Evening star., 1932-08-28

| which were built before prohibition,
mahogany bar cannot be found in the
town.
Another reason why bootleg graft
can affect only comparatively few OF
the Boston police is that there are
no deliveries of barrels to the drinking
places. The beer, like the hard liquor.
! is bottled Most of the beer is made
on the place where it is consumed.
Still the NARROW Mob.
The whisky running is largely in the
hands of Sicilians, led by associates OF
Gandolfo Curto, better known as
frankie NARROW, prizefght promoter
burglar, rum runner and Broadway
cabaret owner, who was taken from
New York restaurant for ride on June
"a, 1929, shortly after a visit to Boston.
Much of the stuff sold is spurious. Three
years after Curto was slain Boston still
| spoke of the local runners of mis- stripe
| as the frankie NARROW mob. Next in
number and Importance among the
| wholesale bootleggerS OF the Hub are
/ the Jews Yet there are but relatively
! few of these two racial stocks in the
retail end of the industry.
Almost all the gang killings in Boston
| have their origin in the business rivalry
of the whisky runners. Early in 1882
Little Harry Wolen was found dead in
an automobile in Boston suburb with
six bullets in his head. Two others in
the car were taken TO the Massachusetts,
General Hospital \here one of them,
Jack Berger. alias Harry Schottenfeld,
! confessed, according to the police, that
his wounded companion, Arthur Veluccl,
had first shot him and In the ensuing
| three-cornered combat he probably
fired the shots that killed Wolen and
| injured Velucci The police said Berger
! also confessed that Velucci had been
| imported from New York to kill him by
bootlegger for whom Berger had
worked before Wolen organized his own
whisky syndicate. Less than three
weeks before, on New Year Eve, Wolen
had visited New York. called at the
Pups Club, on West Fifty-first street,
| just off Broadway, ana killed Crooked
Neck Louie Levine.
| For a really tough IN. j. town" one
must visit Buffalo. There was time
when it was literally tough as well as
IN. j." But the spirit of the community.
the untiring work of the police, and
especially the example of one Of their
number, Austin j. Roche, made the
gangster a negligible factor in New
Yorks second largest city. His first
spectacular work was in 1923, when Col.
William j. Donovan. affectionately
States attorney for the Western dis
trict of New York.
Prosecution Difficult.
For years Buffalo had been a center
of the narcotic traffic In 1923 Donovan
and Roche gave it their attention. One
of their first arrests was Joseph Di
Carlo, a member of the Buffalo Y. M.
c. A. and part owner Of roadhouSe
in nearby Williamsville. Di Carlo was
released in $4,000 bail.
Arresting and indicting Di Carlo were
comparatively simple. A successful
prosecution was something else, as he
had rich, powerful and unscrupulous
friends. They tried to bribe an impor-
tant witness and failed. They then tried
to intimidate the key witness, Joseph
Pattituccio, on whose testimony Dono-
van was chiefly relying. But Patti
tuccio had been overseas and fought
and bled with other Buffalo men. Dono- |
van was not only one Of them but their |
hero
When Donovan heard Of the unsuc- |
cesSful attempt to intimidate Patti
tuccio he was not aStonisned. He was
fond of Pattituccio, because the war
had been harsh 10 him.
On New Year day, 1924, Donovan saw
red. Having failed to frighten his key
witness they tried to kill him. Patti
tuccio was shot at from an automobile.
One bullet struck him in the chin. AS
he reeled a second hit him in the back.
Roche arrested Di Carlo and brought
him before Donovan. Roche will not
readily forget the scene.
Rat was the mildest thing he called
him." said Roche. "A man with less
control over himself than the colonel
would have throttled Di Carlo. But he
just told Di Carlo, in strong soldiers
speech, he was a vile coward-and he
| let the law take it's course And, after
all. that's the way to handle them"
Pattituccio recovered. Donovan OBJ
| tanned Federal indictments against Di
Carlo and three others on the only
charge that can be laid against one
who commits violence under such cir
| -intimidating a Govern
ment witness.
Showed He Was Citizen.
Di Carlo and two of his companions
were convicted. Di Carlo was given six
years in Atlanta. After he had served
| his sentence efforts were made to deport
him, but Di Carlo produced the nat
uralization papers of his father, whose
peaceful death led to several CORY kill
ings among the Maf1esi of Western New
York. Old Joe. as Buffalo still refers to
the elder Di Carlo, had been the head
of the local Unione Siciliana. Philip
MaZzeri and Joseph di Benedetto Strove
to succeed him. Both were murdered.
A few lesser lights also were slain. All
were makers of alcohol. They we're also
| engaged in smuggling liquor and mar
coticS from Canada. But. like all Sicil-
ianS engaged in crime 1t was seldom
that any evidence could be obtained
against them, as the ages-old code of
the Mafla protected them.
A handful in the Polish quarter of
the city tried to initiate their methods,
but they did not last long. This was the
Big Korney gang, named for its leader,
John Kwiatowski, alias Big Korney. 1t
began by burglarizing small shops. and
when it had amaS5ed sufficient money 1t
bought machinery for brewing beer and
installed it in an old farm house in
Depew, a suburb of Buffalo. Then the
gang added machine gun to its arse
nal, tried it out in hold-up of fac
tory and killed the watchman, John
Perraton. The next victim was Patrol
man Vincent Connors, who surprised
. the Big Korneys in a mail robbery
An occasional member of the gang
!; was Victor Chounicki. After hold-up
he called at the brewery, said the police
were seeking him and asked for money
to leave town. He was told to call the
following evening. When he departed
: Tony Kalkiewicz began digging a grave
behind barn.
When Chounicki returned for the
money he was lured to the barn to be
shown some new weapons, according to
the testimony of KalkiewicZ. AS the
doomed man entered the barn Stephen
e Ziolowski fired He continued shooting
! until there were 16 bullets in Chounicki.
KalkiewicZ swore that with the aid Of
S Ziolowski and another he carried the
e warm body to the grave, covered it with
. earth and danced on the mound to
e level 1t.
= No Business RacketS.
{ Three weeks later Roche, now CON-
1 missioner of police, listened to the con.