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They Can't Shoot Everyone : Italians, Social Capital, and Organized Crime in the Chicago Outfit
Louis Corsino Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 2013 29: 256 DOI: 10.1177/1043986213485634 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ccj.sagepub.com/content/29/2/256

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CCJ29210.1177/1043986213485634Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeCorsino

Article

They Cant Shoot Everyone: Italians, Social Capital, and Organized Crime in the Chicago Outfit
Louis Corsino1

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 29(2) 256275 2013 SAGE Publications Reprints and permissions: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1043986213485634 ccj.sagepub.com

Abstract Force and intimidation have always played a significant role in the success of the Chicago Outfit. Yet, violence is a highly inefficient mechanism for running illegal operations. A far more stable resource is social capital. This study examines these social capital processes by focusing upon the Chicago Heights boys, a critical component of the Chicago Outfit since the 1920s. Drawing upon interviews, newspaper accounts, census materials, and FBI files, I attempt to demonstrate that for the greater part of the 20th century, Italians in Chicago Heights experienced an abiding social, economic, and political discrimination. This resulted in a social and geographic isolation in Chicago Heights. This isolation inhibited the mobility of Italians along traditional routes but created a store of social capital which Italians used to organize labor unions, mutual aid societies, ethnic enterprisesand an organized crime empire. Specifically, leaders in the Chicago Heights Outfit acquired a social capital advantage because they could draw upon the closed networks in the Italian community and, at the same time, envision a range of illegal opportunities because they occupied a series of structural holes. Keywords Organized crime, social capital, Italians, Chicago Outfit, Chicago Heights

They cant shoot everyone. At times they tried. In the following pages, I argue that the success of the Chicago Outfit rested upon a collection of social capital resources. No doubt, force and intimidation played a most significant role in this success; and the
1North

Central College, USA

Corresponding Author: Louis Corsino, Department of Sociology, North Central College, Naperville, IL 60540, USA. Email: lcorsino@noctrl.edu

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strategic alignment of illicit products and services with the needs of customers, suppliers, and competitors was also critical. Still, the ongoing, profit generating operation of the Chicago Outfit cannot be fully understood by viewing Outfit members as simply power wielders or rational exchange partners. Outfit members were also embedded in a host of social relations and networks. The frequency, intensity, and quality of these networks generated a bountiful supply of social capital and accompanying advantages in running an efficient, albeit criminal organization. Unraveling the sources of this social capital and the ways this social capital was employed to maintain the mob are the central themes of this study. At its height and over its nearly century-long history, the Chicago Outfit covered a vast geographic area and had an extensive organizational structuretoo dispersed, too broad to discuss fully here. To bring greater focus, I will narrow this study in the following ways. First, I examine one long-standing organizational component of the Chicago Outfitnamely, the Chicago Heights boys. From the slot machine trusts in the early 1900s, to the takeover of the local stills by Al Capone in the 1920s and 1930s, to the prosecution of city officials for racketeering in the 1990s, organized crime found in a home in the social and political structures of this suburb 30 miles (48.28 km) south of Chicago. No less a figure than Eliot Ness cut his teeth in the crime fighting field with an early exposure to the Chicago Heights bootlegger operation. According to Ness, the Chicago Heights operation was the pickup depot for most of the illicit alcohol trade in the entire Middle West (Ness, 1957, p. 61). Schoenberg (1992) argued that in the 1920s, conditions in Chicago Heights had become scandalous beyond bearing, even in Cook County (p. 232). And years later in 1991, Federal Authorities in their prosecution of the Chicago Heights mayor and police chief for extortion and racketeering described the Chicago Heights setting as an unholy alliance of mobsters, politicians, and police (OBrien, 1992, p. 6). Despite dramatic changes in city demographics, politics, and economic fortunes, organized crime in Chicago Heights has long presented itself as a topic for investigation. Second, the investigation of the Chicago Heights boys will be narrowed further with an examination of a particular type of social capitalthat generated by ethnic ties and associations. Social capital can spring from many types of structural locations social class, gender, voluntary groupings, and the like. And, at times, separating social class from ethnic resources becomes nearly impossible. Still, ethnic ties have long been viewed as having a particular affinity with organized crime enterprises. In particular, Italians have often been linked with organized crime in popular, academic, and law enforcement circles. This is indeed the case in Chicago Heights where Italians dominated the hierarchy and day-to-day illegal operations for the greater part of the century. With this in mind, this study seeks to join a discussion of organized crime, social capital, and Italians in an attempt to explain the ongoing success of the Chicago Heights boys. As suggested, Chicago Heights draws our interest because of the long history of organized crime in the city. At the same time, Italians have constituted a sizeable percentage of city residents ever since the second wave of immigration ran its course in the period from 1890 to 1924. Thus, in 1920 12.2% of the Heights 19,653 citizens

