Prohibition - Thirteen Years That Changed America
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It would of course be overly simplistic to put the blame exclusively on Prohibition for the shifting patterns of post-1933 organized crime. But there can be no doubt that the laxity of the law enforcers during the Prohibition years encouraged underworld crime bosses in their belief that anyone could be bought. “I just couldn’t understand that guy [La Guardia],” “Lucky” Luciano told his ghostwriters. “When we offered to make him rich he wouldn’t even listen. ... So I figured: what the hell, let him keep City Hall, we got all the rest, the D.A., the cops, everything.”5
Prohibition may not have initiated, but it certainly underlined, the two-tier element in American justice so dramatically illustrated in 1995 by the O. J. Simpson case. As court records from 1920 to 1933 show, Prohibition agents concentrated their efforts on those they could not shake down; that is, the poor, the barely literate, the recent immigrants least able to defend themselves. With a few exceptions (George Remus was one of them), the wealthy were virtually immune from prosecution, as were bankers and wealthy entrepreneurs responsible for establishing lucrative contracts with bootlegging investors, often with the complicity of congressmen.
The methods used to enforce Prohibition anticipated those of the DEA in its war on drugs. Although it would be ridiculous to compare the DEA to the Prohibition Bureau — the former a highly professional, motivated organization staffed by high-caliber agents of the greatest integrity; the latter a motley crew of venal political appointees — the results, in both cases, are startlingly similar. At no time did Prohibition law enforcers seize more than 5 percent of the quantities of liquor illegally entering the United States. The DEA’s record of drug seizures, though higher (around 10 percent), is comparable, inevitably raising all sorts of questions. Should drugs be legalized? Are not current antidrug laws responsible for perpetuating organized crime? With over half of America’s current prison population in jail for drug-related offenses, a drastic overhaul of antidrug legislation is not just in order, it is badly overdue.
But perhaps the least-learned lesson of Prohibition is that legislation alone is no answer to America’s problems. The moralists and evangelical pioneers without whom Prohibition would have remained a dead letter believed that enactment of the Eighteenth Amendment would be sufficient to change the habits of American society as a whole. They were quickly proved disastrously wrong.
The cart-before-the-horse mentality is the same, as is the strident vocabulary of the new “moral majority.” The reason the evangelist Billy Sunday became the popular hero of the twenties, among so many millions of God-fearing households, was that he was the very incarnation of the belief in an endearing, yet hopelessly naive panacea. Today’s new repressive penal measures (chain gangs, “three-strikes-you’re-out” sentences for habitual offenders, and so on) are not so very different from the special prisons for alcoholics advocated in the early 1800s, or indeed the whole array of laws contained in the Volstead Act.
The thinking in both cases is that such measures (either federal in nature or passed by different state legislatures) can radically reform a sick society, or at least make it tolerable to its law-abiding majority. Only the handful of intellectuals left on the political scene (foremost among them Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan) are aware of this fallacy, and campaign against it: they know from experience that repression is like morphine — it masks the pain, but in no way cures the sickness.
The Prohibition disaster should have made this clear, but most American decision-makers are singularly indifferent to the lessons of the past. The American educational system has become highly selective where the teaching of history is concerned. We tend to forget an important lesson: that those who know no history condemn themselves to repeat it, either as tragedy or as farce.
NOTES
INTRODUCTION
1. Andrew Sinclair, Prohibition: The Era of Excess, Atlantic, 1962.
2. John J. Rumberger, Profits, Power, and Prohibition, State U. of New York Press, 1989.
3. Norman H. Clark, Deliver Us from Evil, W. W. Norton, 1976.
4. “Drug War Two,” January 30, 1995.
CHAPTER ONE: THE GOOD CREATURE OF GOD
1. Herbert Asbury, The Great Illusion, Doubleday, 1950.
2. This practice was known, from the seventeenth century on, as “eleven o’clock bitters.” There was a similar break at four P.M.
