"BLACK-HAND" PROPAGANDA
The method followed in enlisting Antonio Schiavi into the service of
the gang affords a typical example of the cunning, watchful procedure
of the Lupo-Morello secret propaganda, which was in a fair way to
become of world-wide scope. A gang member, Giuseppe Gudo, managed to
send Schiavi to a drug store where he was sure to meet Antonio
Miloni.[7]
Schiavi tells of leaving Rio de Janeiro about February 23, 1909, on
the steamship _Gunther_, and arriving in New York in the middle of
February of the same year. While on shipboard he became acquainted
with Giuseppe Gudo, a tailor of Newark, New Jersey. After striking up
a friendly acquaintance with Gudo Schiavi says, and telling Gudo that
he was a litho-engraver, Bono sent him to the drug store of Mocito,
at No. 20 Broome Street, where Schiavi was to ask for Giuseppe
Carlino, another litho-engraver who would get employment in New York
for Schiavi.
Schiavi never met any Carlino, he says, but Gudo had spoken about him
(Schiavi), the latter learned at the drug store. Accordingly, Schiavi
continued to go to the Mocito store and remained there for a half day
at a time in the hope of meeting Gudo. He was unsuccessful in this,
though, but often met Cecala at the drug store. One day Cecala spoke
to him, Schiavi says, and suggested that with a little money he
(Schiavi) could start in a profitable business.
Cecala never said much more concerning this business venture, though,
to Schiavi, but one day Cecala made a further suggestion that Schiavi
might help a certain man learn the photo-engraving business. This man,
according to Cecala, had been in the bicycle business, but had given
up this enterprise and was looking around for employment that promised
to be more remunerative.
Finally, one day at the drug store, he was introduced to Antonio B.
Miloni by Cecala who told Schiavi that Miloni was the man of whom
Cecala had been speaking and who wanted to learn the photo-engraving
business.
Schiavi and Miloni had an extended conversation, and Schiavi agreed to
go to the home of Miloni and teach him the business. Then for about
six weeks or two months Schiavi went to the home of Miloni daily, and
taught the "Black-Hander" the essentials of the photo-engraving
business. At the end of that time, according to Schiavi, Miloni
discovered that he could proceed by himself and announced to Schiavi
that he (Miloni) had joined the photo-engravers' union.
About a year or so after this, Schiavi says he met Miloni on Third
Avenue near One Hundred and Fourteenth Street, and Miloni was on his
way home. The latter had in his possession, Schiavi says, a camera and
all the necessaries for photographing. Also, Schiavi says, Miloni took
him along to a photo-engraving supply store at No. 103 Mott Street,
where the "Black-Hander" bought several kinds of the supplies
necessary to the photo-engraving business.
Schiavi then tells of making a rendezvous of the Mocito drug store
after this incident. He met a man in the drug store by the name of
Don Ciccio (Francesco) who made the drug store a camping place. This
Don Ciccio posed as being in the real estate business and declared
that he was an agent. What manner of agent he was, Schiavi says, Don
Ciccio never made clear. This same Don Ciccio, according to Schiavi,
once asked him whether he were able to make plates for money. Schiavi
informed the real estate man that he could make the plates, but
preferred his liberty to a term in the confines of a jail. Miloni was
present during the conversation between Schiavi and Don Ciccio,
according to Schiavi, but Miloni did not enter into the conversation.
There were others who frequented the drug store and who were
identified by Schiavi as members of the gang now imprisoned on the
charges of counterfeiting.
In many ways, too numerous to relate, information of this sort came to
me until the Secret Service was facing the onerous task of digesting
and coördinating it for its special needs to keep the legal tender of
the country secure.
The subtle, round-about manner in which the "Black-Hander" scatters
the seeds of his propaganda so that they will grow and bear fruit of
themselves and disarm suspicion is well-illustrated in the way in
which the attempt was made to inveigle Schiavi.
Corleone is the home town of Morello and Lupo, the arch-plotters. It
is a place fascinating to the eye of the artist. Nestling at the foot
of Mount Cardellia, in the province of Palermo, Sicily, it lies about
two thousand feet above sea-level and seems to be sailing in the
clouds like a phantom city of the Middle Ages.