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were foreign born Italians (U.S. Department of Commerce and Labor, 1920). In subsequent years, quotas on immigration from southern Europe reduced these numbers. Still, as the sons and daughters of Italian immigrants started their own families and as third-generation Italians began theirs, the presence of Chicago Heights citizens with some Italian roots grew disproportionately. Candeloro (1981) estimated that by 1970 roughly 40% to 50% of the Chicago Heights population had these Italian roots (p. 182). The copresence and intermingling of organized crime and Italians in a specific locale has spawned a number of attempts to explain this connection. Thus, the ties between Italians and organized crime have historically been depicted, with notable exceptions, as a consequence of genetic makeup, modal personalities, constituent subcultures, or family legacyi.e., something ingrained in the Italian or the Italian way of life. As far back as 1888, a Chicago Tribune editorial argued for the existence of the Mafia in Chicago because of the large number of Sicilians who lived in the city (Schiavo, 1962). Such explanations obviously leave much to be desired. They lurch awkwardly to overly broad characterizations of the Italian population and in the process pull most all Italians into the Mafia nest. These types of essentialist explanations could well be misapplied to the Chicago Heights context. Some could argue, and some local residents did, that the mere presence of Italians in the community predisposed an outbreak of organized crime. Of course, many Italians in Chicago Heights were far removed from these criminal ventures, had no connection to the history of illegal liquor distribution, gambling, prostitution, or racketeering. But having said this, it would also be inaccurate to suggest that the Chicago Heights Outfit was the result of just a few bad apples, a collection of wrongdoers who were marginalized from the bulk of the Italian population in Chicago Heights. The social conditions and ties between the Chicago Heights boys and the Italian ethnic community ran much deeper and were more binding than this. Organized crime was embedded in the Chicago Heights communityin its Italian enclaves on the East Side and the Hill sections of the cityin more than a parasitic manner. Indeed, as Candeloro (1981) writes, One observer has suggested that bootleggers were major employers of runners, sugar buyers, and plumbers (to construct stills), and that the industry brought a measure of prosperity to the community during the Prohibition Years (p. 204). These social ties between members of the Chicago Heights Outfit and the larger Italian community were forged by a number of forces. Many Italians camwq\+ e from the same region and some from the same small towns in the southern parts of Italy. Many had extensive family ties that spread throughout the community. But most importantly most all found their connection to fellow Italians enhanced by the more general processes of cultural, political, and economic discrimination against Italian immigrants. These forces, on the one hand, distanced Italians from the more traditional ladders of success and in so doing made achievement more difficult. They created or enhanced a sense of shared destiny for having been thrown into a common situation and predicament (Portes, 1998). On the other hand, these discriminations fostered a geographic and social isolation of Italians in Chicago Heights. In turn, this

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social isolation from the main stream society, or the West Side of the city, led to the development of rich social capital resources that Italian residents could call upon to promote their mobility aspirations. Some called upon these extensive social and personal ties to open up ethnic businesses such as grocery stores, some utilized these ties to establish mutual aid or benefit societies, and others organized friends and associates to engage in union activities. And still others used these social resources to achieve their mobility aspirations through the route of organized crime.

Discrimination, Social Isolation, and Social Capital

Diego Gambetta (1996), author of the widely praised The Sicilian Mafia, once asked in another work, Were they pushed or did they jump? Gambetta was struggling with the general human predicament regarding social forces and individual choice. No doubt both processes are at work and no doubt situations vary in terms of the degree of human agency. However, the central argument here is that Italians in Chicago Heights were essentially pushed into a range of entrepreneurial mobilizations (e.g., mutual aid societies, ethnic businesses, labor organizing, and, most significantly, organized crime) by a limited, restrictive access to the traditional routes towards mobility. While these Italians certainly contributed to their own isolation from these opportunity structures, the larger cultural, political, and economic forces at work in Chicago Heights played a most significant role.

Cultural Opprobrium
A distaste for Italians seemed to emerge fairly early in the history of Chicago Heights. As immigration patterns previous to World War I led to a sizeable Italian presence in the city, nativistic sentiments were increasingly directed at a range of Italian habits and customs. These sentiments, often mixed with more positive personal relationships, came from religious leaders, city officials, the local newspaper, business owners, teachers, and school children. They affected the Italian assimilation into the dominant American culture in a variety of institutional contexts. Perhaps, the most far reaching effects of this cultural discrimination occurred in the schools. Thus, it has been well documented elsewhere that southern Italians did not place a high value on formal education for their children, especially for females. And this pattern seems to have also been the case in Chicago Heights, for many parents restricted their childrens education and many children quit school as soon as they were able. However, these negative attitudes to schooling were no doubt influenced by the less than positive reception many Italian children faced when they entered the alien, middle-class world of the classroom. In these classrooms, students were graded not only on their academic performance, but also upon the difficult-to-master, middle-class standards of cleanliness, attentiveness, appearance, deportment, initiative, and general health (Devatenous, 1924, p. 31). In a setting in which there were no Italian teachers, administrators, or school board members, the lower class status and customs of the Italian children became a significant criteria for sifting and sorting opportunities and mobility.

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Not surprisingly, these traditional Italian customs became a source of embarrassment to the students. As Dominic Pandolfi (Italian American Collection Records [IACR], 1979), a long time Chicago Heights resident, suggests, the teachers were most concerned about these foreigners. These concerns translated into a disparagement of the Italian language, manner of dress, and foods. For a long time, Pandolfi said, we were embarrassed about it, eating squid, eel . . . and the kinds of stuff they (our Italian parents) eat. At times, this discrimination turned more overt. After school the teachers were very severe and very hostile towards Italians. Other Italian residents suggested that fellow students were often the worst source of disparagement in the school. Nick Tieri (IACR, 1979) said, When I left Garfield School to go to Washington School, it was a bad situation . . . I was called all kinds of names. But with English . . . Youre a dago, a ginny, wop and everything. Another resident, Theresa Giannetti (IACR, 1979), recalls, When we went to school definitely there was a distinction between the kids from the east side, the hill and the west side . . . We were dagos to them. Italians fared little better in the civic associations and social clubs of the Chicago Heights community. The combination of Catholicism, foreign customs, and roughneck reputation resulted in the exclusion of Italians from many of the civic-commercial organizations. At the same time, the local country clubs denied Italian membership, though Italian youth were allowed to work as caddies. Even when Italians participated in the myriad athletic and social clubs on the west side of town, cultural barriers set a higher standard for acceptance or inclusion. We were second class citizens without a doubt, said long time resident Nick Zaranti. If you went out for athletics you had to really work trying to make a team because they wouldnt give you the playing time to prove yourself (IACR, 1979). Chicago Heights Italians, then, felt the sting of this cultural opprobrium across diverse settings. Yet, the most basic cultural discrimination was ecological. In the early years Italians were simply not supposed to be in certain places. This ecological exclusion sought to isolate Italians literally on the other side of the tracks. As Nick Zaranti said, The whole west part of town, starting from the railroad tracks, the CNI (sic) railroad tracks moving west. We hit the downtown area and then beyond that you couldnt even go . . . cause they just wouldnt allow you, think you would be stealing (IACR, 1979).

