by Hugh Ambrose
Willebrandt fed Johnson’s suspicions when she suggested to her old friend Frank Doherty that Shortridge might have more political clout than Johnson. Doherty regarded Shortridge as “dishonest,” and predicted any association with the junior senator would irrevocably damage Willebrandt’s relationship with Johnson.24 In a letter to Doherty, Johnson pointed out that Shortridge was a “wet” and Mrs. Willebrandt the “leading ‘dry’ in the nation.” If “she would sell her principle” for a judgeship, Johnson threatened to “retract everything that I have said concerning the very fulsome recommendation I gave to her” when advancing her name to Harry Daugherty in 1921.25 Choosing to remain silent on an endorsement of Shortridge but not openly opposing him left Willebrandt in limbo, with a supposition that after the election Shortridge would hold her silence against her, preventing her appointment as a judge.26
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Pauline Sabin debated Eleanor Roosevelt over the merits of their respective candidates—Sabin for James Wadsworth and Roose-velt for Democrat judge Robert Wagner—at a rally hosted by the Women’s City Club. As the election neared, she hosted Wadsworth at Bayberry Land, escorting him on a speaking tour through surrounding Suffolk County. Wadsworth spoke on many topics, hoping to demonstrate that he was more than a one-issue candidate, but questions about his Prohibition stance could not be held at bay. Sabin took the flak, turning the subject from Wadsworth’s personal views to the Prohibition referendum, which would offer voters the chance to express their sentiments, determining, in large part, the course that Wadsworth would take. That “certain organizations,” presumably the WCTU and the ASL, urged their members not to vote on the referendum amazed Sabin. “It seems strange to me that any woman should not want to register her opinion on this vital question. The question before the women today is whether they feel that the present Prohibition laws are winning their respect.”27 Sabin turned the tables on Wadsworth’s opponents, explaining that they possessed the means to decide the fate of Prohibition in New York without factoring Wadsworth into the equation. If New Yorkers opposed Prohibition, they could vote against the referendum without using their vote against Wadsworth, who, other than on the issue of Prohibition, represented most of the values held dear by Republicans.
Sabin’s prediction that votes for Frank Cristman were votes for Tammany proved accurate. James Wadsworth lost to Robert Wagner by 127,718 votes, with Cristman receiving more than 220,000, enough to have put Wadsworth over the top.28 For all the heated accusations about Wadsworth’s anti-Prohibition sentiment, the cloud of doubt cast on the strength of the senator’s convictions on that position might have done more harm than Cristman’s vote pulling. New York’s voters overwhelmingly approved the referendum calling for modification, voting three to one in favor.29 Despite the seeming mandate for modification, Prohibitionists in New York did not blink. Cristman’s campaign manager called the referendum a “straw vote” designed to distract from wet candidates. Arthur Davis, superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League of New York, claimed the “real referendum lay in the defeat of United States Senator James W. Wadsworth,” his loss advancing “the cause of Prohibition in the nation to a greater extent than any event since the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment.”30 Such comments failed to reflect the reality, that not only had New York, the most populous state in the country, endorsed modification of the Prohibition laws, but so had five other states—California, Illinois, Montana, Nevada, and Wisconsin—with a combined population of about twenty-four million people, representing almost a quarter of the nation’s inhabitants.31 While popular votes against the existing law carried no legal authority for change, the votes in those six states constituted a significant shift in public opinion. Still, when asked about sponsoring a bill for modification of the Volstead Act, Wadsworth said such a bill had no chance even to get out of committee hearings.32
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Mabel Willebrandt’s 1926 ended with uncertainty, frustrations in her professional life motivating deep reflection as the New Year approached. She could admit that “most any other man or woman would jump at the opportunities of my office,” which provided a “fair salary,” travel, and “worthwhile and interesting work” but so far had not proven the stepping-stone she had hoped it would be. Willebrandt had learned, “It takes lots longer for a woman to get to the same place so far as good results for public office is concerned than it does a man.”33
