A Different Look at the Mafia – Meaning, Etymology, and Lost Facts

• Introduction
• Islands
• Some Preliminary Definitions
• Beauty
• The Mafia as Accused of Organized Criminality
• Counterview: The Mafia is neither Organized nor Criminal
• The Mafia as Robin Hood
• Aut Lex aut Vis
• Discrimination against Sicilians?
• Humour – Intentional or Not
• A Night on the Town in a Little Italy
• Anecdotal Information
• Conclusions
• Summation Argument
• Bibliographical Supplement
• Unintegrated Material

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Introduction

For some reason, maybe to know the etymology of the word, I had looked up the word “Mafia” in two of my dictionaries on the weekend prior to starting this article. The first definition surprised me greatly; it is just that it be both shared and commented upon, as will be some of the others.

What the reader will not find is descriptions of acts which might be considered inappropiate for sensitive people. On the one hand, even if this writer would agree to include them, many web sites at the time of this writing disapprove of such material. On the other hand, as the conclusion will show, even if such acts might have been carried out by the group which the public denominates “The Mafia”, it is, up to the point that the author has investigated the topic, reasonable to assert that a good lawyer would, as in the past, be able to exonerate the accused. The blame should be placed elsewhere.

The article, among other sections will, near the beginning, argue for the traditional view – that it is a society of men who do bad things, headed by someone at the top. Then, arguing for the defence, as it were, we will show a completely opposite view, prior to giving this author’s interpretation of some material included herein, which could be considered unfavorable to whatever the Mafia may be, but need not be so.

Anecdotal material is also included from the author’s own life – it is not much, but helps to flesh out the arguments.

The part about “lost facts” in the title may be ambiguous – it best means, “facts unknown to the great majority”.

Footnotes are interactive – one may click on the numbers to access the sources and other details.

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Islands

Mafia was the former name of an island of Vanuatu. It is now known as Mavia Island.¹ However, a German not aware of the English pronunciation of the letter “v” would still say “Mafia”. A web search for this particular island be unsuccessful, although you will find our next tropical isle that way. If using Wikipedia, one must use the spelling “Mavea”.

Mafia is the name of another island, the greater part of the Mafia District, a region of Tanzania. It is separated from the mainland by the Mafia Channel.

It should be needless to say, that the word as used above has no parentage to that which is now to be investigated.

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Some Preliminary Definitions

According to the Oxford Concise Dictionary, the word “mafia”, written without a capital “M”, is “hostility to law and its ministers among Sicilian population, often shown in crime; those who share in this”. Rewording the second part, to get something closer to the popular perception, we get: The part of the Sicilian population which shares a hostility to the law or its ministers, this hostility often being manifested through crime. The origin of the word, as explained here, is “Sicilian”.²

Here the question arises, what do we call someone who is not a Sicilian, but shares the traits of the above definition? This alone shows that the defined word has a discriminatory character. Perhaps the most neutral term would be “malcontent”. Of course, in this context, emphasis must be laid upon only the following words: “[t]he part of the … population which shares a hositility to the law or its ministers” Such populations have existed throughout history, up to the present. In order not to be accused of discriminating against any specific group, none shall be mentioned, but it should be easy enough to think of at least one.

Now we share the definitons given in the American Heritage Dictionary. ³ The reader can compare these with those currently found online, where there are differences, such as the information (in our hard copy), that the alternate spelling “Maffia” exists. Here, the word is with a capital “M”. The first definition has it that it is, or was “a secret terrorist organization in Sicily operating since the early 19th Century in opposition to legal authority”. It cannot be doubted that some terrorists do operate with the legal authority of their respective governments, but as a general rule, this definition is somewhat strange, I believe, for the average person. Going on to the second definition, we have: “An alleged international criminal organization believed active, especially in Italy and the United States, since the late 19th Century”. Here we note the very polite “alleged”, “believed to be”, which makes the definition a weasel-worded one. The current online definitions do not share this problem. The third definition is “An organization using terrorist methods to control an activity”. Might that not be some bosses controlling the activity of their workers?

For the etymology, the above reference source gives: “[Italian (Sicilian dialect), mafia, lawlessness, “boldness”, from Arabic maḥyah, “boasting”] In the online version, one must first type “Mafioso”, where the pre-Sicilian origin of the word is said to be unknown. No confirmation was possible for the Arabic word given here, neither online, nor in the author’s dictionaries for Arabic..

The Merriam-Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary starts off with the etymology.⁴ While we enjoy the very complete word histories given in the American Heritage Dictionary, the Merriam-Webster, although less complete, adds an interesting item: the first date of usage. Here is what we have: “[a Sicilian secret criminal organization, 1875]. The online version has changed this to 1866.⁵ [However, as we show in the next section, if we include the related Sicilian word mafiusu, this should be corrected to 1863.] The definitions, which can be found online at the just mentioned site, again differ from our book, so we give them here, together with our comments. “1 a. a secret society of criminal terrorists”. We might supposed that this is somewhat like the American Heritage‘s first definition, but here, we must definitiely object – Is there any terrorist organization which is not criminal? The current definition does not include “terrorist”, so in that sense, we have an improvement. Part “b” of the definition, insofar as I can read my scrawl, states: “a secret organization comprised chiefly of criminal elements and usually held to control racketeering, peddling of narcotics, gambling, and other illegal activities throughout the world.” According to this definition, not everyone in the Mafia is a “criminal element”. The second definition is identical to the third one found online – (the latter, though, has 8 additional words preceding the definition given here – prefaced with the italicized message, “often not capitalized: “a group of people of similar interests or backgrounds prominent in a particular field or enterprise : CLIQUE”. One wonders if the dictionary is serious. Perhaps any group of people engaged in a particular sport or hobby – not to mention any groups of prominent people – can be called members of a mafia. The word has become, on the basis of this last definition, meaningless – if the reader will accept this oxymoronic description of a definition.

We translate a fourth definition from an old Cuban periodical:

According to Professor Barricelli of Saint Louis, the origin of the word Mafia, which has now obtained an unfortunate notoriety, goes back to the time of the French domination of the island of Sicily, and ties in with the bloody catastrophe of the Sicilian Vespers.⁶ The slogan of the islanders who conspired agains the tyranny of Charles of Anjou, according to Barricelli, was Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela (Death to the French is Italy’s cry!)⁷, and joining the [first] letter of each word, the term Mafia is formed, which served [the Sicilians] as a password. When the slaughter took place, the island was cleared of the French, the cry of anyone who discovered an enemy was Mafia; and that name has remained as the designation of the organization which the conspirators had, and continued with a patriotic purpose. Later, it degenerated; and Mafia has become the name of an association of hoodlums and murderers.⁸ 

Further definitions may be found in some of the sources which are cited herein.

Francesco Hayez, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons: Sicilian Vespers

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Beauty

The dictionary sources we have just quoted do not point out any positive meaning associated with the Sicilian dialect. If the word is taken in its feminine sense, it is definitely to be understood in a good sense. Better yet, we can take this information written by Giuseppe Pitrè (died, 1916), whose main work was a 25-volume edition of Sicilian folk traditions.⁹ In the source we are about to quote, we do not know who the translator is, but we start with Pitrè’s suggestion that the word may well have existed before 1860. He goes on as follows: ” … in parts of the capital of Sicily, the word ‘Mafia’ and its associated family of words always signified bellezza, grazia, perfezione … a well-dressed girl, with an air [of knowing the desirable traits she has] shows some Mafia, and has mafiusa or mafiusedda … but [this air is] never haughtiness in a bad sense [an important part of the definition, as we have had difficulty finding a suitable synonym for that girl’s “sense of superiority” – P.K.M.] … the Mafia man, according to the literal definition, would never intimidate anybody … unfortunately, after 1860, things changed, and for many, the original meaning, that no one was ever more polite or respectful than a mafioso has lost its true, root meaning among the majority of people.¹⁰

At the risk of being redundant, we give our own translation – in colored text further down – this time, directly, if not totally correct, from the original Italian, which has some words that were not translatable by a person not well-versed in that language.

Pitrè notes that the word is associated with (possibly mistranslated!) tricksters, maraudering and brigandage, but that one prefect will say that it is an organization like the Masons, others will say that it is a species of anonymous political party, and others, that they are idlers, without any trade, and hence they enrich themselves through crime. For this last item, he quoted Il Brigantaggio in Sicilia, Cause-Rimedj, p. 26, Palermo, 1876. He then goes on to say that he will make a modest attempt at a description, and if it differs from that created by journalists and publicists, it is not his fault.¹¹

On the following page he notes that the word is written with one “f”, and not two, as is done outside of Sicily, and the first recorded mention, according to the vocabularist Traina, was in 1868 – which, however, is not to imply that the word did not exist before that time. “The word mafia is derived from, or related with the Tuscan maffia, misery, or the French maufe or meffier.¹²

The word first came into our vocabulary in the early 60s of the present century (the 19th – translator’s note) in a part of of Palermo known as the Borgo … where it always meant, together with its derivations: beauty, grace, perfection, excellence (start page 290) … . A pretty lass, who is conscious of her attributes, well attired, with an undefinable (elegantly translatable through the French expression found in Webster‘s (online) “je ne sais quoi“) superiority and loftiness, has mafiusa, mafiusedda. A small house of the common people, well-built, clean, tidy, and orderly is a mafiusedda, ammafiata house …

To the idea of beauty, the word mafia joins that of superiority and of valor in the best sense of the word, and when talking about men, something more – awareness of one’s maleness, peace of mind, and moreover, boldness – but never audacity in a bad sense, never arrogance, and never hubris.

The mafia man, or mafiusu [which would be mafioso – translator’s note], understood in this natural and proper sense, should not frighten anybody, because these few are courteous and respectful.

Unfortunately, since 1860, the situation has changed, and the word mafiusu no longer its original meaning, in the minds of many.¹³

Pitrè then goes on the give the year 1863 when a dramatist of Palermo penned a comedy titled, I mafiusi di la Vicaria, which had been shown (at the time of the Pitrè’s writing, fifty-four times.¹⁴

A definition halfway between the good and the bad is the following:

Mafia is a word known only for a short time, [and] unfortunately recently made famous. It was the word of the common people and perhaps perhaps … used in the Grand Prisons of Palermo to denote excellence, superiority.¹⁵

 

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The Mafia as Accused of Organized Criminality

Under this general heading, because of contradictory material found – the reader is to decide which is true or false – we consider first of all, the allegation that the Mafia has a head, and secondly, that it is composed of criminals. The testimony is from Italian books of the Nineteenth Century, and from volumes printed by the Governments of the United States of America, and the State of California.

On the Question of Leadership

An article in The Gentleman’s Magazine from 1877, refers to an invisible power on the island of Sicily. While denying the existence of a specific society called “Mafia”, it does state “the man who is most audacious in the assertion of his will is master, who then, we might conclude, is the invisible power on the island.¹⁶

While the following is from an Italian novel, it nevertheless allows one to see that there was a perception that leaders existed:

Casadio era un semplice gregario che sedeva agli ultimi gradini della scal della mafia.

Piccolo, magro, macilente, infingardo e quindi dappoco, era uno dell ciurma destinata a servire e a pascere i capi mafia della colonia. 

[Casadio was a simple wingman who sat on the bottom steps of the mafia staircase.

Small, thin, emaciated, sluggish and therefore cheap, he was one of the crew destined to serve and feed the mafia leaders of the colony.]¹⁷ – p. 213.

A clear reference to leadship is given in testimony to a U.S. Senate hearing in 1950.

Mr. Follmer. As I understand it, the Mafia is a secret organization which has no written rules or regulations, and it is made up of a national head in Palermo.
The Chairman: You mean an international head.
Mr. Follmer: An international head in Palermo, and a national head in the various countries of the world that have any sizable Sicilian population. Claude A. Follmer, United States Narcotic Agent, Treasury Department, Kansas City, Mo.¹⁸

A 1959 document by the State of California gives the most specific statement about organization: ” … the Mafia society is divided into units of 10 men … supervised by a goup chief and group chiefs, in turn, by an area chief … in all probability, … a member of the Grand Council.”¹⁹

In the 70s, the capo of the Colombo crime family was responsible for a campaign prohibiting the word “mafia”.²⁰ Capo means boss, head, chief.

The idea of a centralized leadership under a single man has only been found in Mr. Follmer’s testimony. Whether this can be debunked will be left for later.

On the Question of Whether the Mafia is Composed of Criminals

The reader who has a preconceived notion of what the Mafia is, will have a ready answer to this. The following is not meant to add to the store of the preconceptions, as the material should be compared with the opposite point of view.

We start with some lines about the murder of some Italians in New Orleans in 1890, accused of killing the police chief. Most of them had been declared “not guilty”, but were still in jail, where a mob killed them all.

A view of justice in 1890 at the same time would make the Mafia out to be criminals: [T]he Mafia had become a danger to the city, and succeeded in putting itself above the law. It had been tolerated for long because [its] murdering went on mostly among the Italians.²¹ Another article from that time quotes from an 1877 British Blue Book: The Mafia is not precisely a secret society, but rather the development and blossom of arbitrary violence directed to criminal ends of every sort.²²

The following, from a labour publication, takes this view: [T]he ‘better element’ of New Orleans, aping the practices of the Mafias, murdered the prisoners … ²³

An article which predates the 1870 problem aggressively claims that the crimes committed by the members of the Mafia to “maintain their baleful influence are enormous”.²⁴

Why there are no references to more recent sources on this question, will be considered in the next section. It is sufficient to note, that had the authorities been able to keep up to date on questions of organized crime, such as in the way governments watch out for terrorists today, they would have had to conclude, on the basis of the above quotes – and surely others, not yet scanned and uploaded exist – that the Mafia was a criminal organization.

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Counterview: The Mafia is neither Organized nor Criminal

As in the previous section, the views will be given: first, as to a lack of an organization structure; and second, to its non-criminal nature. The reader is again cautioned about forming an opinion without having read this entire article. Each subsection will consider both statements that doubt the charge, and those that firmly deny the charge.

The Mafia is not Organized

Our first reference comes from 1878:

“…In Sicily it is more correct, we read, to say of a man that he is “mafioso” than that he belongs to the Mafia …“.²⁵

We have read above, that according to Giuseppe Pitrè, if a man has certain positive qualities , he is “mafioso”.  In consideration of other definitions, he states that some people say that they are idlers without any job, so they enrich themselves through crime. 

