Chicago Outfit - Not La Cosa Nostra?

I couldn't find a thread about this particular aspect of the Outfit so I decided to create my own. I'm not too well vesed with Chicago's history or the Outfit, or any non-East Coast families for that matter.

Anyway, I've heard several people on here say that the Outfit is not a truly Italian crime family. That it disregards the rules of La Cosa Nostra. That it is inherently different than other families. That it's structure is different. That they don't "make" guys But no real in-depth explanation etc. etc.

I was hoping some of the more enlightened posters here could shed some light on the matter. What makes them different exactly? What is the structure like? Why are they different? etc etc...

I've read stuff about The Outfit and in some ways they do seem different from the East Coast families. They still have the same structure where 'made men' have to be Italian through their father's side, but where the Outfit differs from other families is that the 'associates' have an important and a pretty high-ranking role within the Outfit's operations. This was in Capone's days and still is now. The associates are also not exclusively Italians. A lot of the Outfit's associates are Greek, Irish, Dutch, 'American', French Canadian,...

The outfit gangsters are diferent cuz they dont have the usual rituals plus u dont have to be a sicilian to get in(dont know about todays outfit)but they have capos,soldiers,underboss and ofcourse a boss and they also had a seat on the commision table

the difference is chicagos structure, rules, tradition, etc. came all later than the other mafia families did. the american mafia became the sophisticated organization around the 1930s while the chicago mob did around the time of accardo if im not wrong.
this meant also getting made, keeping things low profile and being italian and stuff. around capones time things wherent as organized as it was with accardo.

"...Accardo has more brains for breakfast than Al Capone ever had all day." -Paul Ricca

When IvyLeague is back on the streets he can probably give a good explanation. He survived many hits of Chicago Outfit fanboys who wanted to get rid of him because of his knowledge.

They were on the Commision, they were always present on major national meetings, so why not? They do things different than the East-coast does, but the norm is not the East-coast. And also they were of course way too powerful for the rest to ignore: no-one was going to tell Capone, Giancana or Accardo how to handle their affairs.

I'll second that. Ivy knows his sh*t when it comes to The Outfit... not sayin' that the other guys didn't have good points but they got carried away with some things and didn't know when to back off.

At this point there is not a whole lot of difference. The Outfit probably still has more non-Italian "non-made" associates.

During the classic period (1920's-1960's) the Outfit did not necessarily have the entire made/non-made distinction. Although the ultimate boss was always of Italian descent, many of the top leaders were not (Murray Humphreys, Gus Alex, Jake Guzik, Joe Epstein, Sidney Korshak, Fred Evans etc). Some of them had authority over Italian members that probably would not have been possible in the East Coast Families. Humphreys in particular was (post WW2) part of the leadership team along with Ricca and Accardo. The Outfit had also subsumed or eliminated non-Italian groups.

As these people died out the Outfit became somewhat closer to a traditional Mafia family.

Gus Russo's book "The Outfit" goes into some of this in more detail.

Great info, Lilo. Basically, it all boiled down to money. The early bosses didn't care what your name was or what you looked like... if you brought them big money, you were good as gold.

The "Mafia" in Chicago during the Torrio/Capone era was the Unione Siciliana, which was like a civic association with muscle. Torrio and Capone paid them great respect. Capone consulted them when he planned to whack his enemies, the Genna brothers, who were Sicilians. Capone, who was of Neapolitan descent, could not join the Unione, and constantly strove to have one of his Sicilians named as the Unione's president so he could exert more influence.

As others have noted, the Outfit in the Torrio/Capone years had lots of non-Sicilians and non-Italians in high places. When Capone came to Chicago ca. 1919, Torrio assigned him to work for Jack Guzik, Torrio's business manager, #2 man and chief political protector. Capone idolized Guzik, the two were fast friends, and the only person Capone killed with his own hands in Chicago was a wiseguy who had slapped Guzik around. Guzik ran the Outfit, along with Frank Nitti, when Capone went to Federal prison. Others have mentioned Epstein, Korshak, Humphreys, etc.

