12

In the beginning was the Father. Without him nothing can be done. A Family of friends coalesces around the Father, from whom flows all authority.

The Family which a Father holds together embodies an ancient way of life, a mode of cooperation which precedes the formation of city-states and later of nations. It is a way of life that gives primary allegiance to the Family state, to the tribe, to the clan.

The Family should be viewed as an organism, a living tissue of binding personal relationships. The code of conduct prescribed by the Family is not written in any book. Our Tradition is mightier than any book. We pass down the knowledge personally from generation to generation.

As we traveled to new lands, we adapted our customs to our surroundings. Each Father ran his Family according to his understanding of our Tradition. Especially in America, some novel variations on the same basic unit crept into being. This is how I presided over my Family:

I became a Father, first of all, through the approval of the rest of the clan. Although each Family member votes for a Father, the election is not really intended to count votes so much as it is to establish consensus. It is unthinkable to elect a leader if he gets only one more vote than his opponent, as is done in the normal democratic process. Under such conditions the leader would rule over a divided house. The method of election of a Father is more akin to the election of the Pope. Each bishop votes his choice for Pope, but until there is a consensus no Pope is named.

The Father has the right to choose his own second, an assistant Father if you will, an underleader. The second is a figurehead who represents the Father on various Family matters. The second has no independent power of his own. He does all things in the name of the Father.

Because Americans liken the Family to a corporation, an institution run along bureaucratic lines, they often mistakenly compare the relationship between a Father and his second to that of a chairman of the board and the chief executive officer of the corporation.

This corporate analogy is misapplied, as are all comparisons between a Family and a business bureaucracy. The second mainly acts as the most visible and most accessible conduit to the Father himself. The Father prefers to remain in the background. He uses the second as his eyes and ears. Ideally, the Father is everywhere present but nowhere to be seen.

If the Father has to leave his home base for some reason, or if he goes to prison, his second doesn’t automatically take charge of the Family. The Father may delegate that power to his second on a temporary basis, but he may choose not to. The second serves entirely at the discretion of the Father.

Directly accountable to the Father are the various group leaders within the Family. In American jargon these group leaders were often referred to as captains. This word in itself gives the erroneous impression that the relationship between a Father and his group leaders is a militaristic one. This is true perhaps only during emergency state of war against another Family. During normal times, however, the relationship between a Father and his group leaders is based on mutual sympathy, capacity and personal allegiance.

The group leader is the main intermediary between the Father and the rest of the Family members. The size of the group varies depending on the group leader’s following.

When the Father makes a decision the responsibility for carrying it out often goes to a group leader, who then is free to assign the undertaking to people in his group.

At the foundation of this social unit are the “boys,” the Father’s “sons.” In police cant, these are known as soldiers. Once again, this gives the false impression that Family members all are on ready alert, waiting for the order to march.

It must be stressed that the Family members represented a cross section of society. We were a true microcosm of society at large in that our Family included shoemakers, tailors, barbers, bakers, doctors, lawyers, factory workers, fishermen, priests and politicians. I would say that the vast majority were private businessmen of one kind or another. Some Family members had illicit businesses such as bookmaking or numbers. In our world, such enterprises are not considered wrong.

In my Family, some activities were clearly considered out-of-bounds. I did not tolerate any dealings in prostitution or narcotics. I was against extortion as an arbitrary instrument of collecting money from people. Perhaps other Families didn’t adhere to my strict guidelines, but this was my way.

Nonetheless, even within these restrictions, only a minority of my Family members were engaged in full-time illicit activity. Those who ran a lottery game or were bookmakers, by the very nature of their business, were in it full-time. These men in turn employed others for their business, not necessarily other Family members. Some Fathers may have had a lottery game or a bookmaking operation as their own private business. I did not.

In either case, it is wrong to conclude that the profits from these illicit enterprises automatically reverted to the Father or that the profits were distributed among all the Family members. The Family is not the same as a criminal gang. Each Family member is free to make his own living, within the restrictions I’ve mentioned.

Family membership does not entitle one to a monetary stipend; it simply places the Family member in a society of friends who can help each other through a network of connections.

