The Barrel Mystery

  CHAPTER III

  ORGANIZED TERRORISM

  From what has been related so far, I presume the reader may gain someidea of the dangerous type of men whom I refer to as members of theBlack-Hand Society.

  You are now familiar with the kind of punishment meted out to one whomthe gang suspects of having betrayed a member. You have also beenacquainted with the Sicilian custom of revenge by way of an actualexample showing how the slayer of the man in the barrel came to hisend in a manner that is as certain as daylight follows darkness. It isthe racial idea of the antique Hebrew law, "An eye for an eye and atooth for a tooth." The Sicilian "vendetta" demands a life for a life.You may have noted further that the police of New York and themachinery of the law failed to track down the slayer of the man in thebarrel. A circumstance that makes it singularly difficult for theauthorities to cope with this type of criminals is that the Siciliandoes not ask the police for help when a member of his family ismurdered. He keeps it quiet. And as quietly a blood relative of theslain person assumes the responsibility which we Americans place onthe police and the courts. The end of Petto, the Ox, shows exactlywhat happens when individual vengeance succeeds in place of justicemeted out by a court of law.

  The reader will remember that when the criminal band, which the policerounded up in connection with the barrel murder, were turned out bythe police magistrate, because there was insufficient evidence to holdthem for the murder of Benedetto, the suspects dropped out of sight asfar as the police of New York were concerned.

  The Secret Service kept its eagle eye on them, however. Every suspectwas carefully "shadowed" by a special operative. We expected that theywould gravitate back to their haunts, and they did. We spotted them insuch places as the cafe of Pietro Inzarillo, at No. 226 ElizabethStreet, and in the dark, little Italian grocery shop of Ignazio Lupo,at No. 8 Prince Street, which is just around the corner fromInzarillo's place. We also located suspects loafing around the dingy,garlic-smelling restaurant of Giuseppe Morello, tucked away in therear of Lupo's grocery shop, like an evil thing afraid of the light ofday.

  Criminals wanted by Uncle Sam are not suffered to drop from the sightof the Secret Service. Members of this gang were busy in thecounterfeit money line. The government was necessarily interested infollowing their movements. Consequently I stayed right on the job withmy men at trailing and spotting the suspects. After a while I had inmy possession quite a neat bundle of facts that gradually disclosed tous the impulse and the motives behind this crime-hardened gang of men.I say without the slightest hesitation that the basic, underlyingmotive of these men is a fierce and uncompromising _passion to getrich quick_. That is what makes them murderous criminals. It is thesame get-rich-quick impulse that we find among unscrupulous businessmen and gamblers, but it is of a much more dangerous caliber andpregnant with every sinister motive to the most horrible and debasedforms of crime. It is true that the "Black-Handers" got a pretty goodstart in this country before the authorities were alive to the danger,but it is also true that the Secret Service did finally succeed inrounding up the leaders and their henchmen, reducing the nefariousoperations to a minimum. Had this not been done just about the time itwas actually done, the "Black-Hand" Society would have increased itsstranglehold upon the population to a point where the police might nothave been able to guarantee the personal safety of the citizens. Evenat the present time, when the authorities may be said to have thesituation well in hand, the danger of renewed "Black-Hand" activitiesby other groups would not be removed if the Secret Service were torelax its vigilance for ever so short a time. The threat ofBolshevism, already flaring upon the horizon, as a menacing torch overmurder-maddened mobs defying law and order, would be a welcomebrother. In the chaos created, if the Red Bolsheviks should eversucceed in demoralizing this country, the malefactors of the"Black-Hand" Society would thrive as maggots in a cheese. A mixedbrand of terrorism would soon show its evil head, a mixed brand thatwould bring every decent citizen to shudder at the mention of BLACKBOLSHEVISM.

  In looking into the motives of the men who represented the SicilianMafia, or "Black-Hand" Society, in this country, I was fortunate toelucidate not a few particulars that go to show how these criminalsactually operate.

  The Black-Handers here would terrorize their less courageouscountrymen from the provinces of Southern Italy. They had been at thisform of blackmail for some years. Lupo and Morello were the leaders.The money obtained by blackmail and threats of various kinds wasdivided among a few men, but most of the funds went to Lupo andMorello. As fast as Morello got money he would farm it out byacquiring a barber shop or set up a man in a shoe repairing shop. Healso invested in several Italian restaurants. Lupo was in the habit ofputting his money into Italian grocery stores. He soon became one ofthe greatest importers of olive oil and Italian lemons in New YorkCity. It is known that more than $200,000 was accumulated by the twoleaders in a few years. This estimate is based on testimony submittedby people who have complained since of the way in which they wereterrorized.

  Lupo and Morello were an ideal combination to force leadership uponthe "Black-Handers" in this country. Morello was the rough, bearishand hairy-looking monster, cruel as a fiend, and always unshaven. Lupowas the well-dressed, soft-spoken, slick-looking "gent" of pretendedrefinement. He, too, was cruel and heartless. Lupo was the businessman of the two. Morello had in his make-up more of the cunning of theborn criminal. He was cautious like the fox and ferocious like amaddened bull. Lupo was always suggesting new business ways for theinvesting of the blackmail money. To Lupo's scheming brain can also betraced the proposition to build a tenement house with such funds as heand Morello could spare from the various barber shops and theimporting ventures in which they were interested.

  They built one tenement house and sold it at a profit. They builtseveral other tenement houses and likewise sold these at a profit.Every time they would take the money and reinvest in more buildings.It was also at Lupo's suggestion that a scheme was concocted to forman association for building purposes with the object of selling stockin the association to Italians from Southern Italy only andexclusively. The association was called the Ignatz Florio Associationof Corleone.

  The main purpose of this association was to accumulate sufficientfunds to erect two rows of Italian tenements in One Hundred andThirty-seventh Street and One Hundred and Thirty-eighth Street andCypress Avenue, in the Bronx. Stock in the association was placed onsale for three dollars and five dollars per share. When the dividendscame due, payment was made or the dividend turned over to the accountof the holder of the stock. The tenements went up in quick succession.

  Lupo and Morello finally succeeded in getting the control of theassociation entirely in their own hands. They used the funds todevelop their business ventures, Morello specializing in barber andshoe shops, Lupo sticking to his olive oil importing enterprise. Someof the contractors who put up the tenements were paid, and some werenot. Those who had furnished materials for the buildings received somemanner of payment, but there were several who got nothing. Law suitsbegan to threaten the two leaders. The holders of the stock began toinquire rather insistently about dividends.

  At this juncture, Lupo and Morello stuck their heads together andhatched a deep-dyed scheme for making counterfeit money. They wouldestablish a large counterfeiting plant. They would take thecounterfeit stuff and give it to the stockholders in the association.For every thirty-five cents which the association owed to a holder ofstock Morello and Lupo would give one full dollar in counterfeitmoney. The person receiving the counterfeit money would be obliged todispose of it according to the directions given by Lupo and Morello,who held themselves competent to instruct the members of theassociation so that the bad money could be disposed of without risk ofarrest. This counterfeiting scheme was hatched in the summer of 1908in the rear of Morello's evil-smelling, dingy little spaghetti joint.