English, T. J. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish-American Gangster. New York: Regan, 2006, 442 p.p
Throughout his career T.J English has written five books and a multitude of articles for the LA Times, The New York Times, Playboy, and a variety of other magazines and newspapers. All of his books (The Westies, Born to Kill, Havana Nocturne, and The Savage City) and articles cover some aspect of the criminal world, whether it be the criminal themselves, or the act that they carry out. T.J English was awarded the New York Press Club Award for Best Crime Reporting back in 2010 and had already written two books about organized crime which shows that he is more than qualified to write a book about Irish American Gangsters as a whole. Not only would Paddy Whacked succeed in showing the big picture of gangsterism, as it seems English hoped, but it would also become the basis for a documentary shown the History channel in 2006 and make the New York Times Extended Best Seller list. Paddy Whacked manages to be intriguing as well as educational as it interweaves multiple stories involving over 200 different people ranging from famous gangsters, to the men who acted behind the scenes. These stories take place in America’s six most dangerous cities over the timespan of almost two centuries (1849-2000).
Irish American gangsters have been written about a lot in the past, but the way that English wrote it set him aside from other authors. One of the main differences between English and other authors is that he had a broad scope that covered several different people, places, and time periods. A majority of the books written about the Irish American gangster only focus on one person, place, or time period. Instead of just focusing on a single mobster/gangster, as many authors tend to do, English included stories about corrupt government officials as well which shows both sides of the partnership necessary to the success of a gang. Normally a book is written in a chronological order of events and English was no exception. By making small references to different times within each story English not only helps the reader see the connections between the various underworld characters, but also sets himself apart from your typical nonfiction writer. Throughout his book he keeps a realistic viewpoint showing not only the murders and backstabbing of the underworld but also the economic advancements the underworld provided for cities and the corruption shown by government officials. English also maintains a neutral view point and rarely, if ever, incorporates his own personal opinions; instead showing all aspects of the topic and allowing the reader to make their own judgment of whether the stories of the Irish American gangster are “the stuff of legend, a tribute to…the Irish temperance,” or something that is “shameful” and “best-forgotten.” (436)
Divided up into two parts, each containing seven chapters made up of different sections, the layout of Paddy Whacked allows the reader to effectively absorb all of the information it provides. Before reading English’s book, I knew hardly anything about Irish gangsters or the effect that they had on the growth of America. While gangster’s actions generally resulted in losses for America as a whole, there were some benefits. In fact, some mob bosses not only gave donations to local families and charities but also avoided direct violence and participation in the illegal activities they ran. One great example of a benefit to America as a whole was the city of Chicago; a city with many cultural attributes, but also the largest red light district in the country. The money generated by the illegal activities, was what fueled the city, made it a city of opportunity and kept it thriving. A huge misconception I had was why gangs were created and who brought them to America. Gangs were created by the Irish, not influenced by the Italian Mafia, as a necessity to survive against the discrimination they faced on a daily basis. Rather than band together for criminal reasons, they banded together as a survival mechanism that ultimately helped them advance in society. Another misconception I had was that gangsters/mobsters controlled only corrupt policemen and judges when in fact, they controlled people at all levels of the government, occasionally even the president. Important characters like president James K. Polk, the Kennedy’s, and several senators had a relationship with Irish American gangsters that contributed to the politician as well as the gangster’s success. Their strongest relationships though, were with the police force. Becoming a policeman was encouraged by the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants because “who better to take on the dangerous, low-paying job than a Paddy?” (61) And so, Irishmen who often had grown up with famous mobsters ended up as the majority of the police force; mobsters not only gained more power in the local area due to this, but the stage was now set for corruption at all levels as well.