Political Alienation
To be sure, Italians in Chicago Heights contributed to their own cultural reproach. For example, the rough-neck status of the Italian youth was well deserved. Yet, when we turn to a discussion of power and politics, Italians seem to have less culpability in terms of their political alienation from the mainstream political processes. Voting totals in the predominately Italian sections of the city were often on a par or often or not significantly below the totals for the west side of the city. Organizational leaders in these Italian districts created a political machine that resulted in significant political participation on the part of the Italian residents. As a result, during the first several

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decades of the century, Italian participation in local city government was extensive (Candeloro, 1981). For example, in 1907, three out of the 10 aldermen in the city were Italian. This participation was a source of consternation to west side civic leaders. Thus, as early as 1911 what the Chicago Heights Star termed the better element of the city called for the establishment of a commission form of government, where commissioners would be elected at large rather than from particular wards. Though phrased in terms of increased governmental efficiencies and reduced costs, there is little doubt that this new form of government was also aimed at reducing the machine style politics found in the Italian wards of the city. The first attempt to establish this commission form of government was defeated in 1915. However, agitation for this new governmental form did not abate. In 1921, increased city corruption led to new efforts to raise city government from the slough of despond into which it had fallen (Call for New, 1921, p. 3). Opponents of this change argued that these reform efforts were motivated by the attempt to prevent the foreign and colored vote from having a say in local government affairs. This time, fueled by the increasing hostility to this foreign element after World War I, the at large referendum passed with 56% of the vote. The commission form of government proved a great success in attracting candidates to run for political office. However, it was disastrous for Italian politicians in the city. Previously, Italian representation in city government had generally exceeded their proportion of the city population. Yet, from 1921 to 1941, Chicago Heights had only two commissioners and no mayors of Italian descent. As Dominic Pandolfi lamented, It was very sad because politics was downtown, other than Italian (IACR, 1979). Paradoxically, as Chicago Heights become more Italian in terms of the proportion of residents of Italian descent, the ethnic representative of Italians in city government virtually ceased.

Economic Discrimination
During the early part of the 20th century, the dominant cultural and political processes were heavily weighted against Italians in Chicago Heights. Routes to mobility were blocked as a powerful and obstinate majority on the waspish, west side of town clashed with a less powerful and no less obstinate minority of the east side of town. Italians, though, lacked the cohesiveness and stability to mount a serious challenge to the balance of power in the community. At the same time, Italians were unwilling, at least in the short run, to give up their cultural practices (from eating eels, to religious fests, to vino) in the face of challenges posed by a nativistic and, often times, hostile culture. Thus, for every taunt of Wop or Dago, Italians countered with a mangia cakes (cake eaters) derision of the west-siders (Candeloro & Paul, 2004, p. 103). Yet, in the economic realm, this bravado was missing. Unwilling to give up their culture, many Italians gave up pieces of their health, dignity, and freedom by submitting to the harshest of working conditions in the industrial plants and shop floors. Seven-day work weeks, unsafe working conditions, despicable sanitary facilities were

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Table 1. Occupational Ranking of Italian, Adult Males, Chicago Heights, 1910 and 1930, Other Cities 1900-1915. Occupational Rank High white collar Low white collar Skilled Semiskilled Unskilled Total Number ChiHts, 1910a 1% 4% 8% 5% 82% 100% 1,420 Pittsburgh, 1900b 0% 2% 23% 3% 72% 100% 507 New York, 1905c 2% 18% 22% 16% 42% 100% 1,015 Providence, 1915d 5% 13% 19% 23% 37% 97% 863 Boston, 1910e 2% 10% 23% na 65% 100% 132 ChiHts 1930f 6% 10% 13% 13% 58% 100% 1,613

Sources: a(The Chicago Heights data was derived from the Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States: 1910 Population, Chicago Heights manuscripts. b(see Bodnar, Simon, & Weber, 1983, p. 64). c(see Kessner, 1977, p. 52). d(see Perlmann, 1988, p. 86). The sample consisted of Italian immigrant fathers. And the percentages do not total 100 percent because of rounding and the presence of an Unknown category. e(see Thernstrom, 1973, 136). Thernstrom did not have an Unskilled category. f (The Chicago Heights data was derived from Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930 Population, Chicago Heights manuscripts.).

the common elements facing most Italian laborers. Hardly a week would pass without a newspaper report of a worker being crushed by a falling crane, maimed by a metal press, or scalded by molten led. One account of life inside a Chicago Heights factory leaves little room for interpretation.
They worked under brutalizing conditions. Chicago Heights had steel mills, chemical factories, foundries, dye factories, very dusty wood-working factories, etc. Every place was a place of heat, grime, dirt, dust, stench, harsh glares, overtime, piecework, pollution, no safety gadgets, sweat, etc. The workers were, as the Italians called them, Bestie Da Soma, beasts of burden. Emphysema, stomach ailments, heart ailments were common (Candeloro & Paul, 2004, p. 48).

The lot of the Italian worker then was filled with desperation. For many, the lack of any definable skills put them in competition, and conflict, for the least desirable jobs from rag picker, to street peddler, to field hands in the nearby onion farms. Table 1 presents the distribution of jobs across the occupational structure for Italian, adult males in Chicago Heights for 1910 and 1930. This distribution is presented alongside comparable data for other, obviously larger, industrial cities in the period from 1905 to 1915. The unmistakable conclusion is that Italians consistently started at the bottom of the ladder. Though the patterns and waves of Italian immigration differ somewhat from city to city, it is clear that Italians clump

