the church, the people, and the mafia

one of the interesting sights of catania, sicily, as of nearly every other city i visited in europe, is the market-place. i confess that i have a fondness for visiting markets. i like to wander through the stalls, with their quantities of fruit, vegetables, meat and bread, all the common, wholesome and necessary things of life, piled and ranged in bountiful profusion.

i like to watch the crowds of people coming and going, buying and selling, dickering and chaffering. a market, particularly an old-fashioned market, such as one may see almost anywhere in europe, in which the people from the town and the people from the country, producer and consumer, meet and bargain with each other, seems a much more wholesome and human place than, for example, a factory. besides that, any one who goes abroad to see people rather than to see things will, i believe, find the markets of europe more interesting and more instructive than the museums.

[pg 167]

during my journey across europe i visited the markets in nearly every large city in which i stopped. i saw something of the curious sunday markets of bethnal green and whitechapel, london, with their long lines of shouting hucksters and their crowds of hungry shoppers, and the jewish market in the ghetto of cracow, poland, where pale-faced rabbis were slaughtering, according to the strict ritual of the jewish law, droves of squawking geese. among others, i visited the monday market in catania, which differs from the markets i had seen elsewhere in the multitudes of articles of household manufacture offered for sale, and in the general holiday character of the proceedings.

it was like a country fair in one of our southern cities, only cruder and quainter. for example, instead of the familiar shooting gallery, with painted targets, one enterprising man had set up a dozen painted sticks on a rough box, and offered to the public, for something less than a cent, the opportunity to shoot at them with an ancient cross-bow, such as i did not imagine existed outside of museums. then there were all sorts of curious and primitive games of chance. among other devices for entertaining and mystifying the people i noticed a young woman seated in a chair, blindfolded. a crowd surrounded her while she named various objects

[pg 168]

belonging to the crowd, which her companion, a man, held in his hands. at the same time she told the colour of the hair and eyes, and reeled off a prophecy in regard to the future of the different persons to whom the article belonged.

more interesting still were the public story-tellers, who seemed to take the place, to a certain extent, of the daily newspaper among the masses of the people, so many of whom can neither read nor write.

the story-tellers stood upon little platforms, which they carried about with them like portable pulpits, in order that they might be plainly visible to the crowd. each carried a large banner on which were painted a series of pictures representing the scenes in the stories which they told.

these stories, together with the pictures which illustrated them, had apparently been composed by the men who told them, for they all touched upon contemporary events. in fact, most of them referred in some way to america. like those songbirds that have only one constantly repeated note, each story-teller had but one story, which he told over and over again, in the same tones, with the same attitudes, and same little dramatic surprises.

although i was not able to understand what was said, it was not difficult to follow the narrative from the pictures. one story told

[pg 169]

the fortunes of a young girl who had been lured away to america. perhaps she was one of those "white slaves" to which i noticed a good many references in italy, and in other of the emigrant countries. at any rate, she was imprisoned in a very dark and dismal place in some part of new york which i was not able to locate from the picture. then her brother, or perhaps it was her lover, whom she had left behind in sicily, saw a vision. it was a vision of st. george and the dragon, and after seeing this vision he rose up and went to america and rescued her. the touching thing about it all, the thing that showed how realistic this whole tale was to the crowd that stood and listened to it in rapt attention, was that when the story reached the point where the picture of st. george and the dragon is referred to, the men simultaneously raised their hats. at the same time the speaker assumed a more solemn tone, and the crowd listened with a reverential awe while he went on to relate the miracle by which the young woman had been saved.

the sight of this crowd of people, standing bareheaded in an open square, listening reverentially to the story of a street fakir, struck me, like so much else that i saw of the life of the common people in catania and elsewhere in sicily, as strangely touching and pathetic. it

[pg 170]

reminded me of all that i had read and heard of the superstitions of the common people of the country and gave me as insight, such as i had not had before, into the way in which the masses of the people feel toward the catholic church, with all its religious ceremonies and symbols. it led me to suspect, also, that much in the religious life of the sicilian people which looks, perhaps, to those who have had a different training, like superstition, is in fact merely the natural expression of the reverence and piety of a simple-minded and, perhaps, an ignorant people.

