Talk:Castellammarese War

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The commission and La Cosa Nostra was not set up till after Maranzano's death and the massacre of all of those that would not be loyal to the commission. ~akeldamma

There is discrepancy in these two wikipedia pages, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvatore_Maranzano http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castellammarese_War

The first page says that the killings of 40 mobsters is a myth, while the other page states it as fact. After consulting on IRC, both pages are requested to give sources for the fact. ~Ninjakttty

I'm redacting the mention in both pages, as it's not verified to be either true or false and it makes Wikipedia bad to both state both true *and* false. Dweekly 17:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Causes and Results of the War

I found some interesting information about the Castellammarese War, but I'm not very good at editing and don't know how to incorporate it into the article. The sources is Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba...And then Lost It to the Revolution by T. J. English (the ellipses is a part of the title). It was published in 2007 by HarperCollins in 2007. On pages 14 and 15 of the book, the author gives two reasons for the War. One the younger generation's desire to open the mob to qualified and loyal Irish, Jews, and other ethnic groups, instead of just Sicilians. The other is because the old guard did not want to invest in Cuba, because it would mean doing business with foreigners - not Americans - and foreigners who speak Spanish no less. As a result of the war, the mostly Sicilian mob was replaced by a more ethnically diverse mob that was run more like a corporation. And it was free to turn Cuba into a money making machine for the mob. CClio333 (talk) 00:05, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

journal article

A new history of the Castellammare War, revealing the identity of the mysterious "Buster of Chicago," Sebastiano Domingo, and giving many other hitherto unknown facts, can be found in this scholarly article:

David Critchley, "Buster, Maranzano and the Castellammare War, 1930-1931" Global Crime journal, volume 7 number 1 (2006) pages 43 to 78.

Complete sources are given in the article.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Ukthesis (talk • contribs)

Capo di tutti capi

"boss of the bosses" isn't it supposed to be boss of all bosses? Mallerd 17:45, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Names of those confirmed dead

Salvatore Maranzano
Joe Aiello
Gaspar Milazzo Joe Masseria
Joseph Pinzolo
Alfred Mineo (Manfredi)
Steve Ferrigno
Joseph Catania —Preceding unsigned comment added by AgPyth (talk • contribs) 06:25, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Testamente

I see The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano is cited as a source. Is this reliable? I've seen criticism of it as very self-serving to Luciano, & often untruthful. TREKphiler ^{any time you're ready, Uhura} 17:14, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I've added that just to provide a source, however, I've just obtained a book called The Origin of Organized Crime in America. I'm just beginning to read the book and I plan on using that as another source for this article and providing a different reliable viewpoint, so to speak. Cuddyc (talk) 23:10, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Criticism of the WHOLE article

if your going to rant fiction, please label it as fiction and not cite it as actual history

The History Channel (USA) and other sources all report that Sicily, during WWI WWII, had been impoverished by a facist Italian government - that the "Mafia" began with a good name and cause to do business and earn money that facists were trying to stop merely to create poverty and evictions. They got a reputation for illegal business however the government calling it illegal was overthown as a facist government. The history of course has nothing to do with modern day Sicilian business activity in the USA "outside of the government's permission" as being wholesome or not: and the history should be remembered as one of many groups of Italians who were NOT aligned with facism and absolute government rule. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8806:400:51F0:598F:1580:D5D:36EF (talk) 23:17, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

“When the legend becomes fact, print the legend”?

Much of the information recorded on this and other “gangster” pages is not true and yet Wikipedia has accepted it for display. The majority of book sources sited here are not credible historical studies but ones that are only interested retelling a colourful story in order to sell copies of the book, with no interest in what actually happened and no attempt made to verify the facts. Most of them are compendiums of oft repeated legends and myths that have only come to be accepted as true over time due to the lack of any serious scrutiny by actual historians. They pander to the public desire for lurid tales of villainy and in doing so reinforce falsehoods and miss-representations until, to quote from the John Ford film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend". But surely that goes against what Wikipedia aspires to be? Just look at the some of the titles sited “A Chronicle Of Bloodletting”, “The First Family; Terror, Extortion, Revenge, Murder And The Birth Of The American Mafia”. They don’t suggest themselves to me as being a source of sober assessment based on facts. I have read the autobiographies of Luciano and Bonanno, and they are often self-serving and not to be taken at face value. “The Wild West”, Pirates, Gangsters and other similar areas of “popular” History, which are not necessarily important in the larger scheme of Human History, but which have captured the public imagination as being colourful and entertaining, have been the subject of much bad history but surely Wikipedia does not want to further facilitate such misinformation? I’ll just provide a couple of examples. It is suggested that New York controlled the North-East and Mid-West and designated that there should be one family per city, which is not true. The Chicago Mafia has never been controlled by New York and battled it’s way to the top in that city after many years of violent struggle against numerous local rivals. Johnny Torrio and Al Capone were from New York, but their reasons for moving to Chicago were personal. It was Torrio and Capone that organised the Atlantic City conference, not any of the New York families. The Chicago Mafia has at times claimed the rights to “everything west of Chicago” and became the dominant force in Las Vegas in the 1970s, after the retirement of Moe Dalitz group (who were not controlled by New York either) The mobsters depicted in Martin Scorsese’s movie “Casino”, who were based on actual people, were from Chicago not New York. Also Bo Weinberg and Bugsy Siegel were not part of the hit squad that killed Maranzano. Wienberg was a senior member of the Dutch Schultz gang, active in the Bronx and New Jersey at that time, and although the men used were all members of the “Bug and Meyer” gang, Siegel was not one of them in any source I have read.Seveb007 (talk) 01:50, 6 July 2021 (UTC)