Corleone means Lion-Heart. _Korliun_ it was named by the Saracens, who
founded it and made it a military stronghold in the picturesque
thirteenth century. Something of the savage, marauding spirit of the
Saracen, always a menace to civilization, hovers about the place--a
savagery that has nursed into being a dangerous and powerful arm of
the great Mafia or "Black-Hand" Society of Italy. The town holds only
about twenty thousand inhabitants and there is no industry to speak
of. Palermo is but twenty-one miles to the north of it. There is a
splendid old church in Corleone reminiscent of the time when King
Frederick II colonized these parts with Lombardian peasants as early
as 1237.
One night in the year 1889, while on his way home, Giovanni Vella,
Chief of the Sylvan Guards, was murdered in a dark street but a short
distance from his residence in Corleone. A bullet had torn its way
through his back and into his lung. Vella lasted but a few minutes
after the shooting, but long enough to cause a nasty tangle for the
police in their effort to solve the murder. Vella lived just long
enough to utter a few remarks that were misused by Mafia influences to
send an innocent man to prison for twenty-two years.
Anna Di Puma, a neighbor, returning to her house at that hour had just
passed through a dark alley and noticed two men lurking in the shadow.
She passed close and looked into their faces, recognizing one of the
men as Giuseppe Morello, whom she knew very well.
A couple of minutes later, even before she had reached her door, she
heard a shot and ran back into the alley. There she found Vella lying
in the exact spot where she had seen Morello and his companion
apparently hiding but a few minutes previously. Anna Di Puma told the
neighbors what she had seen. She was also incautious enough to say
that she was going to court to tell on the witness stand just what
she had observed.
Anna Di Puma was shot in the back and killed two days later while she
was sitting on the door-step of a neighbor's store.
Morello was arrested and charged with the murder of the Di Puma woman.
He was held in prison to await trial, but powerful influences of the
Mafia were set to work and Morello was discharged for lack of
evidence. The only witness to the murder of Vella was dead. Two
lawyers of his band testified that Morello was in Palermo with them
and not in Corleone on the night the Di Puma woman was murdered.
Michele Guarino Zangara, living in the next apartment to Morello, who
noticed when the "Black-Hander" arrived home and overheard the
conversation that followed between Morello and his mother, was also
murdered. He was thrown off a bridge one night while on his way home.
He was found the next morning under the bridge dead. This man Zangara
had gone to the accused man's house, three or four days after the
Chief of the Sylvan Guards was murdered, and told the family of the
man unjustly arrested for the crime that he (Guarino) had overheard
Mrs. Morello say to her son:
"Peppe, what have you done? Now they will come and arrest you," and in
response to this Morello said, "Shut up, mother, they have gone on the
wrong scent."
Zangara, being a man with a large family, feared to tell what he knew
because he felt sure that Morello would murder him just as he had
slain the Di Puma woman. However, when the accused man, Francesco
Ortonello, was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, Zangara
came to the front, declaring that his conscience troubled him to see
an innocent man sent away for the murder of Vella. He went to the
authorities and told them that he was willing to risk his life and
tell the truth for Ortonello. The authorities told Zangara that it
would have been better had he told it during the trial. Now it was too
late.
A few days after this the murder of Zangara took place.
Morello was on his way to America at this time, but the "Black-Hander"
had many powerful friends still watchful for his interests, and some
of these attended to Zangara.
Pietro Milone, a police officer who tried hard to clear Ortonello, was
murdered one night on his way home. The one who slew the officer was
never punished.
Biaggia Milone lived across the way from the spot where Morello and
his companion were seen hiding, and this woman subsequently admitted
she saw the shooting and that Morello did it.
This woman is now in New York, and is the cousin of Domenico Milone,
who conducted the grocery store at No. 235 East Ninety-seventh Street,
which was the headquarters and distributing plant for the Lupo-Morello
counterfeit money. The Milone woman has even stated publicly that she
would not testify to what she knows in behalf of Ortonello in an
effort to get the old man out of prison where, she says, she knows he
is unjustly kept!
Ortonello's father, who tried to have his son freed, was threatened
with death several times, and several shots were actually fired at him
while the old man sat in his own doorway. The marksmanship was not
good and the old man escaped the bullets.