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decidedly into the two last rungs of the occupational hierarchyno city more so than in Chicago Heights in 1910. Of course, low occupational standing does not prima facie constitute evidence for economic discrimination against Italians. The size of the immigrant population, the institutional completeness of the ethnic community, and the cultural values of the immigrant group are among the contributing factors to occupational mobility. However, many of the Italian workers believed that such discrimination was present. Chicago Heights resident, Nick Tieri (IACR, 1979), said, When you went to apply for a job as soon as you put down your name. What nationality are you? Italian? We have no use for you . . . Ive had that said to me several times. Olivia Kowalski (nee Massacci) (IACR, 1979) told a similar story, I went to the Chicago College of Commerce for 24 months. And when I sent out on interviews, and this is the truth, I had the ability. And I remember one man saying, Have you ever thought of changing your name? He said, You would have less trouble getting a job. Dominic Pandolfi was a Chicago Heights resident who received his teacher certificate and MA from the University of Chicago. When he initially applied for a teaching job at a Chicago Heights elementary school, he was told not to apply by the district superintendent who said bluntly I dont think they will accept you here (IACR, 1979). In short, a collection of cultural, political, and economic forces were at work in the beginning of the 20th century, the effect of which was to erect a spatial barrier between Chicago Heights Italians (as well as other immigrant groups) and the more established residents of the city. Again, the raw census data may prove useful in documenting this segregation. Of particular importance was the residential concentration of this Italian population. Locating the residences of Chicago Heights Italians within the seven city wards, we find that Wards 3, 4, and 5 (primarily, the East Side and the Hill areas) were the primary locations for the vast majority of Italians, 89.7% in 1930. More refined measures of residential segregation include the index of dissimilarity and the isolation index. The former gives evidence of the degree to which minority and majority groups in a city are evenly spread out in residential neighborhoods; the latter measures the average probability based on residential location that a member of a particular group will interact with another member of that group, in our case the probabilities that an Italian living in Chicago Heights would interact with other Italians in the city and thus be isolated from other residents. Both measures range between .000 and 1.00, the higher the coefficient in both cases, the greater degree of residential segregation and isolation, respectively. Using the 1930 censuses and basing the calculations on city wards, I derived both indices for foreign stock Italians in Chicago Heights over against Native Whites of Native Parentage (NWNP), this latter grouping a rough approximation of the more established residents in the city or those farthest removed historically from their immigrant roots. The indices suggest a substantial residential separation. The index of dissimilarity was .775, with indices above .60 generally considered to be high; the isolation index was .460, with indices above .30 considered high. Both indices place Chicago Heights Italians among the most segregated and isolated of any Italian community when compared with Italian populations in other American cities and among the most segregated of any ethnic community (Lieberson, 1963, Lieberson, 1980).

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In the early part of the 20th century, then, Chicago Heights Italians were boxed into a restrictive geographic and social space. Italian residents congregated in different churches, attended different schools, worked in different industries, joined different political and social clubs, and made different neighbors and friends than their west side counterparts. More generally, this social isolation extracts a heavy cost for individuals in their pursuit of social mobilityexclusion from job networks, a restricted geographic awareness and set of experiences, a linguistic isolation, a susceptibility to prejudice and stereotypesin short, a general and pervasive vulnerability to the social and economic ills of a society (Massey & Denton, 1993). In recent years, the concept of social capital has been used to draw the connection between these large scale social processes and individual adaptations. Specifically, social isolation from mainstream society disadvantages certain groups because it distances individuals from a set of beneficial, informal social relations that could otherwise advance prospects for jobs, housing choices, political power, or a variety of other social and economic goods. In the Chicago Heights context, the opportunity for Italian residents to develop these beneficial ties with West Side pastors, school teachers, middle class businessmen, community leaders, or neighbors was made most difficult by the persistent patterns of cultural, political, and economic discrimination. Yet, if it was difficult to acquire this social capital in the mainstream of Chicago Heights life, most Italian residents were nevertheless awash in these beneficial relations and networks within their own neighborhoods. The common lives of these residentswhether this involved getting a job, buying a home, starting a family, dealing with illness or death, providing for public safetywere approached as much as community events as they were individual decisions. For example, building a home was often a neighborhood project. Friends gathered and spent what little spare time they had to help build the home. The women got together and prepared meals for all the workers (Kondras, 1977, p. 14). Economic exchanges were often based upon long-standing community ties rather than a cash nexus. As one Chicago Heights resident put it, shopkeepers at times gave away the store to needy customers in the neighborhood by extending credit or simply not charging them the full price for merchandise (Candeloro & Paul, 2004, p. 114). Along the same lines, Joe Nicastro said, My family use to deliver milk in the neighborhood. When things got real bad, my mother use to say Oh, dont collect this time. She would just give it away. And weddings most always involved a complex exchange of money and social capital. Though many residents did not have the resources to stage a wedding reception, neighborhood residents would customarily contribute anything from live chickens for plucking, to bottles of wine, to homemade cookies, and desserts for the feast. It was a community event, Ida Marks said (Newquist, 1988, p. A2).

Social Capital, Organized Crime, and Italians

The Italians of Chicago Heights were a practical lot. Faced with the struggle to survive in a disparaging cultural, political, and economic environment, this population drew heavily upon their social capital resources to maintain or enhance their social standing.

