Leadership Within The Italian Mafia

            The Italian mafia was an organization rooted in defiance of the government (Michael Cavendish 78). On January 16, 1919, the 18th amendment was ratified, prohibiting the importing, exporting, manufacturing, and distribution of alcohol. Ten months later the Volstead Act was passed to enforce the law. The Volstead Act gave the United States Government the right to enforce Prohibition. The United States Government became an easy target of the Mafia by trying to enforce the 18th amendment, and bootlegging, or the selling of illegal alcohol, was born. The unions were overtaken, and as a result distribution to the Mafia owned illegal bars known as "speak easies", could occur (Fred J. Cook 52). Any man or organization opposing the Mafia would lose his life. Henceforth, the selling of protection grew. Instead of a semi - feudal, exclusively Sicilian association, the Mafia was Americanized to reflect the diverse character and lush opportunities of the adopted land. It grew more flexible, more cooperative, and above all more like a giant American cooperation. Because of the Prohibition Era, the Mafia flourished throughout the United States of America. Soon after the first Sicilian Mafia dons arrived, they took over local crime and converted it into alcohol running operations. In the Little Italys of New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Louisiana, Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit and other cities, many households produced homemade wine and had their own little stills. Put into steady production, these distilleries poured out thousands of gallons of alcohol for the Mafia gangs to distribute. At one point, eighty percent of all Canadian whiskey production found its way overland or by sea into the United States of America. With the Mafia's deep-rooted clannishness, hatred for the law, brutality, and talent for organization, the Mafia ruled New York's Little Italy (Anton Blok 27). Not only did the Mafia make it's money through the illegal distribution of liquor, but the gangsters also operated lotteries and took their cut from many of the poker games that occurred.