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SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida.
HILLS 14A
INTERVIEWER: G. E. Pozetta
SUBJECT: Sirio Bruno Coniglio
May 2, 1976 dib
C a4 YL te 1//e C*'a 8d//y &rA4e e l- e, /Ocra ,Socc C7 i 4)/s 7
...portion of it would be, I notice you...
C: In Sotth America.
P: ;Right.
C: And only yesterday I received a letter from my friend from Caracas.
P: Ah, that's in Caracas.
C: Yes, where I've been corresponding. I haven't met him, but I'm
in correspondence with him and I did send him the Spanish and then
in turn he has, also he received some of the writings of my father,
that some of some of the writings that my father made while he was
active in the Libre movement and so on and a lot of things that
needed to be clarified and so on. And part of that/was sent to Caracas
will, I don't whether he has already sent it in a library in France.
P: Do you know the center that it's located in Caracas? Is it a univer-
sity or.,.
C: No, this is an individual. -sea what he does is he receives and
then he distributes the material where he sees fit for it to go.
P: Right.
C: In fact some of it, as I say, went to France which is a newly established
place and I'm not exactly sure where it is, and part of it also to
Amsterdam, because the people in Amsterdam also wrote to me. This is
sometime back.
P: Yes, this was...
C: Yes.
P: ...about the time of your father's passing away, was it?
HILLS 14A
Page 2. dib
C: Yes, and they heard about it and this, from the International
Institute.
P: Yes.
C: And of course at the time there weren't, they didn't know too much
what we had done or what I had done, see.
P: Right.
C: Because most of this material was being distributed while my father
was still living, but he was in his late years and he knew that the
best place for this material to be would be in Amsterdam, and some
of it went directly to them through someone else who was running a
library for research students in Italy, see. In other words a lot
of the material was used by people that were coming up for degrees and...
P: Right.
C: ...for their dissertation and so. That is why in another letter, in
another letter, let me see...
P: I see by this letter that Paul Alverich...
C: Yes, I have his letter here.
P: Ah.
C: Uh huh.
P: ...was the man who ...
C: When he first wrote he got the information, he was i; /I'//r// see?
P: Uh huh.
C: And he got news of what had happened, my father passing away and so on
and he wrote to me and then of course I had to write to him and tell him
what I had already done, see.
P: Yes.
HILLS 14A
Page 3. dib
C: And then from them came the one from Amsterdam and I had already sent
this material, the one in Spanish to South America and the one in
Italian to Italy, and in Italy it went to two different places. One
was where this library, let me see, this library was in Istoria, Istoria.
And then a Professor Charito, you know him?
P: No.
C: He's a professor in the University of Florence, and Professor
Avercule in another letter...
P: Makes mention of...
C: ...makes mention, he assumes that the material went to him, see.
P: Oh yes, oh yesD/2 1C.- yes. But evidentally it did not.
C: No, only some of it went to him.
P: I see.
C: Yes, and the understanding was that when he got through with his
material, see, he was getting ready to write one of his books and
he needed some of this material, so he got pamphlets and newspapers
and what not and notes and so on and then the idea was for him to
forward the material either to this place in Istoria and then from
Istoria, whatever wasn't in need anymore would go to Amsterdam.
P: Right, right.
C: And if they still have some of the material there eventually it will
all go there. So it will be in good hands and none of it will be lost
or anything like that.
P: Right...good, very good. When did your family come to the Tampa area.
Do you rot__olr
HILLS 14A
Page 4. dib
C: Yes, well, before, my father got here before the turn of the century
and of course I was born here, I was born in 1910, not here l-w -
~bor in -Tmpe-g / ,/Cr^t /4 [ / lef .
P: Yes.
C: Tampa and then I was to this after I was in
my early twenties. I got out of high school and so on. I, going
back and forth and see, I'm a graduate of the University of Florida
myself. So is my brother.
P: Yes.
C: My brother is a graduate from the school of pharmacy and I'm, I was
in the school of pharmacy and was trying to use all of the pharmacy
courses for a pre-med field to get into medicine, see. But these
were during the bad years...
P: Yes.
C: ...when things were mighty hard and tough and you had to work to even
stay in school one semester. And)but things got from bad to worse
and so on and I had to settle for other things, see. So finally when
I decided that things were getting to be that bad I went ahead and
converted all my courses, I went to see an old professor that I knew
at the University of Tampa and he told me, he said, "With all the
courses you have all you need to do is complete the required educa-
tion courses...
P: Right.
C: ...and go into the field of science and teach." Well, I thought that
I was going to use that as a stepping stone and following a year or
HILLS 14A
Page 5. dib
two years later I would then keep on going or trying for the medical
field. But it never materialized because as I said things were
pretty bad.
P: Sure.
C: And I still have letters around where the applications that I made
to the various schools in the country, and I mean I wrote to all
of them up north, to the south and west of here, but it always was
the same story, that they had to take care of the local boys first.
However today in Florida there are three medical schools. In my
day they didn't have not even one medical school. They didn't have
anything here.
P: Yes.
C: So it's a question of having been born too soon, too early, and so
of course I did about twenty-seven years of teaching and after that
time I decided that I wasn't going to teach anymore and I retired.
Of course in those days retirement was all right to make ends meet.
Had I known that the inflation was going to be the way it is today
or get to the point where it is today I probably would have been
struggling in the classroom right now today. But in a way I'm not
sorry that I retired as early as I did and that's that.