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Ethnic enterprises (e.g., barber shops, grocery stores, neighborhood taverns) emerged to service the Italian population. Mutual aid or benefit societies (e.g., the Dante Club, Christopher Columbus Club, Marchegiani Society) developed to provide fellowship and economic aid to the poor and unemployed. Labor unions and socialist inspired cooperatives (e.g., the Co-operativa di consumo di Chicago Heights) organized fellow Italian residents in the face of ongoing and persistent economic struggles. And along side, and understandably overlapping with these nontraditional routes to success, we also find the emergence of the Chicago Heights boys. The history of organized crime in Chicago Heights roughly parallels the rise of Chicago Heights as an industrial suburb. Indeed, as early as 1906, just several years after incorporation as a city, political campaign debate was already centered upon reform and the elimination of the slot machine trust in the immigrant wards. As this immigrant population grew and as Prohibition presented new opportunities, these more unstructured criminal activities gave way to a more consolidated set of illegal operations. From Chicago, Johnny Torrio made an initial foray into the Heights when he opened the Moonlight Caf. Locally, Antonio Sanfilippo, an migr from Sicily, used his Sicilian ethnic alliances to set up a highly efficient moonshine operation. Sanfilippos success enticed challenges and he paid for these challenges in 1924 when he was found slumped in his car with four bullets in his head. Though no one was ever charged with his murder, shortly thereafter Phil Piazza assumed control of the Chicago Heights operation. The reign of Piazza was brief, for in what was to become a deadly battle in which scores of gangland murders took place Piazza himself was gunned down outside the Milano caf in 1926. Again, Piazzas murder went unsolved, though by the end of the 1920s we find two men in control of the Chicago Heights illegal operationsDomenic Roberto, an migr from Sambiase, Italy and Jimmy Emery (born Vincenzo Ammirato) an migr from Cosenza, Italy. Along with their protg, Frank Laporte, and with the close ties and associations of the TorrioCapone Outfit in Chicago, this is the beginning of the Chicago Heights boys. Determining more precisely which Chicago Heights Italians became part of this criminal element is difficult. Of course, the secretive nature of organized crime did not lend itself to membership lists or public disclosure. And over a 50-year span from 1920 to 1970, there was a good deal of personnel change in the group as people moved away, were sent to prison, deported, or died of natural or unnatural causes. But the bravado of the Chicago Heights crew works in our favor in this situation. Thus, it was not uncommon for Outfit members to not only gather for celebrations and gettogethers in the Heights but to publicize these gatherings. Most famously, Nick Neroni, a labor leader with the Hod Carriers Local 5 union, would periodically hold a picnic for Outfit leaders at his farm on the outskirts of the Hill area. In 1925, Neroni put an announcement in the Chicago Heights Signal which stated that the Bloom Township Italian Republican Club would have its picnic in July and participants would include Phil Piazza, Dominic Roberto, Charles Costello, and Jimmy Emery among others. Several years later, Neroni would again host a get-together. The exact date and occasion for the picnic are unknown. However, Luzis exhaustive study of a group picture taken at this get together places the photo sometime in 1927 and, most

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importantly, Luzi argues that it represents a celebration of the end to the gang wars in Chicago Heights and a symbol of the unification of the Chicago Heights Outfit. Arguably, the picture freezes at one point in time the power syndicate of the Chicago Heights Outfit or the entire power structure of the Chicago Heights faction of the Capone gang from the 1920s. . . the cornerstone of organized crime in Chicago Heights(Luzi, 2003, p. 3). Again, thanks to Luzis research, we are able to identify with confidence all but one of the 31 men pictured. These identifications reveal a mix of criminal histories and legal entanglements for most all of the men. Besides the criminal machinations of Frank Laporte, Dominic Roberto, and Jimmy Emery, we find: Giovanni Roberto, who was Dominics brother and head of the slot machine operation in Chicago Heights for decades; Joe Guzzino, who went on to become the man in charge of gambling in Calumet City and who was implicated in the 1926 slaying of Sicilian gang leader, Jim Lamberta; Nick Neroni who was the business agent for and the Outfits man inside the Hod Carriers Local 5 Union; James Strangis, an alky runner for the local organization who was eventually suspected of pilfering the bootleg liquor and was shot and set ablaze in the stolen booze as a warning to others; Sam Laporte, a grocer and reported bootlegger; Charlie Costello who was described as long an outstanding figure in the turbulent affairs of Chicago Heights (One Slain, 3 Shot, 1938, p. 1); Tony Costello who was arrested in a 1929 Federal raid in Chicago Heights and was grouped in a category that the chief prosecutor labeled as killers, bootleggers, and racketeers (Chicago Heights Raided, 1929, p. 1); Sam Costello, a close associate of Al Capone, who was eventually killed in an infamous shooting in a Chicago Heights bakery; Nick Costello who helped run the illegal alky business in Chicago Heights for years; Pete Zeranti who became part owner and overseer of Outfit run businesses such as Co-operative Music Company; George Zeranti, Curly Zeranti, and Nick DiGivoanni who were arrested in the 1929 Federal raid in Chicago Heights (Chicago Heights raided,1929, p. 1.); Sam DiGiovanni who was the leader of the Sicilian operation in Chicago Heights and had a hand in Outfit operations well into the 1950s; Sam Geraci who was described as an old-time prohibition bootlegger and hoodlum (U.S. Department of Justice, February 24, 1966, Bureau File 92-5793, p. 5). Joe Arrigo who was hired by Chicago Outfit boss, Johnny Torrio, to run the Outfits first foray into Chicago Heights, the Moonlight Caf; John Perry who along with Jim Dipeso and Bill Willis was indicted by a Federal grand jury in 1929 for operating a brewery and still in Chicago Heights; Charlie Presto who owned a local tavern which had a notorious reputation as an Outfit hang out; Tony Subolis who was the Outfits connection to the Congress of Industrial Organization union workers in the Chicago Heights steel mills; finally, Mike Roberto and John Nicastro who were involved in Outfit operations, Roberto as a money collector for illegal slot machines, Nicastro, among other duties, as a bagman transporting money from the Outfit to the since deported Dominic Roberto in Italy. This is a formidable collection of organized crime figures. Still we are left to consider why this collection of Italian criminals was able to create a criminal organizationspecifically, why the boys, were able to dominate the local vice operations