Here is one more in the same vein:

 “La mafia … is a mediaeval sentiment. Whosoever believes that he can provide for the protection and security of his person and his goods by dint of his own personal prowess and influence, without having any recourse to law or the constituted authorities, he is a mafioso.”²⁶

The definitions we have do not imply the existence of a leader.  The idlers might have, though the leadership among such a group could vary, according to how quickly someone comes up with an interesting plan.

One source, however, leaves open the possibility, by saying that “[it] has neither statutes nor definite assemblies, nor even any recognized heads”,²⁷ but if none is recognized, there is none.

The definition of the Oxford Concise Dictionary, given above, suggests that the concept of Mafia is shared by an entire population, with or without actual crime.  As the emphasis is on the hostility to authority in the definition – as something shared by the population – it is irrelevant to talk about leadership. Organization is not necessary, and if a single man is a “mafioso”, and if it is this term which is important, every man is his own leader; thus to speak of a group leader is to go beyond the alleged meaning of the term.

The Mafia is not Criminal

The reader is once more warned that the declarations here given are the responsibility of those who made them. They are merely repeated in the interests of a sort of completeness for this presentation. The entire source quoted should be read, rather than what, in the interests of an argument, may have been selected more for the purposes of putting forth a position as a lawyer would, in contrast to what would be expected of an academic.

Our first quote comes from the 1878 source quoted in the previous subsection:

The assurances given to travellers in Sicily that things are going well enough in the island, and that all the talk about the brigands and the Mafia is a fiction fo the North Italian press, are probably often sincerely meant.²⁸

Obviously, the above is not a one hundred percent guarantee of a crime-free society, but then, is there any?

Neither is the next item a declaration of purity, and while it contradicts our pretention at showing the Mafia as leaderless, if it were not criminal, then it would not matter if it did have a head. A postive viewpoint is seen in this statement, at least for the followers:

“It would take a volume to specify all the modes in which, without violating the letter of the law, the Maffia can make things comfortable for its subordinates.”²⁹

If, as some allege, the Mafia does not, or did not exist – at least in the United States – it cannot be a criminal organization – at least in the country just named. Notice the following testimony:

Senator Wiley. Was he a member of the Mafia?
Mr. Follmer: I have heard that he was.
Senator Wiley. You never discussed that with him?
Mr. Follmer: He always laughed when we mentioned it. I have talked to him about it. He always laughed and said there was not any such thing, never heard of it.  …
Wiley asks, regarding the Binaggio murder: You think the Mafia was in it?
Mr. Follmer. The people that are alleged members.³⁰

There, in the words of the already quoted Narcotics Agent Follmer we have “alleged members” of, [in the words of the murdered Binaggio]: “[no] such thing” as the Mafia!³¹

Another investigation gives the following:

Chairman. Do you find anybody who admits he was a member of the Mafia?
Mr. English. “No; they claim it dosn’t [sic] exist, but it does exist.
Mr. Chairman. How do you know?
Mr. English. We see evidence of it; we have it here.³²

But in spite of this supposed evidence, six pages later, a Mr. Halley in apparent frustration explains that “[t]here must be some way to … find actual evidence on which [the Committee] can prove the existence of the Mafia”,³³ so what Mr. English stated was contradicted.

At the risk of seeming to contradict what was previously said, here is a statement which will need to be analyzed, to show how a word, which up to now has not been clearly identified with a criminally organized group with a leader, suddenly becomes applied to an organization indulging in law-breaking. According to the testimony of Captain James E. Hamilton, Chief of the Intelligence Division, Los Angeles Police Department before a committee at its hearing in San Diego on October 14, 1958:

“[W]hether you like the term Mafia or not, it is certainly descriptive of this organization [“[an] organization that does differ, however, from the [previously mentioned] loosely knit [crime] groups”] … a hard core organization that works not against law enforcement or against the statutes.”  They scorn them.  They ignore law enforcement and the organized status of the country in which they live … they believe in disciplining their own … in other words, do not cross them.. They are well respected’ because of their proven ability to handle their own situations … they know their own organiziation and they know who is acceptable and who is not.  They deal with many outside groups … in both lawful enterprises and illegal enterprises. But they do not take these other individuals or groups into their organization. They deal with them or use them. That’s all.”³³

So, taking 1863 as the first year of the known appearance of the word, 95 years later, a word taken from Italy, inadequately defined, by the decision of a police official, is felt appropriate to describe a criminal group, which most of the world identifies with the Mafia. It is not being said that other groups have not been called that, but such a clear connection between the label and the group so labelled, has not been shown, in the mind of this researcher, . Even more surprisingly, the document states that the phrase “organized crime” used by the press and the public, is more of a misnomer than an accurate expression. Only “mobs” associated with rackets are somewhat formalized, yet “still not formal organizations”.³⁴ It is to these that the “hard core” organization differs.

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The Mafia as Robin Hood

There is an intermediate position possible between the innocent and the criminally guilty version of the Mafia member. For this, we must first go back to Italy, or more precisely to Sicily.

While not specifically mentioning the Mafia, this quote gives essential background, whether true of not. However, the last two quotations which follow it, render it believable. The second one has already been used, but may describe Howard Pyle’s Robin Hood.³⁵

“[H]owever bad the state of Sicily, the evil was due in part to the habitual neglect of the Southern Provinces … It is quite clear that Sicily is not governed.”³⁶ – 1875

Whosoever believes that he can provide for the protection and security of his person and his goods by dint of his own personal prowess and influence, without having any recourse to law or the constituted authorities, he is a mafioso.”³⁷  

The Mafia may be said to comprehend all who systematically protect their persons and goods or those of others by their own bravery and personal influence, irrespective of the law. Differing from the Camorra, it taxes the rich, and leaves the poor to themselves.³⁸ – 1879

p. 549. “… Baron Mendola, a Sicilian landord and a shrewd observer, gives it as his deliberate opinion that the average Sicilian peasant cannot possibly make both ends meet. ‘Honest labor,” he says, “seldom suffices for the maintenance of the family. Theft is obligatory.”³⁹ – 1887.

From the Twentieth Century, we have these two observations in the course of a Senate Hearing -a narcotics agent and a senator commenting, respectively:

Senator Wiley: What is the purpose or objective of the Mafia, as you understand it? It is a secret society?

Mr. Follmer. According to historical records, it was originally founded for the purpose of dealing with the oppression of the rich and of the crooked politicians and law-enforcement officers in Sicily.

Senator Wiley. … he was quite a character in his way, a Robin Hood. How do you characterize him, a buccaneer?
Mr. Follmer. Charlie was rather an unusual type of fellow for a racketeer.⁴⁰

 

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Aut Lex aut Vis Valet

Should the reader prefer a negative view of the Mafia, the above expression by Francis Bacon, taken a bit out of context, helps to explain the behavior of that organization; but, should it be seen as criminal, were any presumed member to be hauled before a court of law, the same expression gives either the judge or the jury a reason to interpret the law mercifully towards that defendant.⁴¹

While examples of injustice have already been mentioned in the previous section, here are a few others, where the context is different. Some have already been mentioned, but for the reader who comes directly here, repetition is justified.

To start at a time which is relatively well chronicled, between 200 and 30 B.C., Sicily finds itself impoverished by praetors and other Roman individuals when land was divided into great estates worked by slaves – obviously so ill-treated that they rebelled, lost, and were crucified to the number of 20,000. Vandals and Franks devastated the island in the late Third or first half of the Fourth Century. Almost 100 years later, the Byzantines took the island, and such was the state of affairs until the inhabitants, tired of misrule, became subject to the Arabs, although the complete effort took a bit more than 100 years. This was a good period, but the land was coveted, and between about 1060 and 1090, it was completely conquered by the Normans. Several Norman kings ruled, until the great-aunt of the last one, by marriage to a Hohenstaufen, Henry VI, gave Sicily into the hands of the Holy Roman (German) Empire, and the Hohenstaufen dynasty.⁴²

Frederick II was arguably the most important of these. He defeated the Normans in Sicily, where they were devastating the land in all parts.⁴³ However, he himself was no saviour to the islanders, who, to escape his rule, started to rebel in the fashion described in the Oxford definition (near top of page).⁴⁴

The most important event which followed was the already mentioned Sicilian Vespers, when the French were again in control.

Other events follow, which this writer prefers to ignore – it is sufficient to know that by now, the inhabitants were not content with authority, but they had so long suffered abuse, that this attitude is understandable.

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Discrimination against Sicilians?

It may seem that Sicilians are being singled out. Indeed, we have already seen a Narcotics Agent do this. Even more so, after the murder of a police chief, some publications boldly proclaimed things such as:

“When it is remembered that the Sicilians and the Neapolitans (who are the bulk of the Italians in New Orleans) combine for the purposes of murder and extortion at home very readily, that they were not likely to give up these practices in Louisiana . . . .⁴⁵ 

In a letter written to an immigration commission, a professor Charles M. Tyler of Cornell University proposes that no Sicilian or Italian belonging to the Mafia or Black Hand, among others, …. be permitted to to become citizens of the United States.⁴⁶

The real reason for this section is to mention that the media refer to other mafias, by which we are not referring to the “cliques” of the final definition in the American Heritage Dictionary. To make this comment suitably international, it will mention the Japanese, Russian, and Chinese variants. A web search brings up a Nigerian mafia, a South African one. The two continents which do not seem to have a native mafia are South America and Australia or Oceania, however, foreign mafias are active there.

Nevertheless, at least some, if not all of the above, must be taken with a grain of salt. For example, at least one tribunal has decided that the Russian mafia does not exist.⁴⁷

But why stop at discrimination against Sicilians? One Nineteenth Century writer blamed the Pope – an Italian, of course!⁴⁸

And then, in what looks like something that might have been written by a member of a secret society, there is this text:

“What is the result of sixty years of missionary work by sovereign despots on free-born men? …
…
“The result is the existence, toleration and support by the American people, of societies like the “mafia,” “anarchist,” nearly all of the secret Protestant societies and numerous other societies and associations designed for the express purpose of disorganizing and undermining the foundation principles of our government … “⁴⁹

Here is the book’s not very edifying illustration, found both on the cover, and inside.

Very Similar to the Skull and Bones Emblem

The discrimination is partly based on the language in which one reads and writes, and if that language is able to make automatic distinctions between a definite “Mafia” and an indefinite one, and a capital “M” “Mafia” and a small “m” one. In this sense, the present article, without meaning to, exercises such a discrimination, because in all probability, the reader is looking for information about “The Mafia”, and indeed, most of this article is about that. However, not all languages have a direct substitute for the word “the”, and some do not have the word “a”; and so it becomes more difficult to talk about “The Mafia” or “a Mafia”. Then, we need to consider if “a Mafia” is more dangerous than “a mafia”. What we emphasize here is easier to see in print, but harder in speech. The Russian language, for example, uses no definite or indefinite article – to be more specific, they could refer to “ital’yanskaya mafiya“. Arabic writing has no capital letters, so the distinction the Merriam-Webster dictionary makes would have to be handled by translating the small “m” version by a different word. That would be automatic for the Arab speaker, but what of a foreigner, not aware of this need, when speaking in imperfect Arabic? His message would come across incorrectly. An Italian, at least an Italian-American, could be more precise by using a term such as la cosa nostra. However, even that expression has an innocent meaning, which should not be misunderstood by someone with a basic knowledge of the language.

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Humour – Intentional or Not

Before coming to the conclusions which the beginning of the article promised (although some may already be implicit), it would like to record some of the more humorous material found during the hours of research involved.

The first is pure humour, selected from some jokes which are otherwise offensive – it is hoped that this one is nothing more than a pun – good or bad, depending upon the reader. They occurred in the context of a duty imposed upon the importation of queen bees :

There is a tariff of 20 per cent ad valorem on Italian queen-bees (mothers), but Sicilian pa-drones are on the free list. – Detroit Tribune.
Considering the usefulness of queen-bees, it seems an unjust discrimination that imposes a duty upon them before entrance to this country, and admits members of the Mafia free. If it were not for the latter fact, it might be thought that the bees were barred because they are known to carry stilettos. – Indianapolis Journal.⁵⁰

In Sicily, at least one time in the past, the so-called Mafia seemed to function as a type of employment agency. On the supposition that this organization decides who gets a privilege, we see that they did the following work of charity:

“The Sindaco of Palermo, taking the presence of cholera as a pretext, has nominated a whole batch of new officials, and that though many of the clerks who already draw salaries have quite given up going to their office. A good thing too, for the municipal buildings would be quite too small to accommodate them all.”⁵¹

The humorous G. K. Chesterton made the following observations, which, while not dealing with the Mafia directly, are still germane.

“Some gallant and adventurous agent will descend into the underworld and drag out of its dark and secret den the gang that has been publicly governing a great city for the last four or five years. ….

