My wife (Jane) is second generation Italian. Her Father came when he was an infant with his family to America in 1929. Recently, my wife’s Aunt (her Father’s Sister) sent a letter explaining the meaning of St. Patrick’s Day to the Lombardi family. I do not record this letter for solely sentimental reasons but also in order to make a point about what happens when centralized government controls a society and culture.
Beginning quoting letter from my wife’s Aunt Josephine (Jo),
“My father, your grandfather, Jane, never let us forget the meaning of St. Patrick’s Day for the Lombardi family. For Grandpa Lombardi St. Patrick’s Day was not a day to honor a saint, but rather it was a day to be remembered because March 17, 1929 was the day we arrived, as your Grandfather would tell his children, “to beautiful America.” Your Dad, Jane, was 10 months old, Aunt Jennie was 3.5, Aunt Anna was 2.5 and I was 6 years old. Aunt Lina was born the following September.
If my parents hadn’t decided to leave Italy because of the Fascist dictator, Mussolini, your Mom wouldn’t have met and married your father, and you wouldn’t be here. Think about it, the decision of my Father to come to America affected all his childrens’ lives.
Mussolini had imposed such a high tax on sugar that it was prohibitive and my father needed sugar to run his cafe. His cafe was sort of candy store where he served coffee. It was a social gathering place for the men of the town to sit and socialize with their friends that as they drank coffee.
Because Papa couldn’t buy sugar my father would travel to Naples where he could purchase saccharin on the black market. Saccharin was against the law because Mussolini wanted to collect taxes on the sugar. I know there’s no excuse for breaking the law, but my father’s livelihood depended on the business generated from the townsmen coming to drink coffee. Well, his brother-in-law also had a cafe on the same street, about two blocks away; and my father’s brother-in-law was practically going out of business for lack of sugar and customers.
My father confided in his mother when she questioned him. Grandma was sworn to secrecy about my father’s source of saccharin. Grandma’s oldest daughter was married to the cafe owner who was jealous of my father’s business. Grandmother told, my Aunt Elvira. I’m sure that Grandma meant it for good. Grandma wanted her son-in-law to go to Naples for saccharin with her son. Instead of going to Naples though, my father’s brother-in-law turned Papa in to the police. That was the deciding factor that forced my parents to leave Italy and come to America.
I can still picture the morning the the Police came to our home with their rifles drawn to arrest my father for having possession of illegal saccharin. However, Papa wasn’t there. My Father had been warned that his brother-in-law had turned him in to the police. My father went into hiding. I don’t know where he went to escape, but I do know as young as I was, I remember telling the police to get out of my house. I knew they didn’t belong there with their rifles drawn, looking inside closets and underneath beds, pushing doors open to other rooms and looking behind doors. Eventually they left. I also remember running from my home that was a short distance from my father’s store, crying until I reached the cafe and my mother grabbed me to quiet and comfort me.
I don’t know how many days after that we left in the middle of the night for Naples to board the ship, “The President Wilson,” to sail for America. My mother told me when I’d question her that they always kept their passports up to date. That’s why they were able to leave as fast as they did.
My father, (your grandfather) every year after would tell us this story and say to us in half broken English,
“I no want you to forget the day you arrived in beautiful America on San Patreeka’s Day, 1929.”
1.) Once upon a time people came here to escape tyranny and now we are turning this country into the kind of country that my wife’s Italian family sought to escape.
2.) Oppressive taxation always creates a black market.
3.) Immoral and Illegal laws have the the effect of making the citizenry involve themselves in moral illegalities.
4.) Heavy taxation destroys entrepreneurial activity.
5.) A Collectivist society will always turn into a society where all spy upon all.
6.) The sugar tax that would have destroyed the business communicates that collectivist societies are more concerned about the state’s livelihood vs. the businessman’s livelihood.
