Artichoke Wars

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As artichoke wars ( English artichoke wars ) a dispute between clans of the Mafia and the growers such as dealers of artichoke in the 1930s in the USA is called. By means of violence and intimidation, the mafia achieved a monopoly on the domestic American wholesaling of artichokes, which they bought cheaply in the growing areas of California in order to sell them overpriced on the east coast . The dispute culminated in 1935 when the artichoke sales were temporarily banned in New York City . The ban was imposed by New York Mayor LaGuardia , who used the Artichoke Wars in collaboration with the FBI to popularize his crackdown on organized crime .

history

Commercial artichoke cultivation in the USA began at the end of the 19th century on the west coast , where farmers of Italian descent had brought the sophisticated vegetables from their homeland. In 1906, artichokes were grown on approximately 800 hectares in California . In 1930, 95 percent of the entire American artichoke harvest came from the area around the Californian coastal town of Half Moon Bay in San Mateo County , where the nutrient-rich black soil and the mild ocean climate favored cultivation.

California artichokes were traded over long distances almost from the start. In 1904 the first artichokes were shipped to the east coast, where they were sold to immigrants of Italian origin in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey . In 1917, the Half Moon Bay artichoke farmers founded the Half Moon Bay Artichoke Association to jointly organize sales. The association's manager was John L. Debenedetti, who personally maintained contact with New York wholesalers. The price difference between the west and east coast was considerable, a large artichoke cost only one nickel in the market square in San Francisco (5 cents, today's value after inflation 1 USD), while the price in the Italian immigrant districts on the east coast was one dollar , today Value after inflation $ 19.91.

Ciro Terranova, the Artichoke King (1930)

This profit margin caught the attention of Ciro Terranova , a member of the Mafia clan later known as the " Genovese family ". Terranova had relevant experience, contemporary newspapers referred to him as "food rackets emperor", so as the emperor of the food mafia ( racketeering ). Terranova specialized in rare and expensive vegetables. In the 1920s, he and his men succeeded in cornering the artichoke market in New York, i.e. in controlling the vast majority of the imported goods. This enabled him to set the price or force retailers and market traders to pay taxes. This was made easier by the small number of markets in the neighborhoods dominated by Italian immigrants.

In 1929 Terranova was referred to as the Artichoke King and was the central figure in the artichoke wars on the part of the Mafia. Terranova hired thugs, forcing artichoke importers on the east coast to buy their goods exclusively from his companies. A New York greengrocer refused to work with Terranova. Four of his drivers were promptly brutally beaten and kidnapped. After the mafia gained control of imports, it immediately doubled the retail price in New York and Philadelphia . From the artichoke monopoly alone, Terranova is said to have drawn half a million dollars a year, according to contemporary official estimates, today that would be $ 9,300,000.

After controlling imports on the east coast, the mafia now spread to the growing areas on the coast of San Mateo. There the artichoke farmers were forced to sell only to the wholesalers controlled by the mafia, and at bad prices. After some California farmers refused in 1930, Mafia thugs destroyed their precious plants with machetes , stole pre-packaged goods and caused great damage. On the Coastal Highway , masked men with firearms kidnapped trucks carrying artichokes for non-Mafia competition. The San Mateo County Sheriff posted shotgun guards along the roads leading to the artichoke farms . Yet there was violence and damage every night. There were also attacks during the transport across the continent, gangs broke into freight cars and stole the goods. The Half Moon Bay Artichoke Association had given up resistance to the Mafia by 1935 and sold 100 percent of the goods to Terranova.

Mayor LaGuardia at the fish market (1939)

In early 1934, Fiorello LaGuardia was elected mayor of New York City . One of the five central points of his election program was the fight against corruption and gang membership. On December 21, 1935, at the Bronx Terminal Market , accompanied by 25 police officers, he announced that the sale of artichokes was prohibited. LaGuardia was standing on a truck, before his speech there was a signal from two trumpeters from the police. After a few days he lifted the ban again. After the ban was lifted, this publicity stunt turned out to be a promotional activity for artichokes. Until then, this vegetable was hardly known outside the Italian immigrant community and was suddenly in demand. LaGuardia and publishers sympathetic to him published recipes and articles about artichokes and thus supported the mafia-free trade.

New York District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey charged five of Terranova's henchmen with various crimes from the Artichoke Wars, including coercion , assault and property damage . After two unsuccessful court hearings, there was a third hearing in which the indictment was negotiated down to offenses of lesser severity through an early settlement (“plea”). However, all five of the defendants were sentenced to prison terms.

reception

In 1941 Bertolt Brecht wrote the play Arturo Ui's rescuing rise in exile in Finland while he was waiting for his visa to emigrate to the USA. He intended the world premiere in the USA, but it never came. The play is ostensibly about the rise of a Chicago gangster in the 1930s. The character Clark heads the " cauliflower trust" for the monopoly-like marketing of cauliflower and is referred to in the English version as the "Cauliflower King". Although these characters and plot elements an allegory to the monopoly capitalism and the rise of Hitler were to form, the parallels to the war artichokes are unmistakable. Brecht was familiar with LaGuardia's work and may therefore have used these elements.

Harald Martenstein took up the topic in September 2019 in a ZEIT column on the occasion of the publication of the German translation of the world's most boring book , the punch line being that this story is not boring.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Michael Svanevik, Shirley Burgett: The kingdom of the artichoke and the battle for its profits . In: The Mercury News , Jan. 4, 2017.
  2. ^ Robert Weldon Whalen: Murder, Inc., and the Moral Life . Fordham Press, New York City 2016, Chapter 3 (“Gangster City”).
  3. ↑ Thomas Kessner: Fiorello H. LaGuardia and the Making of Modern New York (1989), Chapters 8-9.
  4. ^ Robert Weldon Whalen: Murder, Inc., and the Moral Life . 2016, p. 89.
  5. ↑ “Givola: And now to show that we're businesslike, And most professional, meet Mr. Clark. You know him well. The Cauliflower King. “In: Bertolt Brecht: The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui , scene 7. Translated from the German by Alistair Beaton and George Tabori, A&C Black, London 2013, ISBN 9781472566782 , p. 53.
  6. ^ Mary Beth Kilkelly, Behold the Baby Artichoke, or, Power to the Punies . New York, June 8, 2017.
  7. ^ Hardwick K. McCoy: This Book Will Send You to Sleep , Section A History of Artichokes , pp. 261ff. ( Online ), German translation The most boring book in the world , Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2019, ISBN 978-3-455-00662-9 .
  8. ↑ Harald Martenstein: About Books must have you not read ... . In: Die ZEIT, No. 40/2019, September 26, 2019, p. 6.