Chapter Three
Confined in Cages
The process of bringing all the hundreds of Mafia suspects to trial was a long one. At one point, it was thought better to try them outside Sicily, so as to avoid the inevitable intimidation of juries. But Prefect Cesare Mori held out for trials before native juries, arguing that it would be a greater triumph for Sicilians if they could be seen to convict these criminals without fear. The liberal procurator-general in Palermo was replaced by the tougher and more outspoken Luigi Giampietro. He set the tone for the following trials by saying ‘Kindness is regarded as weakness, and makes criminals cocky.’
The first prisoners to be put on trial were the bandits of the Madonie, housed behind 50 metres of steel bars alongside one wall of the courtroom.
The accused persons were confined in four cages [said a report in the London Times]. They were of all ages, and of both sexes. Some of them were old with a terrible past of crime, others were mere juveniles and carried themselves impudently. They were dressed in various styles, but all wore caps, which the Mafia appear to prefer to hats. Several, like the doctor of Villadoro, were men of considerable means, while others bore every sign of poverty.
An old church had been converted to house the trial at Termini Imerese, a port half way along the coast between the Madonie and Palermo. It took place almost two years after the original round-up and two of the leading bandits had died in prison, including Giuseppe Ferrarello, who committed suicide. But there were enough outlaw characters to keep the world’s press interested. One of them was Giuseppa Salvo, mother of the Andaloro gangsters. The London Times dubbed her Queen of Gangi, while the New York Times called her:
This mother of a ferocious brood . . . Sixty-two years old, with snow white hair, she stills stands perfectly upright, is quick in her movements, strong-framed and not devoid of a certain dignity of bearing. Yet her sinister look and the evil leer permanently distorting her features make one’s blood run cold.
She had spent her whole life among outlaws. Her father, then her husband, and, finally, her eldest son had been chief of the Gangi gang. When she rode out with them, she wore man’s clothes. She was not slow to order sentences of death and frequently set the price of ransoms for kidnapped victims. ‘She forced girls to marry members of her band’, added the London Times, ‘intervened in disputes between peasants, and issued decisions against which there was no appeal.’
Another gangster to catch public attention was Pietro Albanese, thanks in part to a photograph of him, which was passed round the court. It showed him sitting proudly on a horse, dressed as a bandit with bandolier and gun. Albanese denied the obvious truth of the picture, saying it had been taken at a party at a farmhouse where he was working. He claimed he had to borrow the horse and gun for the photograph. It was merely fancy dress.
The accused faced a variety of charges from murder, theft and cattle-raiding to extortion and blackmail. Most of them denied the charge of criminal association – Mori’s useful catch-all for Mafiosi. A few admitted to crimes, but in true Tradition style, claimed they were righting a wrong against them. Some of the methods by which the Mafia dominated the countryside were revealed. One criminal practice was to foist a Mafia member on a landlord as an agent overseeing his estate, but at an inflated salary of 15,000 lire a year. A typical threatening letter was read out in court:
We bandits have the right to live on the landlords. If you do not do your duty we will punish you. It is useless to tell you to whom you should address yourself if you care to save yourself from ruin. You will find persons trusted by us, or you will address yourself to someone of this district.
If a landowner resisted such a demand, he could be murdered.
The trial was a massive undertaking, with over 300 prosecution witnesses giving evidence. But Mori and Mussolini did not want the trial to last forever. Fascist justice was swift justice, they said, and should proceed at a more Fascist rhythm. After just three months, the jury was ready to give its verdict.
Virtually all the 147 accused were found guilty of criminal association. Seven of the leaders received life sentences with hard labour; a further eight were given 30 years; Giuseppa Salvo was sentenced to 25 years, along with one of her daughters. Most of the rest received sentences of between 5 and 10 years. Only eight were acquitted. It was an excellent result for Mori. Fascist justice had been seen to be done and the newspapers joined in the celebration.
Mussolini’s own journal, Il Popolo d’Italia, proclaimed the Mafia had received a death blow. The London Times said ‘Mussolini has dared to threaten the monster in its native haunts, and has throttled it with success.’ The New York Times declared ‘Breaking the backbone of the Mafia is one of Premier Mussolini’s great achievements . . . The magnitude of Premier Mussolini’s victory is evidenced by the fact that it was possible to hold the trial in Sicily at all.’
Mori’s gamble on the people of Sicily being able to judge the Mafia had come off and the New York Times praised him for it:
Prefect Mori of Palermo, who has broken the back of the Mafia in Sicily . . . will go down in history as a deliverer and superman . . . Mori had to take the lead, to put himself in constant danger, to be a shining mark for the assassin’s knife or bomb. His method, showing the spirit and resolution of the man, was to strike at the top.
