Episode transcript:
Episode 11 explores the careers and approaches of three “hall of famers” of organized crime. In this episode listeners will learn how Enoch Johnson, Johnny Torrio, and Arnold Rothstein helped to shape organized crime. Collectively they demonstrated how the control of local government, regional organization and mutual advancement, and the practice of using “buffers” helped to streamline criminal activities and allowed criminals to make millions of dollars. There are parallels that run between the modernization of organized crime and main stays within the American economy in the early twentieth century. By the end of the 1920s, Johnson, Torrio, and Rothstein had provided a model that the future “hall of famers” would expand upon and, in the process, create the modern mafia.