*   *   *

My principles on how to run a Family according to my old Tradition were quickly put to a test. Although the Castellammarese War had brought me in contact with many important men of my world, it was not until I became a Father that I began to realize the new variations that some other Fathers brought to their role.

Among my peers in New York City, Charlie Luciano was the most interesting in many respects. He was one of us, and yet he was not. Although I was the youngest of the Fathers, I had old-fashioned views concerning our Tradition, while Lucky, in some ways, seemed avant-garde.

In his dealings with me, Luciano comported himself as a “man of respect.” After Maranzano’s slaying, Luciano and I had agreed on peace, and Lucky kept his word. Maranzano’s death was accompanied by a series of other slayings in the New York area and in other parts of the country. In the popular press these slayings were fancifully referred to as the second Sicilian Vespers and were interpreted as Luciano’s attempt to impose his rule on the “underworld” through a purge.

To view these slayings in a true light one must keep in mind that Lucky lived in two worlds. He lived among us, the men of the old Tradition; but he also lived in a world apart from us, among a largely Jewish coterie whose views of life and of moneymaking were alien to ours. The slayings that accompanied Maranzano’s death bore little if any connection with our Sicilian world. As far as I can tell, they represented Lucky’s desire to settle matters largely with people outside the pale of our Tradition.

This was none of my business, nor that of any other Father in New York. What I know for a fact is that after Maranzano’s death no member of my Family suffered reprisals. The peace between Luciano and me held.

In time we grew more at ease with each other, and during one of our private meetings Lucky felt comfortable enough to make me an offer which he probably thought I would gladly accept.

—I was told Maranzano never paid his boys, Luciano began provocatively.

He spoke a mixture of Sicilian and English when addressing me, a combination that did not lend itself to great subtlety. Nonetheless, I realized that Lucky was sounding me out to see if I bore any secret resentment toward Maranzano.

—Maranzano took his time about those things, I answered. He was a true Sicilian about that, but I have no doubt that he would have taken care of us.

Luciano eyed me for a moment. Then he leaned forward and shook my hand. My answer had indicated to Lucky that I would not renege on my past friendship with Maranzano. By shaking my hand Luciano acknowledged my fidelity to the man and approved of my loyalty, although he and Maranzano had fought to the death. Luciano was the paramount figure in my world in the early 1930s, and another man would have joined him in condemning Maranzano simply to ingratiate himself with Lucky.

In light of this rebuff, the offer that Luciano proceeded to make caught me entirely off guard.

—Would you like a piece of the action in the garment district?

The offer was most tempting, considering that I was young and exactly at the point of seeking opportunities to make my fortune. The garment district, at that time, was one of the most lucrative areas in New York’s economic life. Luciano had extensive interests in the clothing industry, especially in the Amalgamated Clothing Union, the union for men’s clothing factories. Luciano said he could arrange for one of my men to assume an important position in the union, thus giving me an opening for influence over some jobs and some work contracts.

On reflection, however, Luciano’s proposal had many drawbacks. If I accepted his offer, I would forever become obligated to Lucky. I would owe him a favor, and this would curtail my independence as a Father. At the beginning of my career as a Father, and as I continued to practice throughout my tenure, I did not want to place myself or my Family in a dependent relationship. An intuition, more than a well-developed rationale, told me to keep away from entangling alliances.

Lucky’s offer also didn’t appeal to me because I did not feel comfortable with the arrangement he had in mind. As I understood it, Luciano and his men received regular payoffs from the Amalgamated Clothing Union under the table. I had no objections to having a contact in the union, but the idea of graft was antipathetic. Furthermore, it would involve me in a practice with a high risk of discovery. Unlike Charlie Lucky, I wanted to keep my name clean and out of the public eye.

I thus rejected Lucky’s offer and told him I merely wanted a sincere friendship with him in matters concerning our Tradition. Lucky showed a pleasant smile on his face and the subject never came up again.

I had overcome my first temptation—that of making money easily but heedlessly. I too wanted to make money, but it would be in my own fashion. This episode with Lucky impressed upon me the need to steer my own course. How he ran his affairs was his own business. I wanted to be free to pursue mine.

