Mob Talk: Don Salvatore Anastasio, born in Tropea in 1919 and died on October 3, 1974 of cancer at the Gemelli polyclinic in Rome.

mobtalk247
Jun 4
7 min read

Updated: Jun 8

Don Salvatore Anastasio, born in Tropea in 1919 and died on October 3, 1974 of cancer at the Gemelli polyclinic in Rome.

A Calabrian priest.

A man with broad shoulders and a hard head.

A man who has never given up even in front of the evidence.

A man who fought until his last breath to defend the memory of the brothers Albert (born Umberto) and Antonio (aka “Tough Tony”).

Some time ago, while Alberto Sordi was finishing filming the film "Anastasia mio fratello" based on his book published in 1964, he read in the newspapers that the film was about the “head of anonymous assassins”.

DON SAVATORE came to Rome and said:

“Not ‘head of the anonymous murderers’: alleged leader. Because many things have been said about my brother Albert, but no one has ever been able to prove them. So let me have my reasonable doubt. This is my recording of his last ‘confession’. Maybe naive, but ‘reasonably sincere’.”

DON SALVATORE Anastasio said:

“All my brothers have always been unfairly persecuted by the American press, because when one is interested in a multitude of workers, especially the unions of the port of New York, then he is opposed by the capitalists, who in turn are close friends of politicians and the press. We Anastasio brothers (the surname became Anastasia in America because they pronounced it better), originally there were nine of us: Raffaele, Francesco, Alberto, Antonio, Giuseppe, Gerardo, Luigi and me. Then there's a sister, Maria. Four of us were left alive: me, Raffaele, Francesco and Maria. The others are all dead, Luigi in Australia where he had emigrated and the others to America. And I, who am the youngest, have lived all their drama of persecutions, misunderstandings, slander, because the works of my brothers are still a living testimony of what they have done for the poor port workers, for the dumpers.”

There is a clinic that treats over 10 thousand people between workers and families, there is insurance against sickness and unemployment, there is a club where workers spend their free time, there is an outpatient clinic with 14 dentists always on duty.

DON SALVATORE Anastasio:

“There is a statue of Antonio that anyone, passing through Union Street, the street of the unions, can see. How was all this done? With an original idea of Antonio suggested by Alberto, to take a penny, that is, five cents, every dollar earned by the workers, and two money, ten cents, from the industrialists.”

DON SALVATORE added:

“Now I say: but why were they opposed? For interest. If Albert had been a simple worker no one would have talked about him. But when one takes care of ten thousand workers, then this hits colossal interests. That's why all that human ferocity was unleashed against the Anastasia brothers. What is true in what was said? They were never affected, Alberto yes, once, I confess, he was sentenced to the electric chair in 1922. They accused him, he was 16 years old, of having killed a man, the American press already passed him off as a boss of the underworld, while his name had nothing to do with the underworld. Because in America you have to know one thing: the real bosses live and die quietly, they are affiliated with politicians. During election periods there is talk of repatriating tizio or caio to get the support of their friends. When the support has arrived, the politicians no longer talk about repatriation: ‘tizio and caio’ are necessary, they have become the American sub-government.”

DON SALVATORE:

“This is the story of my brothers, who have done their best for others without leaving fabulous riches, otherwise I too would be rich as a priest while I am a poor country priest. In the 18 years spent in New York I have been very close to my brothers. I closed the eyes of four of them, I watched him until the last moment. The day Alberto was murdered I had an appointment with him. It was October 25, 1957, while I was going to him, I had a modest car, I heard the news on the radio. I don't know how I managed to get there, at a hundred per hour I went there, to the barbershop room, I threw myself on my knees, I blessed him, but he was already dead. The journalists asked me: and who are you, father? I wanted to say you are poor ignorant, just look at me, see if I look like them or not, but I didn't answer, I said I'm a priest, they called me to give the last acquittal.”

