Originally Posted By: DeMeo
Originally Posted By: SilentPartnerz
Originally Posted By: EastHarlemItal
So the Colombo's and Bonnano families can build up to close to 200 members? Entrench themselves in Unions, Carting, and work joint ventures with the other families in a short period of time? The Genovese and Gambino families will forget all thier fuck ups and reconize them again?
The Colombo and Bonanno families are not going to grow to 200 inducted members. The families are basically restricted to roughly these numbers of members:
Genovese & Gambino= 200+ (these two have always been the biggest in terms of numbers)
Colombo/Bonnano/Luchese = about 110 max. (give or take)
These numbers were determined by the Commision years ago. These limits ensure no one family becomes too powerful. The induction of new members traditionally has been controlled by passing a list of potential inductees to each of the Five Families administration for review. Below is an example found when A Genovese member was arrested:
I don't know how to copy and paste the fucking thing..trust me it exists over on the RD.


But surely, the Genovese and Gambino families having more members then the other three automatically makes them more powerful.

When you say the Commission determined the size of each family, do you mean by vote? Why would Joseph Bonanno, Gaetano Gagliano and Joseph Profaci let themselves be talked into having lesser groups?

What gave Lucky Luciano the right to dictate to other bosses - remember, the Boss of Bosses title died with Maranzano. By dictating to them, to have that power would make Luciano the Boss of Bosses.

Also, I read somewhere that the Commission wasn't in the habit of dictating overall mob policy, but was there as a listening panel to stop conflicts and discuss business.

As to passing around the list of prospective members. Why would another family need to get involved. Surely, each family can rule it self and sort things that need to be sorted out.

This system is only in place in NYC because you have 5 families all in one city. It is necessary to make sure there was no objections to someone being made. Another family may have information about a prospective member that his own family doesn't know about. It's like a background check. It also ensures peace since someone can't be made if another family has a grievance with him that needs to be solved. When Ralph DeSimone was proposed into the Genovese family, his name was passed along and the Luccheses said he was a rat. The Geovese family had him killed in 1991.

And your right about the Commission. When it first started, the bosses only met entirely once every 5-10 years. Otherwise, they only met when there was a major dispute. So it seems hard to believe that one boss can wield so much influence over the Commission that they could be considered a defacto boss of all bosses. That's not to say guys like Luciano and Gambino didn't have greater influence than the co-members on the Commission, though.


"I die outside; I die in jail. It don't matter to me," -John Franzese