P: You know, one of the things that's always interested me about this
community in this settlement and it seems from what you said just
a moment ago that your father was an example of it, is the mingling
HILLS 14A
Page 6. dib
of Spanish and Italian people together, to a great degree to include
the language. k you're indicating that your father's
writings were partially in Italian, partially in Spanish.
C: Yes, mostly in Spanish oddly enough.
P: Well, how do you explain that?
C: I'll explain that to you. It's a question of necessity. For example
the main industry in Tampa was the cigar industry. The cigar industry
was started and founded by Spanish people, Spanish-speaking people,
and which brought their factories from Cuba to Key West and then from
Key West they moved into Tampa.
P: Right.
C: And so that's when the Tampa community was growing because Tampa
really was a village at that time, and then it started growing,
growing and growing. So the Italian immigrants who were coming,
a lot of them were going to New Orleans and a lot of them to Tampa,
and the word had spread that all you had to do is to go to one of
these cigar factories and get in and have an apprenticeship.
P: How did they get an apprenticeship, though? Normally does that not
require knowing someone in the factory who is already // /T-r r ?
C: Yes, yes, of course at first when the need for cigar makers was
great, why, there wasn't so much red tape, see. But as the, more
people were coming in, well, then you had to know this man and this man
had to know somebody else and so on down the line. So then when the
thing first got started, as I said the majority of the people in there
HILLS 14A
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were Spanish-speaking people, either Spaniards or Cubans, see. And
of course, you know, the Cubans, their language is Spanish.
P: Right.
C: Now they outnumbered the Italians, so it was necessary for the
Italians to learn their language to get along with them just the
same as the Spaniards who were lucky or unlucky enough to get into
an Italian community up north, were compelled to learn the Italian,
see. And I remember one of my early visits up north there someone,
a friend of mine who was an Italian, said, "I'm going to introduce
you to," I think his name was Garcia and he was the editor of a
paper, and he then says, "You speak the langauge, why then you can
get along with him," and so on. So I went ahead and I spoke and,
but before that my friend was making the introduction and he knew
a few words in Spanish and he was struggling, you know.
P: Talking, yes, right.
C: So this man, the Spaniard answered that, "You don't need to speak
in Spanish." All of this in Italian, just speaking Italian. He
said, "I speak Italian just as well as he does.
P: Spanish_
C: He said[Italian words] You know, and so on. So well, right away
it was no surprise to me because I knew that that was the reverse
of what's in Tampa. Then in addition to that in the cigar factories
the workers through their early unions that they had, which are, were
HILLS 14A
Page 8. dib
much different than the unions of today...
P: I'd like to talk about those sometime.
C: The unions of today, of course, are manipulated by people, people that ieC
ousted or found it necessary for them to get out of a lucrative field,
or fields that have been lucrative before such as, I'm talking
about the rackets in other words. I don't have to tell you that
the unions are handled and run by members of those organizations,
see.
P: What were they like, what were they like at the turn of the century
in this early period?
C: Oh, they were, they were the ideal thing. They were the ideal
thing in the sense that it was something to really help the worker
in all sense of the word. It was a family affair more or less. It
was a mutual benefit, you know, ____benefit there.
It was a society that not only were they kind of protected from the
wrongdoings of the manufacturers and the big bosses and so on, but
at the same time they required some improvements in their work and
also in the shops that through their agitations and protests and
so on that they goti One of the things that they got was what they
called 'the lectures', see, and the cigar makers paid-I don't know
whether it was a dime a piece at the end of the week...
P: For this person to read.
C: ...for this person to read.
P: Did they all read in Spanish or did any read in Italian?
C: In Spanish, all in Spanish, and there was a period of the news, you know,
HILLS 14A
Page 9. dib
the local news...
P: Yes.
C: ...and the international and national, international news followed
by the reading of a novel, see, and a lot of the people that didn't
have the opportunity of going to school they became educated through
this...
P: By listening.
C: ...by listening and so on, and that is why a lot of people know about
the works of Victor Hugo and all the other big works, literary works
that we know about.
P: I've read somewhere where the owners became very agitated by the
practice of the lectures of reading what they regarded as propaganda...
C: Yes,.yes.
P: ...socialist or anarchist, r veadi'n and such.
C: Yes, right, right, right.
P: What kinds of readings of that nature did they, did they...
C: Well, the only thing was that they, for example, if shy, in Pars
in France some place they were protesting about something and the,
and the authorities gunned them down or arrested them and so on,
naturally that made news.
P: Yes.
C: And that was read. And then according to whoever, I mean from whatever
newspaperlib was written, of course if it was an editorial, well, you
know the editorial was naturally pro-workers and the manufacturer
HILLS 14A
Page 10. dib
naturally never goes along with anything like that, see.
P: Right.
C: And that's why and it got to the point then when later on through
a series of strikes that they had for betterment in the work, one
of the things that the manufacturers were able to come across and
put over them was the removal of 4t)
P: So you're saying that what they objected to were largely newspaper
or magazine reports of events rather than for example, works of
Malatesta or Corace or your father.
C: Yes, yes.
P: Did they read more philosophical _(h_ 5 ?
