by Angelo Santino » Tue Apr 10, 2018 12:33 pm
Pogo The Clown wrote: ↑Tue Apr 10, 2018 9:06 am
What was their first racket, packing fudge?
Pogo
You and those fuckin Soprano quotes, lol. You almost caught another one of my long-winded diatribes about the mob being a working class organization before I remembered the reference and we're discussing Frisco.
Extorsion, robbery, counterfeiting, murder, insurance fraud, kidnapping for ransom are the standard for 1900-1910 for what members dabbled in. I'll say dabbled because they worked legitimate jobs. Not as fronts but as a way of making ends meet. This was before bootlegging and gambling appeared onto the scene so everyone was scraping. Most of them came from agricultural backgrounds so the elite of this "criminal fraternity" were semi-legitimate business owners with influence in their respective industries be it ice, wines or produce stores. I don't think any one of them envisioned a middle-class lifestyle derived solely from criminal activity anymore than people in the 1980's imagining working from home via the internet. We have the fortune of hindsight.
[quote="Pogo The Clown" post_id=74027 time=1523376385 user_id=53]
What was their first racket, packing fudge?
Pogo
[/quote]
You and those fuckin Soprano quotes, lol. You almost caught another one of my long-winded diatribes about the mob being a working class organization before I remembered the reference and we're discussing Frisco. ;)
Extorsion, robbery, counterfeiting, murder, insurance fraud, kidnapping for ransom are the standard for 1900-1910 for what members dabbled in. I'll say dabbled because they worked legitimate jobs. Not as fronts but as a way of making ends meet. This was before bootlegging and gambling appeared onto the scene so everyone was scraping. Most of them came from agricultural backgrounds so the elite of this "criminal fraternity" were semi-legitimate business owners with influence in their respective industries be it ice, wines or produce stores. I don't think any one of them envisioned a middle-class lifestyle derived solely from criminal activity anymore than people in the 1980's imagining working from home via the internet. We have the fortune of hindsight.