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PORTLAND OREGON, SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER &V 1907
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LACK as any that ever darkened th;
pages of history is a crime-cloud that
--now casts its lengthening shadow
lover the United States. Despite boasted
civilization and millions spent yearly for
police protection, more murders go unpun
ished under the Stars and Stripes than in
I England, France, Germany, Austria, Hol
land, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Xor-
Yway combined.
This rampant lawlessness is the work
of foreign criminals, banded together, who
Wequite the hospitality of America with
bloodshed and nameless evil. Most power-
ful and dangerous of these alien associa
tions is that commonly known as the Blark
$and Society, or Italian Mono Nera.
Sn deep is the terror it inspires that all
classes of Americans are demanding but
vainly its abolition. Vainly, for although
city police and Secret Service men have time
and again fathomed its methods and or
ganization, they have failed to shatter the
marvelous bulwarks reared against the law
by the Black Hand machine.
Victims, shuddering in the bltpht of
Black Hand intimidation, always refuse to
make charges in open court. The very
name of the Black Hand causes them 'o
shake; and so deep-rooted is this feeling
that recently, when one of the band had
turned state's evidence, the prisoner gave
the death sign in open court, and not an
other word could be drawn from the wit
ness.
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Black Hand s audacity that drastic
action by the federal authorities is
being urged.
Immigrants fwm other countries
than Italy also maintain societies two
such have recently come to light
almost as deadly as the Black Hand.
In the following article the fester,
ing sore is exposed fully, and in a man
ner that invokes the speedy applica
tion of the surgeon's knife.
By Henry N. Hall
THE Black Hand, or Mano Nera, Is
the most odious association that
can be imagined. It is a well-or-ganited
and powerful trust, whose
sole object is the extortion of money un
der threats of murder, kidnapping and
other kindred crimes.
This viperous brood, which the United
States harbors iu its bosom, has ramifi
cations throughout the Italian colonies in
large American cities, from the consular
service and financial circles down to the
lowest class of day laborers. It is strong
est in New York and Pennsylvania., but is
steadily growing in power, and is already
lirmly rooted in Chicago.
Crimes of tho Black Hand are often
credited to the Mafia and sometimes to the
"Reds." with neither of which the Mano
l?era has anything in common.
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The "Keds" are anarchists terronsis pure
and simple international in character, and
nearly always striking high at the heads or rep
resentatives of authority.
21afia murders are rarely political or mer
cenary. The members of this &kUaa sect be
lieve that all wrongs should be personally
avenged, and almost invariably the reckoning
takes the form of a single stiletto thrust given
without warning.
Far different are the aims and methods of
the Black Hand, which seeks money auu money
alone. It warns its victims, and usually plays
upon their terror by a series of letters; but oc
. casioualiy a traitor receives but one notification
of his Joom.
For Oi.o crime committed by the "jReds" t :.
a score o." real Mafia vengeances, there are V
thousand outrages planned and executed by the
Black Hand.
Some idea of how (Teat t menace ; this
criminal trust is to the community may be gath
ered from the fact that there are more than
10,000 active members of the society in New
York and Pennsylvania; that in these two states
alone more than 300 recent murders among
Italians havo gone unpui ished, and that the
total amount of money extorted by means of
threats amounts to hundreds of thousands of
dollars everv month.
So powerfully organised is the Black Hand,
and so deep the fear that it strikee into the
hearts oi Italian witnesses, that out of 600
cases, brought against its members by Giuseppe
Petrosini, tho head of the New York police for
eign detective department, only two convictions
were obtained.
No Italian buvs real estate, or other prop
erty, acquires a business, or makes a haul on the
Stock Exchange, that he does not almost im
mediately receive a letter, ordinarily couched in
polite language, saying that the association is
in dire need of funds and asking for money. The
sum Is always fixed, and the victim is told either
to place it in a given spot, or to himself take
it to a lonely highway, anl hand it to a man
whose description is given, and who at a speci
fied place will ask him for a cigarette.
A wise recipient of such a letter usually
pays about half the sum demanded, explaining in
a short note that he can afford no more. This
generally satisfies the Mano Nera.
Should no attention be paid to the first de
mand, three and cometimes even five or six more
Jotters are sent, each containing threats. Should
the victim have a wife or daughter, letters are
also sent to them, explaining the danger the
family runs from a refusal to share their world
ly riches with their less fortunate brethren.
VARIOUS THREATS USED
y"The threats vary according to the family
circumstances of the victim. If he Las a little
child, kidnapping will be threatened, and the
mother's feeling so wrought upon that for hei
sake alone the father will pay up.
Threats of the murdei of those near andl
dear are often used in the case of tt wealthy
banker or prosperous merchant.
Other methods, equally cowardly and heart
less, are used to exact tribute from the honest
laborer. No contract is given out for publio
works of any importance ; no railroad employs a
large gang of men for track work, but that some
Black Hander, generally a "garzone de mala
vita," applies for and gets employment.
Soon a whispered report is spread amongst
the Italian laborers that the Mano Nera wants
50 cents or $1 a week from each man. On pay
day a collector comes around, and in some dis
tricts almost opculv receives the tribute.
Woe betide the man who refuses to pay.
Often his resistance is punished by death, so as
to completely overawe the others. The workmen
pay tribute as a matter of course, and do not
realize the enormity of the injustice.
The Black Hand has not been called into
existence by any special conditions in America;
it is simply an offshoot of the famous Camorra
di Napoli.
Of the million or more Italians who bars
flocked to the United States within the last ten
or twelve years, at least half came from those
regions where the Camorra is most strongly in
trenched. The majority of this vast influx of
aliens is representative of the very classes from
which the dreaded criminal association recruits
its most dangerous adherents.
Furthermore, the United States has been the
Mecca whereto Camorrists driven from their
native land by the police invariably turn their
footsteps.
The -Italian, government has determined to
crush the Camorra, and little mercy is shown to "
members, real or suspected. '
In Italy the authorities know-how dan
gerous aa enemy they have to deal with, and
vhen a Camor r is t falls into their' hands they
conveniently forget such minor matters .as "corf
, stitutional safeguards! of the ' liberties ths
Citizen,' wr-... t..-..yii! t V "
(CONTINUED ON INSID8
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