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and maintain this dominance through the years, indeed over decades. In part, as we saw above, Dominic Roberto, Jimmy Emery, and Frank Laporte were able to extract a measure of authority based upon coercion or, more generally, hierarchical relations. Yet, violence is an organizational pathology when it comes to running an organization. It brings unwanted attention and grudging compliance rather than innovation or trust. Another explanation for the Outfits viability involved market relations. In this view, the Outfits success was less a result of domination per se but more a consequence of a wide number of symmetrical exchanges which profited the criminal organization and its customers, broadly conceived. Market relations, however, are inevitably embedded in a network of interpersonal associations, or as Granovetter says simply, (social) relations are always present (1985, p. 481). It is to these more robust social relations and networks that we turn our attention. These social connections matter because they provided Outfit members with an advantage in running an illegal slot machine operation, a gambling house, a prostitution ring, a strip joint. The advantage created by these connections is what we mean by social capital. These network ties, and accompanying social capital, can be separated themselves along the lines of Burts critical formulation of brokerage and closure (Burt, 2005). Brokerage refers to the structural position some people or organizations occupy between different clusters of otherwise unconnected or marginally connected people or groups. These structural holes provide a vision advantageaccess to a wealth of nonredundant, network resources in the form of diverse ideas, adaptive flexibility, or strategic opportunities not generally available to the clusters on opposite sides of the hole (Burt, 1997, p. 340). With these social capital resources in hand, one who stands near the hole in a social structure is at a higher risk of good ideas (Burt, 2005, p. 59). This probability of success, however, would be seriously compromised without the social capital that accrues from closure. Standing in this structural hole is risky for there is little of the built up trust and familiarity that more likely characterizes closed networks. Without these mutually supportive ties and trusting relationships, uncertainty increases and coordination and communication decreases. Or put another way, the rich, detailed, and readily available information essential to the effective coordination and communication goes wanting. The vision advantage is dampened as the management task of bridging the structural hole becomes burdened with inefficiencies and risks. As such, Burt argues that the advantages of social capital are maximized when this tension between brokerage and closure is resolved, when there is an effective trade-off between the two. This is most likely to occur in structurally autonomous groups (Burt, 2005, pp. 139-141) or groups where the extent of network closure is high and select members of the group bridge the structural holes beyond their own network. In such cases, brokerage provides access to diverse perspectives, information, and opportunities; closure to the most effective and efficient social mechanisms of trust and control. As Burt (2005) argues, Brokerage is about coordinating people between whom it would be valuable, but risky, to trust. Closure is about making it safe to trust. The key to creating value is to put the two together, building closure around valuable bridge relations (p. 97).

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Guzzino Strangis,J Piazza Laporte,F Roberto,Ji Roberto,D Roberto,Jo Nicastro Roberto,M Costello,S Naroni Laporte,S Emery Zerante,P Costello,T Costello,C Zerante,S Zerante,G

Arrigo Dipeso Geraci Perry Presto Pulia Subalus,T Wilchinski

Angellotti

Costello,N

Digiovanni,N DiGiovanni, S

Figure 1. The boys of Chicago heights social networks.

Putting the two together was precisely why the boys of Chicago Heights were so successful for such an extended period of time. In the case at hand, the presence of closure among the Chicago Heights boys can reasonably be argued on a number of grounds. First, the similarities in the personal and social positions of the men suggest a common world view or outlook. Twenty-eight of the 30 men were Italian, indeed with roots from southern Italy. This southern Italian heritage can be distilled even further. Eight of the mean had strong ties to Sambiase, a tiny village in Calabria. Another eight men were connected to Caccamo, Sicily. At the same time, a majority of these men were unskilled workers, many employed initially as laborers in the local steel mills. These common experiences do not automatically translate into strong ties, let alone social capital effects. Broadly speaking, however, the literature on homophily concludes unmistakably that similarity breeds connection (McPherson, SmithLovin, & Cook, 2001, p. 415). Second, and most consequential, the most self-evident indicator of closed networks involves a more direct analysis of relational variables or more simply the ties between the social actors. The assumption is that networks which have a collection of redundant, overlapping ties will exhibit more closure, which means more trust, which means more social capital. With these assumptions in hand, what evidence is there for such a closed network among the Chicago Heights outfit members? Perhaps not at all surprising, the evidence for closure is considerable. Figure 1 details a range of friendship, kinship, occupational, and residential ties among the 30 men. Some members were

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isolates and their position in the Outfit was more functional. Beyond these men, however, we find a tight knit collection of Outfit members bound together not simply by their criminal interests but because they were variously brothers, cousins, in-laws, sons, friends of one another. These social ties ran deep. As such, these men were able to keep a watchful eye upon one another from various vantage points and, thereby, decrease the risks that would otherwise inhibit trust (Burt, 2005, p. 95). Some 30-odd years later, an FBI informant could still claim that of all the Chicago Outfit crews, the Chicago Heights members were the tightest group in the Chicago area (U.S. Department of Justice, June 4, 1964, Bureau File 92-5793, p. 17). Closed networks, however, tend toward inertia. The unprecedented success of the Chicago Heights operations did not take place until the likes of Domenic Roberto and others saw the opportunities presented in spanning their connections to the opposite sides of the hole. These structural holes were numerous, for the abiding segregation and separation of the Italian population created an array of opportunities for brokerage. Broadly conceived, however, the most advantageous holes found the close knit, social capital rich Italian community on one side; the ravenous Chicago-based, Capone led Outfit on another; and the collection of legitimate local politicians, businessmen, and law enforcement officials on the third. Nestled among these social networks, the Chicago Heights boys found truth in Burts maxim that individuals with networks rich in structural holes are the individuals who know about, have a hand in, and exercise control over, more rewarding opportunities (Burt, 2002, p. 211). Of course, these opportunities did not present themselves equally to every boy in the Chicago Heights operation. Some of these members were either so young or so deeply entrenched in the local Italian community they could not see the brokerage opportunities. This advantage fell, instead, to the acknowledged leaders of this operation. Specifically, over the 50-year period from 1920 to 1970, Jimmy Emery, Domenic Roberto, Giovanni Roberto, and Frank Laporte assumed top positions in the Chicago Heights Outfit and most prominent roles in the upper echelon of the Chicago Outfit itself. Of these men, Frank Laporte had the longest tenure and was generally considered the most active and involved leader in the day-to-day operations of the Outfit. As such, Laporte will serve as our sample, our entre into a discussion of the social capital that is generated by brokerage and closure. Rio Burke was, for a period of time, the wife of Domenic Roberto, the first leader of the Chicago Heights boys, at least until he was deported. Burke recalls that Jimmy Emery, the other acknowledged leader, was grooming Frankie Laporte to take his place in the organization (Bergreen, 1994, pp. 198-199). As such, Laporte followed Emerys path to success through his connection to and brokerage between several social networks ostensibly irrelevant to one another. One such network was the collection of Italian men in Chicago Heights who in the turbulent decades of the 1930s and 1940s had become even more marginalized and distanced from legitimate chances for mobility. This network included a number of men in the closed circle that made up the Chicago Heights boysin particular, Giovanni Roberto, John Perry, Charlie Costello, Joe Guzzino, John Nicastro, and Mike Roberto. Along with a number of other close friends and relatives, these men provided the hard muscle, the illegal

