friday, november 18, 1977
page 4
daily nebraskan
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letters
o the editor
As the student assistant on fourth floor of Smith
Hall I would like to make some comments about the
fire we had on our floor early Saturday.
First, the residents on my floor need to be
commended tor their reactions and quick thinking.
Residents helped each other by banging on doors and
yelling to arouse sleepers. This was most important
because the smoke was quickly filling the halls.
I would like to thank Bill Knorr, the Smith Hall
residence director, Celina Sima, Harper-Schramm-Smith
complex program director, and the other Smith
Hall student assistants for their help during the fire
and in dealing with the aftermath. The quick response
of the fire department, Campus Police and Lincoln
Police Dept. and the actions of the fire marshall,
the sergeant of Campus Police and other officers
needs to be commended also.
I also wish to thank housing officials, the Harper
staff, the Schramm staff, . Harper-Schramm-Smith
desk staff, food service and maintenance staff, Campus
Security, other Smith Hall residents and those who
helped with the clean-up.
One of our problems currently is sightseers on our
floor and being bothered by the press. I wish people
could let us recover in peace.
Residents on my floor are displeased about the fire
bells in Smith Flail and the location of the fire fighting
equipment. Something should be done about them.
The fire was very traumatic. I'm sure people not
involved with the fire and especially people not on the
fourth floor have a hard time comprehending the
severity.
The amount of smoke made it a frightening ex
perience for anyone on fourth floor at that time. We
are thankful no one was injured.
Loretta Vanis
The ASUN Senate finally has approved a pro
posal for the allocation of student fees. After
weeks of study, it has proposed a new Fees
Allocation Committee.
It should have thought about it a little longer.
We are not opposed to the idea of ASUN
Senate control of fees. As has been noted before,
it is not unreasonable to expect elected
representatives to control the purse strings.
However, the proposed committee sounds like
an extra cog which might gum up the works.
The committee would include five senators,
according to the proposal approved Wednesday
night. It would also include six students elected
at-large and two non-voting faculty advisers.
One problem is with who sits on the
committee.
It is an unusual mix and apparently an attempt
to get a broad representation on the committee.
Unfortunately, the mix fails.
The committee is supposed to rely on faculty
members for expertise on student fee matters.
That tends to bother the purists among us who
believe student fees are a student concern.
The six students elected at-!arge cannot hope
to have much contact with their constituents.
Six is too few to represent 22,000 students.
And the five senators may find little time for
other senatorial duties.
More importantly, the committee seems to be
a middle step that doesn't belong.
Why add elected position when elections
attract only about 10 percent of the voters any.
way? Why create more confusion about who
really controls the money by giving another
elected body some control?
And why did ASUN approve having five of its
representatives for this, a preliminary advisory
board? It turned down having representatives
from the other four major fee users. Remember,
ASUN is among the biggest fee users.
We don't object to a committee reviewing
student fee allocations before the senate votes on
it. It might improve the process. But all along,
ASUN has said it wanted the control of student
fees because as elected representatives they felt
responsible. The senate wanted to gain prestige
and respect with new power.
Now, the senate has set itself up as a rubber
stamp body. It has confused students by decid
ing to share its responsibility with another group,
part of which is elected separately.
The proposal needs to be revamped.
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Real Godfather is not glamorous with his terror
New York-The other night, as the rest of the nation
sat in living rooms and thrilled to The Godfather on telei
vision, the real members of organized crime wriggled
under the cold hand of a new ruler, a 73-year-old man
mentioned only in whispers as "Un Occhio" or "One
Eye."
He suffered the loss of a left eye from flying glass after
thowing a bomb into an East Side bakery in 1934.
"Un Occhio" came out of retirement to take over the
criminal empire from Carmine (Lilo) Galante, who had
the underworld in disarray. Galante, suffering from acute
ego, was in the newspapers and television so much that he
became a "must" target for federal authorities.
1 la 120
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A couple of weeks ago, Galante was thrown back into
jail, for parole violation.
Suddenly, One Eye, a feared man, reappeared on the
streets of East Harlem and lower Manhattan and it became
known that he was the, boss of all bosses.
He spends nearly all of his time behind the counter of
a dim, narrow candy store on Pleasant Avenue in East
Harlem. A prospective customer walking into the candy
store finds copies of News World, the Rev. Moon paper,
on the counter. Perhaps a dozen packs of cigarettes are in
dusty wooden racks behind the counter. Over them are
four boxes of anisette-flavored cigars. One Eye does not
appear really to be in the candy business, there is no
candy in the store.
Asked for a soft drink, One Eye went to the fountain
and filled a paper cup with soda water. He presented this
to the customer.
'No Coke
"There is no Coke in tliis drink," One Eye was told.