“As one who has more than once had the honour of imposing the oaths of admission on new members of the Society (the Detection Club), I take pride in setting out these conditions of membership in their actual form; thereby setting a good example to the Mafia, the Ku-Klux-Klan, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Rosicrucians, the Red-Badgers, the Blue-Buffaloes, the Green-Gorillas, the League of the Left-handed Haberdashers, the Association of Agnostic Albinos, and all the other secret societies which now govern the great part of public life, in the age of publicity and public opinion.”⁵²

The following is a witness, John B. Blando of Kansas City, Mo., answering the Investigator, George H. White. If we can imagine his answers in the appropriate movie-stereotyped voice, it becomes amusing:

Mr. White. What is your business?
Mr. Blando. Superior Wine and Liquor.
Mr. White. Is this a retail – ?
Mr. Blando. Wholesale.
…
Mr. White. Were you ever arrested for bootlegging?
Mr. Blando. Not me, no.
Mr. White. Picked up?
Mr. Blando. No sir.
…
Mr. White. (p. 513) Do you belong to the Mafia?
Mr. Blando. What is the Mafia?
Mr. White. I am asking you. Do you belong to anything called the Mafia?
Mr. Blando. I don’t belong to nothing called Mafia; no, sir.
Mr. White. Do you know what the Mafia is?
Mr. Blando. No, sir.
Mr. White. Did you ever hear of it?
Mr. Blando. I read in the paper Mafia, but I don’t even know what it is.
Mr. White. Did you ever ask any other Italian people what it is?
Mr. Blando. No, sir.
Mr. White. Are you a Sicilian?
Mr. Blando. Yes, sir.
Mr. White. Did you ever hear of the Unione Siciliano?
Mr. Blando. I read in the paper.
Mr. White. Aside from reading about it in the paper, you never heard of it?
Mr. Blando. I never heard of it.
Mr. White. Do you belong to any organziation composed exclusively of Italians?
Mr. Blando. No sir.
Mr. White. Do you belong to any secret organizations?
Mr. Blando. No, sir.
Chairman. That is all, thank you, Mr. Blando.
Mr. Blando. Thank you.
Chairman. What did you bring in that envelope?
Mr. Blando. They wanted the income tax.
Chairman. How much do you make a year?
Mr. Blando. I say I make $30,000, sometimes $40,000, sometimes $50,000.
Chairman. Net?
Mr. Blando. No, not net. I have to pay my income tax. Maybe I have $25,000 left?
Chairman. All right.
(Witness excused.)⁵³

Mr. Vincent Chiappetta, of the same city and company as Mr. Blando, gives similar answers to Mr. White.⁵⁴

The witness we mention now was too quick in answering. The Chairman was Senator Charles W. Tobey, Downey Rice was counsel, and Mr. Anthony Strollo of Palisade N. J., accompanied by his attorney, Michael P. Direnzo, testified. The extract is worth noting, not only for the accidentally humorous effect, but because of the importance of one of the men who spoke in defence of these answers given:

Mr. Rice. A few minutes ago, an Officer Cashman testified …about some occurrences on the evening of March 14, 1952. It wonder if you would be food enough to tell the committee what happened upon that evening at the Warwick Hotel?
…
Mr. Strollo. [p. 204]. I refuse to answer on the grounds that it may tend to incriminate me.
The Chairman. Do you understand, when you give that parrot-like answer, that it makes the committee very suspicious that you have comething to conceal?  Why don’t you tell us and help us a little bit?
Mr. Strollo: I still refuse on the grounds that it will tend to incriminate me.

The above answer is given 9 times,in one form or another, before the following dialogue on page 205.

Mr. Rice. Let me ask you another type question [sic]. Have you ever heard of the Mafia?
Mr. Strollo. Reading in the paper, books.
Mr. Rice. What did you read in the paper or books about the Mafia!
Mr. Strollo. I don’t know, a lot of ridiculous things.
Mr. Rice. I am sorry. I can’t hear you.
Mr. Strollo. Just about the Mafia. That is all.
Mr. Rice. What did it say?
Mr. Strollo. I don’t remember.
Mr. Rice. Are you of Italian extraction?
Mr. Strollo. Yes, sir.
Mr. Rice. Is than an Italian word?
Mr. Strollo. I think it is.
Mr. Rice. What does it mean?
Mr. Strollo. I haven’t the slightest idea.
The Chariman. It means “trouble,” doesn’t it?
Mr. Strollo. I haven’t the slightest idea.
Mr. Rice Have you even been associated with an organization known as the Mafia?
Mr. Strollo. I refuse to answer on the ground that it might tend to incriminate me.

Six more of the above replies follow questioning, until we get to this nugget on page 207.

Mr. Rice. Do you know Dominick Strollo?
Mr. Strollo. I refuse to answer on the ground that it might tend to incriminate me.
Mr. Rice. Isn’t Dominick Strollo your brother?
Mr. Strollo: I still refuse to answer on the ground that it might tend to incriminate me.
…
Mr. Strollo. That answer, with reference to my brother, could I change it?
Mr. Rice. You want to change your answer? Go right ahead.
Mr. Strollo. [p. 208] I do know him, Dominick Strollo.
Mr. Rice. When did you last see him?
…
Mr. Strollo. In the hospital.
Mr. Rice. When was that?
Mr. Strollo. I don’t remember exactly how long it is. It is pretty long.
…
Mr. Rice. You haven’t seem him since?
Mr. Strollo. That was the last time.

On page 214, the Chairman excoriates Strollo for his “parrotlike remark” about self-incrimination, and asks counsel if he could not advise the witness to be more cooperative in answering “simple questions”. Mr. Direnzo answers that “[he] advises [his] client in what [he] thinks is just and right … in conformity with the oath [he – i.e. Direnzo] took.
Senator John Pastore, the first Italian American elected to the Senate, and former first Italian American governor of any state, scil., Rhode Island, answers, “If I may say so, this attorney is perfectly within his rights.⁵⁵

“Slumming” is not a new phenomenon, although the word, with the meaning as used here, has been in existence since 1884.⁵⁶ The author of the following, written seven years later, may have not yet been aware of this usage:

.

A Night on the Town in a Little Italy

“One of the latest fads in Boston has been to go to an Italian theatre down in North Street; the American impresario hiring the place for the evening having it well scrubbed, so as to remove all traces of the Mafia or any lingering taint of infection, and then inviting or securing and audience of the “upper ten” to hear the sweet Tuscan murdered. … Then a dinner or supper in the Italian restaurant of the same Sicilian quarter of Boston is in order, and the audience go home with the happiness of having enjoyed a new sensation.”

Nevertheless, there is a paragraph which follows, which, after a some ethnic caricaturization, ends by showing a slight bit of toleration:

“The old disreputable “North End” of Boston has become throughly Italianized, the oldest houses in the city swarm with miniature brigands, with swarthy faces and piquant Italian oaths. Yet among these Italians are excellent citizens. This very morning, at a barber-shop where a German who looks like a Count, a dark Russian Jew, and a light-haired Scotchman from Glasgow work side by side, and Italian, who helped to swell the polygot contingent, quoted to me line upon line of Dante’s Divine Comedy! Who will say that Boston is not cosmopolitan?”⁵⁷

.

Anecdotal Information

This writer probably first received information about the supposed Mafia from Life Magazine.⁵⁸ It included a gruesome description of how one of what then was called the Cosa Nostra, and more specifically, the Outfit, was dealt with for some error he made.

In the summer, among other things, this writer did odd jobs for American citizens who had summer houses on the Canadian side of Lake Erie’s shores. One of the occasional tasks was for an obviously rich attorney who – as did his wife and eldest daughter – drove a Cadillac. One of the daughters was given a pony as a birthday present. The surname will be ignored, but it so happened, that one day – if the memory is correct – he appeared on an American TV network’s national news, accused of tax evasion. It also appears, that although he was not Italian – at least not according to the surname, that he was an attorney for mobsters. Again, a question of memory, but it seems his name was mentioned in TIME magazine soon afterwards. A further fact of interest was that he could be described as a middle-aged family man, church-going, and doing gardening – just as some of the people he might have been defending.⁵⁹

The present writer went to university in Hamilton, Ontario, one of Canada’s ten largest cities. The university is famous for its nuclear reactor, which produces sixty percent of the world’s Iodine-125. It has a significantly large Italian community. Once, when one student happened to mention that an explosion had happened at a bakery with a prominent silo for flour, a fellow class-mate was heard to respond, “mafiosi”, and by this word, implied who had been responsible.

When the writer was working for a short time as the night-manager in a down-town motel, an employee pointed out two supposed facts – the first of which is highly probable – that the vending machines were owned by the “Mafia”, and that the brother of one of the nightly visitors was in jail for being a member of that grouping. One night, that gentleman, and a disgruntled guest, who had checked himself in without presenting himself at the Reception Desk, threatened the manager with physical harm for having acted as a “policeman” in having questioned his presence. Fortunately, while the client was about to jump into the reception area in order to beat the clerk with some kind of metal belt, a patrol car appeared at the front door.

The city is also within 75 miles of two others which were named in a movie, based on a true story involving the “Mafia”, and starring James Caan.⁶⁰

In Buenos Aires, an individual was met who related that the Mafia in Italy had a milder punishment for lesser infractions. This was exile. Many of them supposedly ended up in Argentina.⁶¹

.

Conclusions

The moment has come for conclusions. These follow not only from the above, but from information that is first put here in this section – written this way, in order to allow the results to be more surprising.

First of all, contrary to how definitions of words are treated in the contemporary world, that is, accepting new definitions far removed from the original meaning, here we insist that the original meaning only must be the one used, as the current ones, precisely because of explicit or implicit ethnicities attached to the word “mafia”, the result is a possible slur on all people of that nationality.

There is a question, though, of what word may be the true etymology of “mafia”. It could be Arabic, but if it is, why is the entry of American Heritage Dictionary not found among several possibilities listed in Wikipedia?⁶²

Another question which would have to be answered is why the word has, what in Italian would be a feminine ending? Such endings are missing in four of Wikipedia‘s suggestions for an Arabic origin, which could be extended to five, if the final letter is dropped on one of the suggestions.⁶³

It would be risky to say that the Sicilian mafiusu does not derive from an Arabic word, whichever that might be, but we are left with another question: Why did Pitrè explain the word beginning with mafiusa, associating it with women? Is, then, the word a slur against what he would have seen as “the fair sex”? A possible reconciliation – though not very convincing, is that the word first was used in the correct sense – as noted by Pitrè, but then, because of jealousy among the lower class, later was used first to denigrate someone who had pretensions at being, but was not quite up to the mafiusa standard, until finally it became an insult for any pretender to the required qualities. This would explain the association with the word “boasting”, but does not explain how it came to be applied to men. It could work, if the man was a dandy, somewhat feminine in behaviour, especially, if originally, men did not worry about their way of dressing and bearing themselves. If this idea is correct, the idea of an Arabic origin becomes irrelevant if related to any word not meaning “boasting”. If it did mean that, then Pitrè’s explanation does tie in, although certain mental acrobatics are required to understand what is meant by “haughtiness [but never] in a bad sense”. If the male had a tendency to puff himself up in the first place, and then, aggrandize himself still more by adopting a certain foppishness, indeed, the idea of swaggering comes very much to the forefront.

However, the preceding is not a satisfactory explanation for the use of a feminine term, so it will now be explained in the following manner: This writer once asked someone why a pizza parlour was named La Rey (The King), because “la” is feminine, and El Rey was expected. The explanation was that it referred to the suppressed feminine term, in what would be the understood meaning by the initiated into such usage: La Pizzeria Rey, in other words, “The King Pizza Parlour”. Therefore, it becomes reasonable to supposed that, when speaking of the Sicilian term under discussion, one means, la gente mafia, which, among the positive translations, would be, “the elegant people”, or, to use French, les chic.

The other idea that initially looked good is that the derivation was the turning of the expression Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela into an acronym. This theory has been shot down on the grounds that during the Sicilian Vespers, one would not have thought in terms of “France” or “Italy”.⁶⁴ Therefore, in this writer’s opinion, the best idea of the origin is that of Pitrè.

The above is the first argument we have for suggesting that the concept of “Mafia” should be considered as positive. Now for the second:

As far as public domain sources on the Internet show, Sicily was of interest to either (the reader can choose the more appropriate word or expression) American and British imperialism or free trading concerns by those two countries. Here we start with a glowing report by the American Consul in Messina, made in 1876:

“An efficient police force has destroyed the last traces of the mafia and brigandage that were at one time so prevalent, and the province is now considered the most orderly and the best governed on the island.”⁶⁵

A year later, one sees written by the British, a completely different, negative point of view, but this must be considered in the light of the commercial interests involved:

“When, some months ago now, a deputation of London merchants interested in the trade with Sicily waited upon Lord Derby for the purpose of urging him to represent to the Italian Government the absolute necessity of repressing energetically the brigandage which threatened to make all civilized intercourse with the island impossible, … .”⁶⁶

Another argument in favour of the Mafia, understood in its American sense, is the fact that it was used by the United States Government during World War II.⁶⁷

In fact, the United States, both at the levels of federal government, local newspapers, and even the general population, showed a high degree of tolerance, if not outright acceptance. If one considers the first supposed Mafia action of note, that the accused, though for the most part were lynched before any of them could be released from jail; and that yet the Federal Government compensated their families, we see an attitude not found today.⁶⁸

Five years later, there was an incident in Rouse, Colorado. This is the sentiment of a paper connected with a certain religion:

“Italian miners in a town named Rouse, Col., [had] murdered a saloon keeper. His friends rallied, ignored courts, made no attempt to differentiate between innocent and guilty Italians … [and killed them, either in jail, or while going there]. … Italy and the world have scarcely had time to forget the Mafia riots of 1892 [sic] in New Orleans.” The article goes on to note that a Mr. G. C. Holt, who had supposedly investigated the topic, read a paper in the 1894 American Social Science Association, in which he claimed that “he had yet to learn of the legal punishment of any persons in the United States guilty of lynching. … It is not a sectional evil, it is a national one.” [The article continues with Holt.] “Asked why this state of affairs exists, Mr. Holt replied frankly, ‘Because the public representatives of law and order in many cases are not respectable.'” The newspaper goes on to editorialize: “If lawlessness should break out in Indiana today, could not the rioters or the lynchers say in apparent justification, ‘Our legislators fight in legislative halls, break each other’s ribs, defy orderly procedure and by trickery and brute force to shape legislation.’ Of course they could.  The truth is that not only has our national legislature fallen low in popular esteem, but our State legislatures are bringing law into contempt.”⁶⁹

The relative complacency with which the Mafia was considered can be gauged by perusing the quantity of official publications and investigations on the subject. Of the preceding event, nothing of note has been found until the 1920s, when we find this little exchange, only repeating the incidents mentioned above, if Nebraska was confused with Colorado:

“Senator Pittman. Here is the situation: You have called attention to the Mafia trouble 30 years ago in New Orleans, and Senator Hitchcock has called attention to another in Nebraska. But how many of those instances do you know of? The very fact that they have been so scarce proves that the States have enforced their authority.
Senator New. Yes; but every one of them is a lasting blot upon the good name of the United States.”⁷⁰

 

.

Summation Argument

The word “Mafia”, in dictionaries, has several meanings, but the popular mind has reduced it to only one – and that one, by extension, is applied to organizations of other countries. That term was rightfully considered demeaning to a certain ethnic group under the government of Richard Nixon,⁷¹ and consequently, is demeaning to organizations in other countries. What are the odds, that among such an elegant society, some dapper criminal types could be found? The objective answer is difficult, and any other is open to challenges, such as racial and socio-economic status bias. The upper classes usually commit more of the white-collar crimes, and these tend to be more difficult to detect. They also have access to better lawyers. The argument here would be based on flawed statistics were only one ethnic group to be evaluated. However, fame and wealth do not guarantee that one who possesses these will never be convicted. Three pages have been found, one of the famous who have served jail time, and another, of those who are still not free, and an incomplete slide show.⁷² Mostly, white collar crimes involve tax evasion, a term which now covers even what was lawfully-allowed tax avoidance.