i was told, while i was in that city, that catania has two hundred and fifty churches, and though i do not know that this statement is correct, i could easily believe it from the interminable clanging church bells that smote upon my ears the first sunday morning i was in the city. at any rate, no one can go through the city and look at the public buildings, or study the people in their homes, without meeting abundant evidence of the all-pervading influence of the church. everywhere, built into the buildings, on the street corners, and in every possible public place, one sees little images of the virgin, with perhaps a burning lamp before them. once i ran across one such image, with a lamp before it, planted in a field. i was told

[pg 171]

it was there to protect the crops from the influence of evil spirits.

it did not seem to have occurred to any one that the image of the virgin and the blessing of the church, which were intended to protect the fields from evil spirits, might protect them also from thieves, or banish from the community the evil spirits that inspired men to rob and steal. if this opinion had been very widely held among the masses of the people it would hardly have been necessary to guard the fields night and day during the harvest season, by men armed with shotguns.

this brings me to another point in which i should like to compare the masses of the sicilian people with the masses of the negroes in the southern states—namely, in respect to their religious life.

naturally, the first thing that strikes one, in attempting to make such a comparison, is the wide difference in the situation of the average black man in the southern states and the corresponding class in sicily. in all the externals of religious life, at least, the sicilian is far ahead of the negro.

sicily was one of the first countries in the world in which christianity was planted. st. paul stopped three days in syracuse on his way to rome, and there is still standing a building

[pg 172]

in catania in which st. peter is said to have preached.

sicily has inherited the traditions, the organization and the splendid churches and buildings which have grown up and accumulated through a thousand years and more. the black man, on the contrary, gained his first knowledge of christianity in slavery and in a very imperfect and unsatisfactory form. it is only since freedom came that the negro church has had an opportunity to extend and establish its influence among the masses of the people, while out of their poverty negroes, who are even yet struggling to build and own their own homes, and so establish family life, have had to build churches and training schools for their ministers, to establish a religious press, to support missionary societies and all the other aids and accessories of organized religion.

in view of the wide difference between the people of sicily and the negroes in america, so far as concerns the external side of their religious life, it struck me as curious that i should hear almost exactly the same criticism of the people in sicily, in respect to their religion, that i have frequently heard of the negroes in america. a very large number of the popular superstitions of sicily, what we sometimes call the folklore of a country, are

[pg 173]

very much like many of the notions that the negroes are supposed to have imported to america from africa. any one who has listened to any of the older generation of coloured people tell of the various ways of "working the roots," as they call it, will learn a great many things that can be almost exactly duplicated in the popular notions about drugs and philters among the people of sicily.

it is said of the sicilians, among other things, that their christianity is saturated with pagan superstitions and that, for the average sicilian, religion has no connection with moral life.

in many cases it seems as if the image of the virgin has become, among the lower class of people, little more than a fetish, a thing to conjure with. for example, the peasant who, in order to revenge himself upon his landlord, and perhaps to compensate himself for what he believes has been taken from him by fraud or extortion, determines to rob his landlord's field or flock, will pray before one of these images, before starting out, for success. if he is really "pious" he may offer to the saints, in case he is successful, a portion of what he has stolen. if, however, he fails and is merely superstitious, he will sometimes curse and revile, or even spit upon, the image to which he previously prayed.

i have heard that the savages in africa will

[pg 174]

sometimes behave in the same way toward the object of which they have made a fetish, but i have never heard of anything like that among my own people in the south. the negro is frequently superstitious, as most other ignorant people are, but he is not cynical, and never scoffs at anything which has a religious significance.

one thing that indicates the large part that religion plays in the lives of the sicilian people is the fact that out of the 365 days in the year 104 are sacred to the church. the large amounts of money expended annually by the different cities of sicily upon processions and celebrations in honour of the local saints is one of the sources of complaint made by those who are urging reforms in the local administrations. they say that the money expended in this way might better be used in improving the sanitary condition of the cities.