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Pauline began 1927 at a three-day national conference, a first of its kind for women, in Washington, D.C. The dates of the conference coincided, probably by no accident, with gatherings of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs and the WCTU, being held in the capital at the same time. Members of the three groups, some of whom might have belonged to all three organizations, ran into one another repeatedly during the week. Pauline and Charles Sabin, along with prominent women from all three conferences, attended a dinner hosted by Secretary of War Dwight Davis and his wife honoring President and Mrs. Coolidge.34 Knowing his friend Charlie Sabin, a Democrat and fellow prominent member of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, might have trouble fitting in with a stuffier, Republican-dominated crowd, James Wads- worth suggested the Sabins stop at his house on the way to the Davises’ for “a little fortifying against the strain of the evening.”35 Who can say whether Jim meant political or liquid reinforcement? The following night, the Sabins and two thousand other guests, including many of the women from all three conferences—and Mabel Willebrandt—attended a state reception hosted by President and Mrs. Coolidge honoring the judiciary.36
The convergence of so many women, representing so many groups, with so many varying interests, inflamed Sabin’s frequent concern about a “feminine bloc,” represented largely by the old guard of suffragists, working outside the established parties.37 She urged women to consider a candidate’s principles and positions on all issues, not the “pet” concerns of narrowly defined interest groups.38 An editorial in the New York Evening Post recognized Sabin’s approach as granting her “more real power than those who remain outside in purely feminist” organizations. The paper saw groups focusing on women’s issues “bridging the gap between the pre-suffrage era and the era of full political understanding and practice by women,” but hoped women remaining outside the parties would not be “set aside.”39 Months later, Sabin repeated her admonition, applauding Republican women for sticking with the party to achieve “the greatest good” possible “by the women cooperating with men,” urging women to do their share of the work, hoping that effort would result, one day, in the election of women to political office in proportion to their numbers.40
While Sabin attended the Republican women’s committee conference, a Long Island newspaper editorial placed James Wads-worth’s poor showing in Suffolk County squarely upon her shoulders. Sabin and her like-minded sisters were “disloyal to the cardinal principles” of the Republican Party, undermining any claim they had to be leaders within the party; the “women of wealth and culture” lacked the “high and worthy ideals” needed to “keep in close touch with the thousands of women in the lowlier walks of life and present to them the unselfishness and holiness of their mission.”41
The argument that many of the women becoming active in party politics came from the upper class was valid, but this was an issue particular to Suffolk County, where wealthy denizens of Manhattan had built large estates in the past ten years, changing the rural character of the area, its former agriculture-based economy, and its politics.
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Questioned by Congress about expenditures, particularly for undercover agents, Assistant Secretary Lincoln Andrews argued that such work was necessary to ferret out information about bootleggers and their vast conspiracies, and to build cases, like that against Olmstead’s liquor ring, over a long period of time rather than making arrests at the first sign of illega
lity. “A limited number of Government employees, every one of them known to the criminal element, operating in broad daylight and in the view of all, can not [sic] hope to defeat unknown, intelligent, and unscrupulous men,” charged Andrews. The assistant secretary did not see any need for undercover agents to “engage in any illegal practices or entice others to do so,” but acknowledged that without them, “Prohibition enforcement will be handicapped almost to the point of failure.” Hoping to clarify the distinction between acceptable and unacceptable involvement by undercover agents in criminal enterprises, Andrews supplied an example, seemingly ripped from William Whitney’s playbook: could an agent go to work for a rumrunner and participate in criminal acts to build a case? No, because that smacked of entrapment and grand juries might refuse to indict. Entrapment was not just the act of enticing a citizen into committing a crime, but the equally illegal act of “placing in his hands the instrument of the crime and then proceeding against him because of his possession or use thereof.”42 Rather, Andrews hoped that undercover agents could build cases by observing criminal acts or learning of proposed acts and passing the information to their superiors.
