by PolackTony » Fri May 06, 2022 10:57 pm
JoelTurner wrote: ↑Fri May 06, 2022 10:11 pm
PolackTony wrote: ↑Fri May 06, 2022 12:17 pm
in the Near Northside Little Sicily neighborhood where Priola lived and where Prio and his guys (the “three Doms”) came up. So there’s the possibility of a connection there, at least. Worth noting that per CI DeRose’s account, Prio and his guys had initially been with the upstart faction but then betrayed them and sided with the Accardo admin. Thus, Prio became capodecina after Oneglia and DeJohn were clipped and DeGeorge exiled.
Do we know who this group came up with as in Capone or someone else? I know that Joe Aiello was on the North Side. If they had come up with him, they may have been less inclined to support Capone’s guys like Accardo/Ricca especially when they sensed an opportunity.
My take is that they were part of the group that was left of the Aiello faction after Aiello was clipped, but we really don’t know how many of the mafiosi in Little Sicily strongly supported Aiello. When Corleonese Little Sicily mafioso Giuseppe Oliveri was killed in 1928 with his Alcamese partner, the police attributed it to a conflict with Aiello and linked Oliveri to the Capone faction. In another example, Salvatore Aiello (said to be Joe Aiello’s brother, though my info makes it seem more likely that he was both brother-in-law and cousin) transferred to Milwaukee but then transferred back to Chicago after the war. Augie Maniaci claimed that Salvatore had disagreed with his “brother’s” campaign against Capone in the first place. “Little Joe” Aiello, another Aiello relative, remained as a Chicago member, Hod Carriers Union official, and President of the Società San Giuseppe di Bagheria into the 1960s. Several of Joe Aiello’s actual brothers (no idea if they were actually members and if so remained active) stayed in Chicago until they died decades later. So, I don’t think that all of the mafiosi in Little Sicily necessarily supported Aiello’s war against Capone or faced any real problems there after the conflict was resolved. But your thinking that some unresolved tensions simmered and came to the fore in the 1940s, when Accardo was newly rappresentante and senior members like Ricca and D’Andrea were in legal trouble, is something that I’ve pondered. Could be that some of these guys had resented having to make peace with the dominant rival faction. Could be that they were “traditionalists”. Could be that they were motivated by simple desire for power and greed.
I don’t want to get too far into the weeds with Chicago here. There’s a lot that we really just don’t know, though we can make educated guesses and hypotheses. The Chicago Origins, “Dumping Ground”, “Cheese War”, and several other threads go into considerable detail on a lot of these things. Worth noting that what became the Capone faction predated Capone’s 1928 induction into the mafia. As I see it, Capone (and Ricca, Frank Rio, Phil D’Andrea, etc) wound up taking over the faction of the mafia that had primarily developed in the Taylor St and Chinatown/Near Southside Italian communities (I.e., the D’Andrea/Merlo/Genna/Esposito faction) where Sicilian mafiosi had been engaged in close collaboration with Mainlander gangsters as these communities had large numbers of Italians from different regions. Whereas the Aiello faction emerged out of a different dynamic in the Near Northside Little Sicily, which was dominated by Sicilians. Many of those seemingly involved in the 1940s conflict were from Little Sicily, but the mafia in that community had a much older and broader history than the 1928-1930 Aiello group, so it’s hard to say what the internal dynamics between Aiello and others based there may have been like.
[quote=JoelTurner post_id=227784 time=1651900288 user_id=7603]
[quote=PolackTony post_id=227725 time=1651864662 user_id=6658]
in the Near Northside Little Sicily neighborhood where Priola lived and where Prio and his guys (the “three Doms”) came up. So there’s the possibility of a connection there, at least. Worth noting that per CI DeRose’s account, Prio and his guys had initially been with the upstart faction but then betrayed them and sided with the Accardo admin. Thus, Prio became capodecina after Oneglia and DeJohn were clipped and DeGeorge exiled.
[/quote]
Do we know who this group came up with as in Capone or someone else? I know that Joe Aiello was on the North Side. If they had come up with him, they may have been less inclined to support Capone’s guys like Accardo/Ricca especially when they sensed an opportunity.
[/quote]
My take is that they were part of the group that was left of the Aiello faction after Aiello was clipped, but we really don’t know how many of the mafiosi in Little Sicily strongly supported Aiello. When Corleonese Little Sicily mafioso Giuseppe Oliveri was killed in 1928 with his Alcamese partner, the police attributed it to a conflict with Aiello and linked Oliveri to the Capone faction. In another example, Salvatore Aiello (said to be Joe Aiello’s brother, though my info makes it seem more likely that he was both brother-in-law and cousin) transferred to Milwaukee but then transferred back to Chicago after the war. Augie Maniaci claimed that Salvatore had disagreed with his “brother’s” campaign against Capone in the first place. “Little Joe” Aiello, another Aiello relative, remained as a Chicago member, Hod Carriers Union official, and President of the Società San Giuseppe di Bagheria into the 1960s. Several of Joe Aiello’s actual brothers (no idea if they were actually members and if so remained active) stayed in Chicago until they died decades later. So, I don’t think that all of the mafiosi in Little Sicily necessarily supported Aiello’s war against Capone or faced any real problems there after the conflict was resolved. But your thinking that some unresolved tensions simmered and came to the fore in the 1940s, when Accardo was newly rappresentante and senior members like Ricca and D’Andrea were in legal trouble, is something that I’ve pondered. Could be that some of these guys had resented having to make peace with the dominant rival faction. Could be that they were “traditionalists”. Could be that they were motivated by simple desire for power and greed.
I don’t want to get too far into the weeds with Chicago here. There’s a lot that we really just don’t know, though we can make educated guesses and hypotheses. The Chicago Origins, “Dumping Ground”, “Cheese War”, and several other threads go into considerable detail on a lot of these things. Worth noting that what became the Capone faction predated Capone’s 1928 induction into the mafia. As I see it, Capone (and Ricca, Frank Rio, Phil D’Andrea, etc) wound up taking over the faction of the mafia that had primarily developed in the Taylor St and Chinatown/Near Southside Italian communities (I.e., the D’Andrea/Merlo/Genna/Esposito faction) where Sicilian mafiosi had been engaged in close collaboration with Mainlander gangsters as these communities had large numbers of Italians from different regions. Whereas the Aiello faction emerged out of a different dynamic in the Near Northside Little Sicily, which was dominated by Sicilians. Many of those seemingly involved in the 1940s conflict were from Little Sicily, but the mafia in that community had a much older and broader history than the 1928-1930 Aiello group, so it’s hard to say what the internal dynamics between Aiello and others based there may have been like.