*   *   *

Although I became a Father after the Castellammarese War, that title alone did not exempt me from earning my own living. After my marriage, I used what money I had saved to invest in legitimate businesses. I formed partnerships or became a stockholder in various companies. In the main, then, I was a venture capitalist. This is how I made my money; this is how I earned my living.

In time I became a partner or stockholder in such businesses as the B&D (Bonanno and DiPasquale) Coat Co., the Morgan Coat Co., the Anello and Bonanno Funeral Home, the Brunswick Laundry, and the Grande Cheese Co. I paid income tax based on my holdings in such companies.

I didn’t intimidate these people into becoming my partners. On the contrary, they sought me out. Aside from the fact that I invested in their companies, these people came to me because they knew that with me as a partner their business would grow. There was nothing mysterious in how I accomplished this: I developed connections.

A description of my connections and interests in the ladies’ clothing industry will illustrate the point. In the clothing industry, a “jobber” is a manufacturer responsible for cutting the patterns and distributing them to factory outlets where the patterns can be sewn together. The operator of the factory is called a “contractor.” The B&D Clothing Co. was a contractor operation. I also had a partnership with a friend, who happened to be a Family member, who operated the Miss Youth Clothing Co. in Manhattan; this was a jobber operation.

I also had a friend, a non-Family member, who was a director of the merchants’ association (the jobber’s trade group) in New York’s garment district.

In addition, I had connections in the Ladies Garment Workers Union and connections with trucking companies.

Thus, by putting all my connections in touch with one another, I could harmonize our activities in a mutually advantageous way. By knowing me, an affiliated contractor could always count on contracts for his company; the jobber could count on reliable factory outlets; the trucking company could count on delivery orders between jobber and contractor; the union could count on a closed shop; the worker could count on getting work even during recessionary periods.

It was a matter of playing favorites among ourselves, but to keep the ball rolling required me, in this instance, not to use brute force, but to use tact and diplomacy.

Another of my main business interests was the Grande Cheese Co. of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. The cheese plant had been the source of contention between rival groups in Chicago. These people played rough, and fighting broke out. In the meantime, because of these disruptions, the cheese company almost went out of business. The owners wanted to sell out. Word of this reached the DiBella brothers of Brooklyn, who were successful wholesale food distributors. The DiBella family had a longstanding friendship with the Labruzzo family, my wife’s family. Before committing himself to buy the company, John DiBella came to me to explain his predicament.

He told me he was hesitating on the deal because of the company’s violent history. He was worried that the same Chicago people would try to encroach on the business and cause more trouble. This was not the sort of problem that the authorities could solve, even if Mr. DiBella was inclined to ask them for help. What could the police do? Post a twenty-four-hour guard around the plant? Neither was it the sort of problem that could be settled by negotiations with the contending parties. Some men, just as some nations, respect only power, and to deal with them you have to be just as strong, or stronger. Mr. DiBella was an honest businessman and a gentleman, but he didn’t have the means to take on these people. So he turned to me.

As much as I assured him that I would let it be known that I was his protector, Mr. DiBella desired a firmer alliance. He said it would give him great peace of mind if I became a stockholder in the company. That way there would be no misunderstanding; everyone would know then that I was his ally. It wasn’t really necessary and I wasn’t really looking for investment opportunities at the time. But to please him and honor the friendship between the DiBellas and the Labruzzos, I bought stock in the company and put the stock in Fay’s name. After that, the company enjoyed peaceful relations. It was understood by the Chicago people that Grande was to be left alone. Grande prospered.

As Father, I also inherited the “rights” to the neighborhood lottery, or numbers game, operated within my Family. I appointed the people who actually ran this numbers-game business. I also acted as the “bank”—that is, if the game lost money, I had to cover all the bets. In turn, if the people who operated this game wanted to make me a gift now and then, I couldn’t very well stop them. I certainly never had any pangs of conscience because of my indirect involvement in this illicit business.

*   *   *

All societies, whether the unit of cooperation be that of the family, the tribe, the city or the nation, use force, at some level, to enforce the rules of that society. No well-ordered society tolerates indiscriminate and arbitrary violence. My world was no exception.

