by Michael Kane

"Why Italians Are Useless in Police Work." That was the headline on an 1896 editorial in the Brooklyn Eagle newspaper — the premise being that newly arrived Italian immigrants would never bring to justice the criminal elements within their own community. One captain quoted said, "They are in dread of the vengeance of the Mafia."

But the more likely reason was that the Irish, who overwhelming comprised the NYPD, were protective of holding onto their jobs. That was also true of dock work, construction, really any manual labor or civic work they'd claimed after their own wave of immigration 50 years earlier amid the Potato Famine of the 1840s.

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Source: http://nypost.com/