Eight Million Sots in the Naked City

How Prohibition was imposed on, and rejected by, New York

Jackson Kuhl from the November 2007 issue

(Page 2 of 3)

The league handpicked the bureau’s top administrators, but lower-level recruitment was dicier. The combination of low pay and less-than-thorough vetting of hires led to widespread corruption. Bootleggers paid $50 to $500 for agents’ incognizance or information; the bureau learned to turn off its outgoing telephone service on raid nights to stop agents from tipping off the targets. And agents could be violent: In March 1920, a Prohibition agent killed a cabby in what the agent claimed was a sting gone bad. After the autopsy revealed that the cabby had been shot point-blank in the back of the skull, the Manhattan district attorney charged the agent with homicide. The motive: attempted robbery of the cases of liquor in the taxicab’s trunk. The agent then confessed his previous lines of work had been armed robbery and jailhouse snitching.

Scandals like this discredited the bureau within the city. Anderson pressured the New York Police Department to step up, but there the demagogue had to sleep in the bed he’d made: The heavily Irish Catholic force took a dim view of both Anderson and his dry agenda. Meanwhile, the courts became clogged with cases of petty Volstead Act violations; by 1923 the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said it was handling 15,000 to 20,000 cases a year involving the manufacture, sale, or transport of liquor, very few of which led to jury convictions.

The difficulty in finding friendly jurors—in one minor case, 57 candidates were dismissed during voir dire because of their stated wetness —reflected the city’s animosity to Prohibition. Ethnic and working-class groups ignored it as best they could (in Little Italy women with purple-stained hands were common), though Volstead-related fines and closings hurt them the most.

Among the upper and middle classes, the cultural fashion of patriotism and privation during the late 1910s shifted in the early ’20s. It became cool to drink. To be served alcohol in restaurants required displays of wit and humor; to know where the best speakeasies were demanded entry into exclusive realms; and to afford the expense, night after night, necessitated shows of wealth. Newspapers and magazines kept readers up to date on the hottest locales and the latest shutterings, and being arrested for Volstead offenses was a mark of pride. The Daily News editorialized: “We think [dry laws] represent an attempt by small town and country people, who cannot know metropolitan conditions, to tell us how we shall conduct our private and personal lives. We don’t propose to take such dictation.” To New York sophisticates, the decade became a blur of cocktails, cabarets, and—in the words of one contemporary movie poster—“beautiful jazz babies.”

Much of the liquor flowed into the speakeasies from domestic moonshiners. Of foreign imports, an estimated two-thirds came over the border by land from Canada. The rest arrived via Rum Row, a flotilla of ships with holds full of hooch brought in from Canada, Britain, and elsewhere. These vessels sat in international waters just outside U.S. jurisdiction (originally three miles but later switched to 12), although, as we learn in Alastair Moray’s The Diary of a Rum-Runner, some would often dip closer to make themselves more attractive to the American buyers motoring out to them.

Moray’s 11 months of dated entries, recorded between 1923 and 1924, offer innumerable insights into how the smuggling trade was conducted, along with its manifold dangers. The author was walking the streets of Glasgow when a friend asked him if would care to sign on as the cargo superintendent of a four-masted schooner heading to New York to sell 20,000 cases of liquor. He agreed. His job was to handle the exchange of sauce for cash on the other side, as well as performing the ship’s clerical and chandler duties along the way.

What followed was a pulp adventure full of howling storms, fistfights, two stowaways, and a Chinese assistant engineer named Ping Pong. Moray had done some prior pleasure boating but nothing in the way of trans-Atlantic merchant marining, so the author’s thick sailing patois is tempered by his wide-eyed amazement at St. Elmo’s Fire and flying fish. Just reaching America was a Homeric endeavor, in large part because alcohol is not the best cargo to keep in close proximity to those in the maritime trade. Moray earned a certain authority onboard, despite his inexperience, simply because he could have a drink and then stop.

The venture capitalist funding the expedition—referred to obliquely as “the boss,” “the owner,” or “His Nibs”—crossed on a passenger liner to New York, where he acted as fixer. Once he reached the coast, he communicated to Moray via a pre-arranged code carried by messengers on motorboats, giving the ship its final coordinates about eight and a half miles off Fire Island. A group led by a man named Hamman became the main buyer, paying $21 per case, but Moray was authorized to sell to anyone who pulled up at $23. One dollar of each sale was to be reserved as protection. “Exactly what we are being protected against I don’t yet know,” writes Moray.

