The Black Hand
Page 30
“Their fondness for each other”: Albany Evening Journal, September 13, 1913.
Big Tim perfumed the ballots: Werner, Tammany Hall, p. 439.
“He does not know enough”: Pozzetta, “The Italians in New York City, 1890–1914,” p. 208.
“My headquarters”: Theodore Bingham, “The Organized Criminals of New York,” McClure’s, November 1909.
Many evenings: The account of Petrosino’s courtship of Adelina Saulino comes from an interview with their granddaughter Susan Burke and from Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 71.
“Waiting made him extremely nervous”: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 70.
9. “THE TERROR OF HURTFUL PEOPLE”
Vincenzo Sellaro was afraid: For Sellaro’s story, see Pitkin, The Black Hand, p. 60; New York Times, September 2, 1905. For his background, see the website of the Order of the Sons of Italy for a biography of its founder and his New York Times obituary, November 30, 1932.
“THE CHAMPIONS OF THE BLACK HAND”: New York Times, September 2, 1905.
“It became”: Undated article from the Baltimore Sun, Petrosino newspaper archive.
“We hear a great deal”: Gino Speranza, “Solving the Immigration Problem,” Outlook 76 (April 16, 1904): 928.
“certain labor camps”: Gino Speranza, “How It Feels to Be a Problem,” Charities Magazine, May 1904.
The young lawyer: For Corrao’s story, see the New York Tribune, September 4, 1908, and March 14, 1909; and Moses, An Unlikely Union, pp. 138–52.
In March 1907: For the story of Enrico Alfano’s escape from Italy, see the New York Times, April 22, 1907.
“The Northern Italian”: Hess, Mafia and Mafiosi, p. 34.
“With the ability of a genius”: Quoted ibid., p. 70.
the morning of June 6, 1906: The account of the murder and investigation is taken from Walter Littlefield, “The Neapolitan Camorra and the Great Trial at Viterbo,” Metropolitan Magazine 34, no. 4 (July 1911): 405–19.
The detective’s informers: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 23, 1907.
“Then, on April 17”: For the account of Alfano’s capture, see the New York Evening World, April 29, 1927.
After seventeen months: For an account of the trial, see “Camorrist Leaders Get 30-Year Terms,” New York Times, July 9, 1912.
“the terror of hurtful people”: The phrase is contained in a letter written to Commissioner Bingham, William Bishop Yale Papers, Petrosino archive.
“If the courts”: Gaudioso, “The Detective in the Derby,” p. 12.
“the night stick cure”: Detroit Free Press, February 3, 1908.
Petrosino even disguised himself: Comito confession, p. 69.
“The gangsters who had dealings”: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 31.
“This way you’ll remember”: Ibid.
Before the suspect left: Ibid., p. 120.
“Guns flashed”: Carey, Memoirs of a Murder Man, p. 6.
“leaped on them”: Lincoln Steffens, The Autobiography of Lincoln Steffens(New York: Heyday, 1931), p. 277.
“knocked out more teeth”: James Lardner and Thomas Reppetto, NYPD: A City and Its Police (New York: Macmillan, 2001), p. 129.
“had scars”: Corradini, Joe Petrosino, p. 63.
A suspect named Giamio: This account comes from an unattributed clipping in the Petrosino newspaper archive.
“easily the most pretentious”: Quoted in Dash, The First Family, p. 99.
“attacking their credit”: Parkhurst, “The Perils of Petrosino,” part 2.
One afternoon: For the story of Lupo’s beating, see the New York Times, March 17, 1909.
One prominent politician: The story is told in Pitkin, The Black Hand, p. 118.
10. ONCE TO BE BORN, ONCE TO DIE
“more furious”: Corradini, Joe Petrosino, p. 63, quoting Luigi Barzini.
Bozzuffi was a self-made man: For Bozzuffi’s case, see primarily the New York Times, March 25, 1906, but also March 8, 1906.
In Brooklyn: For Francesco Abate’s story, see the Los Angeles Times, March 5, 1909.
“blossomed forth”: “Black Hand Chief Slain by Men He Sought to Trap,” New York Evening World, March 4, 1909.
One immigrant: Both stories in the paragraph are from unattributed clippings in the Petrosino newspaper archive.
Giovanni Barberri: This account is from the New York Times, May 7, 1905.
