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Importing Wikidata short description: "Justice of the New York State Supreme Court" (Shortdesc helper) |
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The oldest of four children, the young Salvatore did not speak English and went to Public School 83 and later to [[DeWitt Clinton High School]] and [[Manhattan College]].<ref name=henderson/> During those formative years he worked in the family's pastry shop, where intellectuals of the neighborhood gathered in the evening to discuss social and political issues with his father. Those debates gave birth to Cotillo's early social consciousness that formed the basis of his adult devotion to social reform legislation.<ref name=henderson/> The young Cotillo was passionate about baseball and became a [[History of the New York Giants (NL)|New York Giants]] fan. In return for free tickets he used to clean the stadium seats.<ref name=gill204/><ref name=ferber7>Ferber, ''A New American'', p. 7</ref>
[[File:Giosue Gallucci ca 1900.jpg|thumb|236px|Crime boss Giosuè Gallucci and wife Assunta outside Gallucci's East 109th Street cigar business, c. 1900]]
In 1911 he completed a law degree from [[Fordham University]]<ref name=nyt110611>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1911/06/11/104868147.pdf Forty-Eight Law Graduates], ''The New York Times'', June 11, 1911</ref><ref name=katsoris>Constantine N. Katsoris, [http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4254&context=flr A Tribute to the Fordham Judiciary: A Century of Service], ''Fordham Law Review'', Volume 75, Issue 5, 2007</ref> and was admitted to the New York State bar in 1912.<ref name=nyt090512>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1912/05/09/100534280.pdf Admissions To The Bar], ''The New York Times'', May 9, 1912</ref><ref name=nyt280739>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/07/28/90733032.pdf Justice Cotillo Dead Here at 53], ''The New York Times'', July 28, 1939</ref> At the time Cotillo was the only Italian-American lawyer in the neighbourhood and was practicing in the street in front of his father's gelato and pastry shop on East 116th Street. Most of his clients could not read or write in either Italian or English. "Neighbors and friends sought his aid in the preparation of applications for various licenses, or petitions on behalf of their relatives who wished to emigrate to the United States. Cotillo served an apprenticeship in human problems," according to his biographer.<ref name=ferber19>Ferber, ''A New American'', p. 19</ref><ref name=shaffer>Shaffer & Shaffer, ''Lawyers as Assimilators and Preservers''.</ref>
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==Social reforms==
Back from Italy and in the New York State Senate, he fought hard for the regulation of informal immigrant banks and banking agents that handled money transfers abroad, an issue of significant importance to his Italian constituency who were often swindled from their remittances to their families in Italy.<ref name=nyt280739/><ref name=ferber122>Ferber, ''A New American'', pp. 122–128</ref> Cotillo demanded legislation to supervise immigrant banks and to safeguard customers' deposits. His 1921 banking reform bill, which placed express companies and steamship agencies that transferred money abroad under the supervision of the [[New York State Banking Department]], annoyed powerful interests of such companies as [[Wells Fargo]] and the [[Cunard Lines]].<ref name=henderson/><ref name=day>Jared N. Day, [
He received death threats and offers of bribes to drop the legislation he had introduced in the Senate.<ref name=nyt310321>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1921/03/31/98661192.pdf Cotillo Tells Of Bribe And Threats], ''The New York Times'', March 31, 1921</ref> Cotillo's legislation appeared to be disregarded until Republican Governor [[Nathan L. Miller]] proposed several compromises. As a result, four bills that regulated the sector were signed into law on May 1, 1921.<ref name=day/> With the return of progressive Democrat [[Al Smith]] to the Governor's office in 1923, Cotillo introduced new bills to reduce the weaknesses of the 1921 concessions. During the hearings on Cotillo's bill in March 1923, a devastating crash of the Tisbo Brothers immigrant bank at 121 Mott Street in lower Manhattan left 2,000 angry depositors, demanding their money they had deposited, with losses of more than two million dollars.<ref name=henderson /><ref name=nyt110323>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/03/11/105852783.html?pageNumber=1 Fake Bankers With $2,000,000 Vanish; Depositors In A Riot ̶̵ Frenzied Italians, Many Fearing Loss of Their All, Shout Threats of Vengeance], ''The New York Times'', March 11, 1923</ref><ref name=nyt090923>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/09/09/102057486.html?pageNumber=156 Italy Ready To Co-Operate In Guarding Aliens' Savings; Senator Cotillo Proposes System of Deposits in Italian Government Bank Through Agents Here], ''The New York Times'', September 9, 1923</ref><ref name=nyt231123>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/11/23/104972507.html?pageNumber=36 Immigrant Inquiry Gets Quick Results; Tisbo Depositors Lose], ''The New York Times'', November 23, 1923</ref><ref name=nyt250429>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1929/04/25/95932620.html?pageNumber=8 Italy Tries Tisbos on Swindle Charge; Three Brothers Face Court for Mulcting Italian Immigrants as Bankers in New York], ''The New York Times'', April 25, 1929</ref>