When, precisely, the Mafia was a terrorist group, >>> was not found – at least not clearly shown – in the material researched for this “paper”, so it must be a false accusation, or it depends upon a definition of terrorism which is not what one thinks of since 9-11. Their disdain towards authority is not absolute, as they have to deal with any of their overlords – but can we find the misterious head of the organization, supposedly in Sicily? We have not been able to do so. But while they disdain authority, they are accused of infiltrating, or at least trying to influence the government.⁷³

Based upon some comments found, the Mafia provided or provides better security than the government.⁷⁴ According to libertarian theory, the Mafia provides what people want in a free market environment.⁷⁵ As for the crimes that one attributes to it, these should be more correctly charged to criminals, and not to the organization. Here is why:

The Mafia, however and whenever it may have been formed in Sicily, was definitely in there at some point in time for self defence, against the true mafia of foreign invaders; and may have upset those countries, specifically, the already mentioned United States and Great Britain, which wanted to trade with the island. Later, what we prefer to call a criminal element was either successfully eliminated – according to the already mentioned US. Consul at Messina – or was relatively quiet, until a second, and perhaps third wave of action was taken against criminals on the island.⁷⁶ However, both the aforementioned Anglo-Saxon countries already had their concept of the Mafia. This writer suspects that idea was first spread orally by sailors, and then entered news accounts and books, but the existence of this “evil” mafia was, in testimony, doubted as late as 1959.⁷⁷ The U. S. Government documents we have cited mainly speak of “criminal organizations”. Even when LIFE wrote its 1948 article, the word Mafia was not mentioned once, but “The Mob”, “The Syndicate”, and “rackets”.⁷⁸ Were these terms – indeed – are these terms – not more precise? However, if the words are meant as mere synonyms, they do not improve upon the original term. “Racketeer” and when necessary – “murderer” – are words which describe criminal activities.

It is probably high time for some governments to clean up their act, when a certain number of their laws, the enforcement of the same, and their procedures all begin to represent those of a criminal organization; all of which result in feelings of shame by its citizens, who, in error, will, by force of habit, still refer to “mafia”.⁷⁹

July 21 – August 7, 2021.

All quotes from government documents are public domain, as probably all those from the Nineteenth Century.

© 2021, Paul Karl Moeller

Footnotes

Note, if necessary for the search enginge, prefix URLs given with https://

¹ pacificwrecks.com/provinces/vanuatu/sanma/mavia/map-mavia-island.html. Accessed July 21, 2021

² Oxford Concise Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1934, with addenda of 1944.

³ American Heritage Dictionary, Boston, 1981.

⁴ The Merriam-Webster’s Ninth Collegiate Dictionary [1991].

⁵ Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “Mafia,” accessed July 21, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Mafia.

⁶ britannica.com/event/Sicilian-Vespers, accessed July 23, 2021.

⁷ Translation according to The Economic Times, ET Bureau, (last updated April 17, 2018), economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/sme-sector/expert-session-to-grow-your-small-businesses-internationally/articleshow/84035960.cms, accessed June 23, 2021.

⁸ “Origen de la palabra Mafia“, by Miscelanea, in the Spanish Revista cubana, Habana: Soler, Alvarez y Comp., 1891 Vol. 13, p. 572. books.google.com/books?id=SnIYAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA576, accessed June 23, 2021. The English translation of the title of the article is “Origin of the Word Mafia” – P.K.M.

⁹ encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Giuseppe+Pitre

¹⁰ The English quote was paraphrased because of the copyright on the original source. The original Italian is now be in the public domain, so a paraphrase of the English becomes the equivalent of a free translation of the original, seen in Roberto M. Dainotto, The Mafia: A Cultural History [London: Reaktion Books, 2015], p. 38, with a reference to unavailable footnote 74; this, in a partial view, accessed July 21, 2021, of books.google.com/books?id=YvOsDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA38. The Sicilian words mafiusa and mafiusedda appeared in Wikipedia under the article “Mafia” of the same access date. If the Dainotto book does not show the page with the URL given, one might try: books.google.com/books?id=YvOsDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA38&lpg=PA38&dq=Dainotto+Mafia+cultural+history+mafiusa+or+mafiusedda Accessed July 29, 2021.

¹¹ Giuseppe Pitrè, “La Mafia e L’Omertà” in Usi e costumi credenze e pregiudizi del popolo siciliano, Volume 2 [Palermo: Libreria L. Pedone Lauriel di Carlo Clausen, 1889], p. 288. Accessed July 22, 2021. This book was first accessed on July 20, 2021, but is not searchable, so, with more leisure available, page after page was perused, until the original of Dainotto’s quote was found. This work was labelled Volume 15 of Biblioteca delle tradizioni popolari siciliane: books.google.com/books?id=_wk7AQAAIAAJ, accessed as: (Title page of chapter begins here: books.google.com/books?id=_wk7AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA285), books.google.com/books?id=_wk7AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA287

¹² [Antonio] Traina, Nuovo Vocab., p. 550, giving the year 1868), cited by Pitrè, p. 289. The words maufe and meffier are unknown to the present writer and the online translator, it is suspected that maufé (bad) and méfier (to be on the alert) are meant.

¹³ Present author’s translation of Pitrè, pp. 289-290, reading from the last couple of lines here: books.google.com/books?id=_wk7AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA289 .

¹⁴ Pitrè, p. 290

¹⁵ Giacomo Pagano, Le presenti condizioni della sicilia e i mezzi per migliorarle, [Firenze: Tipografia di G. Barbèra, 1875]. Translation by the present author, URL: books.google.com/books?id=JR1BuQkDAF0C&pg=PA41, accessed July 28, 2021.

¹⁶ T. Adolphus Trollope , “The Mafia and ‘Omertà’ in Sicily” in The Gentleman’s Magazine, Volume 243, Sylvanus Urban, ed., [London: Chatto & Windus], p. 160: [July to December 1877], pp. 158 to 172, books.google.com/books?id=NoXpPwJFO08C&pg=PA158, accessed July 23, 2021. The “unseen power” is mentioned on p. 164. A more concrete reference to a head – a capo mafia – is seen both on p. 163 and 164.

¹⁷ Giuseppe Di Menza e Vella, Parte Terza: I violenti in Le cronache delle Assise di Palermo Volume II, [Palermo (Italy): Tipografia del Giornale di Sicilia, 1878], books?id=OrJxvDDjEIwC&pg=PA223, accessed July 28, 2021. This seems to be a historical novel, or a history with invented dialogue. According to an unsatisfactory Wiki in Italian, the author, if this indeed is the same, studied law, was a procurator, and later, president of the Court of Appeals, [it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Di_Menza], accessed July 29, 2021. He also wrote: I masnadieri giulianesi ultimo avanzo del brigantaggio in Sicilia, [The Julianese Robbers: last Remnant of Banditry in Sicily.] The reference is to the inhabitants of a small town or village of Sicily named Giuliana. Further information has not been found.

¹⁸ United States. Congress. Senate. Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce: Eighty-First Congress Second Session, Pursuant to S. Res. 202: A Resolution Authorizing an Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce Part 4 Missouri July 6, September 28, 29, and 30, 1950. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1950, books.google.com.ar/books?id=EAs3AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA513. Accessed July 24, 2021. Also available as books.google.com/books?id=3HYEAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA513, accessed August 4, 2021. Details of another session, books.google.com/books?id=3HYEAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA82 : Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Thursday, June 29, 1950, United States Senate, Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Washington D.C., Chairman, Sen. Estes Kefauver, Chief Counsel, Rudolph Halley, Associate Counsel: George S. Robinson, Assistant Counsel, Alfred Klein. Full title for above: Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce: Federal … Hearings before Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Eighty-first Congress, Second Session, pusuant to S. Res. 202, A Resolution Autorizing an Investigation of Organzied Crime in Interstate Commerce, Part 4, Missouri, July 6, September 28, 29, and 30, 1950, United States Government Printing Office, Washington, 1950

¹⁹ “Mafia” subheading in Chapter II “Organized Crime in California”, “Judiciary. Assembly Interim Committe on Racket – Organized Crime in California”, Volume 201, Number 10, in Legislature of the State of California, Appendix to the Journal of the Assembly, 1959 Regular Session, Reports, January 5, 1959-June 19, 1959, [Sacramento: California State Printing Office, 1959], p. 20. books.google.com/books?id=tMp43AmMICgC&pg=RA1-PA20. Accessed July 24, 2021.

²⁰ “The one word you never hear in the Godfather”, news.com.au, January 13, 2017, news.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-one-word-you-never-hear-in-the-godfather/news-story/4301fd8014305c005f13eeaccdca51a2

²¹ “Wild Justice at New Orleans”, The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Volume 71 [London: John W. Parker and Son, 1891], p. 341, books.google.com/books?id=HPxYihBevBUC&pg=PA341

²² “The Mafia, and What Led to the Lynching”, Harper’s Weekly, Volume 35 1891 No. 1776, New York, January 3, 1891 books?id=9kJaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA226 title:

²³ Journal of the Knights of Labor, of March 19, T. V. Powderly, “The New Orleans Massacre”, Locomotive Firemen’s Magazine, Volume 15, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, May 1891, No. 5 Eugene V. Debs, ed. Terre Haute, Indiana, p. 441. books.google.com/books?id=rXAtAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA441 , accessed July 23, 2021. Note: The article title was taken from the Table of Contents. This is the May number, Book No. 5, the first page of the bound volume gives January, 1891.

²⁴ Luigi Monti, “The Mafiusi of Italy”, in The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 37 [Boston: H. O. Houghton & Co., 1876], books.google.com/books?id=QEo6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA75: [Full article, pp. 58 to 75.]

²⁵ n.a., Review: “Villari on Social Questions in Italy”, Saturday Review of of Politics, Science,, and Art, Volume 46, London: 1878, p. 635. books.google.com/books?id=2lRLnlhrk08C&pg=PA635 . The original Italian of Villari’s work cited there has been found: Pascuale Villari, Le lettere meridionali ed altri scritti sulla questione sociale in Italia, 2^a ed., Torino, Fratelli Bocca, 1885, books.google.com/books?id=D36ngTabn6kC&printsec=frontcover; but the cited version was published in Firenze, Successori Le Monnier, 1878.

²⁶ Trollope, op. cit., p. 160, quoting a Signor Franchetti, [note 16].

²⁷ Frederick William Rudler, et. al., Europe of Stanford’s Compendium of Geography and Travel, [London: Edward Stanford, 1885], p. 495, books.google.com/books?id=2rYBAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA495.

²⁸ “Villari on Social Questions in Italy”, op. cit., p. 636.

²⁹ E. Strachan Morgan “Secret Societies in the Two Sicilies”, The Fortnightly Review, as reprinted in The Library Magazine 1887, p. 546. Accessing the page on the Internet is a bit clumsy, first access: books.google.com/books?id=yGQ3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PP12, and then look for “Secret Societies in the Two Sicilies” on that page, and click on the link for the article. From thereon, scrolling will be necesssary; (accessed July 23, 2021).

³⁰ A Resolution Authorizing an Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce Part 4 Missouri July 6, op. cit., bottom of p. 94, first two lines p. 95. Charles Binaggio was looked up in two sources. In “Charles Binaggio”, Wikipedia, no connection is made between the word “Mafia” and the man, who was though, described as a gangster. One of the sources, Allan May, “Charles Binaggio A Promise Unkept”, AmericanMafia.com, January 24, 2000, makes a tenuous connection by saying that his detractors attributed his rise to connections with the Kansas City Mafia. Both sources accessed July 30, 2021. Senator Wiley represented Wisconsin. The following is the raw data the author had selected from A Resolution Authorizing an Investigation … , together with his comments:

    More history, starting with 1937: “narcotic agents arrested Nicola Gentile in connection with a Nation-wide narcotic syndicate involving 88 persons throughout the United States and Europe. Gentile was found to be a traveling delegate for the Mafia, and an address book in his possession was a veritable Who’s Who of narcotic traffickers.
     p. 83 A witness, Carramusa, later murdered, probably had turned witness because his 11-year old brother had been killed by the Mafia, (according to a statement given) in 1919. Starting Page 81, Testimony of Claude A. Follmer, United States Narcotic Agent, Treasury Department, Kansas City, Mo.
The above raises the question: Note the title: Why did the Senate need to investigate organized crime? Was that not the job of the F.B.I.? If they felt that laws needed to be changed, could they not have asked the F.B.I. to provide the required information by mail or facsimile? The following nugget appears in a monitored telephone conversation, in addition to worries about someone talking, the smaller fry getting into the heavy punishments while the top men get off, and jail time:
Tony: How is Butch?
Joe: He is a first lieutenant in the Army now.
Mr. Halley (questioning Mr. Follmer). Who is “Butch?”
Mr. Follmer: Butch is a former chief of the detectives of Tampa, Fla.
     Also, note how vulgarity is treated:
Joe … It don’t do you any good to talk and have to face three or four tough blank blank blank on the outside when you come out.
Tony. somebody must have put the finger on me, and I have a hunch who it was.
—- There is still some ignorance about the Mafia at this late date. Actual testimony, as of page 91:
Mr. Halley: Would you state very briefly …. what the Mafia is? (Chief Counsel), Chariman, Estes Kefauver
Mr. Follmer. As I understand it, the Mafia is a secret organization which has no written rules or regulations, and it is made up of a national head in Palermo.
The Chairman: You mean an international head.
Mr. Follmer: An international head in Palermo, and a national head in the various countries of the world that have any sizable Sicilian population.
….
Senator Wiley: What is the purpose or objective of the Mafia, as you understand it? It is a secret society?
Mr. Follmer. According to historical records, it was originally founded for the purpose of dealing with the oppression of the rich and of the crooked politicians and law-enforcement officers in Sicily.
Senator Wiley: I understand that all right. Now I want to know whether it has got an offshoot in this country, and whether you have any knowledge as to whether it has any definite objectives that we know of?
— description of Chales Binaggio (boss of Kansas City crime family) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Binaggio : His murder, and others, are discussed on page 92,
Senator Wiley: You think they are Mafia murders?
Mr. Follmer. Well, all of these murders have been attributed to the Mafia by person engaged in law-enforcement work.
Later, we see this, on page 93.
Senator Wiley. Did you know Binaggio?
Mr. Follmer. Yes; I knew him.
….
Senator Wiley. … he was quite a character in his way, a Robin Hood. How do you characterize him, a buccaneer?
Mr. Follmer. Charlie was rather an unusual type of fellow for a racketeer. He seemed to enjoy his home very much, and work on the yeard and spent a lot of time working on his flowers and shrubs, and he didn’t smoke and rarely drank. But his other interest was gambling and possibly other things that I have no knowledge of.
… Page94
Senator Wiley. Was he a member of the Mafia?
Mr. Follmer: I have heard that he was.
Senator Wiley. You never discussed that with him? (Wisconsin)
Mr. Follmer: He always laughed when we mentioned it. I have talked to him about it. He always laughed and said there was not any such thing, never heard of it.
At the end of his answer to the next question, he stated that according to Binaggio, opening up Kansas city would have only given him a percentage of the gambling profits which would really not have been worth it, and “I know he was supposed to be practically broke financially at the time he got killed.”
Pg. 95. Wiley asks, regarding the Binaggio murder: You think the Mafia was in it?
Mr. Follmer. The people that are alleged members.
     page 414 Exhibit No. 11 “Legitimate” Producers of Raw Opium (ports) and men being investigated.