In discussing the role of violence in my world I don’t expect outsiders to condone or approve of the rules by which we lived. I would only ask the outsider to appreciate the context of our lives. The first step is to recognize that traditionally a Sicilian has a personal sense of justice. If a “man of honor” is wronged it is up to him to redress that wrong personally. He does not go to the judicial machinery of the state. For this to work, everyone clearly must understand what is wrong and what is right.

One of the inviolate rules of our old Tradition was that no Family member should fool around with another Family member’s wife, or female relative. If a Family member discovered that his wife had gone to bed with another Family member, he was justified in killing him. No one had to tell the cuckolded Family member what to do and he didn’t have to tell anyone else. He simply did what was necessary.

However, if this Family member used violence in this fashion he had to make absolutely sure the man he was after was indeed guilty. If the slayer made an intentional mistake, and if it was discovered that he got the wrong man, then the slayer himself must die.

A man of our world was held strictly accountable for his actions. If he did something of a violent nature against another Family member he had to be sure he was doing the right thing.

Another one of our rules was that no Family member should slap another on the face. This was an intolerable insult, and it was understood that the wronged party was free to take action. The object of many of these rules was to help a man contain his emotions. If a man slapped another in a moment of passion it clearly indicated he had lost his self-control.

Contrary to popular belief, business disputes rarely rose to the level of violence. If two Family members disagreed over a business arrangement between them, the matter was usually resolved at a hearing by their group leaders, whose decisions were binding.

Economic disagreements were less important in themselves than they were in the clues they gave to the characters of the men involved. Our entire system of cooperation and connections depended on trust. A handshake often closed a deal; a nod of the head indicated assent. Under such conditions, therefore, a business disagreement became an important issue not because one partner might be cheating another but because one partner might not be keeping his word to another. A strict money matter could be resolved by a hearing, but a breach of faith was a point of honor. It was in the latter case that economic disputes sometimes led to violent confrontation.

A Family member’s behavior toward outsiders was his own responsibility. Within the Family we protected or punished our own, but outside the Family a man was on his own. If he felt strongly enough to commit violence against a non-Family member, then he had to assume the risks himself.

On the other hand, if outsiders tampered with a Family member the outsiders became the enemies of us all. I remember an instance when robbers broke into the house of Joe Profaci’s nephew and stole a safe containing jewelry and money. Profaci’s men found out that the thieves, although Italian, were not associated in any way with the Families. An attempt was made to negotiate with the thieves for the return of the valuables. However, intermediaries reported that the robbers scoffed at the gesture and held themselves independent from the sanctions of our world. Thereafter, the identity of the thieves was passed on to all the Families in New York. It was each member’s responsibility to take action if he spotted any of them. No incentive, monetary or otherwise, was offered to bring the thieves to justice. Justice was done.

Another occasion of mafioso justice, with a much happier ending, presented itself in a church in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn. To celebrate the opening of Regina Pacis Church in the late 1940s, the parishioners were asked by the priests to bring donations to the church and to lay them before the statue of the Madonna. The call brought forth necklaces, wedding rings, jewels and other precious ornaments. From these offerings the monsignor commissioned the making of a crown. The bejeweled Madonna then was displayed in church, but shortly after the crowning, thieves stripped the statue of its adornments.

The taking of such sacrilegious booty offended Joe Profaci as much as anyone else. He was a prominent church member and had helped raise money for the new church. When the monsignor asked for his personal help to recover the jewels, Profaci, along with his many friends, went into action.

One Sunday the Madonna once again presided over mass in full regalia—crown and jewels restored to their rightful owner. Those old enough to remember still talk about the jewels’ recovery when they reminisce about Joe Profaci, who had one brother who was a priest and two sisters who were nuns.

One of the strictest rules we had toward outsiders was the injunction against killing a policeman or a reporter. My Tradition recognized that a cop was merely the servant of the government and thus was not to be held fully responsible for his actions. He merely had a job to do. We understood that, and very often ways could be found so that he would not interfere with us and we wouldn’t interfere with him.

