Johnny Torrio - Biography - Later Years

Later Years

In the 1930s, Torrio returned to the United States to testify in Capone's trial. At that time, he suggested to top New York City-based crime lords such as Lucky Luciano that they create one crime syndicate encompassing all the smaller gangs that were constantly at each other's throats. He presented this idea in New York to Luciano, as well as Lepke Buchalter, Longy Zwillman, Joe Adonis, Frank Costello, and Meyer Lansky at a four-star Park Avenue hotel. (This conference and its attendees were later disclosed by Abe Reles.) His idea was well received, and he was given great respect, as he was considered an "elder statesman" in the world of organized crime. Once Luciano implemented the concept, the National Crime Syndicate was born.

Read more about this topic:  Johnny Torrio, Biography

Famous quotes containing the word years:

    In the end we beat them with Levi 501 jeans. Seventy-two years of Communist indoctrination and propaganda was drowned out by a three-ounce Sony Walkman. A huge totalitarian system ... has been brought to its knees because nobody wants to wear Bulgarian shoes.... Now they’re lunch, and we’re number one on the planet.
    —P.J. (Patrick Jake)

    I, who cannot stay in my chamber for a single day without acquiring some rust,... confess that I am astonished at the power of endurance, to say nothing of the moral insensibility, of my neighbors who confine themselves to shops and offices the whole day for weeks and months, aye, and years almost together. I know not what manner of stuff they are of,—sitting there now at three o’clock in the afternoon, as if it were three o’clock in the morning.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)