C: Well, they read some of those, yes. They read some of those, but it
was, you see the workers were the ones that selected what to be
read, see. Now everyone that was in the factories weren't liberal
minded, see. There were, there were a lot of workers at that time
who were just as conservative as the boss himself, see. But naturally
they did like what they read and what they heard, the works being
interesting and so on, but .then when it came to some of the other
things, just as it always turns out, a lot of times the individual
even though something is done.for his betterment he doesn't want to
go along with it, see, and he, consequently he gets kicked around
more than before, see. I mean it's the same, it was true then and
it's true today.
P: Right.
C: In other words right now for example, I mean something that I can
HILLS 14A
Page 11. dib
parallel it with, this country as you know, even though the economists
and the big wigs in Washington tell us that the economy's getting
better all the time it's getting worse all the time and people, then
you say, well, how come the people stand for it? Well, today things
are a little bit different than during the time of the big, so called,
depression. In the early days, I'm talking about in the twenties,
the farmers out in the west when they were going to be foreclosed by
the federal marshall they came out with their rifles and so on to
chase them away because things were a little bit different then.
Today we have something that prevents the average person from talking
or doing more than what he should do and that's because today he has
a social security check coming in. Pensions, the checks are coming
in now and in those days pension was something that maybe a few
people had, see. So the average person, probably the average person
and the one that is retired and especially the one that is in
advancing years, he says, "Well, what the heck. I got this coming
in every month[and so on]. Why should I, or let somebody else worry."
The younger people who are wage earners, if the cost of living goes
up they demand more pay and 44 the inflation keeps on going and
so on and so on and so on and so on, and I mean one of these days
either the whole thing busts completely or someone will say,"Well,
we can't go any further than here. So what it's going to be is
anybody's guess,see.
P: To return for a moment to these unions, they really interest me, did
Itlalians and Cuban workers belong to the same unions or did they
HILLS 14A
Page 12. dib
have separate Italian unions or separate Cubanr...
C: No, no, they belonged to the same union with this exception, that
they were, you see, the cigar industry is divided in this, in this
way. There were the cigar makers. Besides the cigar makers there
were the selectors. The selectors were the, a group of people that
selected the finished product. They were better paid and they were
more or less in an upper echelon and they themselves considered them-
selves better than the workers themselves, see. Then there was
the packer, the one that actually packed the finished products in
boxes.
P: Who were these people? Were they generally Spanish, Spanish...
C: Oh yes, yes, mostly Spanish.
P: ...Cuban Italian.
C: Yes, there was Cuban and Spanish, but mostly Spanish. The choice
jobs at the very beginning were handled, were held by Spaniards.
Why? Because the owner of the factory was Spaniard, the general
managers of the factory, Spaniards, and so naturally they had to
pull, they had to pull for their friends. This man here was the
general manager of one of the biggest cigar factories in Tampa.
I'm next to him. We, it was, good friends and we used to go
fishing. This was my brother-in-law. He passed away, too, and
this, his brother-in-law who is snapping the picture of him. He's
the owner of this boat, see, and every so often we used to go,and
HILLS 14A
Page 13. dib
this boat had a stove, everything. Then we used to fish, clean
the fish there and eat it there, see. I mean the real life, see.
P: Sounds great.
C: And now this manwas a Spaniard. My brother-in-law was a Spaniard.
Now my brother-in-law and this man here were roommates when they
were single and they used to live in my brother-in-law's aunt's
home, and naturally he always worked the better types of cigar
which paid better, see. Now, then this man naturally was going to
be looking out more for his people than, you know. And so then
as time went on, of course, more people got in which meant more
Italians got into the industry, and like I was saying then things
began to change, see. But predominantly it was always controlled
by the Spaniards. Today you don't have the same set up as before.
Number one, the coming in of the machines that make the complete
product has eliminated the vast number of workers, and there is
no more hand-made cigars except for some rare places where they still
want to operate that way, see. But most, and the buildings are still
there, most of them, the ones that haven't been converted.into
other things like sewing mills and so on and so forth, see.
P: Right.
C: But...
P: I notice on your shelf here that you have this Autobiography of
Angelo Masares, and I read through that a couple of months ago
and I seem to remember that he says in there that in this early
HILLS 14A
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period that there were a large number of, oh, debating societies or
political clubs...
C: Yes.
P: ...who used to invite speakers in...
C: Yes.
P: ...and quite a lively rivalry amongst each other.
C: Yes, this is, this is the very beginning. Now in anticipation to
what might, might have come up in our discussion, you notice that I have here
two Masares.
P: Ah, Salvatore?
C: Salvatore and Ignacio.
P: Ignacio.
C: Now these are two brothers.
P: Angelo?
C: Of Angelo. Now Angelo passed away.
P: Yes.
C: I also went to see a third brother, Dominico, and my thing was that
I wanted to get a book that he wrote which is not this. It's
called [Itlalian language].( L4 (Bi l{'d J/jt/ d )
P: I've seen it.
C: Have you come across that book?
P: Yes.
C: I was, do you have it?
P: It's in our library.
C; Oh, it is?
HILLS 14A
Page 15. dib
P: Yes.
C: Good, all right, that, that'solves the problem.
P: About this, this thick?
C: I was, I wasn't here when that book came out. That book was published
in White Plains and I have the publishers, I have a letter of
the publishers here. And I felt that if you didn't know about
the book I was going to give you that, because of everything that
Mr. Masare wrote. You know Mr. Masare was just another immigrant...
P: Yes.