Two days later: This account is from the Atlanta Constitution, July 7, 1905.
a Chicago group: For Big Jim Colosimo, see Luciano Iorizzio and Salvatore Mondello, “Origins of Italian-American Criminality,”Italian Americana 1 (Spring 1975): 219.
11. “WAR WITHOUT QUARTER”
On December 28, 1907: This account is from the New York Times, December 29, 1907.
“independent malefactors”: Quoted in White, “How the United States Fosters the Black Hand.”
“Specialists” were often imported: Nelli, The Business of Crime, p. 77.
“spoke sneeringly”: Pitkin, The Black Hand, p. 73.
Their oaths were sworn: Toronto Globe, September 26, 1908.
by how they killed: New York Tribune, May 27, 1906.
A body found: White, “The Passing of the Black Hand.”
If a victim: Parkhurst, “The Perils of Petrosino,” part 3.
the troppa bircca: Ibid.
One Manhattan gang: New York Times, July 29, 1904.
One Society gang: Fiaschetti, You Gotta Be Rough, p. 18.
“There was a killing”: Washington Post, January 26, 1907.
In August: New York Times, August 31, 1907.
In December: New York Times, December 29, 1907.
“New York is experiencing”: Chicago Daily Tribune, July 30, 1907.
“They have no imagination”: Radin, “Detective in a Derby Hat.”
a story he was: The story is told in the New York World, March 13, 1909.
“rapid deportation of Italians”: Pozzetta, “The Italians in New York City, 1890–1914,” p. 210.
“I want the police”: New York Evening World, August 21, 1907.
“Now don’t think”: Baltimore Sun, February 7, 1908.
On August 18, 1907: Chicago Daily Tribune, August 18, 1907.
“filled with a feeling”: Detroit Free Press, November 24, 1908.
“The Sicilian is bloodthirsty man”: New York Times, April 18, 1907.
At the appointed hour: For the formation of the White Hand, see the Chicago Daily Tribune, November 29, 1907, and September 24, 1908, among other reports from the era; Nelli, The Business of Crime, pp. 94–95; and The Italian White Hand Society in Chicago, Illinois: Studies, Actions and Results (Chicago: Italia, 1908).
“War without truce”: Nelli, The Business of Crime, p. 94.
“a pack of criminals”: The Italian White Hand Society in Chicago, p. 23.
The two sides met: New York Times, December 10, 1907.
In “Helltown”: The best account of Frank Dimaio’s operation is in the Cincinnati Enquirer, July 29, 1909.
a “big and fiery”: Chicago Daily Tribune, February 7, 1908.
“open up”: “An Impatient Correspondent,” New York Tribune, February 24, 1908.
12. BACKLASH
“You too must be”: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 71.
“MULBERRY STREET”: New York Evening Sun, January 8, 1908.
“Joe was snowed under”: Ibid.
“The Bomb Zone”: New York Times, November 30, 1909.
“most of the Italians”: New York Tribune, May 30, 1904.
“official roof tree”: New York Times, March 2, 1908.
February 5: Baltimore Sun, February 5, 1908.
February 20: New York Times, February 21, 1908.
March 1: Ibid., March 2, 1908.
May 23: New York Evening Herald, May 26, 1908.
December 9: Boston Daily Globe, December 10, 1908.
“Inspector of Combustibles”: Unattributed clipping, April 21, 1908, Petrosino newspaper archive.
In July: Baltimore Sun, July 15, 1908.
Half the town: New York Times, February 6, 1908.
In Rockland County, New York: New York Tribune, March 10, 1908.
In Greensburg, Pennsylvania: New York Times, January 8, 1904.
A surgeon: See the Cincinnati Enquirer, October 30, 1908, and the Washington Post of the same date.
“The supreme council”: Nelli, The Business of Crime, p. 94.
“1,000 detectives”: Chicago Daily Tribune, November 9, 1907.
Trivisonno was named: Ibid., January 1, 1908.
“Never before”: Ibid., February 23, 1908.
In December: Detroit Free Press, December 14, 1908.
“from the ‘general obloquy’”: New York Tribune, February 7, 1908.
the New York Tribune weighed in: Editorial, Ibid., March 9, 1908.
In mid-January: Washington Post, January 19, 1908.