While Morello was in prison charged with murdering the Di Puma woman
he met Ortonello in the prison. Morello admitted to Ortonello that he
had murdered Vella, the chief of the Sylvan Guards, for which crime
Ortonello was there in the prison awaiting trial. Morello also
informed Ortonello that if he and all his family did not care to join
Vella in the world to come that the whole family had better be careful
of what they said and what charges they made, and that any evidence
tending to show his (Morello's) complicity in the crime must be
suppressed.
In order that the reader may view the foregoing facts in proper
perspective it will be necessary for me to relate a little of the
politics and the relation of the so-called Mafia to the murders.
Vella, the murdered chief, was a very active and knowing man. He had
dug up a great amount of evidence against the criminal band of which
Morello was a member, and which was under the leadership of a very
wealthy and powerful young man named Paolino Streva.
Vella had sworn in public that he would put this band out of business
in and around Corleone. He also had decided to place Morello under
surveillance, which means that Morello would have to be home every
night at a certain time and subject to be called at any hour of the
night by the police who would see whether he was behaving himself.
Also, Morello would be compelled to make reports of his whereabouts
and conduct and what work he was at to Vella whenever the chief should
require it.
In return for the stand Vella had taken Morello swore publicly that he
would be avenged on Vella for this punishment.
Vella also knew of the extensive criminal operations of Streva and
that Morello was Streva's trusted lieutenant. Vella knew that Streva
had a great deal of influence with judges and other public officials
and even boasted that certain senators in Rome would do his bidding.
Through this influence Streva managed to get out of prison a number of
thieves, murderers and blackguards who in turn would go to any
extremes for Streva. By crooked politics and sometimes by fear Streva
exerted a baneful influence over the community the same as his uncle
had done before him, the uncle who had handed down the wealth and
political power that the younger man enjoyed. All these things were
well known to Vella.
A further circumstance must be related here. During the latter part
of 1889, a large number of cattle had been stolen in the neighborhood
of Corleone and the country people were making many complaints. Vella
had been working on the case, and succeeded in rounding up facts and
evidence sufficient to strike a telling blow at the Streva-Morello
team and the rest of the Mafia crowd. The chief was contemplating a
raid on the gang. The Streva crowd, however, were tipped off that the
arrest orders were about to be signed.
Beyond and behind all this there was a tense political situation.
Vella's term of office was about to expire and election day was not
far off. Streva and his crowd feared Vella, but they knew that they
could not hope to beat the chief for re-election if they opposed him
with one of their own crowd.
The "Black-Handers" looked the field over and hit upon Francesco
Ortonello, who was a man of upright life and character respected by
his townsmen for miles around. Ortonello's father had been mayor of
Corleone. An uncle was the best-known priest in the southern extremity
of Sicily. Ortonello, though, had never meddled with politics, nor
with the Mafia or any other organization. He was quite content to
mind his own business and devote himself to his family. One day a
committee of influential men called on Ortonello, and after persistent
argument induced him to run for the office of Commander of the Sylvan
Guards against Vella.
This induced Vella to suspect Ortonello for being in league with the
Mafia and intent on spoiling all the good work done toward wiping out
the plundering band of which Morello was a member.
Accordingly, with some liquor in him, Vella went to Ortonello's house
and hurled the following at Ortonello, who did not understand the
political conditions that prevailed at the time:
"So, Ortonello," said Vella in a rage, "you have dropped the mask. I
never thought you were one of the Mafia's puppets. I thought you were
an honest man, but evidently I fooled myself."
This onslaught in his own house brought Ortonello to his feet. He
grabbed a gun and forced Vella to flee. Now, Ortonello's eyes were
opened. He realized that he had been duped into accepting the
candidacy against Vella. He realized that his clean record of
citizenship was to be used in order to beat Vella. He promptly went
to the authorities and notified them to cancel his name.
The Mafia was thrown into panic. The bandits knew that Vella would win
if Ortonello did not oppose him.
The very night following Ortonello's cancelling of his name for the
office, Vella was murdered.
Previously on the evening that he was shot Vella had been making merry
at the café "Stella d'Italia" with a number of public officials and
was well "under the weather," as they say, when he started for home.
He was seen to rest against a lamp-post. A neighbor offered him
assistance to his door but Vella refused.
