The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-06-22
THE BLACK HAND SOCIETY NOW UNDER CONTROL Society That Spread Terror
 Among Italians. GOOD WORK OF POLICE Which, Despite Political Op-
 position, Secured
 Results.

Results.
 l Some months ago the Outlook not ed the most complete extinction of the salary loan shark so far New York 1 is concerned and the continued Ma l tion-wide improvement of sne1 loan l conditions-the work of the Russell Sage Foundation; and the passing of the wireless wire-t ppers'' Gas the band of confidence men were known | who, with headquarters in New York, had within the last ten years taken some $15JOOo, 1000 from dupes all over the United States)-the work of the police and the District Attorneys office l Now we are able to record the begin ming of the end of another loosely or ganized group of lawbreakers in that the New York police have brought under control the so-cal1ed "Black- and"-composed of some two or three | thousand Italian ex-convicts--which came into existence with the beginning of the century and for ten years held it's honest countryInen in the Italian settlements of the entire coun- try by the throat. BlackhandiSn reached it's height in 1913, four years after New York detectives, following the murder in Italy of their comrade Petrosino on the same quest, brought thence the penal certificates of more
 
 then in the United States whom it was proposed to deport. The circum- stance that the certificates were sup pressed at police headquarters under orders of Mayor Mcclellan gave these exotic desperadoes assurance of the power of American political leaders to protect them, under which murder, arson, kidnapping, b1ackman and bomb-throwing in the Italian settle ments of New York and the rest of the country kept the respectable eIe-I ment in these communities in a state of continual terror. In an article in the Outlook of October 30, 1909, figures were prese ented that had been approved by the Italian Chamber of Commerce of this city showing achievement on the part of Italians in New York during the previous 25 years which could scarcely have been equalled by any other nationality among. us. The estimated material value of the property in the Italian settlements of the five boroughs at that time was $120,0 100000 aside from $10O, 900, 900 invested in commerce, $50, ,00o, 900 invested in real estate, and $20, ,000, 900 on deposit. in the banks. In an article in the Outlobk of August 1 6, 1913, Secretary Schroeder, of the Ital- ian Chamber of Commerce, was quot ed as saying that during the 1ntefven- ing four years the holdings cf Italians in local real estate and general com merce not only had failed to Nncrease but were probably considerably less than in 1909, and many prominent | Italians pronounced their belief that the Black Hand had ruined and driv- en out of the United States thousands of honest and industrious Italians who might otherwise have made the best kind of citizens.
 The Police and the Black Hand.
 
 sioner of New York, Arthur Woods | who, head of the Detective Bureau under Police Commissioner Bingham, conducted the negotiations with the State Department at Washington in 1908, through which the Italian gov ernment made arrangements to turn | over the penal certificates of naIefac- tors of that nationality to agents of the New York Police Department; and, had not political pressure upon Mayor Mcclellan brought about the dismiss sal of Gen. Bingham and the resigna- ton of MT. Woods in 1909, with the subsequent suppression Of the more | than seven hundred penal certificates hitherto mentioned, it is probable that | the Black Hand would have been ex- 1 tirpated before the end of 1910. As it was, the evil order grew and thrived | In October, 1910, during Mayor Gay nor's administration, William J. Flynn | Chief of the Secret Service of the 1 Treasury Department = who earlier that year had brought about the sen tence of eight of the most important members of the Black Hand to 150 years Imprisonment by way of the federal courts-was made a Deputy Commissioner of Police, his familiar l ity with Italian criminals and their methods being one of his qua1ifica- tions for the post.
 MT. Flynn began a vigorous cru sade against the Black Hand, but as soon as he began to get results he was transferred to another branch of the detective service, and resigned in dis gust In the summer of 1912, the names of two Tammany district lead CTS appeared with those of half a score of Italian ex-cOnvicts and crooks on the posters advertising the outing | of a political organization in Harlem that took it's name from an Italian who controlled a number of disorder | ly houses in that part of the city. In 1913, when an Italian ex-convict was found guilty of perjury in the Supreme Court of the state, a Supreme Court justice and a. Tammany district leader