Business wasn’t easy. On good-weather days, contact boats came alongside and bought several hundred cases, except when Coast Guard cutters appeared to photograph Moray’s ship and scare away customers. The abundance of rumrunners along the Row drove down prices. Moray couldn’t unload the stuff for $23 or even $21: Scotch went for $17, and gin was a tough sell altogether because American moonshiners commonly produced it.

Tedium set in, food dwindled, and the crew turned mad with boredom and booze. (At one point, the blotto cook had to be coaxed out of the rigging after going aloft with an ax to kill God.) The boss unexpectedly abandoned New York for Nova Scotia. Sometimes boats with large numbers of hard-looking men circled the schooner; on a resupplying trip to Bermuda, the mate’s brother came aboard and asked the chief engineer whose side he would be on if the man’s associates should rush the ship. A steamer was raided, its crew held at gunpoint while the pirates sold the cargo at $7 or $8 a case to other rumrunners, who resold the stuff at $11 or $12. The glut just prolonged Moray’s own unlading. Finally, Moray and his shipmates learned an Atlantic City syndicate had targeted their ship for the same treatment. They quit Rum Row with cases still in their hold.

The fulcrum year in the Rum War was 1924, for two reasons. As Moray describes firsthand, it was the beginning of the end for the entrepreneurs, as organized criminals sought to drive out competition. According to gossip along the Row, the hijacked steamship had been deliberately attacked because it had no shore connection. Even celebrity rumrunner Bill McCoy, the father of Rum Row, discovered upon his release from nine months’ imprisonment that he couldn’t go back because the smuggling racket had been completely subsumed by syndicates.

Also that year, the federal government began blockading the multiple Rum Rows that lay off American coasts. Appropriations were made, old destroyers were borrowed from the Navy, new craft were built, and recruitment was boosted. The “Dry Armada,” launched in 1925, dramatically transformed the seascape, as 25-year Coast Guard veteran Harold Waters describes in Smugglers of Spirits: Prohibition and the Coast Guard Patrol.

Prior to this, the Coast Guard had been spread too thin to catch many of the motorboats, fishing trawlers, sailing yachts, and even seaplanes shuttling cases from the Row to shore. But more men and more materiel led to more catches. The destroyers picketed the mother ships, while smaller and more maneuverable cutters created an inshore screen. “Sandpounders”—foot patrols on the beach—watched for landings.

Upon sighting a suspicious vessel, a cutter would sound its horn as an order to heave to and submit to boarding and search. If the vessel refused, a blank one-pounder was fired, followed by live shells put down fore and aft and sprays from Lewis guns. These volleys usually brought the rumrunner to a stop. Often steering cables were cut or engines damaged; gunfire would sometimes set the Scotch and rye alight.

Soon “gentlemen adventurers” folded their cards and left the game, leaving an escalating war between the Coast Guard and the money-heavy syndicates. Alcohol-free decoys distracted cutters while others made a run for land. Spotters on shore watched the cutters, radioing the contact boats when it was safe to come in. Made-to-order rumrunners were constructed, fitted with steel armor and smokescreen devices. The Coast Guard played dirty too. One trick involved sending packets of money and thank-you notes to made men in such a way that the mail was intercepted by their gangland bosses—death warrants for the addressees.

Comments

Ska|10.26.07 @ 11:20AM|#

My favorite part of having a drink at Claudio's in Greenport is knowing that during prohibition the place was a warehouse for illegal booze. Prohibitionists drive me to drink.

|10.26.07 @ 11:56AM|#

Of foreign imports, an estimated two-thirds came over the border by land from Canada. The rest arrived via Rum Row, a flotilla of ships with holds full of hooch brought in from Canada, Britain, and elsewhere.

maple sucking, puck slapping rum runners...

BTW: Diary of a Rum Runner has been out of print for years. I would like to get a copy as it is part of local folklore where I live.

|10.26.07 @ 11:57AM|#

Fun informative posting! Thanks, Jackson.

|10.26.07 @ 11:58AM|#

Aresen, take a bow. BTW my maternal grandparents were Canucks.

The Rest Of The English Langua|10.26.07 @ 12:14PM|#

Fuck "chock-a-block."

dhex|10.26.07 @ 12:42PM|#

this was a very neat article!

Jackson Kuhl|10.26.07 @ 1:07PM|#

Aresen,

Findeth what you seek here.

I highly recommend it. There's a great series of entries regarding a flapper turned rum-runner, and Moray's capture of her jazz-age slang is alone worth the price.