In addition to the educational facts, I also learned some neat fun facts about gangsters and their traditions. “Old Smoke Morrissey” was the first true Irish Mob Boss, and as such he was the one who established the looks, desires, and attitude that we derive our stereotypes from. He started the tendency of wearing striped suits, hats, big rings, and pocket watches, as well as having a well-kept beard and hoping to be accepted by aristocratic society through money. The famous book The Great Gatsby was actually inspired by the mixture of glamour and danger that fueled the underworld. In the book, you see the grand parties held, massive amounts of money, bootlegging, and a character that is even based off of Arnold Rothstein a dominant financer of the underworld. What we now call, the FBI’s Most Wanted List, was started in 1925 and was called the Public Enemies List. Contrary to how it’s used now, the list was originally created as an aid to the “blood sport” of the Beer Wars by providing a “virtual player program, helping the public keep the names and territories straight.” (160)
Among the various fun facts and educational facts that I learned, a few things really stood out in my mind. Five areas that I learned the most about were: how the gangs became so powerful, the corruption that went along with gangs, the amount that gangsters got away with, how many attempts the government made to convict Mafia and gang members, and how important rivalry and revenge was. These five areas are things that stood out to me due to the fact that a majority of these things either are, or could be still happening today. Although the Irish American gangster is no longer around, the Italian Mafia remains a well-known part of the criminal underworld joined now by the Mexican drug lords, and the Russian Mafia.
Without the help of the Prohibition era and the waterfront areas, the Irish American gangsters would have had a very difficult time fighting their way up the ladder of power. Of all the things that helped gangsters gain power, the Volstead Act was the most important one. Despite the laws being in effect, citizens refused to give up alcohol. They at first tried making their own and when that didn’t work, gangsters took their opportunity and began bootlegging. Gangsters imported and distributed massive amounts of alcohol during the Prohibition era using waterfronts as a main port of entry. By controlling the waterfronts, not only was it easier to import illegal substances, but there were more jobs that the gang could provide, therefore increasing the amount of people that would have to pay them back. A portion of the alcohol brought in went to policemen as bribes. In return for alcohol, the policemen would look the other way; this relationship however gave the gangsters leverage over the policemen, allowed them to fine-tune their criminal framework, and ultimately increased the amount of power that the gangsters held.
With all the newfound power gangs held, it was no doubt that corruption became so common. However, the corruption had been there since the beginning of the gangs even when they didn’t hold a significant amount of power. Gangsters originally got their start by doing favors for the common man in return for candidate votes. As the method of Tammany Hall grew, so did the acceptance citizens began to feel in regards of corruption. In New Orleans the policemen were very low-paid and so they were allowed, even encouraged, to make money on the side by hiring themselves out to whoever needed their “skills.” Things only got worse from there; during the times of Prohibition it was publically known that policemen would allow establishments to conduct illegal selling of alcohol, but only if the policemen received money as a “protection fee.” Eventually the public started disagreeing with corruption but by then it was too late, lawyers would pay people to be “witnesses” to a crime committed by a gangster, policemen would warn gangsters if they became a suspect, and high-up officials often attended the same events as gangsters/mobsters did. When reading about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre I was especially surprised at the corruption. The local Prohibition administrator was quoted as saying that the killers of the massacre were Chicago policemen that had to kill the Moran gang when they threatened to expose the policemen for hijacking liquor. His initial belief that Chicago policemen were really the killers showed how low policemen had sunk in the eyes of the public. There was no hiding the fact that “by the early 1930s American democracy was in shambles, and everyone knew it. Whole police departments, federal agents, judges, prosecutors-the entire electoral process had been implicated to one degree or another.” (200) Even from the start, the most successful gang was the one that had the best connection in politics.