C: ...who was very ambitious and he got...
P: ?
C: Yes, but these arehe brothers.
P: O.K., right.
C: You won't be able to get, I'll tell you ahead a time, you won't be
able to get anything from them. You won't be able to get anything
from them because they're not, the emphasis, the reason why I have
these names is because I was going to go to one or the other of the
other to fetch this book.
P: I see.
C: See?
P: Yes.
C: But since you have the book, forget about them.
P: O.K..
C: Yes, and then too, they won't be because they came late, you see?
P: Right.
HILLS 14A
Page 16. -dib
C: And they, they never have been interested in that. N6w this, going
back to this Mr. Masare. Mr Masare was as I say he came in after
the turn of the century. In fact he was about, oh, he must have
been sixteen years old when he came here. It was after the turn of
the century. He got into the cigar makers, into the cigar factories
and became a cigar maker. But he was very ambitious as I said
and he...
P: He discusses that pretty thoroughly in his own book.
C: Well, yes, yes. Well, I don't have to tell you. Of course I knew
Mr. Masare. In fact I know all the Masares. We were kind of
close and his ideas didn't jive one hundred percent and so I think
we got along very nicely and in fact he came to me when he wrote
this book, about the Italian community. In fact in that book there
is my picture in that book because he wanted, he says, "No," I said
"Oh," I-says, "I'm not, I don't represent it." He says, "Oh, yes,
you do, because[this that and the other]." And so finally I gave
him my picture. I even had a picture, I turned in a picture of a
cousin of mine who was the principal of one of the high schools here
who he died at fifty. In fact he collapsed in his own office...
P: U, ?
C: ...at fifty. And his picture is there, too, and so on. Now he
came to see me and he wasn't sure, not knowing the language, that
is the English language, he wasn't sure about you know, when there
HILLS 14A
Page 17. dib
are certain...
P: Sure.
C: ...terms that used in the context can mean one thing and one, it
all depends how you apply it and so on. And he, one of the things
that he couldn't understand was the difference in hammock. Well,
you know, in Florida, hammock, you know what...
P: / ___
C: ...yes, and so on. Well, he thought it was a swing, you know.
P: Yes.
C: And he couldn't, he says, "No," this and that, "This is what this
means in this case," because I had told him that if he wanted to
get some notes he could get the Florida Handbook which had a
lot of historical background on the whole state in general and
that he could get enough information from that, see. Now the local
S tff then he had to go elsewhere because the book didn't
have too much other than the historical background of Tampa being
a village and so on and so forth and how it grew and when the
cigar industry came in and that they expanded to, how it was after
the turn of the century. But in my opinion because the book is
documented and there's a lot of material obtained from other sources
and so on, makes a better presentation. That is the book makes
a better presentation than some of this other stuff that he read.
Now I have what he, what he wrote here.
P: Right.
C: But I mean you can tell the structure, the construction of the wording
HILLS 14A
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and everything else, and then you understand the man wants to be
modest,in every other word he brings in the
P: Yes.
C: You noticed that?
P: Yes, I did.
C: Right, yes. Well, that is, that was Masare.
P: Everyone I spoke to said that that was Mr. Masare.
C: Yes, yes, yes.
P: But do you have any recollections yourself or have you heard about,
talking among your family about these debating societies or the
people that came. Like, 'll ^'/ *- .>::. came, do you
remember?
C: Yes...when, no, this is before my time.
P: Do you ever remember your father ________ about it?
C: Yes, yes. When the people here, especially,you didn't have to be
necessarily Italian. But there were some Italians that adhearegP
to the socialistic concepts and ideas and of course, we must remem-
ber, too, that socialism in those days was altogether different
from socialism today, see, and the same thing as communism. They
use that name when they are talking about Cuba and when they talk
about Russia and when they talk about Tito's country, and they
call it communism. Communism is not, it's everything but communism.
See, everything but communism. But unfortunately there aren't too
many people that want to sit or stand long enough to listen to
someone that may want to explain what communism really is and so.
HILLS 14A
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Even during the times of Trotsky communism was different, and but
the real communism even before it, the so-called Libertarian
Communism and the Liberal Communism, that's almost a utopia, you
know. I mean, but it takes a broad mind and it takes someone with
a certain amount of intellect to be able to actually see. You
/'4
talk or you mention communism to anybody,oeaP a conversation and
so on and the first thing they think that that means that the
country is going to come down right away and they are going to be
deprived of everything and so on and so forth, and they think that
it's something that is established overnight, a takeover and that's
it. Well, all of these so-called takeovers as you well know, is
just the changing of the guard. That's all it is, see. Yes.
So by going back to the early days the people, of course, no
television, no other kind of amusement except what they themselves
created such as outdoor festivities, picnics and getting together,
probably a dance or something like that. Other than that during
the week what were they going to do? They were the people that
preferred to go to a corner, what we call today a dive or a...
C: ...you know, where they have the jukeboxes and things like that and
sit down and sip coffee and play dominos or cards and things. There
were others that were hungry for knowledge and they even established
a school. The ones that knew more, that had been fortunate enough
to have gone to school in their early days and they knew the alphabet
and knew a little bit of arithmetic. They took, say, five, six, seven
HILLS 14A
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people under their wings. My father did that and...
P: He began his...
C: Yes.
P: ...teaching...
c: Ai-d)a t fJj/- .
P: ...here in Tampa?