VM|10.26.07 @ 1:18PM|#

"Of foreign imports, an estimated two-thirds came over the border by land from Canada. The rest arrived via Rum Row, a flotilla of ships with holds full of hooch brought in from Canada, Britain, and elsewhere. "

think: that scene in the Untouchables with the mounties (Aresen? Dief the Chief? Eddie Shore?) and KC's group - where Sean Connery shoots the dead guy - great scene!

Jackson - fantastic phrase, "flapper turned rum runner". love it!

|10.26.07 @ 2:06PM|#

I think prohibition failed because alcohol was already culturaly acceptable. The drug prohibitionists have successfully vilified drugs, because they cause death, insanity, and harm. Funny they have never tried to ban cars, those things cause 41,000 deaths in the US every year.

|10.26.07 @ 2:09PM|#

VM

In Canada, that scene from The Untouchables induced mass cringes in every theater in which it was shown.

For a parallel: Imagine a movie portrayal of the Battle of Kasserine Pass in which the American Seventh Cavalry* on horseback** commanded by George Patton* won the battle.***

*Not there.
**No longer used horses.
***Didn't happen.

VM|10.26.07 @ 2:19PM|#

Aresen-

no doubt!

actually, if I may suggest a different parallel (but Rommel's comments in the movie "Patton" certainly were spot on; and the similar scene in "The Big Red One" was also good!) -- I'd like to liken the cringe to any time Jar Jar was on screen!

Plus, had THE SHAT (NOT ALAN THICKE) been in charge, it would have been different!!!

Paul|10.26.07 @ 2:22PM|#

Sort of kind of thread jack (apologies in advance):

NPR claims that Prohibition works, too. Well, ok, not "Prohibition" but prohibition (small p).

Not once in the story do they make the connection with the drug war, leading one to ask the obvious questions regarding banning any illegal substance and addiction issues. If smoking bans work, then so must every other narcotic ban, no?

Paul|10.26.07 @ 2:26PM|#

Funny they have never tried to ban cars, those things cause 41,000 deaths in the US every year.

No kidding, gun violence only kills around 12,000.

|10.26.07 @ 2:44PM|#

"THE SHAT"

CRINGE

|10.26.07 @ 2:48PM|#

So the responsibility for all of the alcoholism in the United States can be placed at the feet of Canada, eh? The Canadian menace strikes again.

Thomas Paine\'s Goiter|10.26.07 @ 2:49PM|#

Anyone that hasn't should read The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol when they get a chance. It's surprisingly captivating.

Paul|10.26.07 @ 2:52PM|#

Anyone that hasn't should read The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol when they get a

I got the "spirits of America" in my living room every friday night.

|10.26.07 @ 2:56PM|#

Just like a puck slapper to bring a Thicke to a Shat fight.

The Hanson Brothers|10.26.07 @ 3:00PM|#

The machine took my quarter.

Ogie Ogelthorp|10.26.07 @ 3:10PM|#

*drops gloves*

|10.26.07 @ 4:47PM|#

Prohibition failed not because people realized it "wasn't working" or whatever. It goes directly to taxes. The US was in the midst of the depression when the government realized there was lots of money to be had legalizing booze and then taxing it.

|10.26.07 @ 6:04PM|#

Prohibition wasn't a failure.

That is, if your name was Bronfman or Labatt.

;)

BakedPenguin|10.26.07 @ 7:01PM|#

Or Capone.

|10.26.07 @ 7:08PM|#

Jackson Kuhl

Thanks for the link. Missed it earlier.

|10.26.07 @ 10:52PM|#

The US was in the midst of the depression when the government realized there was lots of money to be had legalizing booze and then taxing it.

I've always thought a campaign to legalize pot based on the tax revenue it could generate might get some real traction. I wonder if anyone's done a study estimating that?

|10.27.07 @ 12:01AM|#

I think income tax is the major revenue source now and if you have income from selling pot, it's taxable. So pot is already taxed.

BakedPenguin|10.27.07 @ 9:05AM|#

george - technically, so was alcohol during Prohibition (that's how they got Capone). The point is still valid, though because people who have to hide what they're doing to make money will have to hide the money as well.

I think it's a good idea - especially if the additional source of income for farmers means that we can stop their welfare subsidies.

|10.27.07 @ 6:02PM|#

Anyone that hasn't should read The Spirits of America: A Social History of Alcohol when they get a chance. It's surprisingly captivating.

TPG, I just checked and it's available at the public library here. I'll check it out Tuesday. God I love the internet.

|10.28.07 @ 9:46PM|#

Rum row sounds awesome.

Imagine, a giant flotilla of boats, stuffed to the stern with booze.

nfl jerseys|11.6.10 @ 1:24AM|#

ghd