The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1908-04-04
The Ex-President Of Sixty-Five or More
United Italian Societies Tells Why
It is Unfair to
Charge Up "Black Hand" Outrages in the
Ledger Of Prejudice Against the
Italians in America.

The following interesting article on
from the pen Of Gaetano D'Amato, ex-
president of the United States soci-
eties, appeared in the Cincinnati En-
quirer of March %:
In the newspapers OF January 81 ap-
peared a Washington dispatch telling
Of the visit of committee OF gypsies
TO that city, with the object of inquir-
ing of His Excellency the President
whether he had really authorized a
Black Hand gang Of gypsies in the
Northwest to levy blacklnail on their
no1nad brethren and to slay in case Of
failure to meet extortion.
Some Of the gypsies, people Of no
country or all countries, have taken
UP for criminal purposes that myste-
rious name of Black Hand after the
lawless and law despising Of almost
all nations and races have demonstrat-
ed in America its poWeH- to tarrif ~ and
after their Industrious use of it in at
tempts at blackmail has worked great
injury to the Italian immigrant.
It is the effect OF the use of the
dreaded terms which impels one to dip
the pen of truth in the ink of fact and
make known how utterly unfair it is to
charge up Black-Hand outrages in the
ledger Of prejudice against the 1tal
JAMS in America.
The Italian immigrant is not known
by personal attrition in Posey Corner
Crossroads or in Squedunk Center. In
those granaries of learning and culture
lie is believed to be necessarily OF the
order Of the lazzaroni, lazy and blood
thirsty, with a bent for brigandage and
a union working card in some mutual
association. society, Malta or Black
Hand, or something else.
How these false ideas originated is
easy of explanation; how they spread
and permeate events the Corners and
the Center is still easier to make
clear.
Grimes are Peculiar.
Right Hon. James Whiteside. M. P
in his Italy in the Nineteenth Cen
tury," published in London. writes
thus of crime among the Italians:
"Thc crimes of Italy are peculiar:
prompted by sudden passion, sighted
love, jealousy, revenge for fancied in
suit. they are often in their circum-
stances terrible
Every traveller who has sojourned
among the Italians in their own land
and has put his observations into
all find and agree that this quick and
ferocious anger Is almost the only
fault Of the son Of Italy, while all tes
tify without exception that his virtues
are noble and numerous. including in
dustry,. honesty, thrift, sobriety. cour-
tesy, hospitality and a temper as sun
smiles upon the purple Appenines
To this land the immigrant from
Italy brings all these glories Of char
acter, and few that one fault, which
is accentuated and rendered worse by
a perverted chivalry. the legacy of the
dead-and- gone Malta, making it dis
honorable to invoke the law for the
rightins of wrong while there re-
mains the possibility Of personal ven-
geance or of having kin or friend deal
a retaliating blow.
Few, I say, come here with these
primitive notions of justice as their
guide to action in case they are wrong
fully dealt with. The large number
Of civil actions brought by Italians
against their fellow countrymen In the
Civil Courts of New York City every
day. compared with the very small
number of assaults in Little Italy, Of
the metropolis fully bear me out in
this.
But when there is IN assault in