When a Black Hand member: Chicago Daily Tribune, November 18, 1908.
“Italians are being terrorized”: Washington Post, February 4, 1908.
“driven from the town”: Austin Statesman, April 18, 1908.
“verging on a nervous breakdown”: Atlanta Constitution, April 2, 1908.
“I am not afraid”: Cincinnati Enquirer, April 13, 1908.
“Praise for Mr. Rockefeller”: New York Times, January 26, 1908.
“no mercy shown”: The Reverend A. H. Barr quoted in the Detroit Free Press, November 24, 1908.
“It is sometimes wiser”: “Does the South Want Them?” Nashville American, May 14, 1906.
“in every possible manner”: Quoted in Hearings Before Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, Sixty-First Congress (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1910), p. 86.
“now under way”: Pittsburgh Post, November 6, 1908.
“Black Hand scrapbooks”: Ibid.
“Unless the Black Hand”: San Francisco Call, March 22, 1908.
“a state of mind”: New York Tribune, August 23, 1908.
“The trouble all along”: Detroit Free Press, February 13, 1908.
“Murder, assault, and robbery of”: Quoted in Moses, An Unlikely Union, p. 138.
“LIVES OF 10,000”: New York Evening Herald, May 26, 1908.
2,500 arrests: New York Times, July 8, 1908.
“Send him to the chair”: Brooklyn Eagle, July 27, 1908.
“should be classified”: Ibid., March 15, 1909.
“Let the letter ‘K’ ”: Quoted in Current Literature, May 1909, p. 480.
13. A SECRET SERVICE
“He was so happy”: Letter from Mary March Phillips, condolences file, Petrosino archive.
“had begun to acquire”: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 110.
“You ask me”: New York Sun, February 7, 1908.
“the police force itself”: Theodore Bingham, “Foreign Criminals in New York,” North American Review (September 1908): 383–94.
“Thanks to the carelessness”: New York Times, April 2, 1908.
“If Mr. Bingham uses”: New York Evening Journal, March 19, 1909.
“The fact [is]”: Nashville American, October 18, 1908.
“go kiss yourself goodbye”: Atlanta Constitution, November 12, 1908.
“I am the Police Commissioner”: Quoted in Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 69.
“You must admit”: Ibid., p. 108.
“There are two places”: New York Times, March 5, 1908.
“It would surprise”: Pitkin, The Black Hand, p. 90.
“This Black Hand business”: Undated article, Petrosino newspaper archive.
“subservient to controlling”: New York Times, September 2, 1908.
“There was an attempt”: Ibid., January 13, 1909.
“one man, not an Italian”: New York Tribune, February 20, 1909.
“dam the noxious”: White, “The Black Hand in Control.”
“probably the most ambitious”: Pitkin, The Black Hand, p. 110.
“Joe, you may be safe”: New York Tribune, March 14, 1909.
“Do not go”: New York Times, April 13, 1909.
“I told him”: Ibid., March 14, 1909.
“Uncle Joe!”: Interview with Susan Burke.
“He had the key”: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 119.
“worst of moods”: Ibid.
Around this time: This account is drawn from Comito confession, pp. 69–71.
14. THE GENTLEMAN
“We spent so many”: Condolences file, Petrosino archive.
Sicily had been: This account of the Mafia’s beginnings is drawn from Hess, Mafia and Mafiosi, pp. 15–32; and Lupo, History of the Mafia, pp. ix–8.
As a young man: Cascio Ferro’s early career is drawn from Hess, Mafia and Mafiosi, pp. 44–48; Corradini, Joe Petrosino, pp. 139–44; and Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, pp. 90–101.
“Don Vito”: Luigi Barzini, quoted in Corradini, Joe Petrosino, p. 143.
“His face was impassive”: Carlo Levi, Words Are Stones: Impressions of Sicily (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1958), quoted in Lupo, History of the Mafia, p. xi.
“His behavior is bold”: Quoted in Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 97.
“stop going to Holy Communion”: Ibid.
“I know who you are”: Ibid., p. 121.
“You know the Italian people”: Ewen, Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars, p. 234.
“I’ve seen St. Peter’s”: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 129.
“My name is Petrosino” : Ibid., p. 130.
“I was able to meet”: Ibid., p. 131.
an old family friend: This account comes from Corradini, Joe Petrosino, pp. 77–78.