Nonetheless, in America, I was shocked to discover that not all of us understood the wisdom of this rule. I remember a Commission meeting in the early 1930s in which was discussed the advent of Thomas E. Dewey as a special prosecutor in New York City. Dewey had made it very plain that he was out to jail Charlie Luciano, whom he called the vice overlord of the city.

At one point in the meeting, Albert Anastasia, the second in Vincent Mangano’s Family, suggested that Dewey be eradicated. Anastasia was a hot-tempered man and a close friend of Lucky Luciano’s. The audacity of his suggestion made the Fathers pause in disbelief. The rest of us turned to Luciano to see how he reacted.

Lucky hesitated to give his view. Since Albert and Lucky were such close friends it could have been the case that Lucky had let Albert make his suggestion to see how the rest of us felt about it. In any case, both Albert and Lucky seemed at least willing to entertain such a stupid notion, whereas the rest of us were totally against it. Seeing us recoil at the suggestion of killing a law-enforcement agent, Luciano deferred the matter to the other Fathers present, all of whom rejected it outright.

—If we all lose our heads, I recall Vincent Mangano saying forcefully, we’ll wind up burning our own foundation.

*   *   *

To describe a typical day for me is impossible because I kept no set schedule. During normal peaceful times, being a Father was a most pleasant occupation. If everything was running smoothly, internal disagreements between Family members were solved at the grass-roots level either by group leaders or by the consigliere. A Family member’s personal or business problems were usually handled in this manner, and the problem rarely had to be brought to my attention.

On the other hand, if a Family member wanted to go into business with a member of another Family, such an association would need the approval of the Fathers of the respective Families. A Family member’s relations with non-Family members was his own affair.

For nearly a thirty-year period after the Castellammarese War no internal squabbles marred the unity of our Family and no outside interference threatened the Family or me.

During normal times, therefore, other than meeting with other Fathers and meeting with group leaders within my Family on an ad hoc basis, being a Father took up relatively little of my time. Family matters were largely handled by the group leaders under me. Indeed, there were many Family members I never met.

If I convened a Family meeting, I met only with the group leaders, who in turn passed the information to people in their groups. Once a year at Christmas I liked to hold a feast, a purely social function, with my group leaders. Of course, since these men were my friends we often saw each other at other functions, such as a wedding or a funeral or a baptism.

When there was peace—and peace-keeping, I reiterate, was the Father’s main responsibility—I was free to devote most of my time to my private business concerns. When there was no emergency in the Family, I spent my time earning a living.

Usually, at my various businesses, my partner would make an office available for me, where I could make phone calls or accept visitors or discuss business matters.

Early in my career as a Father I had an office on Metropolitan Avenue in the Williamsburg neighborhood. This office was a small private room in back of a political club which I had set up for the benefit of my friends. It was called the Abraham Lincoln Independent Political Club. The Brooklyn borough president attended the club’s grand opening. Throughout the existence of the club, we would be visited by multitudes of politicians seeking our endorsement.

The club consisted of one long room with chairs and card tables, and a little kitchen. People, especially the older crowd, came there to while away the time, playing cards, drinking espresso or discussing soccer matches. My office was in the back. A tag on the door said “Private.”

My visitors at the club might include a group leader or any of a number of people outside the Family. I was an important “man of respect,” and in my immigrant world, at least, I was a crucial man to know, regardless of the visitor’s background. Some old-timers would greet me. People might come by to chat about our hometowns, or to ask me to be the godfather at their baby’s baptism, or to invite me to a wedding, or to ask me for a small favor concerning their business. The topics were random.

One of the side benefits of being connected with so many different people was that I rarely had to pay money (although I often did anyway) for many of my mundane needs. I had friends and associates in most every trade. Restaurant owners were available to dine me, barbers to clip me, tailors to suit me, doctors to cure me, mechanics to tune engines for me, and so on.

For nearly thirty years after I became Father my Family enjoyed balmy days, right through the Depression of the 1930s, the war years of the 1940s and the heydays of the 1950s.

Until the mid-1950s, my name was hardly known to the press, and the other members of my Family likewise stirred no publicity.