Cotillo was member of the Joint Legislative Committee on Housing, also known as the [[Charles C. Lockwood#Lockwood Committee|Lockwood Committee]] because it was headed by [[Charles C. Lockwood]]. The committee investigated renting and building conditions in the City of New York and ended a spate of rent-raising as a result of the housing shortage after World War I.<ref name=nyt080621>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1921/06/08/98705789.pdf 43 Companies Agree To Drop Monopoly Of Fire Insurance], ''The New York Times'', June 8, 1921</ref><ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/09/22/81929335.pdf Charles C. Lockwood Dies at 81], ''The New York Times'', September 22, 1958</ref> The group found that the housing conditions at the time constituted a serious menace to public health in New York since some 400,000 persons were directly affected by the scarcity of affordable dwellings and the poor quality of the existing ones.<ref name=nyt310122>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/01/31/109336328.pdf Finds City Short 80,000 Homes For 400,000 Residents], The New York Times, January 31, 1922</ref><ref name=lockwood>New York State (1922). [https://archive.org/stream/intermediaterep00lockgoog#page/n18/mode/2up Intermediate report of the Joint Legislative Committee on Housing], Legislative document (1922) no. 60, State of New York, p.7</ref> Later he was the chairman of New York state commission to investigate child welfare, and a member of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Exploitation of Immigrants (1923–24).<ref name=nyt280739/><ref name=exploit>New York (State). [http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/4609923 Report of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Exploitation of Immigrants]. Albany : J.B. Lyon, printers, 1924</ref>▼
▲Cotillo was member of the Joint Legislative Committee on Housing, also known as the [[Charles C. Lockwood#Lockwood Committee|Lockwood Committee]] because it was headed by [[Charles C. Lockwood]]. The committee investigated renting and building conditions in the City of New York and ended a spate of rent-raising as a result of the housing shortage after World War I.<ref name=nyt080621>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1921/06/08/98705789.pdf 43 Companies Agree To Drop Monopoly Of Fire Insurance], ''The New York Times'', June 8, 1921</ref><ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1958/09/22/81929335.pdf Charles C. Lockwood Dies at 81], ''The New York Times'', September 22, 1958</ref> The group found that the housing conditions at the time constituted a serious menace to public health in New York since some 400,000 persons were directly affected by the scarcity of affordable dwellings and the poor quality of the existing ones.<ref name=nyt310122>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/01/31/109336328.pdf Finds City Short 80,000 Homes For 400,000 Residents], The New York Times, January 31, 1922</ref><ref name=lockwood>New York State (1922). [https://archive.org/stream/intermediaterep00lockgoog#page/n18/mode/2up Intermediate report of the Joint Legislative Committee on Housing], Legislative document (1922) no. 60, State of New York, p. 7</ref> Later he was the chairman of New York state commission to investigate child welfare, and a member of the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate Exploitation of Immigrants (1923–24).<ref name=nyt280739/><ref name=exploit>New York (State). [http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/4609923 Report of the Joint Legislative Committee on the Exploitation of Immigrants]. Albany : J.B. Lyon, printers, 1924</ref>
Cotillo supported [[Leonard Covello]], one of the great educators of New York City and among first teachers of Italian background in the city high schools, in his fight to admit Italian to the high school curriculum to enhance the self-image of Italian boys, which was granted by the Board of Education in 1922.<ref name=glazer>Glazer & Moynihan, ''Beyond the melting pot'', [https://archive.org/stream/beyondmeltingpot1963glaz#page/200/mode/2up/search/cotillo p. 200]</ref> As the foremost force on the New York State Commission to Examine Laws Relating to Child Welfare, concerned with issues of custody, orphanage, child support, and state wardship and institutions, Cotillo pushed a comprehensive reform through the legislature with the support of the social-welfare advocate [[Sophie Irene Loeb]] and the [[Hearst Corporation|Hearst newspapers]]. His biographer, Nat Ferber, a former Hearst reporter, considered the reform to be "the outstanding achievement of Cotillo's career".<ref name=henderson/>
In 1923, on behalf of the [[National Women's Party]], he introduced into the New York State Senate twenty-five radical equal rights bills for women to remove from the statutes of New York any inequalities now existing in the legal rights and obligations of men and women.<ref name="nyt040223">[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1923/02/04/105845529.pdf Women's New Equal Rights Bills Confer Full Privileges Of Men], ''The New York Times'', February 4, 1923</ref> One of the radical bills provided that a wife may demand wages from her husband for the services she performs in the home. "The law as to the ownership by the husband of the services or labor of his wife is totally abrogated," the bill said.<ref name="nyt040223" />
==Relationship with Italian Fascism==
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== New York Supreme Court justice==
After the 1922 elections, Cotillo became the chairman of the influential State Senate Judiciary Committee, a sign of his rising authority. The post helped him to get ready for a next step.<ref name=henderson/> In 1924, he was the first Italian-born to become Justice of the [[New York Supreme Court]], First District, where he would
While an immigrant himself and although he had been an ardent defender of the liberal interpretation of the naturalization law for a long time, in 1939 and in the wake of [[World War II]], Cotillo advocated more stringent naturalization methods. Immigrants would be forced to pay the costs of an exhaustive investigation of their qualifications. He argued that there was a "need for more hesitation in the granting of this charter of liberty to each and every applicant without a more thorough search of each and every applicant's capacity to benefit from such a gift." He also recommended revocation of citizenship when found guilty of fraud or other wrongdoing.<ref name=nyt120539>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1939/05/12/93910373.pdf Curb On Aliens Urged; Cotillo Suggests Strict Inquiry Before Naturalization], ''The New York Times'', May 12, 1939</ref>
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[[Category:1939 deaths]]
[[Category:Italian emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:Democratic Party members of the New York
[[Category:
[[Category:New York (state) state senators]]▼
[[Category:New York Supreme Court Justices]]
[[Category:People from East Harlem]]
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[[Category:DeWitt Clinton High School alumni]]
[[Category:Manhattan College alumni]]
[[Category:20th-century American
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