³¹ Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, United State Senate, Eighty-First Congress, First Session pursuant to S. Res. 202 (81^st Congress) A Resolution Authorizing an Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, Part 10, Nevada – California [Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1951], p. 425, Testimony of Edmund G. Brown, district Attorney, San Francisco, Calif., Accompanied by Thomas C. Lynch, Chief Assistant District Attorney, San Francisco,  Calif. Senator Estes Kefauver, chairman. Mr. English is Chief of Police, James English, and Mr. Halley is Rudolph Halley, Chief Counsel. The session was in San Francisco, November 21, 1950. Beginning of session can be accessed at books.google.com/books?id=8lu5eb3PZfsC&pg=PA417.

³² Ibid., p. 501: books.google.com/books?id=8lu5eb3PZfsC&pg=PA501 (afternoon session, beginning p. 448, books.google.com/books?id=8lu5eb3PZfsC&pg=PA448.

³³ “Mafia” in “Chapter 2, Organized Crime in California”, in A Supplement to the Appendix to the Journal of the Assembly, Legislature of the State of California, 1959 Regular Session, Reports, Jan 5., 1959 – June 19, 1959 California State Printing Office, p. 13, books.google.com/books?id=tMp43AmMICgC&pg=RA1-PA13

³⁴ Ibid., subsection “Crime on an Organized Basis in California”.

³⁵ Relevant to this section are the facts that the American Howard Pyle died in Italy; and, in connection with the material which is given footnote 40, wrote not only of Robin Hood, but of buccaneers.

³⁶ The Spectator, A Weekly Review of Politics, Literature, Theology, and Art. Volume 48, Part 1 London: John Campbell, 1875, books.google.com/books?id=xtg9AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA773, accessed July 23, 2021.

³⁷ Trollope, op. cit., p. 160, quoting a Signor Franchetti, [note 16].

³⁸ Citali Seton, in the section “The Mafia” in “The Secret Societies of Southern Italy”, – Lippincott’s Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, J.B. Lippincott and Company, 1879; p. 590 for the quote, 589 for the beginning of the section, and pp. 575 to 591 for the entire article; books.google.com/books?id=GHo6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA590, [re]accessed July 31, 2021. The article begins with an excerpt from Francis Bacon, which may easily be misunderstood, because of the succint nature of the Latin language, but is relevant to the conditions described in this section, “The Mafia as Robin Hood”, as well as others: In societate civili aut lex aut vis valet. For an analysis, and the correct meaning, this partial view is sufficient: Manuel Reyes Mate Rupérez, “Aut lex, aut vis valet“, Revista Anthropos, No. 228, año 2010, pp. 66-67, vlex, vlex.es/vid/aut-lex-vis-valet-428496202, accessed July 31, 2021.

³⁹ E. Strachan Morgan, op. cit., p. 549.

⁴⁰ … Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce Part 4, op. cit., p. 91 for the first exchange, p.93 for the second one.

⁴¹ Reyes Mate, op. cit.

⁴² This paragraph has been based on, for lack of any better identifiable web source, U. Benigni, “Sicily”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, (1912). Retrieved July 31, 2021 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13772a.htm; also see there the article “Naples”, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10683a.htm, retrieved July 31, 2021.

⁴³ César Cantú, Historia Universal, Vol. XXI, trans. Joaquin Garcia – Bravo, Editorial: Gasso Hermanos, Barcelona, 1911? (n.d., date based on the publication date of a last volume.), p. 175.

⁴⁴ If this writer is not mistaken, it was alleged that the Emperor’s behaviour bred among the Sicilians the germs of what would be the Mafia – a rewording, if correct, taken from a volume which needs to be found, read in German: Georgina Masson, Das Staunen der Welt : Friedrich II. von Hohenstaufen, Bastei Lübbe, 1976, a translation of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen: A Life. However, this memory appears to be mistaken in the light of the Catholic Encyclopedia article, which, has Frederick allowing parliament to rule, which allowed four families to dominate the island and again devastate it – unless Frederick is blamed for allowing this to happen.

⁴⁵ “Wild Justice at New Orleans”, op. cit., p. 341.

⁴⁶ 61st Congress 3rd Session, Senate, “Document No. 764”, Report of the Immigration Commission – Statements and Recommendations Submitted by Societies and Organizations Interest in the Subject of Immigration, December 5, 1910, United States Congressional Serial Set, Volume 5881 Washington: Government Printing Office, 1911; books.google.com/books?id=1uRGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA116. However, few years later, with respect to the requirement that an immigrant be able to read and write, a Mr. Kahn states: I do not believe that the illiteracy test will have the effect of keeping out undesirable immigrants. The member of the mafia, the member of the camorra society, the black hander, the anarchist, and the dynamiter can invariably read and write: Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the Sixty-Second Congress, Third Session, Volume 49, Part 1, Washington, 1913 books.google.com/books?id=Ghr15FfZxFsC&pg=PA797. Page 3 shows Julius Kahn as the House Member from California.

⁴⁷ Klaus Joachim Herrmann, “Keine russische Mafia, aber zahllose Blüten und Drogen”, nd, 10.07.2002, http://www.nd-aktuell.de/artikel/20296.keine-russische-mafia-aber-zahllose-blueten-und-drogen.html, accessed July 31, 2021. A not very good proof is an an article which quotes a mysterious Alexi, who actually seems to be a fictional character, but his words are worth considering: James Osiris Baldwin, Russian Mafia 101: The Russian Mafia Doesn’t Actually Exist, jamesosiris.com/russian-mafia-101/, accessed July 31, 2021. This quotation is interesting, especially if misunderstood: “The Sicilian Mafia is said to be a way of life that is particularly Sicilian, with a code based on Sicilian traditions and customs. The notions of honor, respect, and omerta (code of silence) are critical to defining the mafia. The so-called Russian Mafia, however, is not associated with honor and respect and should not be confused with the real thing.”, “Challenging the Russian Mafia Mystique”, N.I.J. Journal, April 2001, Washington, D.C., http://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/jr000247b.pdf. On the popular level, the existence is also denied, but it relates to the N.I.J. Journal’s quote: Celestine Bohlen, “The World; To Sicilians, Russia Has No Mafia. It’s Too Wild” New York Times,  Jan. 10, 1999, http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/10/weekinreview/the-world-to-sicilians-russia-has-no-mafia-it-s-too-wild.html, partial preview (paywall!) accessed July 31, 2021. The present author believes that he has read an article, to which no current reference was found, which stated that a judge in Italy – or a court – ruled that the word “mafia” could not be applied to the Russian crimianal groups, because they lacked the structure that was necessary to make it a mafia. This may have changed since then.

⁴⁸ “Why There is no Law in Southern Italy” The Bulwark, Or, Reformation Journal: In Defence of the True Interests of Man and of Society, Especially in Reference to the Religious, Social and Political Bearings of Popery, Volumes 4-5 London: Seeley, Jackson, and Halliday, andJ. Nisbet & Co., 1876 books.google.com/books?id=ZikEAAAAQAAJ&pg=RA1-PA212 August 1875, accessed July 23, 2021.

⁴⁹ John D. Gill, A Timely Warning of Freedom’s Death Knell: Or, how Foreign Sovereigns Have Secretly Dug the Grave, and are Now Slaughtering America’s Bellowing Calf of Liberal Opinions, Free Press, Free Speech, Equal Rights and Personal Liberty John D. Gill Philadelphia: Daylight Publishing Company, 1893, p. 67. The rant includes Protestants, e.g., p.24, books.google.com/books?id=yy577ohQ_UQC&pg=PA67

⁵⁰ “Duty on Queen-Bees”, Bee Journal p. 729 Duty on Queen-Bees. American Bee Journal, Volumes 27-28 Chicago: Dadant & Sons, 1891 Thomas G. Newman, Ed. June 4, 1891, No. 23 Article Title: “Duty on Queen-Bees” There is a tariff of 20 per cent, ad valorem books.google.com/books?id=wi81AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA729

⁵¹ 1877 Blue Book (assumed), mentioned in E. Strachan Morgan, op. cit., p. 546.

⁵² G. K. Chesterton, “The Detection Club”, The Strand Magazine, Volume 85, p. 462 books.google.com/books?id=9usvAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA462 London, 1933

⁵³ … Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce Part 4, op. cit., (page # to be confirmed – connection not available at moment of writing. Unione Siciliano, also found as Unione Siciliani, and Unione Siciliana, originally a benevolent society [www.lexico.com/en/definition/unione_siciliana], and probably still existing as such in at least two South American countries, as found on August 10, 2021.

⁵⁴ Ibid., p. 517.

⁵⁵ “Waterfront Investigation”, March 27, 1953, United States Senate, Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Washington, D.C., from: Hearings before a Subcommittee of the Commitee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, Unites States Senate, Eight-third Congress First Session pursuant to S.Res. 41 on Waterfront Racketeering and Port Security Part 2 New Orleans Waterfront, June 24, 25, and 26, 1953. Washington: United States Government Printing Office, books.google.com/books?id=piZJAQAAIAAJ&pg=RA7-PA206

⁵⁶ Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, s.v. “slum,” accessed August 2, 2021, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/slum.

⁵⁷ Apparently this was cited from the opening article by Katherine Lee Bates in the quarterly The Outlook, mentioned in Book News, Volume 9 1891 Number 105, Philadelphia May 1891, p. 400. books.google.com/books?id=d9sRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA400.

⁵⁸ LIFE 1 Sep 1967. Specific articles will neither be linked nor named. The front cover is sufficient: books.google.com/books?id=UFYEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover, accessed August 2, 2021.

⁵⁹ ” … Their modus operandi calls for interest and activity in community and church affairs. They contribute outwardly and generously to charities and lead an ostensibly quiet family life. …. “, “Organized Crime in California”, op. cit., p. 18.

⁶⁰ The book version was written by Leslie Waller, with the same name as the movie: Hide in Plain Sight, Panther Granada, 1978[?], p. 63. If one takes a point two miles east of a western point of Hamilton, it is equidistant between the cities with Mafia operations (as named in the book) : about 72 miles. Mafia operations occurring both in Buffalo (the major city named by Waller) have been found in: Bill Freeman and Marsha Aileen Hewitt, Their Town: The Mafia, the Media and the Party Machine, Toronto: James Lorimer and Company, 1979, p. 82 (accessed August 30, 2021: books.google.com/books?id=X-rFDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA82. Names of individuals associated with Hamilton are found in: “Exhibit 18: Greene Memorandum on the Role of Organized Crime in Illicit Drug Traffic”, Testimony of John Finlator, Former Deputy Director, Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, in Reorganization Plan No. 2 of 1973 – Hearings before the Subcommittee on Reorganization Research, and International Organizations of the Committee on Government Operations of the United States Senate, Ninety-Third Congreess, First Session, Part 1, Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974, p. 215, books.google.com/books?id=Sp43AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA215, accessed August 2, 2021. On a separate note, while looking for this again, we find this story, datelined “Hamilton”, CBC News, “Canada is the best country in the world for organized criminals, mafia expert says”, posted Oct 05, 2020, http://www.cbc.ca, http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/cbc-asks-mafia-covid19-1.5750581, accessed August 5, 2021.

⁶¹ No evidence of this has been found on the Web, but may be considered a corollary of the clearing, whether total or partial, of the “Mafia” in Sicily.

⁶² The closest Wikipedia gets is a word meaning “aggessive boasting, bragging”, however, the “h” – in apparent substitution for an “f” is not the same “h” (of the two that exist in Arabic) in the mid-position of maḥyah, and for the final “h”, a form of “s” is given. Further inconsistency is shown in that of 7 forms, 4 are given in both Latin and Arabic characters, and 3 only in the Latin version. One of these is mafyá, meaning “place in the shade”, as asserted by (if the footnote is correct), Paul Theyroux, The Pillars of Hercules: A Grand Tour of the Mediterranean. New York: Fawcett Columbine. p. 176 – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mafia#cite_note-12, accessed August 3, 2021.

⁶³ Ibid., here we refer to the word meaning “aggressive boasting”, latinized as mahyas.

⁶⁴ See “Note added at 21 mins (2004-01-31 03:26:10 GMT” under “Morte Alla Francia Italia Anela” in KudoZ™, http://www.proz.com/kudoz/italian-to-english/other/625302-morte-alla-francia-italia-anela.html, accessed August 3, 2021. As an aside, someone came up with “Mazzini Autorizza Furti Incendi Avvelenamenti”, “Mazzini Authorizes Filching, Incinerating, Adulterating” – author’s idea for the otherwise more correct “Mazzini Authorizes Stealing, Burning, Poisoning”. Mazzini was fighting for Italian unity around the time the word Mafia first occurred in a negative sense, but the word “Mafia” existed before his time, as has been shown.

