Liberated Spirits

by Hugh Ambrose

  Willebrandt knew Prohibition could be made a reality if she had resources at her direction and disposal; she told a reporter for Collier’s magazine, “Give me the authority and let me have my pick of 300 men and I’ll make this country as dry as it is humanly possible to get it,” and added, “There is one way it can be done—get at the sources of supply. I know them, and I know how they could be cut off.”2 The reporter believed her, proclaimed that she was “the one person in official Washington who could, and, if vested with proper authority, would make America almost bone dry,” and dubbed her the “first legal lady of the land.” That “almost” acknowledged the difficult task faced by Willebrandt and other defenders of Prohibition, even “if” she had all means at her disposal.

  Willebrandt believed in the rightness of Prohibition, but also viewed her position as assistant attorney general as a stepping-stone to a judgeship. Articles like the one in Collier’s served both purposes. Her old friend James Pope, who had advised her to seek her current position, had hoped she would find just this kind of publicity, “the right kind which is publicity of recognition,” bringing her accolades not just for her work at the Department of Justice, but afterward, where “a much bigger and harder thing awaits you and that is to demonstrate that mental quality and strength is common to women as men and that discrimination on account of sex is wrong.” Pope conceded, “There will always be the position that if women deserted the homes and became public personages the race would die out,” but he recommended that Mabel continue letting the work speak for itself.3 In due time, the rewards she sought would come.

  Only a month later, on September 23, 1924, Mabel received recognition of her efforts, when Treasury Secretary Mellon authorized the transfer of more than $150,000 to the Department of Justice, permitting Willebrandt to direct investigations into large-scale smuggling operations. The money allowed the hiring of fifty investigators and legal assistants, positions that had not existed previously, to conduct work that would not otherwise have been undertaken. Just the day before, Willebrandt had talked to Internal Revenue commissioner David Blair, “telling [the Treasury Department] we’d fooled each other long enough batting the lace back and forth as far as pleasant promises were concerned and I construed inaction for this long period as negation.” Mellon also promised to provide a “fast boat” and the cooperation of all treasury bureaus and units. Mabel could barely contain her excitement in passing the news to her parents, exclamation points liberally placed throughout her letter, faith restored in herself—“I’m so masterful and sure of myself and unafraid”—and in the importance of her work advancing “the direction of human endeavor and purposes.”4 That direction extended not only to “proper Prohibition handling of investigations,” but advocating for appointment of women as U.S. Attorneys. The only thing that would have made her news better was the presence of family to share in the moment.

  Willebrandt’s yearning for family and something resembling a normal life led her to consider adoption. In October 1924, she paid her first visit to an orphanage; she was “eager” to find a child, unworried about family histories or problems a child might have, and joked with her parents that they had drawn a “lemon,” but she allowed that things had worked out all right.5 Willebrandt’s dreams for a family did not, at least as an imperative, include a husband. Still estranged from Arthur Willebrandt, she gave Fred Horowitz, who offered her something resembling a proposal, the boot, letting him know she could not be had solely on his terms.6 Trying to regain Willebrandt’s trust, Fred traveled to Washington, D.C. She appreciated his visit, feeling that Fred recognized the “worthwhileness” of her work, the “magnitude” of her “power and the graceful things in the life about me,” but saw no romantic future with him any longer, their divergent “aims and interests and mode of life” too much to overcome.7

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  Pauline Sabin announced in August that the WNRC would begin a program of training its members to become speakers, poll watchers, and “disseminators of facts regarding the Republican Party and its candidates.”8 The club would offer special classes to instruct its members, planning for them to take on duties in their own communities. Sabin’s own advocacy was taking her to deeper involvement in the party, moving beyond speeches to high-level meetings with party leaders and backroom deals, away from her base in New York to key battleground states. Party leaders sent her to Maine in late August to assess Republican sentiment in advance of the state’s elections to be held in mid-September (Maine was considered a barometer for national sentiment, as in the old adage, “As Maine goes, so goes the nation”). Sabin confirmed the party’s fears that the governor’s race would go to the Democrat, but she found Coolidge and national Republican policies held in high regard, presaging victory in November. While her assessment concerned overall attitudes toward the president and the party, from men and women, Sabin gave special credit to women for organizing in every county, hosting Republican speakers, planning well beyond the governor’s race.9

  With the presidential election approaching, Sabin granted a long interview to the New York Times about women and the campaign. She acknowledged it was hard motivating women to step from behind their husbands, but with an army of volunteers, she foresaw huge gains in the number of women voters. She believed attacks upon the Constitution, such as the proposed child labor and equal rights amendments, motivated women, “naturally more conservative,” to recognize that the present “system of Government has brought safety to them and their little ones, that it has assured prosperity and they dread any attack upon that safeguard of our liberty.” She found political work invigorating, wondering why women would want to talk about “pink teas and the latest style of dress when they can help to formulate policies which may influence the weal and woe of the nation.” She saw most women becoming as interested in politics as herself, learning the game, soon being able to “teach their brethren.” Calvin Coolidge, she predicted, would be in debt to women for his reelection. “It used to be a standing joke in the man-made funny papers,” Sabin declared, “to poke fun at the woman’s lack of understanding of baseball and politics. All the fine points were supposed to go over her head. Perhaps this was true in the past, but it is no longer true.”10 From now on, she forecast, women would become an increasingly significant piece of the political landscape and “a determining factor in every election.”