as indicating how little all this religious activity connects itself with practical and moral life it is stated that, while sicily supports ten times as many churches and clergy in proportion to its population as is true of germany, for instance, statistics show that it suffers from eleven times as many murders and crimes of violence. in quoting these statements i do not intend to suggest a comparison between the

[pg 175]

form of religion that prevails in germany with that in sicily. religion, like everything else in sicily, is deeply rooted in the past. it has shared all the changing history of that island, and naturally reflects the conditions, sentiments, and prejudices of the people.

if the catholic church is in any way to blame for the existing conditions in sicily it seems to me it is in the fact that during the long period of years in which the education of the people has been almost wholly in its hands, the church has held fast to the old medieval notion that education was only for the few, and for that reason has done little or nothing to raise the standard of intelligence among the masses.

it has been a great mistake on the part of the church, it seems to me, to permit it to be said that the socialists, many of whom are not merely indifferent but openly opposed to the church, represent the only party that has sincerely desired and striven for the enlightenment and general welfare of the people at the bottom. such a statement could not, of course, be so easily made of the church in its relations to the masses of the people elsewhere in italy.

the fact about the sicilian seems to be, however, not that he is, as is sometimes said of the negro, unmoral, but that the moral code by

[pg 176]

which he governs himself sometimes makes him a menace to public order.

one of the first things that impressed me, while i was in sicily, was the enormous and expensive precautions that were necessary to guard the fields from thieves. hundreds of miles of high stone walls have been erected in different parts of the island to protect property from vandalism and thieves. in the harvest time it is necessary to practically garrison the island with armed guards to preserve the crops. the cost of putting a private policeman in every field and garden is very heavy, and this expense, which is imposed upon the land, falls in the long run upon the labourer.

the reason for this condition rests in the conviction, which every farm labourer shares, that for his long and crushing labour on the land he does not receive a sufficient wage. in many cases it is likely enough that he is driven by hunger to steal. under such circumstances it is not difficult to understand that stealing soon ceases to be looked upon as a crime, and seems to be regarded as a kind of enterprise which is only wrong when it is unsuccessful. but there is something further, i learned, in the back of the head of almost every sicilian which explains many things in the sicilian character and customs that strike strangers as

[pg 177]

peculiar. i refer to what goes in sicily under the name of the omerta, and is, like some of the customs that exist in the southern states, part of the unwritten law of the country. the principle of this unwritten law is silence. if any one is robbed, wounded, or injured in any way he remains silent. if the police seek to find out who is his enemy he will answer, "i do not know."

in some provinces in sicily it is said to be almost impossible to arrest and convict criminals, because no one will hesitate to go into court and perjure himself for a friend. it is considered a point of honour to do so. on the other hand, to assist the police in any way in the prosecution of crime is looked upon as a disgrace. the ordinary man may be a thief, a robber, or a murderer and be forgiven, but there is no comfort in heaven or earth for the man who betrays a neighbour or a friend.

complaint is sometimes made that the coloured people in the southern states will protect and conceal those among their number who are accused of crime. in most cases where that happens i believe it will be found that the real reason is not the desire to save any one of their number from a just and deserved punishment, but rather the feeling of uncertainty, because of what they have heard and seen of lynchings

[pg 178]

in different parts of the country, as to whether the accused will have the benefit of a full and fair investigation in a court of law.

there is among the negro population of the united states, even though the administration of the law is almost entirely in the hands of another race, no settled distrust of the government and the courts and no disposition, as is true of the sicilian, to resort to private justice and revenge. in spite of the fact that he frequently gets into trouble with the police and the courts the negro is, by disposition at least, the most law-abiding man in the community. i mean by this, the negro is never an anarchist, he is not opposed to law as such, but submits to it when he has committed a crime.

this brings me to another feature of sicilian life—namely, the mafia.

i had heard a great deal about the mafia in italy, and about the criminal political organizations in other parts of italy, before i came to europe, and was anxious, if possible, to learn something that would give me an insight into the local causes and conditions which had produced them.

one of the professional story-tellers whom i encountered while i was wandering about in the market in catania recalled the subject to my mind. he was retailing to a crowd in the