"He shrugged. "Tomorrow when you come back there
will be Coke in the drink," he said.
The hard glare in his one eye, the right eye, asked you
to leave.
It is rumoted that in the rear of the store there is a
large oven into which Un Occhio has people thrown.
The other night, as the deposed Galante watched Vie
Cod father on television in a dayroom of the Metropolitan
Correctional Center, Vn Occhio watched it in a marble
palace, a triplex that has been built inside a tenement with
a crumbling front and a graffiti-marked green metal door
in East Harlem. He lives in the triplex with his wife,
Neenel, who is seen only at funerals of men who have had
particularly violent deaths.
The walls and floor of the triplex are of Norwegian
rose marble but mainly onyx. Un Occhio and his wife pad
about in stockinged feet because the sound of a heel
striking the marble is too loud and it also gives the listener
the impression that someone is coming to kill him.
Hidden boss
Un Occhio, who for years was the hidden boss of
organized crime, using men such as Vito Genovese as
publicity-catching fronts, retired about seven years ago.
When the latest new boss, Galante, made such a mess
of things, including a demand that the word Mafia be
used again, Un Occhio was asked by the International
Commission to resume command of all crime in New
York, and thus the nation. The meeting, in Hollywood,
Fla., began a day late because of weather conditions at the
Catania Airport. Also, Meyer Lansky had acute indiges
tion. In 1931, One Eye bribed Herbert Hoover, but he has
been able to escape publicity over his lifetime to the
extent that there are no printed stories about him that
anybody can locate.
This week,-One Eye told all his new subjects, "When I
say hello to you, then you say hello to me. If you recog
nize me before this, then I will feed your tongue and both
your eyes to my dog."
Lucky Luciano
Early in his life, growing up on East 10th Street in
Manhattan, One Eye still remembers the day his close
friend, Charley (Lucky) Luciano, received his first press
notice, a three-paragraph story about an old assault, which'
ran in the old New York American, Luciano danced on
the street corner. One Eye hid in a cellar.
"Anyone who ever gets to know me will want me to
die," he reasoned.
One Eye i? a wrinkled man who stands only 5 feet 6
and weighs, at most, 130 pounds. He was born Nov. 26,
1905, in the same town as Luciano-Lercarra Friddi in
Sicily. He arrived hi New York in 19! I. lie has bitten men
to death, but he has no criminal record in this country. He
did compile an extensive record in Sicily,
He is partial to poison. "You give them food and they
die," he says fondly. Organized crime members in New
York, who always expect a change in command to pro
duce a certain number of funerals, are terrified that One
Eye might Invite them to a banquet.
On the streets, jt is known that One Eye believes?
thorough housecleaning of his organization is mandatory.
His opinion is a result of the tremendous number of new
members brought in under Galante.
Nice fellas
Once, they were known as "made" people. Today,
they are referred to as "nice fellas" or guys who have been
"straightened out." .
At one time, a man had to commit a legitimate number
of murders before being allowed in. But Galante became
so careless and greedy that he conferred memberships on
people who promised him extra cuts of anything they
made as full-fledged gangsters. And in some cases, Galante
took bribes to allow the man in.
In one such case, constantly referred to by One Hye,
the mother of an inept salesman paid $50,000 to gel her
son into organized crime. She got the idea from legitimate
people, who pay the same amount to be named a judge. .
Galante took the money and officially declared the
salesman a fearsome killer. The mother was proud. She
also went into her clothes closet and spruced up what was
here, in case the son found the future a little rough.
Better a black dress than a miserable failure as a son, she
told herself.
The salesman, now that he was a gangster, went out
and got himself his first gun. He got up in. the morning
and went out and did what gangsters do all day, which is
nothing. At night he went on parade with his new girl,
who is nearly 17.
Stylish emptying
When the salesman came home at 4 a.m., he was still
from whiskey. He did not want to put the loaded gun
under his mattress because he was afraid It would go off
He went into the bathroom and decided to empty it in
style.
He filled the bathtub and aimed the gun at the water,
as he had seen ballistics people do on television. He pulled
the trigger. The bullet ricocheted off the hard enamel and
hit his shoulder. His mother had to come and take him to
a doctor, who charged her almost as much for the bullet
as Galante did for the membership.
The other day, the salesman, his arm in a sling, was
walking down Elizabeth Street in Manhattan when One
lye arrived for an inspection tour. One Eye said to an
associate, "Go over and ask him if he likes a nice sea
bass dinner next week."
Then all of Elizabeth Street shivered as the new Boss of
all Bosses walked along, teeth grinding hke a'timber
woii.
Copyright 1977,
Distributed by the Chicago Tribun
Niw York Ntwt Syndic, Inc.
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