⁶⁵ Geo. H. Owen, “State of the Province” in “Messina. September 26, 1876”, in Report of Trade. Report Upon the Commercial Relations of the United States with Foreign Countries for the Year 1877, Washington: Government Printing Office, p. 698, books.google.com/books?id=uQspAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA698. That Owen is the consul is taken from p. 948, under the alphabetical listing, “Messina”, books.google.com/books?id=uQspAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA948.

⁶⁶ Trollope, op. cit, p. 158.

⁶⁷ George McMillan Darrow (not confirmed, typed document), “Dewberry Culture”, books.google.com/books?id=3-O4YwrNjH0C&pg=PA42 “Dewberry Culture”, section on “Books on American Intelligence” lists: Campbell, Rodney: The Luciano project: the secret wartime collaboration of the Mafia and the U.S. Navy. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1977, no date, the final page states: U.S. Government Printing office: 1988 – Region No. 8 Pg 42. Misentry, given as 1916 instead of 1988 in “About this book”.

⁶⁸ What happened was that the police chief of New Orleans was killed, apparently in revenge for his having arrested a certain person surnamed Esposito. For those who care to wade further into these citations, it will be found that the problem may have been that an American set up the attack, beause the chief was his rival. In this sense, the story becomes as confusing as many accounts of who may have murdered someone of importance. This account is interesting not only for its importance at the moment in the news, in the reaction of the U.S. Federal Government, but also because of some legal opinion offered on the requirement to do so, let alone both the positive and negative editorials to the event. Some extracts:

“It will never be known whether among the victims of Lynch-law in New Orleans any or all of these unfortunate men were or were not members of the Mafia (sometimes spelled Maffia). The Mafia would not be a secret association were its membership disclosed. Ever since Italy was made one country the government has acted vigorously against the Camorra on the main-land, and its affiliating association, the Mafia, on the island of Sicily. If it has, very much to its credit, in a measure crushed them out, it has failed to individualize the Mafia. We are not then bound to take without some reservation such absolute statements, coming from Italians, that there is no such thing as a Mafia society transplanted in America. Without being alarmist, it is not certain that Molly Maguireism [reference to an Irish secret organization, see: http://www.britannica.com/topic/Molly-Maguires – P.K.M.] ever has been totally extirpated in Pennsylvania. If, then, Mafiaism has not been extinguised in Sicily – and there is no proof that it has been – it would be silly for us to believe that among thos swarms of Sicilians who have come to the United states there was one of the Mafia.

“Looking at the methods of the Sicilians in New Orleans … the methods in the United States and Italy are the same. Twelve years ago, in contests with the state at home, these secret Italian societies were well able to hold their own, for in the law courts where the issue was decided the odds were all in the favor. The Opinione (1879) printed this much, ‘If a member commits a crime, his associates defend him by manufactured evidence, intrigue, and intimidation.’ …“

“…

“…

The paragraph following the two unquoted ones lets us now that the man called Exposito, was extradited to Italy, where he was wanted for two murders, many robberies, and extortion and given a life sentence. In spite of witnesses in his favor, “whether of the Mafia or not, [which] cannot now or ever be determined”; See note 22 for source.

An article was found in a book written by a one-time judge-advocate of the United States Army, which bears noting, as it may not be what we understand by international law at this time.

“In the case of civil commotions or insurrection, the state is not responsible for an injury to the person or property of a foreign subject received in the course of the struggle, either through measures rendered necessary on its own behalf or through acts on the part of the insurgents.”

This article gives as examples two events which took place in New Orleans, the first in 1851, when the Spanish consulate was attacked, and significant personal and property damage resulted. That the individuals (other than the Spanish Consul) had no right to idemnity is then justified by a “case illustrating the question of governmental liability [which] arose in New Orleans in 1891.

“It appears that the chief of police of the city of New Orleans had been massacred under circumstances that indicated that a certain Italian society, known as the “Mafia,” was implicated in it. Certain Italians had been arraigned, tried, and acquitted, which action so incensed the inhabitants of the city than an indignation meeting was called, at which a number of the leading citizens were present, inflammatory speeches were made, and upon the following morning a mob assembled, without protest from any of the organized authorities, proceeded to the jail, took out the accused, and shot or hanged a number of them. The President promptly expressed regret at these occurrences, and promised to lay the matter before Congress, with a recommendation that the families of the murdered men be granted an indemnity. The Italian government insisted that the participators should be brought to trial and punished by the authorities of the United States; but as this, under our laws, could not be done on account of lack of jurisdiction of the United States courts, the matter was allowed to drop.“

The article concludes by saying that in this case, the government was liable for the injuries done to the aliens by the mob, because it had made no effort to suppress the violence. [Hand-book of International Law, Edwin Forbes Glenn West Publishing Company, 1895 St. Paul, Minnesota Under the title, P. (Ch. 4) “Responsibility in Case of Civil Commotion and Mob Violence”, books.google.com/books?id=ZRvSavueFBMC&pg=PA84, accessed July 22, 2021.]

The preceding is instructive, as tells us more about the violence of native inhabitants of a city, than about its foreign inhabitants. We note that the Italians who had been tried, had thereafter been acquitted, but, unfortunately for them, they had not been released. Were they really members of the Mafia?

There is still more about this, and because this material may not accurately reflect the present structure (nor even the past), it is at least valuable as entertaining reading. For example, further information about the above event shows that the acquittal was not for all:

“1891 – October 14, 1890. David C. Hennessey, chief of Police of New Orleans, was assassinated by the members of the Mafia, an Italian secret society. eleven men were indicted for the murder. A verdict of acquittal was found for six; and a mistrail was entered for three others. The verdict, which was the result of bribery, was vehemently denounced by the citizens, who on March 14, 1891 [sic], broke into the jail and slew the eleven accused. Italy demanded satisfaction, but Secretary Blaine replied that he had no consititutional right to interfere with the administration of justice in a sovereign State; and Louisiana refused to give satisfation. The Italian and American ministers left their respective posts, on an indefinite leave of absence, but the affair was finally concluded by the United States paying $25,000 indemnity to the Italian Government, for the families of the murderers.” [Nugent Robinson, Compiler, The Busy Man’s Hand-book: A Condensed Cyclopedia of Historical, Geographical, Scriptural, Scientific, Legal, Social, Mercantile, Medical, and Useful Information New York: Astra Publishing Company, 1893: books.google.com/books?id=RUxTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA187]

A more complete write-up is found, full of innuendo, admitted “ifs”, etc., parts of which are quoted here, as found in the original – a long paragraph:

“If the leading citizens of New Orleans are telling the truth, they have been compelled to have recourse the the reserved rights of the sovereign people. Their case is that the Mafia had become a danger to the city, and succeeded in putting itself above the law. It had been tolerated for long because the murdering went on mostly among the Italians themselves, and also becasue it is the practice of Americans to tolerate disorder till it goes just a step too far, and then to make a summary end. The murder of the chief of the New Orlean police last autumn is asserted to have been the step too far in this case, and the lynching on Saturday was the summary end. When it is remembered that the Sicilians and the Neapolitans (who are the bulk of the Italians in New Orleans) combine for the purposes of murder and extortion at home very readily, that they were not likely to give up these practices in Louisiana, that Mr. HENNESSEY, who was certainly shot by some Italians, had made himself offensive to the Mafia by the capture of EXPOSITO and his activity against the organization, that the trial of the accused Italians does not seem to have been interfered with by a mob, that the lynching of Saturday was done with every appearance of deliberation under the direction of men with characters to lose, that the Vigilance Committee discriminated carefully in the selection of the victims, it may be allowed that there is a strong prima facie case for the leading citizens of the “Crescent City”. If it is true that there was a Mafia, and that it did in New Orleans what the Camorra and the original Mafia have notoriously done in Naples and Sicily, and is also true that the jury was cowed or corrupt, then it may be allowed that the citizens acted in their own defence. To have let the accused get off scot free would, if the Vigilance Committe are stating the case accurately, have been to put the city at the mercy of the Mafia. There are, of course, a good many “ifs” implied and expressed in all this. Not having a report of the trial to refer to, we do not know what evidence was produced against the men, nor do we know what proof there is that the jury was bribed or terrorized. Still less do we know that the lynching party was inspired purely by a desire to punish criminals who had put themselves above the law. It is at least possible that some hatred of the very industrious and successful competitors in business mingled with the more respectable zeal of the lynching party. Even, however, if Lawyer PARKERSON, city Clerk MANNING, and Mr. HOUSTON are quite right, we do not think that the incident is by any means an honourable one to the United States. When everything is said for it that can be said, it is a tacit confession that the administration of the criminal law in the Great Republic is hopelessly cowardly and corrupt. No American, so far as we have heard, seems to have been either surprised or shocked at learning that a New Orleans jury has scandalously failed in its duty. The fact is recorded as a matter of course, and as a complete justification for the application of mob rule. It is taken for granted that a Mafia may have existed for years unchecked, and nobody seems to be aware that this puts Louisiana on about the level of Naples in the worst days of the old BOURBON regime …
“If … [all the eleven] … were still subjects of King HUMBERT, then the Italian Government will have fair ground [sic] for demanding satisfaction. The question of whether they were not criminals does not concern the Italian Government. It is not responsible for the barbarous weakness and corruption of American justice. All it has to look to is that its subjects, who had been acquitted by a presumably regular court of law, were butchered by a mob. The Government of the States must be held answerable for allowing such things to happen. …

The article is worth reading in its entirety, although it is not so much about the Mafia, as about political corruption.

The Saturday Review of Politics, Literature, Science and Art, Volume 71 London: John W. Parker and Son, 1891 books.google.com/books?id=HPxYihBevBUC&pg=PA341 pp. 341-2. Title: Wild Justice at New Orleans

Another point of view is found in:
” … The Mafia are still believed to exist [in Palermo] and levy toll when they can; at least, on good authority, such was stated to have been the case but four years ago. In the English Blue-book of 1877 there is a definition of the Mafia: ‘The Mafia is not precisely a secret society, but rather the development and blossom of arbitrary violence directed to criminal ends of every sort. It is the instinctive, brutal, sordid solidarity that unites against the state, the laws, and the consitituted authorities all who are determined to live and thrive not by honest work, but by violence, by fraud, and by intimidation.’ It owes it origin in Sicily to no patriotic idea, but to sordid gain.

The above account goes into a readable detective story narrative of how the Police Chief had angered “the Mafia”. Aside, it is mentioned that he had secured information from Italy about some men involved in a shooting, which led to his discovery of “the existence of a perfectly organized secret society in America”. Now, those involved were to go on trial, but “he had also collected the criminal record of D. C. O’Malley, a private detective, and was about to crush him out.” This O’Malley went to one of the accused, and advised him to have the Mafia assassinate Hennessy. The story then goes on to explain the difficult process of jury selection – interviews with 1200 tales jurors over 11 days, with 12 peremptory challenges against the 9 chosen. The curious reader may find the full article as noted here:
Harper’s Weekly, Volume 35 1891 No. 1776, New York, January 3, 1891. books.google.com/books?id=9kJaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA226 . (Previously cited in note 22.)

A different point of view is found here: The Journal of the Knights of Labor, of March 19, which contains an article from the pen of T. V. Powderly, Grand Master Workman, on “The New Orleans Massacre” …[saying] … the ‘better element’ of New Orleans, aping the practices of the Mafias, murdered the prisoners. The reports in all the papers state that it was the ‘better element’ which headed the revolt and committed the horrible butchery. I am glad of that, for, if they were workingmen who did it, the press of the country would cry out for the summary punishmentof the perpetrators. … Why did not the mob kill the men who served on the jury – the cowardly ‘twelve good men and true’ who were a part of the ‘respectable element of New Orleans? Had that jury been composed of workingmen, had they been bribed into rendering such a verdict, it is altogether likely that the ‘respectable’ assassins would have murdered them too. Really, if any one deserved killing last Saturday it was the jury.”

The author of the aforementioned article, in the last paragraph, states: “The one thing to do was to break up the Mafia. This has been done. There will be no more of it, for some time, at least, in New Orleans. … Assassins simply got what they deserved in the quickest way and at the least expense. It is the American way, and domestic or imported assassins will do well to take notice. p. 441 Locomotive Firemen’s Magazine, Volume 15, Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, 1891 January 1891, No. 1. Eugene V. Debs, ed. Table of Contents article title “The New Orleans Mafia”, p. 441, but this is the May number, books.google.com/books?id=rXAtAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA441 No. 5. Terre Haute, Indiana, accessed July 23, 2021. Some of the above showed animosity towards the victims, but others were concerned about the rule of law. A happy indifference is evidenced by this quotation: “For too long, Americans have treated organized crime as a fascinating game of cops and robbers.  We have watched from the sidelines, complacently … . We have refused to take organized crime seriousy enough.”: “Editorial”, LIFE, Sept 8, 1967, Vol 63, No. 10, books.google.com/books?hl=es&id=T1YEAAAAMBAJ&q=Mafia . Furthermore, this edition has “The Mob Part 2”, pp. 91 -104, showing involvement in Venezuelan politics at presidential level.

⁶⁹ “The Week in Review”, The Congregationalist, Volume LXXX, 21 March 1895, Boston, p. 4, books.google.com/books?id=ZXJPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA431 . Rouse has not been found, this article stated that it was in Colorado, the following document mentions Nebraska, so it may have been there.

⁷⁰ books.google.com/books?id=kvtgrjdHnkwC&pg=PA6 “Protection of Aliens and Enforcement of Their Treaty Rights”. Aug. 23-24, 1922 Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations Unites States Senate Sixty-Seventh Congress Second Session on S. 1943 A Bill providing for the Better Protection of Aliens and for the Enforcement of their Treaty Rights August 23 and 24, 1922 Washington: Government Printing Office, 1922. Here, in addition to one commercial article, is a listing of governmental documents found up to the end of 1959, other than those already mentioned:

An editorial on the New Orleans massacre, untitled, Real Estate Record and Builders’ Guide, Volume 47 New York: C.W. Sweet & Company, 1891 March 21, 1891 No 1,201, books.google.com/books?id=yPTwSChY4YUC&pg=PA426 .

A brief mention of “Mafia”, defined, New Orleans mentioned, as well as the compensation paid to Italy: “Mafia”: “Encyclopedic Index”, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume 19 Prepared under the direction of the Joint Committee on Printing of the House and Senate, Pursuant to an Act of the Fifty-Second Congress of the United States. New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc., 1916, books.google.com/books?id=HjJOAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA27-PP5 .