[pg 179]

market square a story that was even more exciting and interesting to me, at least, than the one which i have already mentioned. it was, in fact, nothing less than an account of the murders and outrages of the black hand in new york city.

at first it struck me as very curious that i should meet in italy, the home of the mafia and the camorra, a crowd of people in the public square listening with apparent wonder and awe to an account of the fabulous crimes and misdeeds of their fellow countrymen in another part of the world. i had a sort of notion that the black hand operations would be so familiar to sicilians that they would have no curiosity about them. it was not so, however, and after i learned that new york had an italian population larger than rome, larger, in fact, than any italian city, with the exception of naples, this did not seem so strange. there are, as a matter of fact, more than 500,000 italians in new york city, and 85 per cent. of them are from southern italy. among this 85 per cent. are very many who belong to the criminal classes. the result is that the mafia, under the name of the black hand, is probably as active and, perhaps, as powerful among the italian population in new york to-day as it ever was in italy.

while i was in palermo i had the place pointed

[pg 180]

out to me where petrosino, the italian detective from new york, who went to sicily to secure the records of some of the noted italian criminals then living in america, was shot and killed. petrosino was killed march 12, 1909. the killing of this american officer in the streets of palermo served to call attention to the number of black hand crimes committed by italians in this country. during the next nine months after petrosino's death it was reported that no less than fifty "italian killings," as they were called, took place either in new york city itself or in the surrounding territory, and from 1906 to 1909, according to statistics prepared by the new york world, of the 112 unexplained murders committed in and around new york, 54 were those of italians. this suggests, at least, the manner in which our own country is affected by the conditions of the masses in southern italy and sicily.

the mafia, the black hand, as it is called in america, is a kind of institution which is so peculiar and to such an extent the product of purely local conditions that it seems difficult even for those who know most about it to explain its existence. one statement which i heard in regard to the matter was especially interesting to me. it was said that the condition of mind which made the mafia possible,

[pg 181]

the fear and distrust which divide the masses of the people from the ruling classes and the government, was the result of the mingling of the races in the island; that the mafia was, in short, sicily's race problem.

it is certainly true that in no other part of europe, with the possible exception of spain, have the different peoples of europe and africa become so intermingled as they have in this island, which is one of the natural bridges between europe and africa. in addition to the arabs and saracens from africa, nearly all the races of europe, germans, latins, greeks, have all at different times lived and ruled on the island. near palermo, for example, there are still the remnants of a colony of albanians, a slavic people who speak modern greek, and worship after the fashion of the eastern church, and there are fragments and remnants of many other races still preserved in different parts of the island.

my own experience has taught me, however, to distrust what i may call "racial explanations." they are convenient and easy to make, but too sweeping, and, practically, the effect of them is to discourage any effort to improve. for example, if some one discovers that the condition in which a people happens to be found at any given time is due to race,

[pg 182]

that it is constitutional, and in the blood, so to speak, then, of course, there is nothing to do. if, however, it is due to environment, education may help. the discussion and emphasis on the fact of race have been made the excuse, in the southern states, for a good deal of apathy and indifference in regard to the hopes and progress of the negro. in fact, whenever i hear a politician in the south ask the rhetorical question, "can the leopard change his spots?" i usually find that he is opposing the establishment of a negro school or is discouraging some other effort to improve the condition of the negro people.

the real trouble with explanations of this kind is that as soon as a man has made up his mind, for example, that a people, or class of people, belongs to a so-called "inferior race," he is not inclined to support any kind of experiment, like the building of a school, that may prove that his explanation was mistaken.

the real reason for the backward condition of sicily is, in my opinion, not so much the intermixture of races as the neglect and oppression of the masses of the people. in 1861, when sicily became a part of the italian confederation, 90 per cent. of the population were wholly unable to read or write. this means that at this time the people of sicily were not much better

[pg 183]

off, as far as education is concerned, than the negro slaves at the time of emancipation. it has been estimated that between 5 and 10 per cent. of the slaves could read and write.