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know-how, the trusted day-to-day oversight that allowed Laporte to run his diverse illegal enterprises. Another network consisted of more functional tiesspecifically, city officials, or former officials, in the neighboring towns of Chicago Heights, Calumet City, Dixmoor, and Burnham. These ties lacked the intimacy and assured trust of the networks above. As such, they were in most cases forged through an instrumental exchange of money, political support, and favoritism. Still, such ties were extremely valuable, though less trustworthy, for they provided access to strategies, favors, and resources different and more varied from the closed networks within the Italian circle of friends. We get some sense of this when we examine Laportes ties to city officials in Chicago Heights. For example, Craig Hood, a former mayor, was a Laporte associate, having represented Laporte in court on several occasions. Silvio Piacenti, at one time the city attorney, was deemed by FBI files to be a close associate of Laporte (U.S. Department of Justice, January 16, 1963, Bureau File 92-5793, p. 35). Mike Costabile, also a city attorney and a school board member, was tied to Laporte through a number of friends and political leaders. Carl McGhee, another former mayor, was subsequently hired as an attorney by Laporte. And not to be outdone, Maurino Richton, yet another former mayor, was on friendly terms with Laporte, visiting Laporte in the hospital when he was sick and attending various exclusive Laporte, family functions (U.S. Department of Justice, March 5, 1963, Bureau File 92-5793, p. 35). Yet a third network involved Laportes ties to the Chicago Outfit. From Capone, to Frank Nitti, to Paul The Waiter Ricca, to Tony Accardo, Laporte was a confidant of the top leaders in the Outfit. Early on, States Attorney, Pat Roche, hinted at this when he said, Laporte had been seen frequently loitering about the Chicago headquarters of the Capone gang (Roche Seizes Eight, 1930, p. 1). Through the years, Laporte nurtured and extended these Outfit ties. Thus, once a month Laporte met with Tony Accardo, Sam Giancana, and Eddie Vogel in Chicago Heights to discuss Outfit business (U.S. Department of Justice, December 15, 1964, Bureau File 92-5793, p. 5). Roemer (1989) includes Laporte as one of the connection guys, along with Murray The Camel Humphries and Gus Alex, who met regularly in Chicago to report on the latest developments in the Outfit. Further, Laporte was said to be an admirer of Sam Teets Battaglia and vice versa (pp. 81-84). Each has great respect for the other and has met secretly on a number of occasions (U.S. Department of Justice, November 20, 1962, Bureau File 92-5793, p.3). And Laporte, though otherwise circumspect about appearing in public, was a regular attendee at the funerals of the most, high ranking Outfit leadersa sign most likely of the strong ties that existed among these leaders. Structural holes, then, create the vision advantage, closed networks provide the organizational suture that tightens coordination across the hole (Burt, 2005, p.164). An example might reveal more clearly the creative tension between brokerage and closure. We focus upon the vending machine industry. As suggested previously, slot machines had long been a staple of the Chicago Heights rackets. The slot machine trust had beguiled city officials since the early part of the century. Even so, these gambling operations were sequestered in the predominantly immigrant enclaves in the city, especially along 26th street in the Hill area. As such, the Star appealed to the

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men of repute in the community (One Reason Why the Star, 1911, p. 1) to take a stand against the vice chieftains in the immigrant wards of the city. This isolation of the slot machines on the Hill prevailed well into the 1930s as the Heights operation devoted its considerable expertise and resources to the production of illegal alcohol. In the meantime, the TorrioCapone organization began expanding its operation not only to Chicago Heights but also more famously into Cicero (and Stickney, Forest View, Berwyn, and River Forest). Through a series of political maneuvers and a show of force, the Chicago Outfit settled into Cicero and filled the main streets with houses of prostitution, dance halls, and gambling dens (Peterson, 1952). Most significantly, these illegal operations moved beyond the isolated immigrant enclaves and into the more respectable venues in the citythe streets, social groups, neighborhoods all across the town. As Peterson concluded, the TorrioCapone gangsters own Cicerolock, stock, and barrel (1952, p. 125). Besides Torrio and Capone, several men were most instrumental in promoting the slot machine business. Thus, one of the leading figures in the Cicero takeover was Eddie Vogel, the so-called King of the Slot Machines or sometimes referred to as the Honorary Mayor of Cicero. Vogel played a key role in extending the slot machine empire beyond the main street saloons and gambling dens and into the myriad social clubs, fraternal organizations, and taverns throughout the town. In commenting upon the proliferation of slot machines in and around Chicago, Illinois Assistant States Attorney, Henry E. Ayres said, So many machines were placed in operation that truant officers were compelled to demand that the police remove the machines from the vicinity of school buildings where school children frequently gambled on the machines" (Bollinger, 2006, p. 3). Other key players were Jack Gusik and his younger brother Sam Gusik (See Haller, 1990, pp. 217-223). As a result of the efforts of Vogel and the Gusik brothers, Lait and Mortimer (1950) concluded that while the majority of Cicero residents were fine family folk, Cicero was a carnival of crime and lewdness . . . (p. 95). Here you will find one-armed bandits everywhere except in the churches (p. 96). Vogel and the Gusik brothers were long time associates of Frank Laporte. These men, along with other top Chicago hoodlums, were known to participate in highlevel conferences concerning the gambling situation in Cook County (U.S. Department of Justice, July 10, 1962, Bureau File 92-5793, p. 51). And these men were also mutually connected through third parties such as Babe Tuffanelli, a Blue Island racketeer; Francis Curry, the slot machine boss of Joliet and Will County; and Chuck English, once a Cicero-based gambling operator and then a phonograph record supplier. These associations, on the other side of the hole from the Chicago Heights rackets, provided Laporte with practical, best practices advice on how to run a slot machine business for example, how to place the slots in respectable organizations, how to avoid having the slot machines hijacked by non-Outfit hoodlums, how to service and make collections on the machines, and how to spirit the slots away when an impending raid was learned about beforehand. Perhaps, more importantly, Laporte was made aware of the grander, entrepreneurial vision. Laportes association with Vogel, Gusik, and others made him more than a

