by B. » Thu Nov 30, 2017 9:08 pm
One thing we don't know is if the families were close to maxing out their membership limit in 1957 when the books were abruptly closed. If they weren't, this may be the reason why the 1931 numbers were significantly higher -- they didn't have time to replace all of the members who had died. Not sure I believe that, though, as we know the 1940s/50s was a major recruitment period, maybe one of the biggest.
Pussy Russo mentions something about keeping the Genovese group at "300" here:
https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.htm ... 3&tab=page
Because it is the FBI's summary of his comments and not his actual words, we don't know if he actually said it was "desired" to keep the family at 300. More likely the transcriber used the word "desired", meaning Russo said something more vague about keeping the family to 300. In my opinion, he's saying 300 is their cap.
It would also be good to know if the membership caps were established by 1931 or if those came later, maybe another response to the controversies of the 1950s (members buying buttons, "unqualified" guys getting in etc.)? If they weren't established until later, we really have no idea how big the families were in 1931. 400-450 doesn't sound unreasonable to me for the two bigger families (though I don't fully believe it), but any bigger than that is questionable. Historically mafia groups are very small -- the small families around the US are much more like their Sicilian counterparts -- so the idea of these families jumping from maybe several dozen members to ~500 would be huge. Possible, but do any sources talk about the growth being that exponential?
You also have to factor in that murdered members weren't supposed to be replaced. We had a good topic about this a while back, listing out the known murders for each family:
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1424
12 Luccheses
28 Colombos
24 Bonannos
24 Gambinos
23 Genoveses
So whatever the caps originally were, we can subtract these from it. There are likely at least a few member murders we don't know of from the same period, and God help us try to figure out all of the member murders from the pre-1930s, if those even counted against the caps when they were instituted. The families have apparently allowed two "bonus" members each Christmas, with these bonus members theoretically replacing murdered members and members serving long prison sentences. Still, I would guess even with the bonus members they are barely keeping up, if at all, with the number of members dying of natural causes.
One thing we don't know is if the families were close to maxing out their membership limit in 1957 when the books were abruptly closed. If they weren't, this may be the reason why the 1931 numbers were significantly higher -- they didn't have time to replace all of the members who had died. Not sure I believe that, though, as we know the 1940s/50s was a major recruitment period, maybe one of the biggest.
Pussy Russo mentions something about keeping the Genovese group at "300" here: https://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=81909&search=russo_AND+300#relPageId=3&tab=page
Because it is the FBI's summary of his comments and not his actual words, we don't know if he actually said it was "desired" to keep the family at 300. More likely the transcriber used the word "desired", meaning Russo said something more vague about keeping the family to 300. In my opinion, he's saying 300 is their cap.
It would also be good to know if the membership caps were established by 1931 or if those came later, maybe another response to the controversies of the 1950s (members buying buttons, "unqualified" guys getting in etc.)? If they weren't established until later, we really have no idea how big the families were in 1931. 400-450 doesn't sound unreasonable to me for the two bigger families (though I don't fully believe it), but any bigger than that is questionable. Historically mafia groups are very small -- the small families around the US are much more like their Sicilian counterparts -- so the idea of these families jumping from maybe several dozen members to ~500 would be huge. Possible, but do any sources talk about the growth being that exponential?
You also have to factor in that murdered members weren't supposed to be replaced. We had a good topic about this a while back, listing out the known murders for each family:
http://theblackhand.club/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=1424
12 Luccheses
28 Colombos
24 Bonannos
24 Gambinos
23 Genoveses
So whatever the caps originally were, we can subtract these from it. There are likely at least a few member murders we don't know of from the same period, and God help us try to figure out all of the member murders from the pre-1930s, if those even counted against the caps when they were instituted. The families have apparently allowed two "bonus" members each Christmas, with these bonus members theoretically replacing murdered members and members serving long prison sentences. Still, I would guess even with the bonus members they are barely keeping up, if at all, with the number of members dying of natural causes.