Testimony by John J. Blaine, referring to former Secretary of State James G. Blaine [no relation] with regards to the Spanish claim mentioned in note 68: Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the First Sesssion of the Seventieth Congress Vol. LXIX Part 3, February 1 to February 23, 1928: Washington: Government Printing Office, 1928, books.google.com/books?id=m0pJchjUor4C&pg=PA2421 .

“The Chicago Rackets”, Life 29 Nov 1948, books.google.com/books?id=tUoEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA95 . No wording of Mafia, picture of Al Capone’s Tombstone

A rhetorical question, not dealing with the Mafia, but with Communists: “(extract) Do you believe any organization in the field of American politics – whether it is the Communist Party, or the Ku Klux Klan, or the Anarchists, or the Mafia, or Japanese Black Dragan Society has or should have the constitutional right to operate in the dark and not in the light?”, quoted in “The Dewey-Stassen Debate and the Mundt-Nixon Bill -(Text of broadcast by Samuel B. Pettengill over ABC network, Sunday, May 23, 1948)”, Control of Subversive Activities Hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate Eightieth Congress Second Session on H.R. 5852 An Act to Protect the United States against Un-American and Subversive Activities, May 27, 28, 29 and 31, 1948 Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1948, books.google.com/books?id=2CwbAuSTLJMC&pg=PA483 .

This is the first we hear of the Mafia concretely (ignoring their activity under the word “gangster”, as noted in the Life article above, page numbers of possible interest have been added in parentheses: “”There is one organization that does differ, however, from the above loosely knit [crime] groups. This outfit was clearly and vividly described by Captain James E. Hamilton, Chief of the Intelligence Division, Los Angeles Police Department. In his testimony befor the committee at its hearing in San Diego on October 14, 1958, he … stated ‘whether you like the term Mafia or not, it is certainly descriptive of this organization … a hard core organization that works not against law enforcement or against the statutes.” They scorn them. They ignore law enforcement and the organized status of the country in which they live .. they believe in disciplining their own … in other words, do not cross them.. They are ‘well respected’ because of their proven ability to handle their own situations … they know their own organziation and they know who is acceptable and who is not. They deal with many outside groups … in both lawful enterprises and illegal enterprises. But they do not take these other individuals or groups into their organization. They deal with them or use them. That’s all.” (preceding, as of p. 13.) …

On page 4, there is a description of a November 14, 1957 meeting held in Apalachin, New York. The wording seems to suggest that before this, “concrete evidence” had not “been developed to prove that” such meetings “did, in fact, take place.” Then a chronology of prior meetings is given, 6 in all, since 1928, rather an insignificant amount. John T. Cusack, a District Supervisor for the United States Bureau of Narcotics claimed that they had been interested in the Mafia for 18 years – because of narcotics. Page 16 lists the following legitimate business activities in which the Mafia was involved: “organized labor, with the followup labor-management venture, the distribution of beer, liquor and soft drinks, the importation and distribution of Italian olive oil, cheese and tomato paste, control of the wholesale fruit and vegetable produce markets, the baking and distribution of Italian bread, pastry, the vending machine business of all types, including cigarette machines and juke boxes, the operation of night clubs, restaurants and bars. Their night club operations are frequently complemented through their interest in model and theatrical booking agencies and in musical recording companies. … Their modus operandi calls for interest and activity in community and church affairs. They contribute outwardly and generously to charities and lead an ostensibly quiet family life. …. (p. 18) During World War II we find them engaged in the black marketing of sugar, meat, motor tires and in the counterfeiting of ration stamps. … The Mafia, throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Italy and France, is a fraternal organization … (p. 20) We ae informed that the Mafia society is divided into units of 10 men … supervised by a goup chief and group chiefs, in turn, by an area chief … in all probability, … a member of the Grand Council. … Since the unification of Italy, the Italian government has recognized the threat to life and property present by the Mafia in the Palermo area, and on several occasions, has assigned their most capable commissioners of police to the Palermo district. … [continues in footnote 76]”: “Mafia” subheading in Chapter II “Organized Crime in California”, op. cit.

⁷¹ “Dispute over ‘Mafia'”, Charles Grutzner, New York Times, Sept. 5, 1970, http://www.nytimes.com/1970/09/05/archives/dispute-over-mafia-despite-bans-on-the-word-experts-say-brotherhood.html, accessed August 4, 2021.

⁷² Newsday.com Staff, “Celebrities who have served prison time”, Newsday, Updated September 26, 2018, http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/celebrities/celebrities-who-have-served-prison-time-1.9489735, accessed August 4, 2021; Noelle Talmon, “Celebrities who are still in prison”, Grunge.com, no date, http://www.grunge.com/421151/celebrities-who-are-still-in-prison/, accessed August 4, 2021; Dan X. McGraw, “Famous CEOs and founders who’ve been to jail”, Chron.com, no date, http://www.chron.com/z-archived-jobs/slideshow/Famous-CEOs-and-founders-who-ve-been-to-jail-71363.php, accessed August 4, 2021

⁷³ LIFE 1 Sep 1967, op. cit, pp. 22, 42B, for examples.

⁷⁴ This assertion may be considered a corollary of the statement “The fewness of murders is really a bad sign” found in a letter by a Prince Galati, quoted by Professor Turiello in “Secret Societies in the Two Sicilies” in The Library Magazine 1887. The idea is that the “Mafia” didn’t allow more. In this way, it was good for security. For more from this, see the “Bibliographical Supplement” on this page.

⁷⁵ LIFE, 8 Sep 1961, op. cit., p. 4, where it is stated, that the organization grew rich by providing “services” where there is a large demand for them.

⁷⁶ “Since [1877], as our own consular report shows, some improvement in the condition of the island has taken place, and every year we do see that crime grows less, and that the order-loving population increases in strength and in numbers.”: Jesse White, “Italy and the United States”, The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, Volume 53; Volume LIII, June, 1891, books.google.com/books?id=SxNLAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA841, erroneously labelled Volume 116. Reaccessed for complete information, August 4, 2021. From 1924 until 1927, Benito Mussolini … assigned one Michael Mori as Prefect of Police at Palermo, with specific instruction to eliminate the Mafia power in Sicily. Mori’s account of his successful conduct of the assignment is covered in his book entitled ‘With the Mafia at the Iron Courts’. During Mori’s command at Palermo, several prosecutions of Mafia conspiracies involving hundreds of defendants were pressed.: Chapter II “Organized Crime in California”, subsection, “Mafia”, op. cit. Not everyone was happy with Il Duce‘s handling of the Mafia: “Unfortunately for the United States, the Mussolini regime during this period launched a drive to wipe out the Mafia in Sicily. While the campaign was only partially successful, it sent hundreds of mafiosi fleeing, many under assumed names, to relatives in the New World.”: “2. Criminal Elements in California”, subtitle “Mafia”, Third and Final Report of the Joint Judiciary Committee on Adminstration of Justice … on Crime and Criminal Courts in California, Senate of the State of California, 1959 in Volume Two, Appendix to the Journal of the Senate, Legislature of the State of California, 1959 Regular Session Reports January Fith to June Nineteenth California State Printing Office, books.google.com/books?id=0YMhAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA17

⁷⁷ “There must be some way to … find actual evidence on which [the Committee] can prove the existence of the Mafia”: “Mafia” in “Chapter 2, Organized Crime in California” , op. cit. Note that the investigation is on organized crime, not specifically “Mafia”, and definitely not “The Mafia”. Then, as late as 1981, we have a dictionary (note 3) refer to “[a]n alleged international criminal organization believed active.” Further, asked if the Mafia killed someone, the answer was, “the alleged members”, in the second snippet we have of Follmer testifying [quoted above in main text]: A Resolution Authorizing an Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce Part 4 Missouri July 6, op. cit.

⁷⁸ “The Chicago Rackets”, op. cit.,: “rackets and “racketeers” on p. 95, “Mob” and “The Syndicate”, p. 96.

⁷⁹ Hitler won a referendum on August 19, 1934 by almost 90 per cent, Stalin, on December 21, 1947, 100 per cent of the voters in his district had voted for him: “100 Percent Vote for Stalin”, Daytona Beach Morning Journal, December 22, 1947, new.google.com, news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1873&dat=19471222&id=JtQpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=YcgEAAAAIBAJ&pg=2365,1607287. A similar phenomenon is happening when the one of the two houses of Congress vote with barely an abstention in favour of resolutions or laws which are at least morally dubious. While this article was being written, two other examples were found: the “mafioso-style sale of property in slum district”, quoting Infobae, as found in Ramón Oliveira Cézar, “La ilegalidad tolerada”, [Illegality Tolerated], Criterio, Oct./Nov. 2020, No. 2471, p. 22 (of pp. 21 – 25). The original was found on the Web: Federico Fahsbender, “Villa 31: cómo operan las mafias que ocupan y venden terrenos”, [Neighbourhood 31 of Precarious Housing: How mafias operate in the seizure and sale of land], Infobae, Buenos Aires, 5 April 2021. Here we have a variation on the word of our attention, in that the plural is used, thus softening the impact as an ethnic attack. The second example was found in Dardo Gasparré, “La farsa del sistema político argentino”, La Prensa, 25 July 2021, Buenos Aires, p. 15 (pp. 14 – 15), where he mentions that the selection of candidates for governors and mayors is worthy of the technique of the head of the mob family in The Godfather. The system, he claims, borders on that which is used by the mafia. How true these statements are, the present author is not qualified to say – they are here for illustrative purposes only. The same edition of La Prensa had, in a supplement called “Ideas”, an article even more explicit, beginning with the title: Santiago Gonzalez, Tattaglias y Corleones, p. 6 of this section, which accused “mafia familiies of having taken over the State.

.

Bibliographical Supplement

Here we give other sources, which have not been used as indicated by footnotes, but which may be of interest to other readers.

Pre-1890

Consul Goodwin to the Hon. W. Temple, Palermo, February 9, 1849, Correspondence Respecting the Affairs of Naples and Sicily: 1848 – 1849, London: Harrison and Son, 1849, pg. 642;   see also, p. 591, barbarities committed by troops against Sicilians, books.google.com/books?id=tLLB982Q2xUC&pg=PA642.

Giacomo Pagano, Le presenti condizioni della sicilia e i mezzi per migliorarle, Firenze: Tipografia di G. Barbèra, 1875, books.google.com.ar/books?id=qxUuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41: below, as very roughly translated by the present author:

(Beginning with p. 40): “The prefects of Sicily told the government what the Mafia is, more of less approaching the truth. The word Mafia is if recent usage, ill-famed even only since yesterday. It was a word used by the people, and maybe, just maybe, a term in usage in the Great Prison of Palermo to mean excellence, superiority. Then, in 1863, a theatre actor, Giuseppe Rizzotto, wrote and staged in the prison a drama titled The Mafiusi. The scenes are very vivid, realistic, a tapestry woven with the truth in its coloring.
From the representation of that drama onwards, the term mafia was universally accepted to denote a state of affairs that had no name.
The Mafia is neither brigandage, nor the Camorra, nor marauding: since brigandage is an open struggle with social laws, Camorra is an illicit gain on economic transactions, marauding is a specialty of vulgar and very common people given totally to vice, and which acts upon such people of little caliber. The Mafia is both the thing and the quality (!) It is the habit of making abstraction of right and law, it is the daily hymn to individual strength, the one and only arbiter of every contradiction, of every clash of interests or of ideas. The Mafia, by virtue of customs and habits, cannot and must not resort to justice or to a public official for a wrong he has received. He obtains execution either by means of a “mafia” more mafia than himself and his opponent, or by stab wounds and other “energetic means” of his individual responsibility. If he has no faith in his clique, he is branded an idler, spy, snitch, [fwhatever], because the real mafioso obtains justice by his own hand. As soon as an individual does not tolerate bullying, and imposes himself as bully, he acquires the reputation of a person worthy of respect and therefore of mafia. [Special vocabulary looked up: clique = cosca, carugnuni idlers, spies, snitches, – a Sicilian word: found in: books.google.com/books?id=3KIFd_Y1olYC&pg=PA545 – may be necessary to look for term in books.google.com, as direct access to page may be denied, as happened August 6, 2021, when this information was updated. See also page 130.]

Luigi Monti, “The Mafiusi of Sicily”, The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 37 Atlantic Monthly Company, January, 1876, negative description, people believe that the government can, with time, destroy this organization, books.google.com/books?id=QEo6AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA75. The article begins on p. 58.

Giuseppe Di Menza e Vella Le cronache delle Assise di Palermo Volume II, Palermo, Tipografia del Giornale di Sicilia, 1878. p. 159 “La mafia è una malattia sociale che si è supposta o voluto supporre una malattia organica e gentilizia della sola Sicilia.” [The mafia is a social disease that has been supposed or wanted to be supposed to be an organic and gentry disease of Sicily alone.] See also the paragraph footnoted with #17, and its note.

“Secret Societies in the Two Sicilies” in The Library Magazine 1887 as of page 543 were we find the reference to Opinione (Oct. 26, 1879) (given elsewhere on this page). Page 544, mislabeled 154. [books.google.com/books?id=yGQ3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PP12, and click on the link for the article, accessed July 23, 2021]: Here there is a nice quote from a Professor Turiello: “Neapolitan jurymen would think it almost a want of courtesy to return an unfavorable verdict against the eloquent appeal of a distinguished lawyer.” If the statistic given on that page is correct, the murder rate was about 224 per 100,000 of population in Naples (apparently from Opinione), but it is not said who did the murdering. This ratio was supposedly 16 times worse than that of England, (14 per 100,000), but according to worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/murder-rate-by-country, the latter country, at that time, would have had a higher murder rate than all other countries listed there, save for the 5 most violent countries in the world. It is also important to note, again showing that this has nothing to do with any Mafia, “… that the foreign visitor to Italy goes away with the impression the the country is orderly, and that the risk to life is not greater there than elsewhere, and as regards himself that impression is correct. … The vast majority of murders, save when the outcome of a drunken brawl, are due to one of two causes … . They are the result of either jealousy … – trade disputes, shall we say? … or, less frequently, they are the execution of sentences pronounced by secret societies for some infraction of their rules.” Speaking of the Mafia, and quoting a letter by a Prince Galati, Professor Turiello noted that “though murders are now seldom necessary the rule of the Maffia is not less absolute. The fewness of murders is really a bad sign.” [Really! – sic] Although the reason, supposedly, is that “[i]t proves the complete subjection of the population to secret societies”. (p. 546). (follows already quoted “not precisely a secret society … fraud and by intimidation”, above). “It would take a volume to specify all the modes in which, without violating the letter of the law, the Maffia can make things comfortable for its subordinates.” This wording may seem counter-intuitive, but an example follows, apparently from the Blue Book of 1877.