Journalist Arnaldo Cortesi went further. Mori had become a legendary figure, he wrote, a man against whom it was useless to struggle. It was said that a gang of Mafiosi had fortified a house and resisted all efforts to carry it by storm. Mori boldly walked up to the house, rapped on the door and called in a loud voice to those within to surrender.
‘Who is that?’ the bandits asked. ‘Mori’, he replied. Without a further word they surrendered, believing it was useless to fight if Mori was there.
In Sicily, epic poems began to appear, praising Mussolini and his war on the Mafia. Most were anonymous, but one was signed by Salvatore Romano. A couple of verses demonstrate the heroic language:
Blessed the fascio thou hast formed.
And blessed be thou that made it.
Thou hast removed all delinquency,
Thieves, evil doers, and gangsters.
As is just thou gavest the command
To put in order all the capitalists.
Thou hast tamed the thieves who stole
Who go no more through the countryside.
We Italians all speak well
Of the just things done by Mussolini.
True that he holds all under lock and key
But it is with reason, o citizens!
It is proper that we should be bound
And do just things for a good end
While Mussolini sustains us.
It is duty to stay in order, Italians.
The line mentioning that he holds all under lock and key seems almost satirical now. Prefect Mori makes an appearance in another anonymous poem:
The law is so finely systematised
According to the ordinance of the Prefect . . .
Everyone carries his own pictures
On an identification card issued by the Prefect
So that the suspect can be recognised.
Even mice have to walk in a straight line
Or they will feel the claws of the cat.
From 1927 to 1929, fifteen more major trials of the Mafia followed, condemning hundreds of Mafiosi and associated outlaws to imprisonment. When the evidence proved too flimsy for even a Fascist court, or witnesses retracted their statements, then Mori stepped in with a punishment of confino or banishment, sending the suspects to a wilderness island off the coast of Sicily.
At the end of his account of his war against the Mafia, Cesare Mori proudly presented the figures. In the province of Palermo, he declared there were 223 murders in 1922; in 1928, just five. In 1922, there were 246 robberies; in 1928, just 14. In 1922, there were 51 major cattle-rustling raids; in 1928, just six. Kidnapping had disappeared. As far as he was concerned, the war against crime in Sicily had been won.
Il Duce had proved that the Fascist state was stronger than even the Mafia.
While Mori had been fighting the Mafia in Sicily, the local Fascists had been fighting Mori. Alfredo Cucco was the head of the Black Shirts on the island and he claimed to have pushed for the appointment of Mori as prefect of Palermo. But with Mori came an extension of his powers, by government decree, giving him full control over the island’s police force and the authority to issue ordinances. This severely reduced the influence of Cucco who had hoped to exert some control over Mori and maintain his own status among the island’s elite.
At first, Cucco sought to praise Mori and his campaign in his local newspapers, but when, during the round-up at Madonie, local families appealed to him for help against Mori, he began to lobby for his removal. His timing could not have been worse. Madonie was a real success for the Fascists in Rome and Minister of the Interior Luigi Federzoni told Cucco the government had no intention whatsoever of removing the prefect. Cucco persisted as a voice of doubt, saying in La Fiamma in January 1926:
One thing worries us, namely that when the war is over, the guerrilla action could persist; that after the criminal armies have been destroyed, their general staffs might not be fully eliminated, and could continue, with their oblique and underhand manoeuvres, to infect the moral and material life of Sicily.
Such comments were unhelpful to Mori and the relationship between the two men deteriorated through 1926. Political allies of Cucco were denounced as associates of Mafiosi. In retaliation, Cucco had gangs of Black Shirts demonstrate in the street outside the prefect’s office – it was an unsavoury echo of events in Bologna. Mori was furious, but for the time being the two maintained a façade of unity, touring the island together, even exchanging official photographs of each other.
Behind the scenes, however, it appears that Mori received a tip-off that Cucco was sending newspaper articles to a contact in New York, highlighting Mori’s brutal methods in his war against the Mafia. This was too much for Mori and in early 1927, the Palermo Fascist party was dissolved and Cucco expelled. The official accusation against Cucco was one of corruption in that he allegedly helped a friend avoid military service. Cucco tried to fight back, but Mussolini was too impressed by Mori’s victories to overturn the result of the political vendetta. Cucco was out, Mori remained.
Mussolini underlined his support for Mori in a speech to the Chamber of Deputies on 20 May 1927:
From time to time, there come to my ears doubting voices that wish to suggest that to-day we are going too far in Sicily, that an entire region is being harshly treated and that a slur is being cast over an island of the noblest traditions. I reject with utter contempt these suggestions which can only originate from persons of evil reputation.
This was a damning reference to Cucco and his supporters.
