 | | under the most painful operations, and laugh while they sew up their own wounds. Not a few have epileptic tendencies, which they endeavour for some unknown reason to conceal. Many are, apart from their criminality, strange in character, and have occasional fits of apparent mania, not a few having been actually confined or having relatives who have been confined for insanity
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They are incapable of any work requiring perseverance and are devoted, during the leisure afforded them by the business of the society, to games of all kinds. Their affections are demonstrative but unstable. Religious feeling is general among them, taking the form of a love of ecclesiastical ceremonies and some peculiar superstitions.... They have no political feelings, except a detestation of the police, although they are ready in their own interests to serve any political party
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Some historians hold the power of the Camorra was broken, and indeed the death knell of the society sounded in 1911 when 35 Camorra leaders, including Enrico Alfano, the Grand Master, were convicted on murder charges and given long prison terms. Other observers insist the society survived although in a weakened form. Certainly Mussolini in the 1920s vowed to eliminate the Camorra just as he did the Sicilian Mafia. And just as so many mafiosi in that decade fled to the United States, so did Camorristastoo late, unfortunately, to join the once powerful American Camorra.
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In its 19th-century heyday the Camorra in America had achieved near parity with the Mafia in New Orleans and certain parity in New York. The Camorra controlled Brooklyn in very large measure through World War I. In New Orleans the Mafia overpowered the Camorra in a bloody war ending after World War I. But, for a time, matters were reversed in New Yorkú Under Don Pelligrino Morano, the Brooklyn Camorra held the upper hand over the Mafia, then largely controlled by Manhattan's Morello family. Greedily, Morano sought to extend Camorra influence into Manhattan and in 1916 in an act of vicious cunning he invited his opposite number, the imposing Nicholas Morello, to journey to Brooklyn for a peace conference. Morello was a far-sighted criminal with visions of reorganizing the American underworld in a manner that put aside petty Old World prejudices, and although he remained suspicious of Morano, he felt he had no alternative but to go to the meeting.
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It was, predictably, a mistake. In broad daylight, Morano had a five-man execution squad dispatch his enemy and his bodyguard as they reached the sidewalk of the cafe where the peace meeting was to be held. Morano dared to commit the murder so openly because he was sure the Camorra could seal the lips of all observers. Such was not the case; a witness talked and the Brooklyn district attorney even got one of the execution squad to talk. This was an amazing breach of omerta, the code of silence; it shook the Italian underworld and Don Morano most particularly. Ultimately, the Mafia proved better able than the Camorra to survive in America. The reason could well be due to the fact, as
New York Times
reporter Nicholas Gage asserts, "that the Camorra punishment for a 'rat' was merely to slit his tongue before killing him, while the Mafia punishment was to cut off his genitals and jam them down his throat before execution."
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In any event several Camorrista gunmen went to the electric chair and Don Morano himself got life for conspiracy. After the trial the
Brooklyn Eagle
reported, "Morano was surrounded by a dozen Italians who showered kisses on his face and forehead. On the way to jail other Italians braved the guard and kissed Morano's hands, cheeks and forehead."
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But the Camorrista plot, instead of eliminating the Mafia, had managed instead to lose the Camorra's own boss. Although the Camorrista/Mafia war continued for a time to lose many lives, the Neapolitans never recovered from Don Morano's conviction and subsequent absence. By 1920 the surviving Camorristas shifted into various Mafia groups.
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See also:
Basile, Tobia; Morello, Nicholas
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Campagna, Louis "Little New York" (19001955): Syndicate enforcer
"Anybody resigns from us resigns feet first." Such was the credo of the Chicago syndicate's Louis Campagna, a gunner who for three decades enforced his "feet first'' solution.
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It was Al Capone who gave Campagna the nickname of "Little New York" when he imported him in 1927 to help out in the Chicago gang wars. It was slick advertising, informing the underworld that he, Capone, could with little effort bring in all the East Coast firepower he needed to handle things. And Campagna proved to be a most effective enforcer, precisely because he was so zany and unpredictable, ready to do insane stunts. Once, during the Capone gang wars, Campagna led a dozen gunmen to surround a police lockup where a mobster enemy, Joe Aiello, was being held. They clearly intended to lay siege to the building and get Aiello. A score of police detectives foiled the plot by charging out of the building and seizing Campagna and two others before the other startled gunmen realized what was happening and could come to their aid.
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Campagna was hardly nonplused by his arrest. When he was placed in a cell adjacent to his quarry,
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