On the first of March 1927, Al Hubbard dropped by the headquarters to meet with Lyle and Whitney and tell them he had been offered a bribe by some whiskey runners desperate enough to approach a known Prohibition agent hoping the right amount would ensure his assistance. Hubbard said he could make another big case if allowed to accept the bribe and pretend to offer protection in exchange.43 The idea of accepting a bribe scared Whitney, perhaps recalling the recent admonition of Assistant Secretary Andrews, so he sought the counsel and approval of Tom Revelle. Agent Hubbard and his partner, Richard Fryant, would need to make several runs on the ships from Vancouver to Seattle, they told Revelle; they might need to help unload cargo; and they would almost certainly need to accept bribe money to convince the suspects of their legitimate criminal intent. But the catch would be worth the gamble: a dozen or more men and several boats, including one of the newest and fastest. Whitney asked Revelle “whether or not they should take up the work,” the district attorney answering, “This is the kind of work we should be doing.”44 Years later, Whitney claimed to have told “Mr. Revelle I would have nothing to do with the case independently and Mr. Revelle stated that he would take the entire responsibility and would direct the case himself.”45 For an indomitable Prohibitionist like Whitney to hesitate testified to his misgivings about Hubbard.
Whitney’s reluctance to back Hubbard’s potentially illegal activities, conducted in secret, contrasted sharply with his approval of brutal tactics employed openly against those violating the Volstead Act. Neither Whitney nor Revelle thought that the beatings and shootings of smugglers and moonshiners were unwarranted. Whitney liked his agents to be tough men unafraid to smash a speakeasy to bits or beat a bootlegger into submission. Revelle agreed that some offenders “deserve a good killing,” and admired his friend’s dedication to enforcement, but he had warned Whitney that when his men went too far, it hurt their public image.46
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On April 1, 1927, a bill to reorganize the Prohibition Unit and Customs Service took effect with both agencies raised to the status of a bureau, on a par with the Internal Revenue Bureau.47 Roy Haynes would remain as commissioner of Prohibition, but Lincoln Andrews and Andrew Mellon would formulate policies and issue directives to field personnel. Lincoln Andrews granted Haynes final authority on matters of enforcement, but Haynes was expected to confer with Andrews before making decisions. On the surface, it appeared Haynes had regained some of the powers usurped from him previously, but the need to consult with Andrews seemed another mitigation. As the changes were implemented, letters of opposition that Mabel Willebrandt had written to various senators during debate on the bill became known to the public. She believed the new arrangement scattered responsibilities, endangering successful enforcement with too many cooks in the kitchen.
The administrative changes formalized a scheme begun in Seattle shortly after the end of the Olmstead trial when Alf Oftedal of the Internal Revenue Bureau’s Intelligence Unit walked into Revelle’s office carrying a letter from Assistant Secretary Andrews of the Treasury Department announcing Oftedal’s appointment as chief coordinator of Prohibition enforcement action on the Pacific Coast.48 Andrews had given Oftedal and his special agents authority to take over any investigation or involve themselves in any manner Oftedal deemed in the best interest of enforcement, placing the Seattle office of the Prohibition Unit in a subservient position. Revelle recognized the threat to William Whitney, who had been investigated by the Intelligence Unit previously over allegations that some of his methods skirted the law. The district attorney took his concerns to Assistant Attorney General Willebrandt. He believed Oftedal was more interested in investigating federal forces for corruption than in pursuing rumrunners, a situation sure to generate friction with Whitney, who had told Revelle he would not cooperate with Ofte-dal. Revelle hoped that Willebrandt could force cooperation between the Intelligence and Prohibition Units, agencies over which she had no authority, but such efforts should not put Oftedal in a position superior to Whitney or Lyle. “The best thing for this territory,” advised Revelle, “is for all parties to keep their hands off Roy Lyle and Bill Whitney and give them sufficient men and money, and we will make this district one of which men can be proud.”49
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Al Hubbard marched into Tom Revelle’s office on April 29 to report that he and his partner, Richard Fryant, would assist in the delivery of two hundred cases of whiskey from British Columbia aboard the speedboat Zev. The rumrunners had invited Hubbard and Fryant along to shield the shipment from any enforcement agencies they encountered. Hubbard volunteered to ride on the Zev with the rumrunners while Fryant waited with some agents at the rendezvous point, Samish Island, to seize the landing party upon arrival. Once the two agents had the suspects under control, Fryant would call Revelle, who would lead several U.S. Marshals to one of the gang’s Seattle homes to arrest six others Hubbard had fingered in the conspiracy.