C: Yes, and teach them the rudiments, you know, a little bit about one,
they would divide the evening a little bit for arithmetic, a little
bit for grammar and so on. This is all in Italian by the way, see.
P: Yes.
C: Because they figure that the first thing that they should have known
was their language. Then after that other schools got started, you
know, that they could go in the evenings, you know, in the evenings.
But this came much later on.
P: 11'Tm tthe beginning it was just one man or two men 6,Le'/g a little
7
group of ma i< /cer QOdet
C: That's all, that's all. Yes, I remember, this I remember. I was a
little tot and we had a long, last room like what we might call a
porch, but it was all enclosed, and we had a long table because we
always, well, there were five of us, six of us in the family and then
every now and then we always had people come in, you know, invited
and they would eat with us and naturally we always had a long table.
And he used that table for, let's see, one, two, three, about four
pupils all grownupswho worked during the day, and either twice a
week I believe it was.
P: Yes.
HILLS 14A
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C: Twice a week they would come over and my father would teach them
r1 4 I ef-
what little he knew, and I remember one time I asked I said, "When
are you going to give them report cards? He says, "Well," he says,
"We don't, I don't have to give them report cards because I know
exactly what they're doing and so on." Well, he undersea where
I was coming from because...well, then others did the same thing.
In between they also found, they knew that there was the need for
something else, for some intellectual to come from the outside to
come over and bring not only knowledge about ideals and the way
that things were progressing, you know, throughout the world at
that time, but at the same time to get a little bit more of this
culture. And Malatesta was7lecturer of conferences and he was
invited to come and....
P: Do you know who invited him by an chance?
C: Well, it was the social club of that time. It was a social club.
P: Were l- only Italiana?
C: No, no, not only Italiana. Let me see, this could have been, let
me see,if I remember the name. You see, all of that material...
P:
C: ...all of that material would be in what went over, you know, but I'm
trying to think...
P: Well, that's not that important.
C: ...because at the same time, you know, they had a little publication
going on, too, see, and I was trying to remember the name of the
publication and I don't, because there were several, you know, and
HILLS 14A
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then one other time then there was a Spaniard.
P: A Spaniard? Pedro Usted?
C: Yes, Pedro Usted, yes, and well, you're well-informed.
P: I know that Coroce, Alcuro Coroce spoke here on occasion, too.
C: Yes, yes, yes, and ?idr-o U5Y cd then, he lives in Tampa. He was
a ij n -c-'typist of those days, and he was working with a
printing company. I don't even recall, know what the name...those
things don't exist anymore.
P: W1r /'/! / $ f D Nicho perhaps?
C: Which?
P: Nicho?
C: I, well, there was a...
P: No matter.
C: ...there was publication Nicho I think, yes. Then there was another
one called Antorcia.
P: Yes, yes.
C: Antorcia.
P: What was Antorcia? Was it'jmao e or just : ? *- ?
C: It was, well, a publication and they had a little social, social
club, see. And you see, this is, you people should, like I told
( Ir;) haov-
Eric and I told a lot of, and that you should/come
earlier when my father was around. Now he could have given you
from A to Z.
P: Yes, I know that_
HILLS 14A
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C: From A to Z, everything, see. And talking about, something came
to mind when you were talking about that you had met Tony Pizza
and so on, now from time to time there are certain individuals that,
now I'm not talking,because I know Tony Pizza. I know him real
well and I'm just saying this about him. But from time to time
thereare some of these self-appointed historians, you know.
They just want to get into the limelight and so on and naturally
the only information that they give is more or less what I'm
giving you now, that it's not just say so. In some instances
only say so, because they have gone someplace else and they have
gotten the information maybe third, fourth, fifth hand, see. Now
I happen to know a little bit more about these things and that's
my reason why I answered theBanquist better, because I was closer
to these things than my brother was, see? Even though my brother
is older than I he led a different life. Not...
P: I understand.
C: ...too much apart from us, but since his line was different and his
interest went in another direction, why, he never was closer to
these other things like the anarchist movement and so on, as I was,
see. And of course, I wasn't in, I was not what you might call a
militant or anything like that, but I just happened to like the idea
and the idea is a pure one and that's why in a way I don't consider
myself one, because to be one you have to be pure. Now I have to,
I have to say something like the Christian, see, that in order to be
HILLS 14A
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a pure and good Christian according to the religious people, it's
hard to find one and perhaps there isn't one because everyone has
sinned, see. And so in this case I'm saying the same thing. To
be an anarchist, I mean, you have to be immaculate
in all sense of the wordibar g mind, soul and everything, see.
And who is i Now it's something good to be working
towards that end, see, that is why in talking about various things
that have happened since the fifties and the sixties and so on
not only locally or in our country, but abroad, even though it's
not the ideal thing but I consider it as being one step forward.
Years ago, you know, just, just for having ideals they would elec-
trocute you, see, and they would condemn you, they would do this
and do the other. Now things are different, and in other things
if it hadn't been for these people that have had enough gumption
to get up and make a protest here and make their voices heard
and so on...
P: L'lIe ogy 3-li .e
C: ...we would, that's why a lot of times I tell some of these people,
I says, "Now you shouldn't be against these people because hadn't
it been for these people we wouldn't be in the situation...we're
inbad, bad4stat yes, but I mean we have progressed some and I
also remind the people that I can talk to and they are willing to
listen. Roosevelt or the Roosevelt administration didn't do or
brought about the social reforms that we got because those people
had a likening for the populist because it was a necessity and
the people's voice was heard.
RILLS 14A
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P: You know, in studying off and on Tampa and its Italian community
for a few years now, and I've only run across, oh, just a handful
of Italian language newspapers that survived today.
C: Yes, uh huh.
P: Our library up in Gainesville has three publications, La Roche De
Colina, one named and one named...
C: What s /i Ie'/d' ?
P: The Dawn, the .
C: Oh,_
P: yes.
C: Yes, yes.
P: And one entitled the .
Do you know, number one do you know of any existing still surviving
Italian language newspapers from this early period or where any might
be?
C: That were published in Tampa?
P: Or Ybor City?
C: I happen to know about one that was called...but it didn't last very
long. It was of short duration. I think, t remember.
P: Well, I'm really more interested to know if you know where any are
right now that people might have in their attic or cellar or whatever...
C: No, now you see, we, as I said, my father, the only ones available
my father had.
HILLS 14A
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P: He had them.
C: Had those, yes, and those are the ones that went overseas. As far
as the ones, there aren't any now and there weren't too many people
who, who were friends of my father or who had more or less the same
ideas, that were collectors. There weren't. Now there is one
individual that I know and I was talking to him not too long ago,
he's getting up there in age himself. In fact I think he's about
eighty-five, eighty-six now, and he still has all his faculties
and all that. And he was telling me that he had already, gotten
rid of all of his information, but the only thing that I can do
is that if any time when I happen to see him if he happens to have
anything like that and he has no need or use for it I'll be glad
to get it and send it to you. Or if I happen to come across anything
from some other source. You know as of now I can tell you that
the only collector was my father and that all of his material was
sent. The only things that I have left is a few books that were
dedicated to him by...
P: Well, we wouldn't, I wouldn't even need to keep any of these things.
C: Yes.
P: We could just microfilm them and send them back.
C: Yes, I, yes, yes. That's why I say that if I happen to come across
anything like that I'd be more than glad...
P: O.K., I'd be very appreciative.
C: Yes, oh yes, right now as I say there isn't anything on hand. Nothing
like that. And I was trying to rem
HILLS 14A
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SIDE II/TAPE A
P: ...to this orator and person of some importance...
C: Yes.
P: ...from Sicily by the name of Lorenzo Ponitinto.
C: t__i/'_/_ He was a professor, a teacher, a school teacher.
P: And evidentally Ponitinto came over here on several occasions and
talked and gave lectures, whatever. Evidentally from these papers
they say...
C: Yes.
P: ...he was a great favorite.
C: Yes, yes.
P: They mention that this fellow, Ponitinto, came from the home village,
Santo Stephano'..
C: Yes.
P: ...of many of the Italians that live here.
C: Yes.
P: Do you remember anything about the man or can you tell me anything
about him?
C: No, because this is also before my time.
P: Remember any...
C: But the only thing I know is that he was a school teacher.
P: Over there or here?
C: Yes, no, over there, over there. And talking about where he came
from I'm pretty sure that in the book by Angelo Masare, that's why
HILLS 14A
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I was anxious to get that book, but because as far as the immigration,
information on immigration from Sicily, the Italians here in Tampa,
that is in my, in my estimation a better book, the best book there
is because he himself came from Santo Stephano, see? And he knew
a lot of the people here because they were from his town. Not
from the next town which was Alexandria, see, and they all knew
each other.
P: Well, was, was this fellow actually a socialist?
C: Who?
P: Ponitinto.
C: Oh yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
P: Why would he go to all the time and trouble to come over and talk?
Just to visit friends or was he a committed teacher?
C: No, he probably, he probably was going around, you know, delivering
con-, these conferences, you know, like someone gets invited to
present a speech to the Chamber of Commerce and so on and so forth
and a cultural group was interested in him. Later on there was another
one that did not come from Sicily. He came from, from the, let
me see, from the Adriactic side. His name was, let me see what
is his name?
P: Perhaps Luigi Galiano?
C: No, no, no, he was a, he'was a cavalier. He was a great man, Luigi
Galiano. He was the, one of the exponents of anarchism.
P: Galiano is.
C: Yes, oh yes.
P: Yes.
HILLS 14A
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C: Very highly talented individual.
P: Do you have any remembrances of him iC prMtcS(ar ?
C: No, I don't, I just happen to know his daughter who is a doctor
in the Massachusettes area, and one of his sons whom I have not
seen in some time now. He was the editor of an anarchist paper
that was published up north and it was called( riortatad :Af r j
No, no, no, no, wait a minute.
P: Chronica ?
C: Chronic ,_yes. Chronica that's
right.
P: Was your father and Galiani friendly? Did they ?
C: Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, yes.
P: Did you ever hear your father speak about him?
C: Oh yes, yes, in fact this is the latest thing that came out about
him. It's more or less ae /'cil iopf some of his, let me see,
oh, here's ah...of course this is some work picked and
you know, from Biblioteca de las Sonada see. Right here.
P: Yes. He visited Tampa at a relatively..../
C: I think so, yes. Of course I didn't know him? es--~~c' >--
P: Yes. Paterson, New Jersey.
C: Yes. Yes, everytime that I get a letter like, or this is like from
an individual like you and we have to talk about these things, you
know, it's sickening, you know...
P: I know.
HILLS 14A
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C: ...to know that this couldn't have happened before.
P: I understand what you're saying.
J /or` e
C: Because/Yur people would just come over and I remember my father
would have sessions, hours and hours, you know, and talking because
that was his meet and he knew, he knew what he was talking about.
He lived it and he was deeply involved in it and so on, and something
that he really believed in whole-heartedly and so on. So naturally
he paid attention to every little thing and naturally, like in
everything else, whenever anything came out that was in contradiction
or anything that wasi- antithesis to what the real thing should
have been when naturally there was the so-called do_ .
P: Yes.
C: You see?
P: Yes.
C: Because a lot of newcomers a lot of times, you know, they want to not
necessarily take over, but they want to bring in renovations. Well,
in this particular field, especially in the field of anarchism,
there is no such thing as renovation. Anarchism is anarchism. Yes-
terday, today and tomorrow, see. Now I don't care what, what any-
body thinks or how modern an individual wants to be, see. Of course
it's true that you change with the times, but you don't change the
idea, see. Because it's not like, like morality today, that today
if you want to define morality the majority of the people have a
different definition for morality. But I think that morality is
morality anytime. And htt& because society accepts certain things
HILLS 14A
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it doesn't make it right, some things I'm talking about, see. Just
the same that I personally believe that while the majority wins,
d not necessarily means that the majority is right.. I mean, and this
thing works the same way.
P: I'm interested to know how you feel, it's always been curious to
me how the, sort of the native American community here around in
Tdmpa reacted to the intellectual ferment that was evidentally going
on in the Italian and Cuban communities particularly...
C: They didn't like it. They didn't like it. And here is a very
good example that I'm going to site in a minutes. You know, there
is a saying, but I don't know how prevalent it is now, but I imagine
it is too, now, that you take an individual that is in power and he
may not be the brightest but he has the power, and he doesn't
want smart people around. He wants people with less intelligence
than he has, see. O.K., now in the early days, just like anyplace
else, out in the west, in the east, anyplace else. Excuse me.
P: Sure.
C: A few more minutes.
P: O.K.
C: And he was in, he was in the hospital and he had suffered a massive
heart attack.
P: Oh, that's too bad.
C: My sister-in-law called saying that he passed away. It must have been
this morning sometime.
HILLS 14A
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P: Well, you say, you say that the native Americans generally did not...
C: Oh yes, yes.
P: ...like it. What sorts of things, did they do anything specifically
active to show this displeasure?
C: Yes, O.K., I'll tell you. One particular instance, the people that
were running the so-called destinies of the community or the city
and so on, the ec4e fathers and so on, they naturally had control
of everything. They controlled actions. They controlled everything,
and everybody had to abide by the rules and existing rules and
regulations were, with all kind of disregard for human liberties,
human rights. No constitution, no first amendment, nothing like
that. O.K., and naturally the people, most of them being here,
newcomers and more or less considering themselves foreigners, you
know, because they, not only they considered themselves that, but
things worked out to make them consider themselves as being
foreigners, you know, and so on. So if someone got, would advance
himself they would sort of ( ) him a little bit, see. Now
there was one particular instance where there was a man who con-
trolled quite a bit of the property, the money and everything in
Tampa. And there was, this is so-called an anglo-saxon person.
We always refer to them as Americans. We're just as much of Americans
as they are, see. Or if you want to bring it down to the real thing,
the only American is the red man, the so-called Indian, see. Well,
and there was an Italian who through his own efforts learned how
to read and write and so on and he would interpret for his fellow
HILLS 14A
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man, his and so on, and if someone had to go to the
court-house to straighten out a deed or something he would be
available and so on. Well, now he was close to the doings that
were going on, not that he was snooping around, but I mean he wasn't
a fool and he happened to know, and they were working and looking
for some kind of a pretext to get rid of this individual. And so
they took advantage of an incident that happened. There was some
kind of a cigar makers strike going on and there was a little
agitated crowd in front of one of the cigar factories. And one
crazy hothead individual, to this day they don't know who it was,
pulled a gun when the bookeeper of that firm came out to the platform
either to quiet the people down or to disperse them, see. And this
hothead, as I said, to scare them took a shot and instead of firing
out into the air he pointed and he actually killed the bookeeper, see.
Now that was enough for the <, fathers to go and fetch this
man who had nothing to do with the thing, but they, they claimed
that he was one of the agitators and along with him when they got
him there was another man, the names of these two, one was Albado
and the other was Figaroda, and they got a hold of the other one
who was with him so he wouldn't be able to say anything, and they
strung him up, strung him up. Now that is one instance.
P: Gracious.
C: Here's another instance, that they didn't like and they always were
going against these people. During another period there was a little
strike going on and the cigar makers, they just wanted the thing
HILLS 14A
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to last out because they wanted to be the victors. They wanted to-et
gewhat they were striking for and so on. And naturally no
work, no money. So they had some funds on the side and they had
established the open kitchens. They had large pots and so on
where they would make a morning meal and a night meal, afternoon
meal, and the workers would go there and either they would eat
there or they would have some kind of a pail or something where
they would take the food to their loved ones at home. Well, this
sustained them and kept the movement going and going. The city
fathers again decided that they were, that they were not having
their own way because this thing was going on and the longer these
soup kitchens or these kitchens were in operation that these people
weren't going to give up. So what happened was that they sent
some vigilantes or so-called vigilantes, and they knocked down
every /27t ?','n4 I have a letter answering a former
mayor of the city of Tampa when he came out with an article, and
he had a page in the Tampa Tribune and I think it was called
"Florida[something]", I don't know what, dedicated to Florida. And
there was one instance where this thing was brought in and he told
the story, oh, the writer that was writing for him told the story
according to the way he wanted it. So when my father read it and
I read it, then we immediately sent, wrote Mr. McKay a letter and
we told him what the real thing...he never, he was polite enough
HILLS 14A
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to answer but we never did get the satisfaction...