3. Nine cents a gallon for liquor distilled from grain (whiskey), eleven cents for rum.
4. The Great Illusion.
5. The term originated from early smuggling habits, when contraband was hidden in the tops of then-capacious boots.
6. Norman H. Clark, The Dry Tears, U. of Washington Press, 1965 and 1988.
7. Edwin M. Lemert, Alcohol and the Northwest Indians, U. of California Press, 1954.
CHAPTER TWO: FERVOR AND FANATICISM
1. For these and other quotes from nineteenth-century documents, diaries, and sermons I am indebted to the Rev. W. H. Samuels, Temperance Reform and Its Great Reformers, A. M. Cincinnati, 1879.
2. The Great Illusion.
3. Published by the American Tract Society, New York, in 1847.
4. My italics.
CHAPTER THREE: THE WOMEN’S WAR
1. John Kobler, Ardent Spirits: The Rise and E all of Prohibition, Putnam, 1973.
2. It was part of Carry Nation’s eccentricity to believe that Freemasons did the “devil’s work.”
3. She reproduced them, later, in her rambling autobiography. Her favorite:
This is a joint [as saloons were called]
Touch not, taste not!
handle not! Drink will make the dark, dark blot
Like an adder it will sting!
And at last to ruin bring
They who tarry at the drink!
CHAPTER FOUR: THE LINEUP
1. Norman H. Clark, The Dry Tears, U. of Washington Press, 1965 and 1988.
2. The Dry Tears.
3. Nov. 10, 1883, and Jan. 19, 1884.
4. The Dry Tears.
5. Justin Stewart, Wayne Wheeler: Dry Boss, Fleming H. Revell Company, 1928.
6. Wayne Wheeler: Dry Boss.
7. Wayne Wheeler: Dry Boss.
8. New york Times, March 29, 1926.
9. Wayne Wheeler: Dry Boss.
CHAPTER FIVE: PROHIBITION’S FIRST VICTIMS
1. I am indebted to Dr. Don Heinrich Todzmann of the U. of Cincinnati for his help and expert advice in this chapter, and for allowing me to consult his Ph.D. thesis: “The Survival of an Ethnic Community: The Cincinnati Germans” (Ph.D. dissertation U. of Cincinnati, 1983).
CHAPTER SIX: AMERICA GOES DRY
1. Examples: The “Prohibition Battle Hymn”
We’ve played the Good Samaritan
But now we’ll take a hand
And clear the road to Jericho
Of the robbing, thieving band;
Distillers and Saloonists
Shall be driven from the land
As we go marching on.
And “The Anti-Saloon War Song”
Tramp, tramp, tramp the States are marching
One by one to victory;
But we cannot win the fight
Until thirty six are white
So we’ll press the battle on from sea to sea.
2. The Great Illusion.
3. Ardent Spirits.
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE PROVIDERS
1. Although his byline does not appear, the series was also researched by a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, John T. Rogers, who also spent considerable time with Remus after his release from jail.
2. The land on which it stood is now part of densely populated Cincinnati suburbia.
3. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Jan. 4, 1926.
CHAPTER EIGHT: HARDING AND THE RACKETEERS
1. F. L. Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s in America, Penguin, 1931.
2. Francis Russell, The Shadow of Blooming Grove, McGraw-Hill, 1968.
3. Samuel Hopkins Adams, The Incredible Era: T
he Life and Times of Warren Harding, Houghton Mifflin, 1930.
4. Nan Britton, The President’s Daughter, Elizabeth Anne Guild, 1927.
5. Charles Mee, The Ohio Gang, Evans and Co., 1981.
6. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, The Crowded Hours, Scribners, 1933.
7. Among the more absurd changes, Judges ix, 13 became: “Shall I leave my juice that gladdens gods and men,” and “He distributed to the whole assembled multitude a roll of bread, a portion of meat, and a cake of raisins.”
