Courts, Criminals and the Camorra

by Arthur Cheney Train

It is hardly likely that foxy old “Don Liborio” anticipated any such far-reaching result of his extraordinary manœuvre with the Camorra. It was not many weeks, however, before the Camorrists who had been given public office and continued under Garibaldi, began to show themselves in their true colors, and to use every opportunity for blackmail and private vengeance. They had been given charge of the octroi, or taxes levied at the city gates, and these decreased, under Salvatore di Crescenza, from forty thousand to one thousand ducats per day. Another Camorrist collector, Pasquale Menotte, had the effrontery to turn in, on one occasion, the princely sum of exactly four cents. It became absolutely necessary to get rid of them at any cost, and to drive them out of the police and army, which they now permeated. Mild measures were found insufficient, and as early as 1862 a raid was conducted by the government upon the organization—Sparenta, the Minister of Police, arresting three hundred Camorrists in one day. But he accomplished little. From this time on until 1900 the history of the Camorra is that of a corrupt political ring having a standing army of crooks and rascals by means of which to carry out its bargains.

During this period many serious attempts were made to exterminate it, but practically to no purpose. In 1863 another fruitless series of raids filled the jails of Naples, and even of Florence and Turin, with its members; but the society continued to flourish—less openly. The resignation of Nicotera as Prime Minister in 1876 was followed by a burst of activity among the Camorrists, but in 1877 the government made a serious effort to put down the Mafia in Sicily, while in 1880 the murder of Bonelli in a foul dive of the Camorra in Naples resulted in the prosecution of five Camorrists for his murder. The trial, like that of 1911–12, took place, for reasons of safety, at Viterbo. The witnesses testified freely upon every subject save the Camorra, and could not be induced to suggest that the assassination had been the result of a conspiracy. “The word Camorra seemed to burn their tongues.” The jury were so impressed by the obvious terror which the society inspired in the Neapolitans that they found all the five—Esposito, Romano, Tiniscalchi, Langella, and Trombetta—guilty, and they were sentenced to forced labor in the galleys.

Apparently there was a sort of renaissance of the Camorra about 1880, at the death of Victor Emmanuel II, and under the new administration of Humbert it began to be increasingly active in political affairs. At this time the Camorra alta included lawyers, magistrates, school-teachers, holders of high office, and even cabinet ministers. The writer does not mean that these men went through the rites of initiation or served an apprenticeship with the knife, but the whole villainous power of the Camorra was at their backs, and they utilized it as they saw fit.

The “Ring,” affiliated as it is with the leaders of the society, is still the most dangerous manifestation of the Camorra. Historically, it is true, it was known as the alta Camorra or Camorra elegante, but in ordinary parlance these terms are generally used to describe Camorrists more closely related to the actual district organizations, yet of a superior social order—men who perhaps have graduated from leadership into the more aristocratic if equally shady purlieus of crime. These handle the elections and deliver the vote, own a gambling-house or two, or even more disreputable establishments, select likely victims of society’s offscourings for blackmail, and act as go-betweens between the Ring and the organization. They also furnish the influence when it is needed to get Camorrists out of trouble, and mix freely in the fast life of Naples and elsewhere. The power of the Ring reached its climax in 1900.

In return for the services of the Camorra bassa in electing its deputies to office, the government saw to it that the criminal activities of the society were not interfered with. Prefects who sought to do their duty found themselves removed from office or transferred to other communes, and the blight of the Camorra fell upon Parliament, where it controlled a number of deputies from the provinces of “Capitanata”; all governmental interference with the Camorra was blocked, and Italian politics weltered in corruption.

Upon the assassination of King Humbert, in 1900, the situation in Naples was as bad as that of New York City in the days of the Tweed Ring. The ignorant Neapolitans sympathized with the Camorrists as against the police, and voted as they were directed. Almost all the lower classes were affiliated in some indirect way with the society, much as they are in New York City with Tammany to-day. The Ring absolutely controlled all but three of the newspapers published in the city. The lowest depths had been reached in every department of municipal and provincial administration, and even the hospitals and orphan asylums had been plundered to such an extent that there was nothing left for the thieves to get away with.

At this crisis the Socialist newspaper, La Propaganda, courageously sprang to the attack of the communal administration, in the persons of the Syndic Summonte and the Deputy Casale, who, smarting under the lash of its excoriation, brought an action of libel against its editor. Heretofore similar attacks had come to nothing, but the facts were so notorious that Summonte evaded service and abandoned his associate, and Casale, facing the necessity of explaining how he could support a luxurious establishment on no salary, endeavored to withdraw the action. The Public Minister himself announced that no witnesses need be summoned for the defense, and publicly expressed his indignation that a governmental officer, Commendatore F. S. Garguilo, Sustituto Procuratore Generale of the Court of Cassation in Naples, should have accepted a retainer for Casale. The tribunal handed down a decision finding that the facts asseverated by La Propaganda were fully proved and, referring to the influence of Casale, said: “The immorality thence emanating is such as to nauseate every honest conscience, and to affirm this in a verdict is the commencement of regeneration.”

This was, indeed, the commencement of a temporary regeneration. Casale was forced to resign his seat in Parliament and in the provincial council. The entire municipal council resigned, and, amid the roarings of the Neapolitan Camorrist press, the president of the Council of Ministers, Senator Saracco, proposed and secured a royal commission of inquiry of plenipotentiary powers, with a royal commissioner to administer the commune of Naples. The report of this commission, in two volumes of nine hundred pages each, draws a shocking picture of municipal depravity, in which Casale appeared as recommending criminals to public office, selling places for cash, and holding up payments to the city’s creditors until he had been “seen.” He was proved to have received thirty thousand lire for securing a subsidy for a steamship company, and sixty thousand lire for getting a franchise for a street railway. It appeared that the corruption in the educational departments passed description, that concessions were hawked about to the highest bidder, and that in one deal—the “Scandalous Loan Contract,” so-called—five hundred thousand lire had been divided between Scarfoglio, Summonte, Casale, and Delieto. This Scarfoglio, the editor of Il Matino, and the cleverest journalist in Naples, was exposed as the Ring’s intermediary, and his wife, the celebrated novelist, Matilde Serao, was demonstrated to have been a trafficker in posts and places. The trial and exposures created a furore all over Italy. The Prime Minister refused to continue the Royal Commission and announced a general election, and, amid the greatest excitement, the Camorra rallied all its forces for its final struggle in politics. But the citizens of Naples had had enough of the Ring for the time being, and buried all the society’s candidates under an avalanche of votes. This was the severest blow ever dealt to the political influence of the Camorra.

The Casale trial marks the last stage of the Camorra’s history to date. America has had too many “rings” of her own to care to delve deeply into the slime of Italian politics. The Camorra regularly delivers the votes of the organization to governmental candidates, and exerts a powerful influence in the Chamber of Deputies. It still flourishes in Naples, and continues in a somewhat modified form its old formalities and festivities; but its life is hidden and it works in secret. The solidarity of the organization has yielded to a growing independence on the part of local leaders, whose authority is often usurped by some successful basista (burglary planner). The big coups become fewer as the years go on, the “stakes” for which the criminal game is played smaller and smaller.

Police Inspector Simonetti, who had many years’ experience in Naples, gave evidence before the Viterbo Assize on June 8, 1911, as follows: