Hindsight is 20/20. If you knew then what you know now, would you have tackled this project?
Probably, because I still think it is a great story on its own merits. I couldn’t do it now though. It involved reading hundreds of newspapers with print smaller than pinheads. My eyes aren’t up to doing that again.
I saw many analogies in your book that apply to today’s world; although the ethnicity has changed, there is still much racial intolerance to be found. Are we still in 1890s New Orleans?
The fear and rhetoric about stamping out secret oath-bound foreign “murder societies” looks familiar, doesn’t it? There’s a lot of nastiness in the book that you’d never get away with now, particularly in the courtroom.
Modern federal civil rights laws would have prevented the local grand jury from exonerating the mob’s leaders. But to me the heart of this story is about honoring the rule of law and paying more than lip service to the Constitution. This is one of those recurring paranoid nightmares in our history. When the rule of law gets thrown out the window, the people who do the heaving walk around congratulating themselves until history catches up with them, and then everyone pays.
I have a family member who spent WW II in an internment camp in Arkansas, so when I read about President Harrison paying reparations to the Italian government over the kvetching of Congress and remember what went on in the U.S. in the early 1980s, it felt familiar.
You also have to remember, I wrote the book before 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, Rita, and this recent ruckus about immigration came along, so any resemblance was unplanned. My sole intention was to tell the story of the Hennessy case and the lynching.
I didn’t tailor the book to fit contemporary issues. If these issues do resonate with modern readers, however, we have to ask why.
Do you have another book in the works, and if you do, would you share a little info about it?
As matter of fact, I just started something this week. Same century, different city, and even more appalling behavior. I think I’ll leave it at that!
I've reviewed The Crescent City Lynchings for BC Magazine. If you are heading out to the bookstore, this is one that you should pick up!
Article comments
1 - Steve
I was wondering how Mr Smith arrived at the conclusion that the Macheca ships flew the Italian flag. I have seen several Antonio Jacobsen paintings of the Macheca ships and they are all flying the American flag and a Maltese Cross flag. They even had the Maltese Cross painted on the stacks.
This is not meant to be an attack but an inquiry about something I would like to know because I have done a study on these Italian men myself.
S
2 - Simon Barrett
That is a great question. Tom Smith is a very approachable guy, I will ask him if he would like to respond in person, or at least through me.
Simon
3 - Tom Smith
Hi Steve,
You're right, the Machecas were of Maltese origin. Joseph, the brother accused in the Hennessy case, was an orphan adopted by the family. The Macheca shipping business remained intact after his death at the parish prison. This is in the book. I didn't conclude or write that the steamships flew Italian colors. After Joseph's indictment and because of his business and social relationships with some of them, however, he became one of the suspects collectively spoken of as "the Italians," regardless of their ethnicity or citizenship status (in the end, only 3 of the lynching victims were found to be Italian subjects - the rest were technically American citizens).
If you have any other questions, I'll be happy to try to answer them.
By the way, Mafia researcher Thomas Hunt recently published a book about the lynching called Deep Water. I haven't read it yet, but a Macheca descendant is listed as co-author.
Tom Smith