  Sabin filled a key role in Coolidge’s reelection campaign, though almost no one knew of it prior to Election Day. Before the campaign began, the president created an Advisory Publicity Board to approve and monitor all speeches made by Republican spokespersons. Coolidge selected four men with backgrounds in journalism, placed them in offices in Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New York, and directed them to vet all speeches or advertisements to make sure they concentrated on the president and his administration’s accomplishments in reducing government spending and taxes, bringing prosperity to the country; no reference to Harding’s scandals would be permitted. This policy, carried to great effect, meant neither Coolidge nor party leaders answered charges made by the Democratic nominee, John Davis, or even mentioned Harding in any context. In the New York office, located in Republican Party headquarters, Sabin reviewed any speeches planned for spokeswomen from the party’s Women’s Division.11 This brand of “censorship” led to boilerplate pronouncements, but kept voters focused on the issues and on Coolidge’s credibility. The results spoke for themselves; President Coolidge achieved an easy victory, compiling a majority of 2.5 million votes over his rival.

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  Hoping to learn how much his conversations were overheard, Olm- stead baited a trap. He set up a rendezvous with several associates with the stated purpose to move liquor stockpiles from the Olympic Repair Shop.12 William Whitney, hoping to nab his big fish in the act of bootlegging, had his men stake out the Olympic Repair Shop early on the morning of September 11, 1924. Three cars, one driven by Olm
stead, and a truck entered the Olympic Repair Shop before dawn, the door closing behind them. Outside, watching, Whitney waited just long enough for the bootleggers to begin their work before busting into the garage. They found Olmstead and his men standing in a circle, talking. Next to them stood two Cadillacs, their rear seats removed. Myer Berg saw Whitney and said, “You are just a little too early; if you had waited a half an hour you would have gotten a load of whiskey.”

  “I guess I will wait, then,” replied Whitney.

  “There is no use waiting now. You have made enough commotion out here—we have changed its course. It will never come here. You don’t think we were fools enough not to leave a man outside to divert it if anything should happen.”13 A search of the shop came up empty. The Olmstead gang had a good laugh, their question of who was listening answered.14

  Falling into Olmstead’s trap put William Whitney on alert. The rumrunner’s apparent knowledge about the phone taps rendered them unreliable. Whitney decided it was time to go in for the kill.15 The wiretaps had revealed the length and breadth of a conspiracy involving the importation of liquor from Scotland to British Columbia and the distribution from Vancouver to landings scattered from Seattle to San Francisco via oceangoing vessels, with delivery from smaller watercraft and trucks to customers within those communities. Raids on Olmstead’s stockpiles around the city, with the subsequent arrests of some of his men, had connected more of the dots. Whitney, though, knew he needed to catch Olmstead red-handed, with the booze and with his business records, to seal his nemesis’ fate.

  On the evening of November 17, federal agents pulled up to Olm- stead’s elegant two-story home with its manicured lawn and hedges, several fine cars parked in front. Whitney had his men surround the house, and he heard the “sounds of merriment inside,” a most encouraging sign, as he strode up the front walk. Whitney gave the signal and his men stormed in from all sides. The Olmsteads and their guests were seated at the dining room table, having all but finished their meal. The table bore no bottles of wine, no half-filled martini glasses or decanters of bourbon. This looked bad. Whitney ordered an immediate search. His agents went at it with vigor for over an hour, but they turned up not a single bottle of liquor, beer, or wine. Perhaps it was the smirk on Olmstead’s face, or the desperation brought on by raiding the house of the supposed King of the Bootleggers to find it dry, but when the phone rang, Whitney went to answer it. Elsie stepped in front of him, telling him that now that he had finished his search, he “had no right to remain on the premises or use the phone.” Whitney did not accept challenges from women lightly, and he nearly struck her in the face before lowering his hand and pushing her against the wall.16

  Whitney picked up the receiver and said hello. Ed Engdahl, a longtime conspirator of Olmstead’s whom Whitney knew, identified himself. Engdahl asked for Olmstead, and Whitney “told him he was not there.” Engdahl, failing to suspect anything wrong, asked Whitney about others in Olmstead’s “gang” before exclaiming, “We have got a bigger load of liquor coming in.” He needed Olmstead to call him back.17 The call excited Whitney, sparking an idea to mitigate the potential disaster of the raid. He began ringing up other members of Olmstead’s gang and, impersonating one of Olmstead’s associates, invited them over for a party. Whitney soon asked his wife, Clara, who was inexplicably along for the raid, to issue invitations as well, impersonating Elsie, and ordered another agent to impersonate Olmstead.* It was not long before cars began to arrive at the Olmstead home.

