Lucky and the Gangsters

THE OVERLOOK

By Tom Clavin

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          The murder of the crime boss Salvatore Marazano 93 years ago this week was the beginning of the end for Lucky Luciano, who ordered the hit. Up until then, though, Luciano and his gangster brethren had enjoyed good fortune.

          Arnold Rothstein was the first great Jewish gangster who mentored the next and most powerful generation of American gangsters. The model for Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls and Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby, he had a simple motto: “Treat the sucker right, he is paying your salary.” He never smoked or drank but made millions off such vices. That he could fix the 1919 World Series was one example of his power. An impeccable dresser, his idea of a lovely evening was to stroll down Broadway and savor the adulation of pedestrians. Though the godfather of the National Crime Syndicate, he never got to be in the upper echelon of it: Card-playing was his addiction, and he was murdered in 1928 for refusing to pay off a 322K poker debt.

Salvatore Lucania was the “father” of the Italian mob in America which spawned the five families. The chance encounter between him and Meyer Lansky as teenagers was the beginning of the strong ties between the Italian and Jewish gangs that would ultimately rule the country. Lucky Luciano was flamboyant, a beautiful dresser who enjoyed the attention of celebrities. His flash hid total ruthlessness.

          Lansky was the lifelong leader of the Jewish mob. As an adolescent he formed his first Lower East Side gang with Bugsy Siegel then teamed up with Luciano. The ultimate businessman who the FBI once caught saying, “We’re bigger than U.S. Steel,” he led the efforts to take New York crime national, though Lucky was more the front man.

          A protégé of Luciano, Francisco Castiglia/Frank Costello mostly was a smooth operator in the background until 1938, when he was appointed to take over the Italian gangs when Luciano was sent to prison. He was the ultimate fixer and handled most of the politicians who cooperated or turned a blind eye to the National Crime Syndicate.

          Bugsy Siegel was second to his childhood friend Lansky in the Jewish mob, a handsome homicidal enforcer who was one of the founders of the national mob.

          Louis “Lepke” Buchalter was the head of Murder Inc. A reliable and efficient killer, he would ultimately be the only top New York gangster to die in the electric chair after Costello betrayed him.

          Albert Anastasia was one of the founders of the modern American Mafia and a co-founder and later boss of the Murder, Inc. organization. He eventually rose to the position of boss in what became the modern Gambino crime family. He also controlled New York City’s waterfront for most of his criminal career, including the dockworker unions. His nicknames included "The Earthquake," "The One-Man Army," "Mad Hatter," and "Lord High Executioner.”

          Arthur Flegenheimer was born in the Bronx to German Jews in 1902. As Dutch Schultz, he was a sociopathic freelancer who took over the huge-dough Harlem numbers racket, bootlegging, and slot machines. When he went after Thomas Dewey in 1935, a contract was put out, and the Dutchman soon died of his wounds at a Newark Hospital.

          Of course, there was Al Capone. Born in Brooklyn in 1899, he joined his first gang, the Bim Booms, when he was 11. When he moved on to the Five Pointers, he became pals with Luciano. He would have had a volatile career in New York but in 1919 he went to Chicago to help his uncle, Big Jim Colosimo. Soon, the latter was murdered, and Johnny Torrio took over with Capone his right-hand guy. Together, they challenged the Irish mob headed by Dion O’Bannion. Soon, O’Bannion was dead. Soon after that, Torrio took five bullets and Capone took over.

He presided over an unprecedented amount of murder. Even Luciano complained that Chicago in the ‘20s was “a damned crazy place. Nobody’s safe in the streets.” Capone retorted, “You can get a lot more done with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.” Capone’s pinnacle was the St. Valentine’s Day massacre and the defeat of another rival, Bugs Moran.

Nationally, attempts by law enforcement were at first sincere then many of the cops gave up. Prohibition created a whole new upper level of crime and there was not the budget and manpower to combat it. The real money was aiding or at least ignoring the criminals. The well-meaning Police Commissioner Richard Enright was outspent and out-gunned and he essentially turned New York over to the gangsters.

In the early 1920s, the Lucky and Meyer (and Bugsy) mob was in operation, working with Luciano's right-hand man, Frank Costello. They recruited expert gunmen and they supplied bootlegerswith stolen trucks and drivers. Lansky was experienced with automobiles and mechanics and soon the gang was active in car theft. The gang handled protection, truck hijacking, murder, and illegal gambling. They didn’t discriminate -- they extorted money from Jewish moneylenders and storekeepers as well as Irish and Italian shop owners and gamblers. They fronted illegal operations by owning a car and truck rental garage that served as a warehouse for stolen goods. During the Castellammarese War, Lansky and Siegel helped Luciano eliminate the “Mustache Petes” and organize the modern American Mafia. The takeover was complete when the Lucky and Lansky gang assassinated Joe Masseria, and then, on September 10, 1931, Salvatore Maranzano was shot and stabbed to death in his Manhattan office.

With so much killing to do, Lansky and Luciano created a special outfit to handle "enforcement.” It was named Murder, Inc. by the press. This special branch was headed by Buchalter and “Mad Hatter” Anastasia.

With New York secure, it was time to go national. The first step was working out a deal with the power base in Chicago. This was the new frontier for the expanding organized crime galaxy. Beginning in 1926, with Capone in charge, Chicago saw over 12,000 murders annually. A few brave cops like Eliot Ness did what they could.

“Scarface” had quite a kingdom. At one time there were as many as 1300 gangs operating in Chicago. For the remainder of the 1920s, the murder and mayhem and personality of Capone would captivate the nation and enrage the few good cops left.

A climactic event took place in 1929. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre was the most brazen example of gangster power and hubris. That bloodbath and the takeover of the Purple Gang in Detroit represented the national triumph of the gangster in America.

Back in New York the gangster grip tightened. The Lucky-Lansky gang has taken over everything, though in a few cases it has just lucrative arrangements with a few loose cannons like Legs Diamond and Dutch Schultz. What if New York and Chicago had a stronger alliance . . . or even better, had the ability to control crime in the entire country? That was Luciano’s vision, fully endorsed by Lansky. How could lawmen like Ness, Melvin Purvis, an emerging J. Edgar Hoover, and young crusading D.A.s like Thomas Dewey stand up to such firepower?

Three months after the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Lucky’s vision was for the Italian, Jewish, and Irish gangs to pool their resources and muscle and turn organized crime into a lucrative business for all across the country became reality. Coppers were impotent to stop the convention in Atlantic City in the spring of 1929, attended by all the major gangsters – including Lansky, Capone, Siegel, Schultz, Buchalter, Nucky Johnson (“Boardwalk Empire”), Anastasia, and more – where Luciano saw his vision realized. The United States now belongs to the National Crime Syndicate.

Tom Clavin is the bestselling author/co-author of 25 books, including the just-published trade paperback edition of The Last Outlaws. Please go to your local bookstore or to Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, BN.com, or tomclavin.com to order a copy.