Evening Star Newspaper, April 2, 1933, Page 67

Fiction Features Magasine WASHINGTON, D. C, APRIL 2, 1933. The Sunday Star Art Notes Books 16 PAGES. “Liquidating Prohibition” Peculiar and Perplexing Problems Arising From a “Cleaning Up of the Social Conses quences.” What Is to Be Done With the Army of Parasites Bred by Conditions of the Past Few Years? Big Job Starts With Repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment. ES, we’re going to have beer backina week,” remarked a man who knows the underworld of New York as well as any one in the overworld. And pro- hibition repeal in a year or so. But when that’s done, don’t think it’s all over but the shouting. It’s left behind it a job which will take us all your lifetime and mine— liquidating prohibition.” “Liquidating prohibition?” I asked somewhat puzzled. “Yes—cleaning up the so- cial consequences, if you want to put it that way. We're going to have some pe- culiar -and complex troubles, arising from two sources. First, prohibition has bred an army of parasites who have learned for the first time in history how to make crime pay. Really, you can’t expect them to go to work. -They never did and they never will. They’ll keep on trying to live in the style and by the meth- ods to which they are accus- tomed. In the second place, a big element has learned the arts of illicit brewing, dis- tilling and blending. ‘In the days of legal liquor that sort of thing used to flourish only in the Southern mountains, and on a small scale at that. Now, it’s ever§jwhere. “The new era starts this month, when the Federal beer bill goes into effect. And whatever trouble follows the beer bill will be only a skirm- ish. Our real job will begin when we repeal the eighteenth amendment—controlling the hard stuff.” 3 k { IQUIDATION—that, among the really big shots at the head of our national liquor business, is the order of the hour. These men, in contrast with the small fry, have a certain amount of imagina- tion and the capacity for thinking ahead. Ever since the rapid events of 1932 they have faced the fact that the days of their game are numbered. Hard times or no hard times, they have been doing very well by themselves. Being gamblers by temperament—or they would never have adopted this business—many of them lost out in the 1929 crash and either faded from the picture or started anew. % 8till, the depression has affected them far less than the average business man. ‘While prices have gone down, the re- tailers and purveyors have had to stand most of the loss. So far as the big fel- lows are concerned, they have other ways of meeting competition than cutting prices. They have still made it pay; and now the quiet people among them are getting ready to retire. They are the ones who seldom saw their names in the newspapers; a talent for keeping them- selves hidden is one element in their success. Very likely a few years from now, when the statute of limitations has run on their offenses against the law, some in- sider may publish his reminiscences. Otherwise, we shall never know just who the big shots of the bootlegging game really were. It is a safe bet that the widely advertised ones, like Ownie Mad- —Drawn for The Star Magazine by G. Tengsren. By Will Irwin. den, for example, are not really head men. With legal beer only a few days away as I write, some of' those who depended mainly on the lighter and bulkier bev- erage for their winnings may have cashed in already, and prepared to lead the life of ease, affluence and respectabil- ity. Last month an estate on Long Island sold for the proverbial sgng o a real estate agent “acting for a client.” “ When the deed was registered it bore the name of a man who, one of the neighbors happened to know, lived by serving as general to an army of rum- runners. The inference seemed plain; the new owner was going to use this property as a “drop.” He saw the dealer, protested emphatically. “I can assure you on my honor,” said the dealer, “that my client intends to reside in this prop- erty. He hasn’t the faintest idea of mixing his business with his private life, And besides, he’s retiring this month.” At about this time a quiet gentleman somewhat too carefully dressed visited a Madison avenue dealer and without hag- gling bought an exquisite object of art for a price in excess of $30,000. Only when the certified check arrived did the firm recognize its customer—an “under- world character” whose name, by a- strange series of circumstances, flashed into the news just once. And he, too— discreet inquiry proved—was preparing to live the life of a gentleman and enjoy the fruits of his toil. Indeed, for many of this class the death of prohibition brings a long-de- sired opportunity. Having accumulated a million or two or three, they wanted to get out while the going was good— and found that course impossible. The really tough and violent among them, with notches on their guns or com- manded murder on their souls, knew that retirement meant a death sentence, Their followers, with the “chief” elimi- nated, would find themselves out of jobs. They could be expected to remove him from life as a traitor to his cause—even if a rival faction did not beat them to it. - AL CAPONE lived for years in this situ- ation. As for the quieter and prob- ably richer captains of the bootlegging industry, their quandary has been less ‘melodramatic, but almost equally un- comfortable. “They, too, had followers who would resent such an abrogation of responsibility. Daily they had committed what the written law, if not the moral law, called a crime—punishable, under the Jones act, by five to ten years in a Federal penitentiary. And since all their followers and mafiy a blackmailing outsider had the evidence, the door to unlimited trouble always stood wide open. They were caught In a web of their own spinning. The cement of underworld society is fear. No, they could not let go. They must play out the string. But now the string is about to be cut; with * the impending destruction of * the pusiness they have full excuse to let go. In a few years the statute of limita- tions will have wiped out their offenses. Sooner than that, practically and probably. It is unlikely that when the beer bill goes into effect, and when we repeal the eighteenth amendment, prosecutors will bother themselves with viola- tions of the old law. In efféct, we shall have a general amnesty. They will settle down, in- vest their capital either in sécurities or in business as far as possible removed from the liquor game, found fami- lies, fulfill the touching and sometimes pathetic American aspiration to give their chil- dren better advantages than they themselves had. Of course, they will develop social aspirations, which they can- not gratify in their own lives, But the younger generation will go to the best schools which father’s money ean possibly buy; to the first-line universities. There, generally speaking, they will not “make” ‘the really exclusive societies; the origin of father’s fortune will rise up against them. But having money and manners, typically they will marry a cut above themselves socially. The offspring of these unions will be- gin to break into St. Paul's, Groton, Miss Chapin’s or whatever schools stand as their equivalent a few decades hence. By now the origins of the family fortune will be growing dim. The family will have liéd: so often that it believes its own inventions. And so on, for those bootleg strains which have managed to keep their heads and their money to a secure place in the new American aris- tocracy. \ ‘When one of them dies a century hence the newspaper obituaries wil say, “the beginnings of the family in America go back to the original John McTavish - MecGish, a prosperous merchant of New York, who built up his fortune in the era following the great European war.” A few cats, male and female, in their circle, will whisper “bootleg” or its equiv- alent in the slang of the day. But that will make no real difference in their. standing or acceptability, Just so, the gossips murmur “black ivory” of certain ruling New England clans, and “smug- gling” or “piracy” of certain first fami- lies in the South—with equal truth, probably, and equal lack of practical effect. In fact, a Southern gentleman - of unquestioned standing once remarked to me: *Our family owes its standing to its wealth, of course. And it owes its wealth ‘o the fact that my ancestors once robbed & pirate.” gt These, however, are the brilliant and