Mori enjoyed Mussolini’s whole-hearted support for two more years after the fall of Cucco, but it could not last forever. Enemies were gathering and they also had the ear of Il Duce.
Antonino Di Giorgio was a hero of World War I, winning medals and leading armies at a time when Mussolini and Giuseppe Bonanno’s father were both lowly soldiers on the Italian front line. After the war, he entered politics and became minister of war before falling out with the Fascist government and returning to his native Sicily in 1926, where he became commander of its military forces.
Di Giorgio supported Mori’s campaign against the Mafia and told Mussolini he was right to get rid of Cucco. But, by early 1928, his opinion had changed and he told Il Duce he thought the prefect had lost all sense of proportion. Official figures quoted 11,000 arrests and even Mussolini thought this was too much. The general put his complaints in writing, saying that the ‘victims [of the Mafia] were rounded up with the criminals at the time of the so-called retate, for no other reason than they had had contact with them.’ This put intolerable pressure on the judiciary and led to many wrongful convictions. With innocent men being punished alongside the guilty, he said, there was widespread disillusion with the law, contrary to Mori’s claims. After several years of tough action, the state was in danger of losing the respect it had gained:
The long lines of handcuffed people you see on lorries, trains and stations, the disconsolate crowds of women and children who wait in the rain outside the prisons and courts, all lend themselves perfectly to damaging remarks and the propaganda of hatred.
Mussolini took this report very seriously. He was a master at understanding the media and popular feeling and it seems likely he could see little more to be gained from continuing Mori’s campaign and possibly a good deal to be lost. He had all the headlines he wanted, especially around the world, showing him as tougher than the Mafia. Now, perhaps, was the time to bring an end to this particular Fascist show.
Mori was aware of Di Giorgio’s views and received reports of discontent among the Carabinieri but rather then negotiate, he felt confident enough to attack Di Giorgio, by revealing his association with the Mafia of Mistretta. Di Giorgio’s brother had married into a Mafioso family. Mussolini was presented with the evidence and felt betrayed. He asked the general to accept a posting outside Sicily. Di Giorgio refused and resigned. He was said to have confronted Mori in Palermo and slapped him across the face. Amazingly, the prefect had survived the most serious threat to his position, but his days were numbered.
Realising that Mussolini had tired of his campaign against the Mafia, Mori accepted that his work was coming to an end. Having inflicted a major defeat on the Mafia, the Fascist government now wanted to maintain its popularity by concentrating on the economy of the island. It wanted to shift money away from the police budget and invest it in public works, building roads, draining swamps, and promoting farming and tourism. Mori added his own support to this shift in emphasis by visiting provincial towns and handing out awards to their most successful farmers. Before an official visit, he would frequently ditch his car and mount a horse to ride into town. He liked being the Peasant Prefect.
Internationally, Mussolini continued to receive praise for his victory over the Mafia. Richard Washburn Child was a former American ambassador to Italy and he was a particularly keen advocate. In fact, it was his idea to get the dictator to tell his life story to an English-speaking audience in 1928. Child had read numerous biographies of the Fascist leader, but nothing, he said to Il Duce, could take the place of a book which he would write himself.
Mussolini leant on his desk and looked at the diplomat with astonishment. ‘Write myself?’ he said. He did not exactly have much spare time. But Child persisted, showing him a series of possible chapter headings on pieces of paper.
‘All right’, said Mussolini in English. ‘I will.’
The Fascist leader dictated the memories of his life and the pages of the typed manuscript were shown to Child. ‘What editing may I do?’ asked the American diplomat.
‘Any that you like’ said Mussolini. ‘You know Italy, you understand Fascism, you see me, as clearly as anyone.’ And so Child presented Mussolini to the English-speaking world:
I knew him before the world at large, outside of Italy, had ever heard of him. I knew him before and after the moment he leaped into the saddle, and in the days when he, almost single-handed, was clearing away chaos’ own junk pile from Italy . . . He takes responsibility for everything – for discipline, for censorship, for measures which, were less rigor required, would appear repressive and cruel . . .
He is a Spartan. Perhaps we need Spartans in the world today; especially that type whose first interest is the development of the power and the happiness of a race.
For many, in other parts of the world, Fascism seemed a strict but benign tyranny that might well be the answer to problems of political instability, organised crime, and the rise of socialism. The Fascist movement was far from becoming the international villain it was in the mid-1930s and later.