As soon as the shooting took place there was a commotion. Vella's
wife, feeling that some such fate would befall her husband, rushed out
terror-stricken and fell prostrate across the dying chief. The
carabineers arrived and with them a crowd of people. Vella was taken
in a dying condition to his house, which became jammed with excited
neighbors. Among those present was Morello. He had hidden his gun in a
pile of rubbish at the river's edge and hurried into Vella's house to
look for developments. The hiding of the gun by Morello was testified
to at the trial of Ortonello by a man named Antonio Caronia, who, by
the way, was not murdered. He was a good shot himself, and had the
reputation of being able to mix it up with any of the Morello crowd
without much fear of the results.
The commander of the carabineers was a dear friend of Vella's and had
been dining with the chief but a few minutes before the shooting. The
commander asked Vella who shot him and the chief muttered:
"Cows, cows,--the Mafia." The chief also recited a long list of names
of the men he had been camping after in his efforts to rid the
community of the Mafia band. At this the commander of the carabineers
interrupted the dying chief, and told him he was naming too many men,
and that so many could not have done the shooting. The result, the
commander told the chief, would be that no one would suffer for the
offense. The commander then asked Vella whether he had any quarrels
recently and the chief answered:
"Yes, I quarrelled with Ortonello yesterday. He wanted to take my job
away--take the bread and butter from my wife and children--and he
threatened me with a gun."
The commander of the carabineers immediately directed his men to go
and get Ortonello and bring him to the house of the dying chief.
When Morello heard this order he smiled and departed for his home. It
was upon returning there that the conversation took place which
Zangara declared he had overheard between the "Black-Hander" and his
mother.
When the carabineers arrived with Ortonello in their custody, Vella
was in his last breaths. When asked by the commander of the
carabineers if Ortonello was the man with whom he had quarrelled on
the previous day, Vella nodded his head and fell back dead.
Another arrest followed that of Ortonello. It was that of Francesco
Orlando, who was also a candidate against Vella. Orlando was tried and
sentenced to a term of fifteen years, which he served and is now out.
Needless to say that Orlando's sympathies and activities are not
directed toward any movement favorable to the Morello crowd.
The trial of Ortonello shows the methods of the Mafia--methods that
the Lupo-Morello gang would transplant to this country in the conduct
of the trials of our courts of their criminal brethren if it could be
done by them. Morello's powerful friends brought it about so that the
two attorneys for Ortonello deserted him at the moment the case was to
go to trial so that the unfortunate Ortonello was forced to take a
young lawyer who knew little of the details of the case and who was
not sufficiently versed in the practice of courts.
But worse still, the two attorneys that deserted Ortonello on the eve
of his trial had all along advised him that his innocence was so
evident that no jury would ever convict him. It was not, therefore,
the attorneys told Ortonello, necessary to go to any great pains to
prove his innocence. The value of this advice to the Mafia crowd may
be brought out more strongly when I tell you that both of these
attorneys were betraying Ortonello and keeping Morello's friend
Streva, the powerful young leader of the Mafia, informed of every move
of Ortonello. They advised Ortonello not to bring out any evidence
that would be injurious to Streva or Morello. It would not be
necessary to do this to prove his innocence, the two attorneys told
Ortonello.
In vain Antonio Caronia testified in Ortonello's behalf that he had
seen Morello hide the gun in the pile of rubbish at the river's edge
shortly after the shooting took place. To offset this testimony of
Caronia's, the Morello crowd worked upon the police and had the gun
spirited away. Later on, it may be added here, the police official who
was responsible for the hiding of this gun at the time of Ortonello's
trial, was dismissed from the service for his conduct.
In vain did Ortonello's attorney bring out evidence that the bullet
extracted from Vella's body was much larger than the caliber of the
gun found in Ortonello's home. Testimony was admitted at the trial to
offset this. A Mafia henchman was produced who declared that the
bullet had been made larger because of hitting a bone in Vella's body
and thus flattening the missile.