On page 548, an explanation in addition to the anthropology is given as a factor for the prevalence of crime in Sicily. Pliny had said that the latifundia, large estates, had destroyed Italy, and the writer considers that these are seed-beds of crime, and made worse by absentee landlords: “the cause and the consequence of the Maffia. … Small properties cannot stand up under the pressure of taxation. … (p. 549. … Baron Mendola, a Sicilian landord and a shrewd observer, gives it as his deliberate opinion that the average Sicilian peasant cannot possibly make both ends meet. ‘Honest labor,” he says, “seldom suffices for the maintenance of the family. Theft is obligatory.” We leave it to the reader to look up the article in the Library Magazine to find some of the more unsavory aspects of life as lived by the poor in Sicily.
The above article was originally from the Fortnightly Review, written by E. Strachan Morgan. His article ends with an unfair comparison: that in 1884, there were 170 murders in England, but in the province of Palermo, there were 434. Based upon statistics previously given here, we can guess the population of England, but we have no idea about that “single province”. A search gives the estimated result for 1884 at 730,280, or a murder rate of almost 59.5 per 100,000. The Statesman’s Year-Book: Statistical and Historical Annual of the States of the Civilised World for the Year 1886 London books.google.com/books?id=0s_MDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA342 MacMillan and Co. 1886. J. Scott-Keltie, accessed July 23, 2021. This is 3 murders per 100,000 worse than Venezuela at the present – considering that we are living in more modern times, perhaps the Palermo murder rate should be considered as reasonable for those times. Furthermore, the ratio between the province of Palermo and England do not square with the statistics we have given for the comparison between Naples and England.
(Springer, 27 dic. 2016)

1890 New Orleans Lynching

FBI,, “History of La Cosa Nostra”, fbi.gov > what we investigate > organized crime or http://www.fbi.gov/investigate/organized-crime/history-of-la-cosa-nostra

The Central Law Journal, Volumes 32-33 Soule, Thomas & Wentworth, 1891 Lyne S. Metcalfe, Jr., Editor. Volume 32 January – June, St. Louis, Mo.: Central Law Journal Co., 1891 Vol. 32, p.285. No title. books.google.com/books?id=SDNHAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA285 dateline St. Louis, April 3, 1891. – St. Louis incident.

The Washington Law Reporter, Volume 19 No. 17, April 23, 1891. in Powell & Ginck, 1892, Washington, D.C.: The Law Reporter Co., 1892 books.google.com/books?id=58wZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA257 no title, or the following (listed by Google as different title, but it is not): books.google.com/books?id=hkRFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA257. – St. Louis incident.

n.a., “Fixing the Blame” ” … The Lutheran Witness, Volumes 9-11 Edited and published under the auspices of the Cleveland District Conference by C.A. Frank, 1890 July 7, 1891 vol. 10. Baltimore, Md. books.google.com/books?id=rB8sAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA19. – St. Louis incident.

Jesse White, “Italy and the United States”, The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science and Art, Volume 53; Volume 116, 1891, books.google.com/books?id=SxNLAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA841 “Professor Villari, now Minister of Public Instruction … (not otherwise identified in this magazine) … affirms that “the Mafia … is not a secret society, and hardly and association. It is formed by spontaneous generation.” (New Paragraph) … the writers or newspaper correspondents who, since the tragedy of New Orleans, have had to report on the Mafia, all fall back upon the authors who wrote between 1863 and 1877.”

“The Lynching Affair at New Orleans”, The Spectator, Volume 66 F.C. Westley, 1891, books.google.com/books?id=UTdDAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA401. Article starts at p. 400.

“Affidavits of George Provenzano and Joe Provenzano”, Correspondence in Relation to the Killing of Prisoners in New Orleans on March 14, 1891, Department of State, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1891, books.google.com/books?id=OAgNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA63, accessed July 27, 2021 .

“The Trouble Between Italy and America”, The Japan Weekly Mail, April 11, 1891, books.google.com/books?id=r0oxAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA423

“The Mafiosi”, The Living Age, Volume 194, July, August September, 1892 – article from Chamber’s Journal, books.google.com/books?id=8yU_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA573 . “The Mafiosi”, starts on pg. 573, and is claimed to be “a direct outgrowth of feudalism; the Mafia originated in Florence and Genoa”. There are som mafia maxims, mostly harmless, the author claims to know many secrets, given, which, however, seem to have been unknown to American investigators at a later time. Except that we do not find the word Mafia in the following source, one finds a parallel thread in HISTORIA UNIVERSAL. Traducida y continuada hasta nuestros días por Joaquin Garcia – Bravo Cantu, Cesar – Garcia Bravo, Joaquin Editorial: Gasso Hermanos, Barcelona, 1911? (n.d., date based on the publication date of a last volume.) Cantú, César Vol. XXI, the first chapters deal with regions of the Italian peninsula, including Sicily.

Joint Committee on Printing, of the House and Senate, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume XIX, (with) Encyclopedic Index A – M, Washington: Bureau of National Literature, 1914. books.google.com/books?id=lqYyAQAAMAAJ&pg=PT420 – Note : August 6, 2021 – Although this is a free book, on going to this URL again, there was a statement that the page could not be visualized, and that the book should be bought. There is a work-around, go to “About this book” on the left”, click, then click on the image of the page at the top, and navigate towards the bottom, where there is an alphabetical listing, until reaching M, and finally, “Mafia”, which has no other page number in what is actually an index.

1950s

See note 18 for title, source: James M. Pendergast, attorney, KansasCity, Mo., Mr. Chambers, a former police commissioner, answers Sen. Wiley, that the Binaggio political machines seems to have gone back to Pendergast voter rigging books.google.com.ar/books?id=EAs3AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA53, also available at books.google.com.ar/books?id=S8sZCDMEgRcC&pg=RA4-PA53, same as in footnote 18, but under a cover giving “Part I, Florida, May 26 and 27, July 13, 14, and 15, August 9 and 10, and September 19, 22, and 26, 1950, accessed August 5, 2021. Pg 82 of this already quoted book – p. 81 – Follmer – “local Mafia, or dreaded Black Hand Society of Sicilian origin.” Described in Wikipedia as an extortion technique used by the Mafia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hand_(extortion) books.google.com/books?id=3HYEAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA513

Investigation of Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce: pt. 1-1A. Florida, books.google.com/books?id=8lu5eb3PZfsC&pg=PA425 : Thomas C. Lynch, chief assistant district attorney, San Francisco, answering Rudolph Halley, chief counsel, title as before, Tuesday, November 21, 1950, San Francisco, Calif. Referring to certain individuals, he uses expressions which cast doubt on the actual existence of the Mafia, “[“John Doe”] in my book, is a notorious member of the Mafia … in my opinion they were members of an organized group, in what I would classify as the Mafia.” [James English, identified as chief of inspectors, San Francisco Police Department in: books.google.com/books?id=8lu5eb3PZfsC&pg=PA494]
In answer to a question to two inspectors by Mr. Halley, if either of them know anything about the Mafia operations, Mr. English replies “Your are interested primarily in syndicated crime.”, suggesting a change of wording.
same page. Mr. Chairman. … Mr. English, … What is the Mafia?
Mr. English. Sort of a loose-knit national syndicate dealing in narcotics, extortion, control of legitimate enterprise, and operating throughout the Italian element, not encroaching necessarily upon the other types of nationalities; primarily interested in the Italian field and only able to operate within that field: at least, that is true from our investigation.

“Capone Gang Controls Bookmaking”, Second Interim Report of the Special Senate Committe to Investigate Organized Crime in Intersate Commerce, Report No. 141, February 28 (legislative day, January 29), 1951, Washington: United States Government Printing Office, books.google.com/books?id=ctG02iGuFigC&pg=RA80-PA20, another mention of Binaggio; also, Trans-American Publishing and News Services

“The City Stories”: “New  Orleans” Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, :  “V. The importance of Carlos Marcello in New Orleans rackets”,  in The Kefauver Committee Report on Organized Crime, New York: Didier Publishers, 1951 books.google.com/books?id=NcsPAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA64 brief entry

“Vending Target of Syndicate Muscle Police Exec Warns: Los Angeles Police Chief Tells how Hoodlums Prey on Industry.”, Billboard, 27 September, 1952, books.google.com/books?id=wB8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA83

“2. Criminal Elements in California”, The Journal of the Senate During the … Session of the Legislature of the State of California, Volume 2 : From cover, though, says Volume Two, Appendix to the Journal of the Senate, Legislature of the State of California, 1959 Regular Session Reports January Fith to June Nineteenth California State Printing Office, begins with excerpts defining Mafia from the Columbia Encyclopedia, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1959, volume 14. On p. 17, adds to the previously mentioned (footnote 17): The Mafia apparently was not a major factor in crime in the United States until the 1920’s. Its members operated largely among other immigrants from Sicily and Italy in the larger cities. These relatively petty extortions, however, were overshadowed when the prohibition era brought its rich opportunities for fortunes from bootlegging. Unfortunately for the Unites States, the Mussolini regime during this period launched a drive to wipe out the Mafia in Sicily. While the campaign was only partially successful, it sent hundreds of mafiosi fleeing, many under assumed names, to relatives in the New World; p. 18. Al Capone, an ally, but not a member, tried to end their turf wars. Apalachin incident: “The names of some of those arrested came as a surprise in their home towns. Nearly all were dignified men of middle age, little resembling the Hollywood stereotype of the penthouse mobster. P. 20 “Mafia members to an astonishing degree associate only with each other. *** The men almost always marry daughters of other mafiosi. *** .” read to p. 22, books.google.com/books?id=0YMhAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA17

“Legislative Recommendations of the President in the Labor-Management Field – Statement by the Secretary of Labor”, Legislative History of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 Volume II National Labor Relations Board US Government Printing Office, 1959 books.google.com/books?id=Be2hEg5UIv8C&pg=PA99 internal, beginning 1564 (refers to Jimmy Hoffa, one reference to the Mafia., also a p. 992, out of brackets ignore bracketed numbers!

1960s

“Treasury-Post Office Departments Appropriations for 1960: Treasury Department, the Tax Court of the United States.” Hearings Before the Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Eighty-sixth Congress, First Session, short reference, testimony, books.google.com/books?id=KKIuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA126

“State Fire & Casualty Company”, Statement of Broward Williams, State Treasurer and Insurance Commissioner of the State of Florida, … (beginning p. 9827), In “Automobile Insurance Industry”, Monday, June 30, 1969, … in The Insurance Industry, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-first Congress,  First Session  pursuant to S. Res. 40, Part 16, June 30 and July 2, 1969, United States Government Printing Office, 1970 (mislabeled on an internal  type-written sheet,  and externally as Eighty-fifth Congress) books.google.com/books?id=7H6uT-nf3mAC&pg=PA9833 brief mention, insurance industry aware of Mafia attempts at infiltration.

Anton Blok, Peasant, “Patrons, and Brokers in Western Sicily”,  (preview), Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 42, No. 3, Social and Political Processes in the Western Mediterranean (Special Issue) (Jul., 1969), pp. 155-170,  The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research, seen in preview at JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3317037 accessed july 29.

Miscellaneous

Bernard Cook “Two Sicilies, Kingdom of, 1848-49”, Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions, http://www.ohio.edu/chastain/rz/twosicil.htm, accessed August 6, 2021.

Other worth looking at: (off-topic)
books.google.com/books?id=5OMXAAAAIAAJ&pg=PR42 Portada
History of Our Country: A Text-book for Schools

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Unintegrated Material

Sicily, Trollope claims, is in the hands “of the so-called mafia”. But a Signor Franchetti (p. 160) gives a definition which transcends national boundaries. “La mafia … is a mediaeval sentiment. Whosoever believes that he can provide for the protection and security of his person and his goods by dint of his own personal prowess and influence, without having any recourse to law or the constituted authorities, he is a mafioso.”

Contrary to expectations, Trollope claims “it is an error to imagine that there is any definite society so named, secret or other … ” p. 161. He has a strange definition of Omertà, which he believed to have come from homo, which means (to him) manliness, which “is to be shown by hating, scorning, and abjuring all appeal to law. Should a man be unable to protect himself, he “must bend his head and suffer”. p. 162: on a prefect’s arriving, p. 164: “Not a servant can be hired or discharged without reference to the will of the unseen power which is paramount in the island.” This sounds like the power of some unions. With respect to the great number of murders in Palermo, p. 165. Mr. Franchetti throws some light on this, by explaining a rivalry for leadership between two families. The murder of a member of one family led to the killing of one of the others, and did not stop until, after a year, there were 35 murders. This may put the high number of murders into perspective. Perhaps, rather than counting individual murders, the number of extended families affected should be the statistic, if we assume such a family to be like a clan, Hatfield and McCoy type. “BRIGANDAGE IS ONLY THE CULMINATING BLOSSOM OF THE PLANT. P 169. P. 170: The only way to get rid of the brigands is “shooting them down in fair fight with the troops. … For if the brigand has the good fortune to fall into the hands of his good friends the police, and the courts, and the juries, he is tolerably sure of escaping conviction. And if, par impossible, he were conficted, he is quite sure of being allowed to return to his occupation after a … period of seclusion, if he do [sic] not escape from prison at an earlier date. The Government … mention[s] the case of one prisoner serving his sixth confinement for life. Five time, therefore, he has either escaped or been pardoned.” That the brigand should be killed by troops “is not so distasteful to Sicilian ideas”.

In the decades before the 1950s, there was hardly any reference to the Mafia, except under the heading, “gangsters”. Almost all the non-fictional entries, if public domain, are governmental (which is also logical). See note 16 for source.

“Another characteristic is that they seem to be arrested many times, but somewhere between the time of arrest and the time of confinement they break the chain. So they have long arrest records, and very few convictions.
“Also, just like any other group of individuals, they are bound to have disputes, and they seem to refer these disputes to their leader, and the leader seem to meet and hand down various decisions they abide by.” see note 33 for source.