Hubbard brought the ship down as planned on Saturday, and Revelle got his call about three a.m. Sunday. He and the deputies raided the designated home, but no one was there. Revelle smelled treachery and the stench increased when he heard from Fryant that Hubbard and the Zev had not arrived at the rendezvous point and neither did those expected to take delivery from the Zev. Hours passed, the fate of the Zev unknown. Revelle alternated between concern for Al Hubbard, fearing his true intentions had been discovered, and anger that he may have been double-crossed. Finally, the boat turned up in Anacortes, at the U.S. Coast Guard base several miles south of the rendezvous point, with Hubbard in command.
Hubbard delivered an inspired account of the night’s events. When the Zev had docked at Samish Island, Hubbard’s use of the light to signal Fryant had aroused the rumrunners’ suspicions, and they turned on him in a foul mood. “Seeing that the game was up,” Hubbard had pointed his pistol at them and placed them under arrest, promising to shoot them if they did not comply. He manacled one man to the ship’s wheel and used rope to bind the other. Fearing the comrades of his two captives were on the island and would attempt to board the Zev and overpower him, he cast off, fired the engines, and set off into a nasty storm. He piloted the craft to Anacortes and turned the ship and crew over to the guardsmen for safekeeping. Although he believed the bust would have been bigger had some of the suspects not been tipped off, Revelle was thrilled, calling it “a wonderful piece of work.”50 The Seattle Times hailed it “as a heroic capture.”51 Whitney, in Washington, D.C., under scrutiny by his superiors, read the news of Hubbard’s work and sent his protégé a fulsome and enthusiastic note of congratulations, declaring, “You have justified my every confidence in you,” promising to get the Zev for Hubbard’s future efforts.52
In the week that followed, though, the men arrested on th
e Zev claimed Hubbard had extorted thousands of dollars from them. Tom Revelle discounted the assertions as a feeble attempt by the men to save themselves, until one of Senator Jones’ closest friends, an attorney representing the men caught in Hubbard’s Zev sting, told Revelle that “Hubbard and Fryant had received between eight and ten thousand dollars” in bribes. The attorney was offering to have his clients tell the whole story, to get affidavits from their partners in Canada, but Revelle refused the offer, saying he would not hold up the statements of rumrunners against the statements made by agents. A few days later, Fryant told Revelle he had personal knowledge that Al Hubbard had taken bribes from rumrunners to remain silent about their operations. Worse, Fryant claimed he and Hubbard had passed one thousand dollars to Whitney as evidence in a previous case, something Whitney had failed to share with the district attorney.
Wanting to get out ahead of the problem, Revelle wrote long letters to his boss, Assistant Attorney General Mabel Willebrandt, and his benefactor, Senator Wesley Jones. From Willebrandt he asked for an investigation, stressing at great length that it should not be conducted by agents of the Internal Revenue Bureau’s Intelligence Unit. Knowing Willebrandt thought highly of the Intelligence Unit, yet respecting her as a “true and good woman,” he pled for her to understand that the IRB’s work “would not be received with full credit in this district.” Rather, she should ask the Bureau of Investigation in the Department of Justice to send agents to Seattle.