“It was sufficient”: Quoted ibid., p. 118.
He hadn’t seen his younger brother: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 131.
15. IN SICILY
Petrosino reached Palermo: The account of Petrosino’s time in Sicily is drawn from Corradini, Joe Petrosino; Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, pp. 133–45; and the many pieces on Petrosino in the New York Times, New York Sun, and New York Tribune from March 14 to April 30, 1909.
“My dearest wife”: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 136.
“Dear Sir”: Ibid.
“I saw at once”: Ibid., p. 139.
“Thank you”: Ibid., p. 140.
“the most dangerous”: Ibid., p. 141.
“This man is Petrosino”: For the various reports on those who would harm Petrosino, see Corradini, Joe Petrosino, pp. 116–37.
In Via Salvatore Vico: Ibid., p. 152.
Another informant: From an anonymous letter quoted ibid.
“I Lo Baido”: Ibid., p. 119.
Assassins in each: Ibid., p. 263.
And what of Vito Cascio Ferro: For Cascio Ferro’s movements, see ibid., pp. 123–25.
“Vito Ferro . . . dreaded criminal”: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 145.
“which he could not miss” : Corradini, Joe Petrosino, p. 66. The source reads “despite any reason,” but this is clearly a problem with the translation.
“person of confidence”: Ibid., p. 123.
a pair of mines: Ibid., p. 68.
PETROSINO KILLED: Pettaco, Joe Petrosino, p. 154.
16. BLACK HORSES
“Cannot you say something”: New York Times, March 14, 1909.
“È morto”: Ibid.
“The news”: New York Tribune, March 14, 1909.
“Bravo!”: Detroit Free Press, March 19, 1909.
“I feel deeply”: Unidentified clipping, Petrosino newspaper archive.
“He was always . . . gentle”: Quoted in Corradini, Joe Petrosino, p. 76.
“The Black Hand have”: New York Sun, March 15, 1909.
“It is time”: Report from Bishop to the Department of State, February 5, 1910, Petrosino archive.
“human butchers”: New York Times, August 9, 1909.
“Let us not be”: The Survey, April 3, 1909.
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bsp; “It is not too late”: “Petrosino—The Lesson,” undated editorial from the New York World, Petrosino newspaper archive.
Bingham and the mayor: New York Sun, March 16, 1909.
immediately dispatched agents: The Secret Service would turn up various suspects but never obtained a conviction. See “Petrosino’s Slayer Working as a Miner,” New York Times, January 9, 1910.
“that [Petrosino’s] cowardly assassins”: New York Sun, March 17, 1909.
In Albany: Undated clipping, possibly from the New York Herald, Petrosino newspaper archive.
The New York American: Undated clipping, Petrosino newspaper archive.
“splendid service”: Ibid.
“The raids”: New York Sun, April 4, 1909.
“knowledge of the recent assassination”: Boston Daily Globe, March 15, 1909.
“calamitous for Italian-Americans”: Gambino, Blood of My Blood, p. 261.
“I wish to pay tribute”: Undated clipping, Petrosino newspaper archive.
“SICILY RISES AGAINST MAFIA”: New York Globe, March 19, 1909.
“The king believes”: Washington Post, March 20, 1909.
In Palermo: For the story of the coffin, see the New York World, March 19, 1909.
The coffin was then brought: For an account of the Palermo funeral, see Corradini, Joe Petrosino, pp. 88–95.
His life was threatened: Ibid., p. 130.
President Taft had requested: Police Chronicle, May 8, 1909.
“As the last notes”: Unattributed clipping, Petrosino newspaper archive.
Professor Giacento Vetere: Ibid.
Candles burned: The description of the wake comes mostly from the Petrosino newspaper archive, which contains dozens of articles on the proceedings, most of them without any reference to the newspaper or date.
declared the American Israelite: American Israelite, May 9, 1901.
George M. Cohan: New York Times, May 3, 1909.
“It is hard”: Catholic Times, April 13, 1909.
“manly gravitas”: All the quoted letters are from the condolences file, Petrosino archive.
On the day: The account of the funeral is taken from numerous articles in the New York dailies, including the New York Times, April 11 and 13, 1909; the New York Herald, World, and Sun, April 13, 1909; and in Radin, “Detective in a Derby Hat.”