CHAPTER TEN: THE ADVENTURERS
1. Everett S. Allen, The Black Ships, Little, Brown, 1965.
2. Moet et Chandon exports to Canada:
1923 — 22,400 cases
1924 — 20,600 cases
1925— 6,900 cases
1926 — 11,700 cases
1927 — 11,600 cases
1928— 1,200 cases
1929 — 13,100 cases
Amounts fell markedly after the 1929 crash. After Prohibition ended, they only exceeded 1,000 cases for the year 1938.
3. Roy A. Haynes, Prohibition Inside Out, Doubleday, 1926.
4. Studs Terkel, Hard Times, Pantheon Books, 1970.
5. The Great Illusion.
6. The Black Ships.
7. Ibid.
8. New Bedford Evening Standard series on McCoy, August 9-12, 1921.
9. David Kahn, The Code Breakers, Macmillan, 1967.
10. The Black Ships.
11. Aug. 13,1927, issue.
12. The Black Ships.
13. Interview with author.
CHAPTER ELEVEN: “PROHIBITIONS WORKS!”
1. Cincinnati Enquirer, Sept. 8, 1921.
2. “Booze” owed its name to an enterprising manufacturer called Edmund C. Booze, who for the 1840 presidential campaign marketed whisky in bottles shaped like log cabins.
3. Prohibition Inside Out.
4. Mabel Willebrandt, The Inside of Prohibition, Current News Features, 1929.
5. Izzy Einstein, Prohibition Agent Number 1, Frederick Stokes Co. 1932.
6. Slang term for French World War I soldier.
CHAPTER TWELVE: “PROHIBITION DOESN’T WORK!”
1. Current News Features, 1929.
2. My italics.
3. My italics
4. My italics.
5. Although sometimes the “little people” got their own back. In Studs Terkel’s Hard Times, a working-class woman’s son reminisced: “A cop started coming around and gettin’ friendly. She knew he was workin’ up to a pinch. So, she prepares a bottle for him. He talked her into sellin’ it to him. He pinches her, takes her to court. He said: ‘I bought this half a dog of a booze. Half a pint.’ The woman said: ‘How do you know it’s booze?’ The cop takes a swig of it and spits it out. It was urine. Case dismissed.”
6. Collier’s, Sept. 10, 1949.
7. Wayne Wheeler: Dry Boss.
8. Thomas Kessner, Fiorello La Guardia, Penguin, 1989.
9. Kenneth Allsop, The Bootleggers, Arlington House, 1968.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CHICAGO
1. Fletcher Dobyns, The Underworld of American Politics, Fletcher Dobyns Publishing, 1932.
2. He owed this nickname to his diminutive size.
3. Lloyd Wendt and Herman Kogan, Lords of the Levee, Garden City Publishing, 1943.
4. In Chicago, Prohibition became effective in 1919.
5. Martin A. Gosch and Richard Hammer, The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano, Little, Brown, 1974.
6. Lloyd Wendt and Herbert Kogan, Big Bill of Chicago, Bobbs-Merrill, 1953.
7. Ibid.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: REMUS ON TRIAL
1. Cincinnati Enquirer, Dec. 1-17, 1927.
2. Cincinnati Enquirer, Dec. 1927.
3. Cincinnati Enquirer, Dec. 1927.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: REMUS REDUX
1. Cincinnati Enquirer, Dec. 1927.
2. Years later, a Cincinnati Times-Star columnist, Jame L. Kilgallen, who had covered the trial for the International News Service agency, claimed that he had suggested this dramatic opening to Remus. He also recalled that there was, in fact, no empty chair: Conners’s wife was sitting in it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: A FATAL TRIUMPH
1. Wayne Wheeler: Dry Boss.
2. Oswald Garrison Willard in Nation, Nov. 30, 1927.
3. Virginius Dabney, The Dry Messiah: The Life of Bishop Cannon, Knopf, 1949. The speech, and an interview, appeared in the Baltimore Sun.
4. In later life, she became a Catholic convert.
5. Willebrandt herself had confirmed that on the night of Al Smith’s nomination, she had ordered extensive raids on New York’s major nightclubs and speakeasies.
