Charles Luciano and the Mafia in America
Charles Luciano and the Mafia in America
Most people think that the Mafia is obsolete in America but they it isn’t. It still flourishes through out the states controlling parts of the Government. The members and head bosses just aren’t as public as they had been in the 1900’s. Now they are mostly “underground” to try from being broken up, and if heard of usually they assassinate or pay off whoever shall try to disturb there roles in life of there personal business dealings. All though not, the Sicilian-born gangster Salvatore Lucania, better known as Charles “Lucky” Luciano, is still a big subject when it comes to talking about gangsters and there participation in the Mafia throughout the 1900’s.
Salvatore Lucania, nicknamed Lucky, was born in 1897 in Lercardia Friddi, Sicily. As a child his family was rather poor and his parents worked as hard as they could to provide for Salvatore. Even when they worked longer hours until there hands chapped, it still didn’t put enough food on the family dinner table. It was such a hard life that they were considering to leave there friends and relatives and the area where there ancestors had lived for hundreds of years and leave to the promised land of America. It would be better for Salvatore they thought. They would quickly realize that the thought of plentiful work and great schools was simply not true (Ron Nichols, “A Gangster is Born”).
The Lucianos set sail in 1906 to arrive in the New York harbor that same year. Mischief and mayhem were the key factors in describing Salvatore’s youth. His first racket, started in 1907, offered younger and smaller Jewish kids his personal protection from beatings on there way to school. If they didn’t pay him the penny or two a day for his protection, then Salvatore would beat them up. A thin runty kid from Poland, Meyer Lansky, refused to pay. Salvatore fought him one day and was amazed at how well he fought back. After this they would become buddies for life. In his teens Salvatore started participating in more illegal thing, such as narcotics. At eighteen he was charged for peddling heroin and morphine and then committed to a reformatory for 6 months. Once he was released he resumed narcotic dealing. ...