DON SALVATORE:

“Why did they kill Alberto? Because my brother Antonio was getting too big. There was talk of making him president of all the port unions of the United States. Alberto then had a women's clothing industry in Pennsylvania and had entered the garment district of New York, in the district of clothing merchants. Neither the Jews nor the Italians of Sicilian origin liked this, because that's where my life was. Because there the industrialist and the merchant when it comes to business pass over the body of their own father. There spiritual values are completely ignored. So the idea was this: to eliminate someone who wants to make his way in this fashion district, and by eliminating him we also give a blow to brother Antonio who is climbing too much. And so it happened. Alberto was killed, Antonio got sick and in March 1963 he left too. Alberto was a good family man, who believed not to have one son but to have a dozen, and he had four that he sent to Catholic schools, on Sundays he took them himself to mass, to the church of Epiphany. I went to America in 1946. Who kept me in my studies and I was like the apple of his eye, he always found the time to spend with me, at all parties, weddings, baptisms, he always wanted me by his side. Many didn't see this thing well, they said who knows what you want to do with this priest brother. There was a certain sense of jealousy for me, in society, at restaurants, and I said but why do they talk like that? In New York I suffered a lot to learn the language. I studied day and night even my dreams were in English. After eight months I spoke and preached in English. For two years I was in a parish of Staten Island, where I started organizing meetings of parents, youth, sports, both American and Italian football. Then I went to the Bronx, to the parish of Santa Lucia. Even there the majority of the faithful were Italian, the old still spoke Italian, the young only a few sentences. And even there I continued to carry out the same activities, meetings, searches for funds, because there it is not the state that pays, but it is the faithful who raise funds to have a Catholic school where they can send their children. I also organized competitions, shows, one evening the singer Sal Mineo came, there were a thousand young people waiting for him, they looked like the waves of the sea that overlapped. Every week I went to visit my brothers, I was interested in families and I brought news of my mother who was in Calabria. I kept in touch a lot to find out about their work, I inquired about the port workers: are you happy? I met an old man from Puglia who had just done the denture. Seeing my brother he exclaimed: Tony, Tony, thanks to you I can eat again. Poor wretches, in short, who previously had no assistance. Because when my brothers arrived in America the Italians were treated worse than the beasts.”

In conclusion, DON SALVATORE said:

“Once an old Sicilian parish priest told me that in 1918, when there was a lawsuit between immigrants, the judge only asked what the defendant's name was. If the surname was Italian, he condemned it. A few years later things changed.”

The JUDGE asked:

“Where in Italy are you from?”

DON SALVATORE:

“If you came from Sicily, he would condemn you. Here, there is justice, the law exists, but for whom is it applied? For the American citizen and that's it.”

DON SALVATORE:

“They said all the possible evil about my brother Alberto. I investigated, I tried to understand why if he is arrested today he will be released tomorrow. If the law is law it must take its course. So it's clear that they never found any prosecution chief. The only one was tax evasion, for which no one is saved there, neither lawyers nor doctors. It was the only sentence that Alberto suffered, 10 months in prison that he did in 1954.”

DON SALVATORE:

“My brother Antonio, and Alberto sat next to him, one day in a meeting of trade unionists said this: ‘Industrialists are sons of...’. Well, 4 months later it didn't exist anymore. I followed the life of John Kennedy, and I discovered that he too, during a lockout of the steel manufacturers, called them ‘sons of...’. Not even a year later had he made the same end as Alberto. I don't know if it's appropriate to put the two stories together, but it's a fact that America, in the face of interest, doesn't look anyone in the face. I will never be able to convince myself that in such a progressive country they are not able to find the real murderers of John Kennedy, of Robert Kennedy, of Matin Luther King, but put in sight of the puppets, of the individuals who had in their pockets, like the killer of Luther King, two or three passports and hundred dollar bills to no end. Who had provided him with these things? It is the organization, which is above justice. When you bump into an organization then there is no way out. Industrial organizations, political organizations, interest organizations. Even today, ten years after leaving America, reading American newspapers and letters from relatives, I realize that nothing has changed. I went back to Tropea because my sister, my mother died, was left alone, and I also went back to publish my book, since in the United States no one wanted to print it. In Tropea I am a parish priest and I teach religion.

I have requisitioned a land of the parish, I am building a large sports field there. As a job it's the same as I did in America. There are souls to save here as there were there. With the difference that there it was not calm and here it was.”