one of the first things the italian government attempted to do, after annexation, was to reorganize the school system of sicily. but even under the new government, and with a compulsory education law on the statute books, progress has been slow. in 1881, twenty years later, more than 84 per cent. of the population could neither read nor write, and as late as 1901, for every hundred inhabitants of school age, more than seventy were illiterate.

in practically the same period—that is, from 1866 to 1900—the negro population in the united states reduced its illiteracy to 44.5 per cent. of the population of school age, and for every one hundred negroes in the southern states, fifty-two could read and write.

sicily has three universities, one in each of its three largest cities, palermo, catania, and messina, but they are for the few, and have in no way connected themselves with the practical interests and the daily life of the people. one result of the ignorance of the people is that in sicily, where the educational qualifications exclude more persons than elsewhere from the suffrage, not more than 3.62 persons in every

[pg 184]

hundred of the population vote. this is according to statistics, which go back, however, to 1895.

as near as i can make out, the mafia seems to have grown up, in the first place, like the white caps, the night riders, and the lynchers in our own country, as a means of private vengeance. the people, perhaps because they despised and hated the government, preferred to settle their scores in the old barbaric fashion of private warfare. the consequence was that the small towns were divided by tribal and family feuds. under such circumstances professional outlaws became of service either for the purposes of attack or defence. from conditions something like this what is known as the mafia sprang.

it is said that it was the rich fruit gardens of the "shell of gold" outside of palermo which gave the mafia its first secure foothold and eventually made that city the centre of its activity. in that region field guards were necessary, in addition to the high walls, to keep thieves out of the plantations where the golden fruit ripened almost all the year round. in the course of time these field guards became associated in a sort of clan or guild. in these guilds the most enterprising of the guards eventually became the leaders, and ruled those under them like the tribal chiefs.

[pg 185]

once established, these bands soon dominated the situation. no property owner dared install a guard without the consent of the chief. if he did, he was likely to have his trees destroyed or his whole crop stolen. a guard who was not a member of the band was likely to be brought down some night with a shot from a hedge. on the other hand, the mere knowledge that a certain plantation was under the protection of the mafia was in itself almost sufficient to insure it from attack, and this because the mafia, through all its devious connections with the lower and criminal classes, was much better able to ferret out and punish the criminals than the police.

by making himself at the same time useful and feared in the community, the chief of the mafia soon began to get his hand in almost everything that was going on. he found himself called on to settle disputes. he mixed in politics and was secretly in the employ of rich and powerful men. in this way the mafia, which was at bottom largely a criminal organization, gained in time standing and recognition in the community, in some respects, not unlike, i imagine, that of tammany hall in new york. when the mafia, under the name of the black hand, reached new york, however,

[pg 186]

it seems to have become a criminal organization, pure and simple.

those who have studied the history of this peculiar organization much farther than i have been able to do say that in their opinion the mafia, or black hand, will not long survive in america because there is in this country no such oppression of the poor by the rich and no such hatred and suspicion of the high by the low as is the case in sicily, to give it general support. in other words, the mafia is dependent on class hatred and class oppression for its existence.

perhaps i can give some idea of what it is that embitters the poor man in sicily, who is without property, education, or opportunity, against the large property owners, the rich, educated, and ruling class.

it is estimated by the socialists that in italy the labouring man pays 54 per cent. of the taxes; business men and the professional classes pay 34 per cent., while the class which lives upon rents and the income from investments of various kinds furnishes but 12 per cent. of the revenues of the state.

italy has, i think, every kind and method of taxation which has ever been invented. there is an income tax, which varies between 7½ and 20 per cent., though small incomes of less than one

[pg 187]

hundred dollars a year are exempt. the tax on landed property amounts to 30, 40, or even 50 per cent. in addition to these there is the lottery, the state monopolies, the stamp tax and dog tax. finally the municipal taxes on all kinds of foodstuffs which are brought into the town. this tax absorbs from 20 to 30 per cent. of the labouring man's income.