Due to the relationship that gangsters held, with their fellow gangsters as well as politicians, being acquitted or found not guilty happened more than I had thought. Prior to the era of the informer, fear and loyalty to the underworld helped dozens of gangsters walk away from the courtroom when they shouldn’t have. In Robert Emmett Crowe’s two terms as a State’s Attorney 128 out of 349 murders resulted in convictions, and zero out of 369 bombings resulted in convictions. English includes a lot of stories about court cases and in nearly all of them, the victims and witnesses give unusable statements. People not associated with the gangs/mobs didn’t testify for fear of being badly beaten or even killed. Despite having a chance to get an attacker arrested, all members of the underworld followed the same rule; act as if you don’t know anything and get your revenge later. Something I found rather interesting was how involved the FBI and the CIA were with the gangsters. The CIA created numerous deals with active criminals claiming that they were “virtually inoculated from criminal prosecution,” but that the only thing they couldn’t do was kill people. Two of the FBI’s top informants, Steve Flemmi and Whitey Bulger, ended up joining together and becoming serial killers. When their time as informants was up, the government became worried that their relationship with Whitey and Flemmi would become known and so they went after them. Whitey got away after John Connolly, the man who made the informant deal with him, warned him ahead of time. Flemmi however, didn’t and after spending two years finally began to talk using the defense that he “couldn’t be prosecuted for the crimes he and Whitey Bulger had committed because they had been authorized by the FBI to commit those crimes in a trade for underworld intelligence.” Whitey Bulger turned out to be the best at avoiding jail time. In his lifetime he killed at least 19 people, eight of them while he was an informer, and yet he was never convicted for any of the murders. While he did spend nine years in jail, it was at the early stages of adult hood and was due to robberies. Whitey’s ability to dodge the law proves that “justice was ineffectual when stacked up against the forces of the underworld.” (164)
Even though the courts didn’t have high chances of convicting gangsters/mobsters, they had to defend their reputation and attempted to find their convictions through several different hearings. A nationwide investigation of organized crime, called the Kefauver Hearings, was the first hearing and was conducted from mid-1950 to mid-1951. After getting a look at the illegal activities happening on the waterfront, a detailed investigation of crime in the Port of New York began and was called, fittingly, the Waterfront Hearings. Encouraged by the previous two hearings, Senator Joseph McCarthy started the McCarthy Hearings, an investigation for communists and subversives in the U.S. When the McCarthy Hearings failed, the government created the McClellan Committee dedicated to the investigation of the role of mobsters and labor racketeers in the Teamsters Union. The final hearing was the Wolf Hearing and was an investigation, mostly of government officials, about the FBI’s pact with Whitey Bulger and Steve Flemmi, the duo that became serial killers. Most of these hearings ended up failing with only one or two convictions because a majority took the Fifth and declined to answer questions on the grounds that they might be incriminated.
Revenge was the basis of both the Boston Gang War of Charleston, and the Boston Gang War of South Boston. It’s not just a saying that the Irish hold grudges the best, the fact that both wars had nothing to do with business, territory, or ethnicity makes it seem ridiculous. While I can slightly understand the South Boston War, I cannot even imagine how stubborn the gangsters must have been in Charleston. Originally, the fighting started out when a man named George McLaughlin got drunk and grabbed another gangster’s girlfriend’s breast. Of course, in return the gangster and his friend beat McLaughlin almost to the point of death. McLaughlin’s brothers, unwilling to let the beating go and forgive, took the initiative and attacked anyone who sided with the two gangsters. In the South Boston War, Pauli McGonigle was killed by a hit man who mistook him for his brother Donnie. Donnie was outraged that his innocent brother was killed and wanted to get revenge. This desire though, led to a war that involved everyone whether they wanted it or not. English is spot on when he describes the war as “rash and impulsive…and based on nothing more than a deeply personal sense of grievance.” (310)
English does a fantastic job telling the stories about the rise and fall of the Irish American gangster. While he managed to include a massive amount of facts, it wasn’t so dry and informative that it became boring for the reader. Spreading out the introduction of major characters like Old Smoke Morrissey, King Mike, Whitey Bulger, Danny Greene, and Jack Diamond help keep the book interesting and prevents the reader from being able to easily predict what will happen next. Anyone interested in organized crime, biographies, gangs, mobs, the Irish climb to power, or even history in general would find that this book is “entertaining…compelling…memorable…ambitious and rewarding,” fitting perfectly to the New York Sun review.
Citations:
"T.J. English Online." T.J. English Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Jan. 2013. http://www.tj-english.com/index.php
English, T. J. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish-American Gangster. New York: Regan, 2006. Print.
