Do you know? In the United States, there is a huge underground organization that can influence all walks of life in the United States, even presidential elections, and the resolutions of both parties in the United States, and this organization is the American gangsters.
Irish gangsters
The American gangster is not actually a gang name, but a general term for all criminal organizations in the United States, including irish gangs, Italian gangsters, and even Mexican gangs in the early days of the United States.
Just a few years ago, the Gambino family of the Italian mafia announced that New York was their turf, and the founder of the Gambino family was the prototype of the famous gangster movie "The Godfather". Gangster families like Gambino have been around for almost a hundred years, and while the overall trend is toward decline, they are still important members of the American gang.
So, how did this huge, deep-rooted American gang come to be? And what has made these American gangsters grow so fast?
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<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="2" > the origin of American gangsters</h1>
Regarding the origin of the Gangster in the United States, there are currently two theories, the first is the immigration theory, as we all know, the United States is an immigrant country, and in the early days of the founding of the country, people's living conditions and social security conditions are very poor, immigrants in order to survive better, can only choose to hug the group, thus evolving the gang. The second is the interest theory, which roughly means that the United States is developing rapidly, like a newly discovered gold mine, so people gradually form gangs when competing for various interests. Both of these claims seem to make sense, but neither of them can fully explain the problem. To understand the origins of American gangsters, we must turn back the clock and go back to the era when American gangs were just beginning to sprout.
Gangsters
In the mid-19th century, many people fled to the United States, when the American authorities immediately gave them American citizenship and arranged jobs for them, and the reason why the American authorities were so active was because these immigrants became American citizens, they had votes in their hands, and all they cared about was the votes! Of course, these reasons are not enough to influence the gangsters in the United States, and these politicians also require immigrants who have obtained American citizenship to become part of their own ranks, and those illegal and criminal things are all entrusted to these immigrants. These organizations formed by politicians are the prototype of American gangsters! In other words, the budding of American gangsters is not because of civilian crime, but because of corrupt politicians!
At that time, the vast majority of these immigrants were Irish, they had legitimate occupations, but they were also members of the gang, because of the large number of people, they naturally became the largest gang in the United States at that time.
By the beginning of the 20th century, a gang from Italy had risen rapidly, overshadowing the Irish gangsters, and this organization was the Italian Mafia. The Italian Mafia was born in Sicily, and after MO SoriNI became the Prime Minister of Italy, he began to eliminate the Mafia forces, so many mafia fled to the United States! The movie "The Godfather" tells the story of the Italian mafia.
So the question is, why did the Italian mafia come late, but it was able to rise up and catch up later?
First of all, most of the Irish gangsters are ordinary people, and their means are not a little worse than the mafia! Once, the leader of the Irish gang asked his men to go down and kill people, and as a result, his men shot again with machine guns, and no one was hit! And the mafia's methods are both ferocious and perverted, the mafia is no longer just a gangster, they can already be called a terrorist organization!
Second, the mafia is more united than the Irish gangsters. The Irish gangs are divided into several different factions, and the Italian mafia all live in the same area, they value blood, maintain the tradition of the mafia, and even publish internal newspapers, and the vast majority of the members come to the United States, do not speak English, can not integrate into the local society, so the internal group warmth is more important to them!
Finally, there is the exclusivity of the Italian mafia, within the Italian mafia, a rule that everyone abides by is the principle of silence, gang members are not allowed to reveal to anyone about the inside of the gang, if you betray the organization, no matter where you run, the gang will find you.
It is precisely because of these characteristics of the Italian mafia that they have gained a foothold in the United States, and the American gangsters of this period can only be regarded as a criminal organization of American society, their strength is not strong enough, they do not have the ability to control the entire city.
From the budding to the formation of a certain size of gangsters, are the American authorities unaware of their dangers? Later, why did they become bigger and stronger? Speaking of which, I have to say that the famous Prohibition in American history!
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > Prohibition and the growth of the U.S. gangsters</h1>
In 1920, the United States issued a prohibition order, which stipulated that beverages with an alcohol content of more than 0.5% were illegal and were not allowed to be sold. So why did the U.S. authorities issue Prohibition? The first is to protect women's legitimate rights and interests, and the second is to win the votes of female voters. But the captain felt that, in fact, Prohibition was just a show, the purpose of which was to make women feel valued and respected, so as to achieve the purpose of the American authorities to win more votes. In any case, for whatever reason, and whether or not the reasons are sufficient, the U.S. authorities believe that drinking alcohol has become a serious social problem that must be severely tackled.
Prohibition was promulgated, but it could not stop the people who loved to drink, so all the industries and transactions related to alcohol were transferred to the underground, some people used industrial alcohol to mix water, made fake wine, some people sold grape juice, and wrote on the packaging: "Please do not deal with grape juice according to the following process, otherwise it will become wine", all the processes are clearly printed on the packaging, which is obviously teaching people to make wine! Of all the illegal sources through which alcohol can be obtained, the best quality is smuggled liquor smuggled from other countries, which is a pie in the sky for gangsters who have begun to do smuggling business before prohibition is issued. As a result, the entire liquor market has become the territory of the gangsters, and the gangsters have also made a lot of money through prohibition.
According to common sense, the liquor market is such a big interest, shouldn't the various gangs frantically compete for territory? This brings us to two key figures in the history of American gangsters. One is Al capone, people call him the "King of Chicago" He is the most powerful in the American gang, at that time he had weapons, more advanced than the U.S. army, he smuggled arms, controlled the mayoral campaign, the power is getting bigger and bigger, but then something happened that made him and the entire American gang become the target of public criticism! This incident is the "Valentine's Day Massacre."
On Valentine's Day 1929, Capone had his men disguised as police officers and massacred members of another gang in the name of searching for prohibited items. This incident shocked the US authorities, especially Capone's men also disguised as policemen, which seriously damaged the image of the police, so the US authorities decided to eliminate all the gangs, other gangs look, you Capone caused trouble, can not let us back the pot! They were discussing a gang meeting, which was convened by Luciano, which we were going to talk about next.
In May 1929, the gang meeting was held as scheduled, and three things were determined at the meeting.
First, Alcapone surrenders himself, while the other gangs keep peaceful with each other and are not allowed to fight each other.
2. Establish a gang alliance and elect Luciano as its chairman and the rest of the gang as its directors.
Third, determine the future direction, to put it bluntly, which gang is specifically responsible for which business, these are determined at the conference, each gang has its own business, do not interfere with each other, there is no conflict of interest!
Since then, Luciano has begun to control the entire American gangster, and the emergence of the gang alliance also marks the real root of the American gang and become an organized and disciplined alliance.
Now that we look back at the history of gangsters, Prohibition is a key point, it provides fertile ground for the growth of American gangsters, it allows American gangsters to accumulate wealth, and eventually become a criminal alliance.
In Hollywood movies, many of the endless gangster movies, even action movies, reflect these gangsters. In this regard, the captain can only say that the people who are accustomed to plunder feel that "grabbing" is the fastest everywhere they go, so the United States cannot change the habit of plundering now.
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