all these taxes, direct and indirect, are so arranged that the heaviest burden falls upon that portion of the community which is least able to bear it. for example, salt is a government monopoly in italy, and in 1901 the people of italy paid $15,000 for salt which cost the government $1,200 to manufacture. the italian government ships salt to america for the use of the gloucester fishermen for 50 cents a barrel of 280 pounds, or five and three-fifth pounds for a cent. this same salt costs the italian, because of the monopoly of the government, 4 cents a pound—that is to say, twelve times what it costs in america. in order to protect this monopoly the government even goes so far as to station guards along the whole seacoast to prevent people from "stealing" sea water in buckets, to obtain salt.

fortunately the state monopoly of salt does not extend to sicily, but the principle of taxing the people according to their necessities, rather

[pg 188]

than according to their ability to pay, is the same there as elsewhere in italy. as an illustration of the unfair way in which the taxes are levied in some parts of the country it is said that the donkey of the poor farmer is compelled to pay a tax, while the saddle-horse of the rich landlord goes free.

in comparison with this, the negro in the south hardly knows what taxes are. the negro farmer, for example, has an inexhaustible market for his cotton, corn, pork, and vegetables, and all the other farm vegetables that he can raise. land is so cheap that a thrifty farmer can buy and pay for a farm within five or six years. taxes on farm land are so low that the farmer hardly considers them in his yearly budget.

poor as some of the negro schools are in some parts of the south, they are vastly better and more numerous than those of the country people in sicily. more than that, the government puts no tax either on rain or sunshine, and the negro in the southern states has plenty of both, which is not true of the sicilian farmer, who has too much sunshine and not enough rain. so much is the farmer in sicily in need of water that at certain times in the year it is said that wine is cheaper than water. finally, the negro farmer, if he desires to take a load of produce

[pg 189]

to the town, does not, as is the case of the sicilian, meet a policeman on the outskirts of the city who takes one fifth of his cotton, corn, eggs, or whatever he happens to have, away from him, before he will allow him to enter the town.

one day, while i was walking along the edge of the harbour in catania, i noticed a man who was at work mending a high wire netting, about twenty or thirty feet high, which extended along the edge of the water. i saw that it extended as far as i could see. upon inquiry i learned that it was placed there to prevent the fishermen, whom i noticed constantly coming and going with their little sailing boats, from bringing their fish into the city without paying the tax.

at the custom house, where the fishermen land, i observed one of these fishermen, who had landed with a small quantity of fish, which he was carrying to the market nearby, stop and fumble in his clothes, trying to find money enough to pay the tariff. when he could not find sufficient money to pay the sum demanded, he left two small fishes behind with the collector to cover the amount of the tax.

fish is the cheapest and most abundant food the poor in the city can get to eat. the sea, just beyond their doors, is swarming with this kind of food. nevertheless the city maintains an expensive army of officials to collect

[pg 190]

this miserable little tax upon the necessities of the poor.

the yearly income of a labourer's family in catania is about 750 lire, or $170 a year. of this amount it has been reckoned that in the way of taxes upon foodstuffs brought into the city the labourer pays 150 lire, or one fifth of his whole income.

in spite of all that has been proposed and attempted to improve conditions in sicily since that island became a part of the italian confederation, the government has failed, so far as i can learn, to gain the confidence, respect, and coöperation of the masses of the people. naturally, conditions which have grown up in the course of hundreds of years and have become fixed in the minds and habits of all classes of the people cannot be changed suddenly. the farther i have looked into the situation in sicily the more i am convinced that, different as it is in details, the problem of sicily is fundamentally the same as that which we have here to face in the southern states since the war. it is, in short, a problem of education, and by that i mean education which seeks to touch, to lift and inspire the man at the bottom, and fit him for practical daily life.

in this opinion i find that i am in agreement with the members of the commission which was

[pg 191]

appointed by the italian government in 1896 to investigate the condition of the peasants in southern italy, particularly in their relation to the landed proprietors. the report of the commission, which has been recently made, fills several large volumes, but the substance of it seems to be, as far as i can learn, that the root of the evil is in the ignorance of the rural population. one of the effects of italian immigration to america will probably be the establishment of a popular school system for the people on the land.