Throughout his career T.J English has written five books and a multitude of articles for the LA Times, The New York Times, Playboy, and a variety of other magazines and newspapers. All of his books (The Westies, Born to Kill, Havana Nocturne, and The Savage City) and articles cover some aspect of the criminal world, whether it be the criminal themselves, or the act that they carry out. T.J English was awarded the New York Press Club Award for Best Crime Reporting back in 2010 and had already written two books about organized crime which shows that he is more than qualified to write a book about Irish American Gangsters as a whole. Not only would Paddy Whacked succeed in showing the big picture of gangsterism, as it seems English hoped, but it would also become the basis for a documentary shown the History channel in 2006 and make the New York Times Extended Best Seller list. Paddy Whacked manages to be intriguing as well as educational as it interweaves multiple stories involving over 200 different people ranging from famous gangsters, to the men who acted behind the scenes. These stories take place in America’s six most dangerous cities over the timespan of almost two centuries (1849-2000).
Irish American gangsters have been written about a lot in the past, but the way that English wrote it set him aside from other authors. One of the main differences between English and other authors is that he had a broad scope that covered several different people, places, and time periods. A majority of the books written about the Irish American gangster only focus on one person, place, or time period. Instead of just focusing on a single mobster/gangster, as many authors tend to do, English included stories about corrupt government officials as well which shows both sides of the partnership necessary to the success of a gang. Normally a book is written in a chronological order of events and English was no exception. By making small references to different times within each story English not only helps the reader see the connections between the various underworld characters, but also sets himself apart from your typical nonfiction writer. Throughout his book he keeps a realistic viewpoint showing not only the murders and backstabbing of the underworld but also the economic advancements the underworld provided for cities and the corruption shown by government officials. English also maintains a neutral view point and rarely, if ever, incorporates his own personal opinions; instead showing all aspects of the topic and allowing the reader to make their own judgment of whether the stories of the Irish American gangster are “the stuff of legend, a tribute to…the Irish temperance,” or something that is “shameful” and “best-forgotten.” (436)
Divided up into two parts, each containing seven chapters made up of different sections, the layout of Paddy Whacked allows the reader to effectively absorb all of the information it provides. Before reading English’s book, I knew hardly anything about Irish gangsters or the effect that they had on the growth of America. While gangster’s actions generally resulted in losses for America as a whole, there were some benefits. In fact, some mob bosses not only gave donations to local families and charities but also avoided direct violence and participation in the illegal activities they ran. One great example of a benefit to America as a whole was the city of Chicago; a city with many cultural attributes, but also the largest red light district in the country. The money generated by the illegal activities, was what fueled the city, made it a city of opportunity and kept it thriving. A huge misconception I had was why gangs were created and who brought them to America. Gangs were created by the Irish, not influenced by the Italian Mafia, as a necessity to survive against the discrimination they faced on a daily basis. Rather than band together for criminal reasons, they banded together as a survival mechanism that ultimately helped them advance in society. Another misconception I had was that gangsters/mobsters controlled only corrupt policemen and judges when in fact, they controlled people at all levels of the government, occasionally even the president. Important characters like president James K. Polk, the Kennedy’s, and several senators had a relationship with Irish American gangsters that contributed to the politician as well as the gangster’s success. Their strongest relationships though, were with the police force. Becoming a policeman was encouraged by the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants because “who better to take on the dangerous, low-paying job than a Paddy?” (61) And so, Irishmen who often had grown up with famous mobsters ended up as the majority of the police force; mobsters not only gained more power in the local area due to this, but the stage was now set for corruption at all levels as well.