  Whitney’s plan did not work, though, because, of the eleven people who responded to the phony calls, only one arrived with liquor, and only one bottle at that. Efforts to browbeat the suspects, to search dark corners of the house, to prove this raid worthwhile went on hour after hour. Whitney discovered documents upstairs relating to Olmstead’s business, and these he seized. Just after three a.m., more than seven hours after they had arrived, Whitney had his men drive the suspects to his office for more questioning from Director Lyle.

  Lyle focused on young Al Hubbard, who up to this point had been mostly ignored. Lyle and Whitney wanted to know what his radio broadcasting set was intended for and pushed the young man to admit his creation played some role in the operation of the ring, to incriminate Olmstead. Elsie was not broadcasting stories, Whitney accused; her words were a code “used by Olmstead to communicate with co-conspirators in Canada, Japan and at sea . . .” Hubbard declared that he knew nothing of rum-running. He was a radio “pioneer” and had been hired to build and maintain a radio station—nothing more. Lyle and Whitney believed enough of what Hubbard said to regard him as a possible witness against Olmstead, someone who could offer direct testimony because he spent so much time in Olmstead’s home.18 Within a few hours, Olmstead’s attorney posted bail for the lot.19

  Whitney knew he could convict his suspects for selling liquor, based on the tapped telephone conversations, but that would not represent the convincing victory needed to bolster the public’s faith in the Prohibition Unit. On the afternoon of Friday, November 21, Lyle and three agents burst into the office of Jerry Finch, Olmstead’s attorney, handed the surprised lawyer a search warrant, and proceeded to ransack the premises for any documents related to Olmstead. Finch argued that it was illegal for Lyle to remove them, a ready store of legal opinions buttressing his bluster. Lyle blithely handed Finch a receipt for the stack of letters, receipts, and memoranda his men carried out.

  Finch took his case to the courts the next day, submitting a petition asking the federal court to take charge of the papers taken from his offices by the federal agents. He also contested the search warrant, which alleged that alcohol would be found on the premises and was believed to have been sold from there previously. Since no liquor had been found, Finch claimed the Prohibition agents had no legal authority to seize his documents.

  Judge Jeremiah Neterer immediately denied Finch’s motion, surely a poor harbinger of the federal judge’s attitude for the upcoming case. Neterer stated, “If the raid constituted a crime, the attorney had other remedies.” Besides, said Neterer, the seized documents were not in the court’s possession, so it could not impound them “pending further hearing as to the right of seizure.”20 Put another way, the judge believed that the phone transcripts Whitney had shown the U.S. commissioner provided enough evidence for the raids, even if the raids themselves had found nothing illegal. Taking his complaint to the press, Finch lambasted Whitney as “an employee whose official designation is unknown to the plaintiff, but who has and assumes power equivalent and in some cases in excess of the powers of Lyle.” The two agents were “actuated by ‘hatred, envy and malice and imbued by too intense a zeal in the performance of their duties . . .’”21

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  The cries that James Wadsworth opposed women’s issues gained steam, again, in early 1925 when he told representatives of the National Woman’s Party that he would not support an equal rights amendment. He admitted some laws discriminated against women, but believed the proposed amendment “might result in the repeal of all laws that today are to the advantage of women,” pointing to laws that protected wives from responsibility for the debts of their husbands. (As Mabel Willebrandt would have pointed out, protecting wives from their husband’s debts meant, conversely, that wives had few, if any, rights to their husband’s assets.) As if potentially offending half the population were not enough, Wadsworth proved the spark to new debates in the state of New York on the other issue always attached to him, Prohibition. Orville Poland, legal advisor for the New York branch of the ASL, facetiously suggested Wads-worth make himself aware of current newspaper reports claiming the senator would not use his influence to advocate for a state enforcement law to replace the Mullan-Gage Act repealed in June 1923. Poland reminded Wadsworth that the state’s Republican committee had endorsed an enforcement law during the recent election season. The ASL lawyer would not “charge” Wadsworth with going against the party, b
ut he insinuated as much. “There is no way for you to rid yourself of the unpleasant innuendo of these implications save by a specific denial of your intention to be a party, either by your action or lack of action, to the defeat of a State Prohibition enforcement law by reason of a failure to caucus,” advised Poland.22