In vain was it shown that a grocery wagon had been placed in front of
Ortonello's door more than an hour before the shooting and that this
wagon had to be removed before the carabineers could get admittance to
Ortonello's house when they went after him to bring him to the house
of the dying chief. In vain was it brought out at the trial that
Ortonello was in bed when the carabineers entered his room to take
him into custody. In vain was it shown that he could not have got into
the house or out of it while a grocery wagon was backed up to his door
an hour previous to the time of the shooting and was still there when
the carabineers arrived to arrest him. In vain was it shown that this
grocery wagon had been drawn up in front of Ortonello's door by the
groceryman next door who had come from Palermo that night with a large
amount of groceries, and when the mail stage was to pass, and because
the street was narrow, the groceryman backed the wagon up to the door
and left it there until he could unload his goods.
In vain did the groceryman testify that he was unloading his wagon
when the shot was fired, that he did not leave his wagon from then
until the carabineers arrived, and that Ortonello had not entered the
house nor come from it during that period. In vain was testimony given
that the grocery wagon, being backed up to the door, prevented
Ortonello from either coming out of the house or entering it.
In order to contradict the testimony of the grocer and three others
who corroborated him concerning the wagon, friends of Vella went to a
prostitute who lived in the rear of Ortonello's house and paid her
money to testify that she had seen Ortonello after the shooting climb
a rope and enter the rear window of this house. The window was forty
feet from the ground. This woman is now dead, but before her demise
she told the truth and declared that she had perjured herself for the
money given her by the commander of the carabineers. This man was very
bitter against Ortonello because he believed at the time that
Ortonello had murdered his friend Vella.
To no avail was the testimony of an expert shoe-maker who showed the
court that the footprints examined in the spot where Morello was seen
hiding by the Di Puma woman, just prior to the shooting, were not the
footprints of Ortonello nor of Orlando.
As further proof of the unfair trial suffered by Ortonello let me
relate that the commander of the carabineers was so convinced of
Ortonello's guilt, and so determined to prove a strong case against
the unfortunate Ortonello that the commander went to the house of
Biaggia Milone and frightened her by threats into testifying that she
had seen Ortonello and Orlando do the shooting, that she had seen
this from the window of her home, and that she had seen the two
surveying the ground on the previous Sunday. This is the Milone woman
whose cousin operated the grocery store in East Ninety-seventh Street,
which was the headquarters distributing plant for the Lupo-Morello
counterfeit money.
For four years Ortonello remained in prison at Palermo, where the case
should properly have been tried; but the Mafia crowd became frightened
at the public sentiment that was being aroused in behalf of Ortonello
and feared that if he were tried at Palermo, where he was so well
known, and where the truth was slowly leaking out, he would be set
free. Through the influence of Streva the case was transferred to
Messina, at the other extremity of Sicily, where Ortonello was tried
and convicted. He was sentenced to serve life imprisonment. Five of
the jurors believed him innocent.
Perhaps the reader is curious to know what became of Paolino Streva,
the young and powerful leader of the Mafia of that time, the protector
and patron of Morello. His fate will probably serve as a warning and
please the reader. He is missing from the vicinity of Corleone for
some time past. He quarrelled with Bernardo Verro, the very popular
leader of the Socialist party in Corleone, and caused Verro to be
shot. The shooting was inaccurate, though, and Verro recovered. Then
the friends of Verro thought they would do a little shooting of their
own, and they attempted to hit Streva on three different occasions,
but were unsuccessful. Then Verro's friends went after Streva still
more effectively. They burned down his house and barns and destroyed
his farm lands. Streva suddenly disappeared and his whereabouts are
not known.
As for Morello, he is safely lodged in the Atlanta Federal Prison on a
sentence of twenty-five years for counterfeiting. He is, however, no
longer in danger of being prosecuted for the murder of Vella because
the Italian Code provides that a man cannot be tried for a crime when
twenty years have expired after the committing of the felony.
As for Ortonello and his family I can state that his wife and children
are now in New York and prospering. The old man himself, I am happy to
state, is free through friendly influences I have succeeded in
bringing to bear on his case. He has taken a new grip on life since
the day of his release, even though he is broken in body and weighted
with years, showing plainly the terrible suffering of his twenty-three
years of unmerited prison life. His spirit is revived and his mind is
clear. He prays for me and mine.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] Miloni was Treasurer of the Ignatz Florio Co-Operative
Association. He was indicted and confessed. He is now in Italy a
fugitive from justice.