Italians constitute one of the largest foreign elements in Baltimore and can always be depended on to vote in a bloc. Little Italy is centered around Albemarle and Fawn Sts., where much of the deviltry is hatched over “dago red” wine. Add to this the huge colored vote, which also is pretty solidly Democratic, and you have the makings of a perfect boss-run burg.
Our investigations into other American municipalities have shown where the Mafia dominates there is a disintegration of public morality and private conscience.
To this major seaport huge numbers of Italian and Sicilian immigrants have always been drawn. They formed the base for its underworld colony, made it a star on the Mafia map. It is a concentration point for illegally-entered Sicilians, stowed away on the freight steamers that ply between the Mediterranean and Chesapeake Bay, by a smuggling-ring. As these aliens become Americanized, grow rich and powerful in the rackets, they import new waves of Sicilians for the underworld’s menial tasks.
Baltimore is a favorite hide-out for Mafistas on the lam from other towns, especially New York, and is used interchangeably with Providence, R.I., for that. When one of your authors was assaulted by Sicilian hoodlums in the pay of Mafia tycoons last spring at Bill Miller’s Riviera in New Jersey, New York police investigating the crime were tipped off that the sluggers were being sheltered in Baltimore’s Little Italy, where they were feted as honored guests at a two-week wedding blowout for the daughter of one of the richest and most powerful Sicilians there. More recently, Tony Rotondo, a Brooklyn ex-convict wanted on suspicion of being the torpedo who slew Bill Drury, was found in Baltimore.
In recent years Baltimore has had an infiltration of Puerto Ricans. It is in handy sea communication with the Caribbean. It has also considerable air traffic with that area and at a cheaper rate than New York’s. The affinity between the Mafia underworld and the new Puerto Rican migrants quickly developed, as it did in East Harlem. Young Puerto Ricans are employed as dope-peddlers, pimps, and torpedoes. Their colony is not large as yet. What it lacks in size is made up for with Latin enthusiasm.
Baltimore’s Negro population is around 300,000. On the whole, the colored folk there are more orderly than their neighbors in the District of Columbia. Maryland is still a Southern state and its whites will stand for just so much. But Maryland’s Negroes have the right to vote and they have been taken in hand by the professional do-gooders, the New Dealers and other such ilk, who often work hand in hand with the underworld. The result is that the Negro, the Italian and the Puerto Rican votes are often enough to tip the balance in local elections and perpetuate the criminal rule.
This is expressed on all levels with “fixes” necessary and available for everything from a special license number which will exempt you from arrest to the go-ahead for a bagnio. (When you see a Maryland license ending in three zeros, you know the car is an untouchable.)
The town’s gambling czars are some Comi brothers, some Corbi brothers, all Italians, and George Goldberg, big in numbers.
Tom Shaw, original owner of the swank Club Charles, also was important in the gambling firmament until the Sicilians muscled in, taking a part of his night club as well. Nick Campofreda, a local radio sports announcer, was put in as permanent M.C.—not good either.