6. The Dry Messiah.
7. The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: THE AFTERMATH
1. The swing against Prohibition was not total. Pockets of resistance, the dry counties in what was once rural America, still exist; so does a tiny “Prohibition Party,” and drivers caught on certain Alabama or Georgia highways with liquor in their cars face huge fines unless the liquor is stored in the trunk, with the cap or seal intact.
2. H. L. Mencken, A Choice of Days, Knopf, 1980.
3. Quoted in Francis Ianni and Elizabeth Reuss-Ianni’s Crime Society, New American Library, 1976.
4. Fiorello La Guardia.
5. The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Adams, Samuel Hopkins. The Incredible Era: The Life and Times of Warren Harding. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1930.
Allen, Everett S. The Black Ships. New York: Little, Brown, 1965.
Allen, F. L. Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920s in America. New York: Penguin, 1931.
Allsop, Kenneth. The Bootleggers. London: Arlington House, 1968.
Asbury, Herbert. The Great Illusion. New York: Doubleday, 1950.
Britton, Nan. The President’s Daugter. New York: Elizabeth Anne Guild, 1927.
Clark, Norman H. Deliver Us from Evil. New York: W. W. Norton, 1976.
_________.The Dry Tears. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1965, revised ed. 1988.
Dabney, Virginius. The Dry Messiah: The Life of Bishop Cannon. New York: Knopf, 1949.
Dobyns, Fletcher. The Underworld of American Politics. New York: Fletcher Dobyns Publishing, 1932.
Edwards, Rev. Justin. Temperance Manual. New York: American Tract Society, 1847.
Einstein, Izzy. Prohibition Agent Number 1. New York: Frederick Stokes Co., 1932.
Gosch, Martin A., and Richard Hammer. The Last Testament of Lucky Luciano. Boston: Little, Brown, 1974.
Haynes, Roy A. Prohibition Inside Out. New York: Doubleday, 1926.
Ianni, Francis, and Elizabeth Reuss-Ianni. Crime Society. New York: New American Library, 1976.
Kahn, David. The Code Breakers. New York: Macmillan, 1967.
Kessner, Thomas. Fiorello La Guardia. New York: Penguin, 1989.
Kobler, John. Ardent Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: Putnam, 1973.
Lemert, Edwin M. Alcohol and the Northwest Indians. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1954.
Longworth, Alice Roosevelt. The Crowded Hours. New York: Scribners, 1933.
Mee, Charles. The Ohio Gang. New York: Evans and Co., 1981.
Mencken, H. L. A Choice of Days. New York: Knopf, 1980.
Rumberger, John J. Profits, Power, and Prohibition. New York: State University of New York Press, 1989.
Russell, Francis. The Shadow of Blooming Grove. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968.
Samuels, Rev. W. H. Temperance Reform and Its Great Reformers. Cincinnati: A. M. Cincinnati, 1879.
Sinclair, Andrew. Prohibition: The Era of Excess. Boston: Adantic, 1962.
Stewart, Justin. Wayne Wheeler: Dry Boss. New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1928.
Terkel, Studs. Hard Times. New York: Pantheon Books, 1970.
Todzmann, Dr. Don Heinrich. “The Survival of an Ethnic Community:
The Cincinnati G ermans.”
Ph.D. diss., Cincinnati University, 1983.
Wendt, Lloyd, and Herman Kogan. Big Bill of Chicago. New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953.
_______. Lords of the Levee. New York: Garden City Publishing, 1943.
Willebrandt, Mabel. The Inside of Prohibition. New York: Current News Features, 1929.
INDEX
abolitionism (alcohol), 28, 38–39
abolitionism (slavery), 29, 31, 234
absenteeism, 149
Adams, John, 10–11
advertising, 80
African Negroes, 53–54
alcohol, harmful effects of, 14–16, 23–27, 59
Alcohol Education Act (AEA), 51
alcoholism, deaths from, 147–48
Allen, Everett S., 134, 139–40, 142
America:
cynicism about politicians, 239–41