In late 1928, Mussolini signified his pleasure at Mori’s contribution to his own reputation by making the prefect a member of the Italian Senate. But Mori had one more duty to perform for his Fascist patron. In March 1929, a national plebiscite was held to show the rest of the world that, despite doing away with democracy, the majority of Italians were happy with their Fascist regime. Mori did his best to encourage as many people to turn out as possible for the election. He made it clear that any ‘no’ vote was to be regarded as an act of treachery and he would be looking at electoral lists to see who had wavered in their duty. The reality of this plebiscite in Milocca was observed by Charlotte Gower:
Fascists paraded to simulate general interest. On the election day, men were collected in groups and marched to the polling places escorted by the band. Voting was set forth as a patriotic duty for every Milocchese, so that the village might make a good showing and demonstrate its gratitude for the benefits it received under Fascism.
At the end of the count, Mori and Mussolini got exactly what they wanted. In Palermo, 92 per cent of the population voted in favour of the Fascist regime and in rural areas the vote was even higher, up to 96 per cent. Mori had succeeded in swapping one terror for another.
On 23 June 1929, Mori received a short telegram from Rome. It told him his career as Prefect of Palermo was over. A second, more fulsome telegram was distributed to the newspapers. In it, Mussolini declared:
I wish to express to you once again my sincere praise and most fervent congratulations for what you have achieved in Palermo and in Sicily in the last four years. These years will remain sculpted in the history of the moral, political and social regeneration of the noblest of islands.
Mori was fifty-seven years old. He was disappointed to be removed so abruptly from his position of power, but he cannot have been surprised. The Fascist machine was moving on to other battles. When Mori published his memoirs in 1932, he wrote without bitterness. He had only praise for Il Duce and his role in launching his campaign against the Mafia. The book was written in his usual flowery manner and received bad reviews in Italy but, when an English translation by Orlo Williams appeared in 1933, it was written in a more direct and exciting style, and was far more successful.
Mori was sent out of the way to Istria on the Adriatic coast where he spent the rest of the 1930s, overseeing the construction of roads and canals and the draining of marshes. In his spare time, he wrote poetry. He had no children but continued to be happily married, calling his wife the companion of his stormy existence. He always had a photograph of her on his desk.
Mori’s successor as Prefect of Palermo was 33-year-old Umberto Albini. He had a reputation as a playboy and set the tone for his reign by arriving in Sicily by glamorous seaplane. Albini turned away from the deployment of retate, but expanded Mori’s more discreet use of confino, sending a hit-list of Mafia suspects to penal islands off the Sicilian coast. This remained the main weapon against the Mafiosi throughout the 1930s, sending hundreds away for periods of up to five years.
There were two more mass trials in 1931 and one in 1932, this last being held at Agrigento and sentencing 244 men and women to a total of 1,200 years in prison. That Mori’s methods of retate were still considered effective by mainland Italian police was proved in June 1934 when 400 gangsters were rounded up in Calabria. They had terrorised the area for years, extorting money and cattle in return for protection. They were thought to be renegades from Mori’s purges. ‘The police believe that many members of the gang formerly belonged to the Mafia in Sicily’, said a newspaper report, ‘and fled from the island after Prefect Cesare Mori of Palermo had stamped out banditry on the island.’
Despite the headlines, crime in Sicily remained and Mori received letters asking him to come back and sort out the situation. But it seems to have been low-level crime. The Fascists appear to have successfully replaced one regime of fear with another and, although corruption and criminal patronage persisted, the open display of Mafia rule, characteristic of a previous era, does seem to have been crushed. The biggest beneficiaries were the great landowners who were more secure in their position, no longer being forced to give up their land to Mafia intermediaries.
That the people themselves might merely be paying lip-service to the Fascists was recorded by Charlotte Gower. In Milocca in the late 1920s, she noted a continuing lack of identification with the Italian mainland. The islanders were Sicilian first, not Italians:
The only direct representatives of the State that the rural Sicilian meets are the military police. The average Sicilian distrusts them, and he associates them with unpleasant events. When a retired policeman became mayor of Milocca, his praiseworthy attempts to put down brigandage in the region won him no sympathy from his fellow-townsmen, and finally resulted in his assassination.
Despite Mussolini’s grand plans to reinvigorate the Sicilian economy, poverty and unemployment continued to afflict the island. Peasants were badly hit by the Great Depression, with reduced export markets for their olives, grapes and lemons. They responded by flocking to the big towns, such as Palermo, and setting up shanty-house slums.
The effective Fascist censorship of the local press ensured that the word Mafia was no longer even used to describe crime in Sicily in the 1930s, but this did not mean it had disappeared. Far from it, when key figures returned from confino they maintained their Mafiosi networks, but such activity was conducted discreetly. The Mafia in Sicily had become an underground organisation and that was the way it would stay while the Fascists were in power.
This was in stark contrast to the criminal activities of Sicilian immigrants in the USA. There, Mafia gangsters were the new antiheroes, featuring in newspaper stories and pulp fiction, a notoriety that was just about to be ramped up by open warfare on the streets of New York.