HOW THE MAFIA MET THE NEEDS OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Setting aside moral considerations, my definition of the criminal association that the American press calls Mafia would be the following: the convergence of Italian vitality (audacity and creativity) with the needs and the means of a rich country such as America.

A few days ago at dinner with a small group of acquaintances we started discussing this very hot topic: in addition to yours truly, the others were a journalist from Italy, an Italian diplomat, an importer of Italian foods and two ladies whose contribution to the conversation was exclusively their grace and beauty. It is rather interesting how the arrest of Italian gangsters during a business meeting in the town of Apalachin, in Upstate New York, generated an unprecedented flurry of comments and reactions in the Italian community. Some Italian Americans have even gone as far as writing letters to newspapers complaining about alleged insinuations made against their community by some of the commentaries. Until now it seemed to me that Italian Americans barely noticed and barely worried about what was being said and written about them. The books that have been published on the topic of organized crime did not become best sellers in the Italian American communities; and even books that celebrate Italian American success stories, some of which contain historical exaggerations, have been barely noticed. Occasionally, from time to time there are complaints when a movie comes out portraying gangsters with Italian names. However, I have never read an analysis or a refutation of the criminal activities that have been regularly reported in newspapers and books, including those that are mentioned in the Kefauver congressional inquiry. And no denunciations either. My observation is that Italian Americans have been defensive; always sensitive to the offense of an Italian name used in a movie, but never eager to understand and fight this internal problem. The outcome is that the American public opinion by now is convinced that there is a connection between some specific forms of criminality and the Italian origin of many citizens. No one, so far as I know, has given a convincing rebuttal to this opinion.

In the course of the evening I noticed that we were served the inevitable dish of pasta and a few bottles of wine from an august Italian winery—long defunct—whose name is still being used in the United States. This is not uncommon: many relics of the European past are still present here, like specimens in the glass cases of a museum. During the course of our animated conversation (not so Italian though that we would keep interrupting each other) I was able to form an opinion on several points that I am going to expose to the Italian public.

First of all, Mafia, be it in New York or in the United States, does not exist in the form of a true association. The Kefauver investigation uses the name in generic terms to indicate groups of criminals from the same hometowns and on the margin of American society. No proof has been presented that it is an all-encompassing federation of gangsters. In contrast to this, we all agreed that there is such a thing as a Mafioso mentality that is observable in the protagonists of several recent famous criminal cases. The same mentality is also widely present in a large part of the Italian communities in the United States. With this I don’t mean that the Italian communities are composed of gangsters. Rather, I claim that they have tolerated the existence of these gangsters whose activities are well known to the Italian-language press published in this country and to Italian American politicians who have never done anything to denounce the bosses and their methods while they were expanding their reach into the communities with banquets, formal dances and parades. Someone also mentioned that organized crime supports politicians and their electoral campaigns, rallies and charities. One of us made a useful distinction between two kinds of gangsters: those imported from Italy and those who grow up locally. In the Apalachin dragnet, the Mafiosi were all between forty and sixty-five years old. Their specialties were the protection racket of small grocery stores; ballot stuffing in elections; and, more recently, trade-union activities of extortion against entrepreneurs. One of the emblematic representatives of this cohort was a certain Giuseppe Profaci,[1] a distributor of counterfeit olive oil. The natives, meanwhile, have a different mind set and, so to speak, a different education and vision. Their model is Frank Costello, who has a wide range of interests that reach into California and New Orleans. He still uses the old provincial gangsters as soldiers but he has a very sharp financial mind and good political connections on a national scale. This kind of Mafioso has greater familiarity with the American culture and lifestyle, knows how to push the right buttons and is de-facto perfectly assimilated into the forces of American capitalism.

It is also important to mention another set of facts that the defenders of Italian Americans often point to, namely the responsibility that capitalist, protestant, Anglo-Saxon America has had in the development of this particular kind of Italian entrepreneurial spirit. It is not enough to say that before the arrival of the large mass of Italian immigrants America already had several criminal organizations composed of Anglo-Saxons, Irish and Jews; and that these were very active with extortions, murders, robberies and other crimes. In fact, the responsibility of America is even deeper. We should not forget that when Italian immigrants were brought here to replace the recently-emancipated slaves they were kept on the outside of mainstream American society; with no educational opportunities, no support and not even charity. They were left to fend for themselves without protection in the hands of a very corrupt Italian leadership made of bankers that stole their money; demagogues; extortionists and exploiters. This class of people dominated the communities for decade and controlled an unreliable, corrupt Italian-language press. All these aspects are mentioned in the reports made by visitors from Italy between 1880 and 1900. The self-appointed community leaders took advantage of the immigrants’ ignorance and prepared the terrain for the low-level criminals who later evolved into today’s high-flying Mafiosi. An additional observation concerns the split between American legislation and its prohibitions against alcohol, gambling and prostitution on one side; and, on the other side, an enormous market willing to pay for these very vices. Without these prohibitions Italian criminal activities would not have been possible. Leaving aside for a moment the hypocritical posturing of laws that are systematically violated, we must recognize that entrepreneurial and often ingenious Italian criminals had a very important function in American society. There was a vacuum to be filled and they filled it. Thus, I wasn’t surprised when one of us said that he was more proud to be from the same town of Frank Costello than from that of a cobbler who made a pair of ornate slippers and sent them to President Eisenhower as a gift.

One of our dinner companions recalled that when Italians first arrived the only education they received was the violence they suffered at the hand of the Irish under the indifferent glance of policemen who also were Irish. How can one blame the poor Italian who pulled a knife to defend himself? These people actually saw the Mafia as a badly needed protector. Today the treatment of the new immigrants who are coming to America is very different, as can be seen in the case of Puerto Ricans who, when they arrive, find schools, social workers and religious institutions eager to help them settle in the new environment and get an education. The press is full of stories that focus on the positive aspects of their presence, contrary of what happened in the decades after 1880 when newspapers were full of insults against Italians. Yet, even with social support, these communities lack a leadership class that can provide role models and guidance and they are beginning to show the initial signs of the formation of criminal organizations commonly found among immigrants uprooted from their native countries for economical reasons. Today it is Puerto Ricans who pull out their knives. The ascent of Puerto Ricans in trades and professions, preceded by thirty years of American presence in the island, is being helped in many ways. They have two newspapers where they can debate their issues and at least fifty movie theaters. On Broadway one of the greatest hits in recent history was West Side Story,[2] the moving tale of a young Puerto Rican woman who in the end marries an American man. Seventy years ago Broadway would have never produced similar stories about poor Italians.

Today’s America is different. The America of the past had the immigrants she deserved. As I said before, the large majority of Italian Americans is composed of honest, tenacious, patient people. Some of them are ingenious businessmen and entrepreneurs. Their only fault is that they never joined the American press in denouncing and fighting the gangsters in their midst, the very people who exploited the Italian community for decades and that still today, even in their old age, still manage to give it a generally negative reputation.