Keep in mind, too, that Charlie Luciano, though born in Sicily, was a thoroughy American businessman who had the same broadminded approach. He accepted help and advice from non-Sicilians and non-Italians, too. His closest associate was Meyer Lansky. He, Bugsy Siegel and Dutch Shultz, all Jews, sat with the Commission after Luciano formed it, though they could not be members. Luciano invited Capone to be the Commission's chairman. It was a brilliant move: it signaled that Organized Crime was more than just Sicilians, and it helped keep Chicago in the fold. He also named Joe Bonanno as "secretary," another effort to keep a "Sicilians-only" Don in the fold with the non-Sicilians.

The outfit was originally a Camorra group. It wasn´t until 1931, after the Castellammarese war, the outfit was recognized as a Mafia Family and accepted into the Mafia´s fold.

Does anyone know how initiation ceremonies originally was performed by the old Camorra gangs in Naples? Were they similar to the ones performed by the Mafia in Sicily? Or were they performed in a totally different way? If they were, it could explain why the outfit, for many, many years didn´t use the Mafia tradition of inducting new members with the gun and the knife ceremony.

the old camorra cerimonies were similar to the sicilian mafia ones

Thanks for that info, m2w

I'm no expert but they seemed pretty diverse during prohibition. Jim Colosimo was from Calabria, Torrio probably from Basilicata. Back in NY, both Capone and Torrio were closely associated Frankie Yale who was Calabrian and Tony Accardo was Sicilian. I know some key members like Capone and Nitti were from Campania, but I'm not sure how much they were influenced by old world traditions.

Some sources also state that Capone personally wielded the Thompson during the McSwiggin hit, but I don't believe this has ever been really substantiated.

There's also the Anselmi/Scalise/Giunta thing, but I don't believe that has ever really been substantiated, either.

Okay so, before Accardo the gang was rather unorganized and didn't have the normal structure as an LCN group?

That makes sense ebcause I read this except that said that Capone organized his gang like this. He had like emissaries overseeing parts of teh gang's operations and also a network of informants within the gang that let him know of any disloyalty.

So, basically with Accardo they begin to adapt some traits of the LCN? But didn't wholly conform to the all of the staples of the LCN?

Interesting articles on Capone's gang that I just found while I was typing up this post. It's just theories and not my own opinion but it goes a bit in to the structure.

Here.
Another here.

I read on americanmafia that when Accardo and Ricca took over, the Outfit was restructured in to a 7 man pseudo-corporation to regulate the activities on the street.

I also recall the documentary about the lawyer becoming an informant on the outfit. In the doc, they displayed the outfit hierarchy with the Ceo, Chairman, and then Board of Directors. Also, considered them unique because of their self selected name. I always wondered who decided on that.

Barret, those appear to be the same articles. Hmmmm so they reorganized it into a corporate structure? When did it adapt it's LCN style then?

Also, I saw a chart (Here I think) where the Outfit's Capos were in charge of 2 "Subcaptains" who appeared to be either the ones running the crew or served as the Capo's subordinate "administration". Dunno if that was the truth but it was visually implied by the chart.

Right!

The Outfit are half gang, half Cosa Nostra. That's what makes them so unique, They do not believe in Soldato's. I think having too many soldiers is very poor, I like how they have Lieutenants, Underboss and a friend advisor. The FBI had trouble's finding who was who within the Ranks, Same as The Westies The FBI didnt know who were the Top Players. Ethnic Group's started to change around the 1960's with Americans and Italians now in the 21st Century, You could probably be British if you kicked alot of money around the place.

Problem is, if you have a small family, one big RICO case can do a lot of damage. One of the big strengths the bigger NY families have is the fact that they can survive hit after hit because of their structure and size.

Bigger the families, more of the risk. The Boss could of forgot a small time Associate which will rat him out and end the whole thing. The More Bigger it gets you have to warn your guys to be controlable and do things succesfully.

Well, the smaller families are all dead or dying. The big five in NY, although a far cry from 30 years ago, are surviving.

it depends also on the families operate
in new york there are many italians living, some districts and counties are 20-40% italian like staten island or westchester
new jersey is 20% italian
i family located in new york or new jersey, included decavalcantes are sure harder to defeat

Yeah, I just read a line from one of Jerry Capeci's books. He seems to corroborate this.