In addition to the educational facts, I also learned some neat fun facts about gangsters and their traditions. “Old Smoke Morrissey” was the first true Irish Mob Boss, and as such he was the one who established the looks, desires, and attitude that we derive our stereotypes from. He started the tendency of wearing striped suits, hats, big rings, and pocket watches, as well as having a well-kept beard and hoping to be accepted by aristocratic society through money. The famous book The Great Gatsby was actually inspired by the mixture of glamour and danger that fueled the underworld. In the book, you see the grand parties held, massive amounts of money, bootlegging, and a character that is even based off of Arnold Rothstein a dominant financer of the underworld. What we now call, the FBI’s Most Wanted List, was started in 1925 and was called the Public Enemies List. Contrary to how it’s used now, the list was originally created as an aid to the “blood sport” of the Beer Wars by providing a “virtual player program, helping the public keep the names and territories straight.” (160)
Among the various fun facts and educational facts that I learned, a few things really stood out in my mind. Five areas that I learned the most about were: how the gangs became so powerful, the corruption that went along with gangs, the amount that gangsters got away with, how many attempts the government made to convict Mafia and gang members, and how important rivalry and revenge was. These five areas are things that stood out to me due to the fact that a majority of these things either are, or could be still happening today. Although the Irish American gangster is no longer around, the Italian Mafia remains a well-known part of the criminal underworld joined now by the Mexican drug lords, and the Russian Mafia.
Without the help of the Prohibition era and the waterfront areas, the Irish American gangsters would have had a very difficult time fighting their way up the ladder of power. Of all the things that helped gangsters gain power, the Volstead Act was the most important one. Despite the laws being in effect, citizens refused to give up alcohol. They at first tried making their own and when that didn’t work, gangsters took their opportunity and began bootlegging. Gangsters imported and distributed massive amounts of alcohol during the Prohibition era using waterfronts as a main port of entry. By controlling the waterfronts, not only was it easier to import illegal substances, but there were more jobs that the gang could provide, therefore increasing the amount of people that would have to pay them back. A portion of the alcohol brought in went to policemen as bribes. In return for alcohol, the policemen would look the other way; this relationship however gave the gangsters leverage over the policemen, allowed them to fine-tune their criminal framework, and ultimately increased the amount of power that the gangsters held.
With all the newfound power gangs held, it was no doubt that corruption became so common. However, the corruption had been there since the beginning of the gangs even when they didn’t hold a significant amount of power. Gangsters originally got their start by doing favors for the common man in return for candidate votes. As the method of Tammany Hall grew, so did the acceptance citizens began to feel in regards of corruption. In New Orleans the policemen were very low-paid and so they were allowed, even encouraged, to make money on the side by hiring themselves out to whoever needed their “skills.” Things only got worse from there; during the times of Prohibition it was publically known that policemen would allow establishments to conduct illegal selling of alcohol, but only if the policemen received money as a “protection fee.” Eventually the public started disagreeing with corruption but by then it was too late, lawyers would pay people to be “witnesses” to a crime committed by a gangster, policemen would warn gangsters if they became a suspect, and high-up officials often attended the same events as gangsters/mobsters did. When reading about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre I was especially surprised at the corruption. The local Prohibition administrator was quoted as saying that the killers of the massacre were Chicago policemen that had to kill the Moran gang when they threatened to expose the policemen for hijacking liquor. His initial belief that Chicago policemen were really the killers showed how low policemen had sunk in the eyes of the public. There was no hiding the fact that “by the early 1930s American democracy was in shambles, and everyone knew it. Whole police departments, federal agents, judges, prosecutors-the entire electoral process had been implicated to one degree or another.” (200) Even from the start, the most successful gang was the one that had the best connection in politics.