P: Yes, the other side.
C: ...of a correction or why it was written that way. I have the letter
here someplace that...
P: I understand what you're saying, right.
C: Yes, yes.
P: Was there any, at any time, because I think I'm fairly safe in saying
that your father was almost surely the most active and the most
widely read and the most famous person writing in this vein or
in this area, was there any other active, oh, discrimination or
oppression, call it what you will, directed specifically at him
because of his activities and ?
C: Well, yes, for example the things that he used to receive through
the mail were suppressed.
P: You mean keep them or open them or check them?
C: Well, I imagine they opened them and then...for example he would
receive Chronica and since that paper was supressed
and all the postoffices had notice that whoever received that was
under surveillance or something because they thought they were going
to blow up the country or something, see. And I remember another
time my brother was receiving, I don't know whether it was my
brother or myself, was receiving mail from California and so I
was called in by the immigration department and they wanted to
know, oh, they wanted to know why I was receiving this and I don't
just recall exactly what, but I was the, says, "Well,"
justL~+m sy,"Wl,
HILLS 14A
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says, "It's allowed to go through the mail and that's it. When
it stops, when they censor it, well, that's it. I don't receive it
anymore." I says, "I can," I says, "I read this as much as I read
the Bible and I read the Jehovah Witnesses or I read any other thing
and if anyone decides to send it to me I'll read. If I like it
I'll keep on reading it. If I don't like I don't have to read it
anymore," see. And naturally anytime that there's a group that is
active like that and they feel that it ought to be stopped, why,
then they stop it. Of.course it wasn't as bad, I don't think, as
the witch hunts during the McCarthy years, you know.
P: Yes, different.
C: But more or less in the same light, see.
P: Do you have any feeling or estimate for what sort of say following
your father might have had here in the Tampa area in terms of people
that shared his philosophy or followed him in d. rooAh Soy't mo ?
C: Well, I'll put it this way, as far as the inner feelings, his
highest ideals which were the ideals of anarachism, there were few
of those because as I said before you've got to understand the
philosophy behind it, the principals and everything else. Now as
far as the workers were concerned he had a tremendous following
because my father was considered to be honest and if he had to say
something he said it no matter what, and he wasn't afraid and even
when there was...because in parenthesis I must say that during
the time when the so-called communists had taken Phold of a few
things in the Tampa Bay area, we used to fight them, too. We fought
HILLS 14A
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communism and we fought fascism because we considered it to be another
form of fascism, see, communism as it was carried out, see.
P: Yes.
C: So and even those:: same people had to agree in talking on the same
platform to audiences and so on, when people of different ideas
and tendencies had the right to address the people they had to,
I remember one, one individual that had to agree that what my
father said was right and that he couldn't put the finger on him
about anything, see, because he was to the point, and he was
honest with himself and everybody else. Now when it came to the
labor movement and the labor movement, I mean people in the labor
movement included all sorts of people in all walks of life as far
as ideas are concerned. There were Catholics, non-Catholics,
4
Protestants, people with or without ideas and so on. Some socialist,
communist and so on. But when it was for the workers movement
everyone banned together, and naturally there were people that
participated in that and had different ideas, too, even though
it was in the workers movement, see. But he had that following,
see. He had that following.
P: You know, I've looked in depth at the Italian community in New York
and I'm just beginning sort of to get into this group, but in New
York the padrone, the labor boss...
C: Yes.
P: ...in the early period was a very important institution. I wonder
HILLS 14A
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if the padrone if, well, first of all if there were padrone here in
the Tampa area, and number two, do you have any idea how long they
last in terms of being in a position of influence in the community
in an active position in the labor area?
C: Well, I think that the padrone here or elsewhere wears the same
coat, I think. Because he, he represents the millions of the
industry or that particular type of group of workers and the workers
depend on what...
P: Well, were their pad-, were their padrone involved in funneling
workers into the cigar unions or cigar industry rather or did they
find jobs in other areas other than the cigar?...
C: You mean for them?
P: For, well, for anyone that wanted to hire workers.
C: Uh huh, well, no, they just had their, they just had their shops
read for operation and then the so-called general managers of
the shop would be the ones that did the hiring.
P: Through-padrone or directly to the workers?
C: No, just they knew that workers were needed and they called one
out at such-and-such a factory, see, I'm referring to the cigar
factory...
P: Yes.
C: ...needed workers and so many applied, and as the case is there are
more applicants than actual jobs, see. But it was handled through
the manager itself, see. Now sometimes the manager would delegate
somebody else who was a step below he was, see, and say...
HILLS 14A
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P: To do the hiring, yes.
C: ...tell so-and-so that he can report for work next week or tomorrow
or something like that, see. Yes.
P: Well, Mr. Coniglio, this is...
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