case
of Patti, the Sicilian banker. He had a prosperous institution in which
were deposited the earnings of many Italians, poor and wealthy. Lupo's
gang got after him and demanded a large sum for "protection." But Patti
had a disinclination to give up, and refused. At the time his refusal
was attributed to high civic ideals, and he was lauded as a hero.
Anyhow, he defied the Mafia, laid in a stock of revolvers and rifles,
and rallied his friends around him. But the news got abroad that Lupo
was after Patti, and there was a run on Patti's bank. It was a big
run, and some of the depositors gesticulated and threatened--for Patti
couldn't pay it all out in a minute. Then there was some kind of a row,
and Patti and his friends (claiming that the Mafia had arrived) opened
fire, killing one man and wounding others. The newspapers praised Patti
for a brave and stalwart citizen. Maybe he was. After the smoke had
cleared away, however, he disappeared with all his depositors' money,
and now it has been discovered that the man he killed was a depositor
and not a Black Hander. The police are still looking for him.
This case seems a fairly good illustration of the endless opportunity
for wrong-doing possible in a state of society where extortion is
permitted to exist--where the laws are not enforced--where there is a
"higher" sanction than the code. Whether Patti was a good or a bad man,
he might easily have killed an enemy in revenge and got off scot-free on
the mere claim that the other was blackmailing him; just as an American
in some parts of our country can kill almost anybody and rely on being
acquitted by a jury, provided he is willing to swear that the deceased
had made improper advances to his wife.
The prevention of kidnapping, bomb-throwing, and the other allied
manifestations of the Black Hand depends entirely upon the activity
of the police--particularly the Italian detectives, who should form an
inevitable part of the force in every large city. The fact of the matter
is that we never dreamed of a real "Italian peril" (or, more accurately,
a real "Sicilian peril") until about the year 1900. Then we woke up to
what was going on--it had already gone a good way--and started in to put
an end to it. Petrosino did put an end to much of it, and at the present
time it is largely sporadic. Yet there will always be a halo about the
heads of the real Camorrists and Mafiusi--the Alfanos and the Rapis--in
the eyes of their simple-minded countrymen in the United States.
Occasionally one of these big guns arrives at an American port of entry,
coming first-class via Havre or Liverpool, having made his exit from
Italy without a passport. Then the Camorrists of New York and Brooklyn
get busy for a month or so, raising money for the boys at home and
knowing that they will reap their reward if ever they go back. The
popular method of collecting is for the principal capo maestra, or
temporary boss of Mulberry Street, to "give" a banquet at which all
"friends" must be present--at five dollars per head. No one cares to be
conspicuous by reason of his absence, and the hero returns to Italy with
a large-sized draft on Naples or Palermo.
Meanwhile the criminal driven out of his own country has but to secure
transportation to New York to find himself in a rich field for his
activities; and once he has landed and observed the demoralization often
existing from political or other reasons in our local forces of police
and our uncertain methods of administering justice (particularly where
the defendant is a foreigner), he rapidly becomes convinced that America
is not only the country of liberty but of license--to commit crime.
Most Italian crooks come to the United States not merely some time or
other, but at intervals. Practically all of the Camorrist defendants on
trial at Viterbo have been in the United States, and all will be here
soon again, after their discharge, unless steps are taken to keep them
out. Luckily, it is a fact that so much has been written in American
newspapers and periodicals in the past few years about the danger of the
Black Hand and the criminals from south Italy that the authorities on
the other side have allowed a rumor to be circulated that the climate of
South America is peculiarly adapted to persons whose lungs have become
weakened from confinement in prison. In fact, at the present time
more Italian criminals seek asylum in the Argentine than in the United
States. Theoretically, of course, as no convict can procure a passport,
none of them leave Italy at all--but that is one of the humors of
diplomacy. The approved method among the continental countries of Europe
of getting rid of their criminals is to induce them to "move on." A lot
of them keep "moving on" until they land in America.
Of course, the police should be able to cope with the Black Hand
problem, and, with a free use of Italian detectives who speak the
dialects and know their quarry, we may gradually, in the course of
fifteen years or so, see the entire disappearance of this particular
criminal phenomenon. But an ounce of prevention is worth--several tons
of cure. Petrosino claimed--not boastfully--that he could, with proper
deportation laws behind him, exterminate the Black Hand throughout the
United States in three months.
But, as far as the future is concerned, a solution of the problem
exists--a solution so simple that only a statesman could explain why
it has not been adopted long years ago. The statutes in force at Ellis
Island permit the exclusion of immigrants who have been guilty of crimes
involving moral turpitude in their native land, but do not provide for
the compulsory production of the applicants' "penal certificate" under
penalty of deportation. Every Italian emigrant is obliged to secure
a certified document from the police authorities of his native place,
giving his entire criminal record or showing that he has had none, and
without it he can not obtain a passport. For several years efforts
have been made to insert in our immigration laws a provision that every
immigrant from a country issuing such a certificate must produce
it before he can be sure of admission to the United States. If this
proposed law should be passed by Congress the exclusion of Italian
criminals would be almost automatic. But if it or some similar
provisions fails to become law, it is not too much to say that we may
well anticipate a Camorra of some sort in every locality in our country
having a large Italian population. Yet government moves slowly, and
action halts while diplomacy sagely shakes its head over the official
cigarette.
A bill amending the present law to this effect has received the
enthusiastic approval of the immigration authorities and of the
President. At first the Italian officials here and abroad expressed
themselves as heartily in sympathy with this proposed addition to
the excluded classes; but, once the bill was drawn and submitted to
Congress, some of these same officials entered violent protests against
it, on the ground that such a provision discriminated unfairly against
Italy and the other countries issuing such certificates. The result of
this has been to delay all action on the bill which is now being held in
committee. Meanwhile the Black Hander is arriving almost daily, and we
have no adequate laws to keep him out.