Due to the relationship that gangsters held, with their fellow gangsters as well as politicians, being acquitted or found not guilty happened more than I had thought. Prior to the era of the informer, fear and loyalty to the underworld helped dozens of gangsters walk away from the courtroom when they shouldn’t have. In Robert Emmett Crowe’s two terms as a State’s Attorney 128 out of 349 murders resulted in convictions, and zero out of 369 bombings resulted in convictions. English includes a lot of stories about court cases and in nearly all of them, the victims and witnesses give unusable statements. People not associated with the gangs/mobs didn’t testify for fear of being badly beaten or even killed. Despite having a chance to get an attacker arrested, all members of the underworld followed the same rule; act as if you don’t know anything and get your revenge later. Something I found rather interesting was how involved the FBI and the CIA were with the gangsters. The CIA created numerous deals with active criminals claiming that they were “virtually inoculated from criminal prosecution,” but that the only thing they couldn’t do was kill people. Two of the FBI’s top informants, Steve Flemmi and Whitey Bulger, ended up joining together and becoming serial killers. When their time as informants was up, the government became worried that their relationship with Whitey and Flemmi would become known and so they went after them. Whitey got away after John Connolly, the man who made the informant deal with him, warned him ahead of time. Flemmi however, didn’t and after spending two years finally began to talk using the defense that he “couldn’t be prosecuted for the crimes he and Whitey Bulger had committed because they had been authorized by the FBI to commit those crimes in a trade for underworld intelligence.” Whitey Bulger turned out to be the best at avoiding jail time. In his lifetime he killed at least 19 people, eight of them while he was an informer, and yet he was never convicted for any of the murders. While he did spend nine years in jail, it was at the early stages of adult hood and was due to robberies. Whitey’s ability to dodge the law proves that “justice was ineffectual when stacked up against the forces of the underworld.” (164)
Even though the courts didn’t have high chances of convicting gangsters/mobsters, they had to defend their reputation and attempted to find their convictions through several different hearings. A nationwide investigation of organized crime, called the Kefauver Hearings, was the first hearing and was conducted from mid-1950 to mid-1951. After getting a look at the illegal activities happening on the waterfront, a detailed investigation of crime in the Port of New York began and was called, fittingly, the Waterfront Hearings. Encouraged by the previous two hearings, Senator Joseph McCarthy started the McCarthy Hearings, an investigation for communists and subversives in the U.S. When the McCarthy Hearings failed, the government created the McClellan Committee dedicated to the investigation of the role of mobsters and labor racketeers in the Teamsters Union. The final hearing was the Wolf Hearing and was an investigation, mostly of government officials, about the FBI’s pact with Whitey Bulger and Steve Flemmi, the duo that became serial killers. Most of these hearings ended up failing with only one or two convictions because a majority took the Fifth and declined to answer questions on the grounds that they might be incriminated.
Revenge was the basis of both the Boston Gang War of Charleston, and the Boston Gang War of South Boston. It’s not just a saying that the Irish hold grudges the best, the fact that both wars had nothing to do with business, territory, or ethnicity makes it seem ridiculous. While I can slightly understand the South Boston War, I cannot even imagine how stubborn the gangsters must have been in Charleston. Originally, the fighting started out when a man named George McLaughlin got drunk and grabbed another gangster’s girlfriend’s breast. Of course, in return the gangster and his friend beat McLaughlin almost to the point of death. McLaughlin’s brothers, unwilling to let the beating go and forgive, took the initiative and attacked anyone who sided with the two gangsters. In the South Boston War, Pauli McGonigle was killed by a hit man who mistook him for his brother Donnie. Donnie was outraged that his innocent brother was killed and wanted to get revenge. This desire though, led to a war that involved everyone whether they wanted it or not. English is spot on when he describes the war as “rash and impulsive…and based on nothing more than a deeply personal sense of grievance.” (310)
English does a fantastic job telling the stories about the rise and fall of the Irish American gangster. While he managed to include a massive amount of facts, it wasn’t so dry and informative that it became boring for the reader. Spreading out the introduction of major characters like Old Smoke Morrissey, King Mike, Whitey Bulger, Danny Greene, and Jack Diamond help keep the book interesting and prevents the reader from being able to easily predict what will happen next. Anyone interested in organized crime, biographies, gangs, mobs, the Irish climb to power, or even history in general would find that this book is “entertaining…compelling…memorable…ambitious and rewarding,” fitting perfectly to the New York Sun review.
Citations:
"T.J. English Online." T.J. English Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 Jan. 2013. http://www.tj-english.com/index.php
English, T. J. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish-American Gangster. New York: Regan, 2006. Print.