[lit-ideas] FW: Michigan


Veronica Caley
vcaley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



----- Original Message ----- 
From: Veronica Caley 
To: Caley Veronica
Sent: 7/31/2005 5:10:02 PM 
Subject: Michigan


    
 
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  Life in Michigan 
 Blind pigs like this one at 932 E. Columbia flourished all over the city 
during prohibition. In 1929, illegal liquor was second only to the auto 
industry in Detroit in terms of revenue -- $215 million. 


How Prohibition made Detroit a bootlegger's dream town

By Jenny Nolan / The Detroit News 
 
In 1916, under the growing influence of an anti-drinking movement, Michigan 
approved a statewide prohibition of the sale of beer, liquor or wine, to take 
place beginning May 1, 1917. The powers that be, however, had not taken into 
account the neighborly hospitality of nearby Ohioans, and Toledo, just 60 miles 
from Detroit, turned on the spigots for smugglers. 
 
      False floorboards in automobiles, second gas tanks, hidden compartments, 
even false bottomed shopping baskets and suitcases, not to mention camouflaged 
flasks and hot water bottles were all employed as the entrepreneurial and the 
thirsty navigated the Dixie Highway between Detroit and the Ohio border. It was 
a sort of dress rehearsal of ingenuity and audacity for the much larger 
operations to come. 
      Michigan laws and judges were lenient, however, with the fine for the 
first offense set at $20, and in 1919, the Damon Law, the enforcement vehicle 
for Michigan's prohibition, was ruled unconstitutional. Smuggling arrests 
stopped, judges freed prisoners, and for two months, Ohio to Michigan roads 
were a stream of traffic. In April, Ohio outlawed the manufacture and sale of 
booze and Monroe, the center of operations for smugglers, returned to sleepier 
times. 
      The fervor for prohibition was sweeping the country, though, and in 1917 
the 18th amendment was passed and by January of 1919 had been ratified by three 
fourths of the states. The Volstead Act provided the federal vehicle for 
enforcement, and prohibition officially began January 16 of 1920.  Federal 
agent Abe Lezotte nails a "closed" sign to a blind pig after padlocking the 
building in 1929. 

      Ohio's earlier hospitality was now echoed by our neighbor to the north, 
Canada. Although individual provinces, including Ontario, had outlawed the 
retail sale of liquor, the federal government approved and licensed 
distilleries and breweries, of which there were 45 in Ontario alone in 1920, to 
manufacture, distribute, and export. 
      With the Detroit River less than a mile across in some places, and 28 
miles long with thousands of coves and hiding places along the shore and among 
the islands, it was a smugglers dream. Along with Lake St. Clair and the St. 
Clair River, these waterways carried 75% of the liquor supplied to the United 
States during Prohibition. 
      Ingenuity carried the day: cargo was dragged beneath boats, old 
underground tunnels from boathouse to house were reopened, sunken houseboats 
hid underwater cable delivery systems, and even a pipeline was built. Between 
Peche Island and the foot of Alter Road, an electronically controlled cable 
hauled metal cylinders filled with up to 50 gallons of booze. A pipeline was 
constructed between a distillery in Windsor and a Detroit bottler. In winter, 
with the ice frozen, anyone from a single skater towing a sled to a loaded 
caravan of 75 cars could be seen. 
      Enterprising individual efforts and congenial business relationships soon 
gave way to more organized, and more lethal groups ready to reap the profits. 
      The Licavolis, Bommaritos, Lucidos and Zerillis brought a Sicilian flavor 
to east side efforts, while the Tallman gang led the west side. The Purple Gang 
had the run of the town and were unmatched in ruthlessness. Corruption became 
commonplace and payoffs to police, politicians and judges were rampant. On the 
day of a raid it was not unusual for half the scheduled squad to call in sick. 
State and federal forces were slightly less corruptible, but there was so much 
illegal activity that it was impossible to stem the tide. 
 Federal agents and Detroit police dump cases of beer overboard after stopping 
a boatload of bootleggers in the Detroit River in August of 1929.


      Illegal liquor was the second biggest business in Detroit at $215 million 
a year in 1929, just behind automobiles. Public opinion was against the liquor 
ban and no mayor was elected in Detroit who expressed favorable views of 
prohibition. There were as many as 25,000 blind pigs operating in the Detroit 
area. People drank everywhere, from speakeasies to private clubs to established 
restaurants to storefronts, and of course they drank at home. Cocktail parties 
were the rage in society circles, and workmen wanted beer with their lunch or 
dinner. You could buy a shot from a car in the parking lots of the Hamtramck 
auto plants or in one of the four hundred 'soft drink parlors' licensed in that 
city in 1923. Open flaunting of the unpopular law was pandemic. 
      Nick Schaefer ran a blind pig across the street from Police Headquarters, 
above a bail bondsman's office. Reporters and police alike frequented the place 
for its famous potato soup and free lunch. Free lunches were common in blind 
pigs. Meant to draw in customers, lunch was offered free with the purchase of a 
glass or two of beer. 
      When the state police raided the Deutsches Haus at Mack and Maxwell, they 
arrested Detroit Mayor John Smith, Michigan Congressman Robert Clancy and 
Sheriff Edward Stein. From St. Clair Shores' Blossom Heath on Jefferson to 
Little Harry's downtown, to the Green Lantern Club in Ecorse, Detroit's most 
upstanding citizens fed the coffers of the gangs that were reaping huge 
fortunes from their appetite for alcohol. 
      Stills provided the liquor not brought in from Canada. Despite the threat 
of police or federal raids, and the dangers of explosions, stills were well 
worth the risks and losses. Commercial breweries that were allowed to produce 
'near beer' had to first produce real beer, then remove the alcohol. This was a 
practice begging for exploitation. Illegal commercial enterprises, often run by 
the various gangs poured out millions of gallons and home stills were 
everywhere. 
      Reporters covered the war between the authorities and the bootleggers and 
between rival gangs, with a vengeance. Two new dailies joined the News, Free 
Press and Times in covering the mayhem. Competition was fierce and extras were 
printed almost continuously. Impartiality was the order of the day and 
reporters were ordered to buy a drink for every one they were bought, and to 
get both sides of the story. Many of the reporters drank in the same blind pigs 
as the bootleggers; they needed to know the gangs as well as the police. 
      The gangs meanwhile grew increasingly violent and brazen. Hijacking and 
kidnapping were rampant, as was murder of rivals. Innocent pleasure boaters or 
fisherman could hardly go on the river or lake for fear of stray bullets from 
the Customs agents or gangs. The innocent as well as the guilty were subjected 
to searches of their property, homes and persons. Prostitution and gambling 
went hand in hand with the speakeasies. 
      Outrage of the citizenry at the violence spawned by prohibition, along 
with the absurdity of trying to stifle a universal thirst, and anger at 
imperiled civil liberties eventually combined to move public opinion towards 
the repeal of this experiment in legislation of social policy, and on May 11, 
1933 beer was made legal. Seven months later, on the day before New Years Eve, 
The manufacture and sale of liquor were legalized in Michigan. 
 This fisherman's house at the lower end of Mud Island in the Detroit River and 
the partially submerged boathouse at right were a terminal for an underwater 
cable system that carried illegal booze along the river bottom. 



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Veronica Caley
vcaley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx

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