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good manager. It promoted a wider angle regarding the expansion of the slot machine rackets to a number of communities south of Chicago (Harvey, Blue Island, Kankakee, Calumet City, Joliet, South Chicago Heights, Calumet Park, Willow Springs, Hammond, Steger, and Dixmoor) and within each of these communities an expansion beyond the immigrant neighborhoods per se to the more middle and working class organizations, country clubs, and lunchrooms. The Cicero example demonstrated that there was gambling money to be made not only, or even primarily, in the red light districts of a city. Indeed, Laporte saw the advantage of stretching the retail outlets for the slot machines into the more legitimate venues in society. In this manner, Laporte even trumped the Cicero organization. As Joe Nicastro said, Even St. Agnes had a garage loaded with slot machines. They got a piece of it. They split the money 50/50 after the boys took the money off the top (Joe Nicastro, personal Communication, August 11, 2002). Laportes associations, then, with key figures in the Chicago Outfit increased the value of the local slot machine business. The Cicero operation, in particular, provided the blue-print, both in its successes and excesses. However, the expansion of the slot machine trust in Chicago Heights would have been severely compromised without the social capital advantages provided by the closed social networks available to Laporte. For example, this illegal enterprise required a steady flow of customers and a reliable network of service providers. At the same time, customers had to be serviced in a circumspect manner, unlike the more blatant practices in Cicero, least the Outfit risk unwanted attention on the part of law enforcement officials or the opprobrium of the local citizens. More to the point, even though Chicago Heights was an open town and even though Laportes ties to city officials provided nonenforcement protection, the slot machine operations had to be coordinated in both a profitable and clandestine manner to avoid the infamous notoriety as was the case in Cicero. This prosaic coordination and control was achieved in large measure by embedding the slot machine operations in the informal bonds and networks that were already in place in the community, and thereby avoiding the creation of a so-called red light district. In this respect, the fraternal organizations and clubsfor example, the Hunters Club, the Catholic War Vets, the American Legion Posts, the CIO Steel Workers Club, the Polish Democratic Club, the Loyal Order of Moose, the Fraternal Order of Eagles, the Chicago Heights Country Club, the Italian American Republican Club, the Olympia Fields Country Club, the Christopher Columbus Society, the Polish Falcons, the Military Order of the Purple Heart, to name just severalwere most favored places for the Outfit slots. The formal criteria for club membership and the strong personal ties and sanctions that developed among club members gave the Outfit an indigenous set of social control mechanisms, a supply of social capital to discourage malfeasance. For example, disgruntled customers or losers were handled internally by club officials, club members, or priests. As Louie Patrizi said, If you had a problem losing money, you took it up with other guys in the club, no one ever talked to the Outfit guys (Louie Patrizi, personal Communication, February 1997). Taverns posed more of a problem since theoretically they were far less exclusive in terms of who they serviced, and the networks of customers, bartenders, and owners

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were more open. But even here, we find that the Outfit slots were placed in mainly corner bars, saloons, and liquor stores, places where the customers were regulars. As Haller concludes more generally, Like other retailers in the city, some leaders of organized crime . . . were essentially neighborhood businessmen with local clientele . . . Those providing illegal goods and services usually attempted to cultivate customer loyalty so that the same customers would return on an ongoing basis and advertise among friends (1990 p. 226). Cultivating customer loyalty served the Chicago Heights Outfit well for it provided a trustworthy set of personal relations through which to run the illegal, clandestine slot machine operation. My father, Andy Corsino, who worked for a time as a bartender at the Copa Cabanna Tavern in Chicago Heights, said, It wasnt always the case, but you pretty much had to know a guy before you let him in the backroom (Andy Corsino, personal Communication, July 15, 1994). The backroom or the rear of the tavern was informally reserved for these regulars. Access to the slot machines in these more secluded areas generally required some acknowledgement on the part of the waitress, bartender, or owner. We get some sense of this mix of social and geographic access when charges against several tavern owners were dismissed in court because the slot machines were seized from living quarters behind saloonssuggesting at least both a legal and social exclusion as one moved from the front of the tavern to the rear and beyond (No Warrants, 1949, p. 9). The variously closed systems of personal and social relations, then, were of critical importance in running the slot machine operation in Chicago Heights. Without the mediating social influences of fraternal club associations and neighborhood bars, the number of people willing to step into these notorious and illegal markets would have certainly been more limited. The so-called blue nose factor would have been more powerful. And without the willingness on the part of club officials and tavern owners to essentially manage the slot machine business on a daily basis for the Outfit and to take the heat when necessaryin terms of fines, public disapproval, and the vagaries of the gambling marketLaporte and his crew would have needed to spend far more of their resources on these disruptions. Force and intimidation, as significant as it was in producing the Outfits monopoly over the slot machine business vis a vis competitors, would have played a more significant role in normal operating procedures. Along these lines, the gambling operation in the red-light district of Cicero points to the incredible profits but also the incredible resources and exposure that the Outfit endures when it is not embedded in the local community, when violence supplants social capital. Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author would like to thank North Central College for a summer stipend which allowed for the completion of this project.

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Author Biography
Louis Corsino, is a professor at North Central College. He has published in the general fields of deviance, ethnic entrepreneurship, and politics in journals such as Research in Political Sociology, Deviant Behavior, Social Science Journal, and Research in the Sociology of Work. He has a forthcoming book entitled, The Boys of Chicago Heights: Organized Crime and an Italian Community, with the University of Illinois Press.

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