by Paul R. Spitzzeri
A half-dozen years ago and during the centennial of the enacting of Prohibition, involving the 18th Amendment to the Constitution and proscribing a ban on almost all production and sale of alcoholic beverages, a post here featured an 18 July 1928 prescription, regulated under the National Prohibition Act, for whisky to be taken “before meals,” from Dr. William Roane to patient Virginia Godell and filled at a South Los Angeles drug store.
It is not known what ailment Godell had for which whisky was a tonic, but there were plenty of complaints among supporters of Prohibition that doctors and their patients were abusing the medical carveout of the law so that the latter could get a good stiff drink when they wanted it, as opposed to needing it for their health.
This post looks more broadly at the Prohibition environment during that month, eight-and-a-half years into the “great social experiment” that was so widely honored in the breach, mainly the political debate about it that animated much of the the presidential campaign that was just starting to kick into high gear in summer 1928. There was, however, a new push to prosecute physicians, pharmacists and patients who were perceived as flaunting the law.
In its 2 July edition, the Los Angeles Times reported that,
Abuse of the privilege granted to doctors to issue prescriptions for whisky is scheduled for an intensive investigation, it is disclosed at the Federal Building preliminary to the hearing, set for today, for Eric Maas, accused of falsely obtaining prescriptions and depriving the government out of its right to regulate the issuance of liquor permits.
The paper added that the effort “is said to involve the affairs of numerous doctors who are asserted to have ‘farmed out’ their prescriptions at a wholesale rate to be subsequently sold at whatever the market would bring.” More than two dozen medicos were mentioned as being involved, while it was remarked that it was an “asserted fact that Maas was found with thirty-six such prescriptions in his possession and that later 200 were found in his apartments.”
Maas and Charles Richter were arrested a few weeks prior and the two, said to be agents for “eastern liquor interests,” were, in September 1929, found guilty, with the former getting a half-year in the county jail and fined $1,500, while the latter was assessed half that amount and avoided time in the slammer. The article concluded that the results of the probe was likely to lead to doctors losing the ability to issue these prescriptions and that, “it is also stated that these permits are sold to wealthy persons at high figures because of the seeming security in the transportation of whisky.”
In its 11 July edition, the Los Angeles Record informed readers that Dr. Thomas G. Odell of Santa Monica was arrested and then arraigned before a federal magistrate on $3,000 bail on a charge of “conspiring with representatives of two big liquor plants in the east to flood Los Angeles with thousands of illegal prescriptions.” When, however, Maas and Richter were convicted and sentenced and Odell, with two other doctors, Charles S. Freeman and William F. Thurber, were mentioned in case documents, though there is no information that any of the physicians were found liable for involvement in the conspiracy. Neither, it should be added, were the parties involved in the prescription mentioned above, alleged to have been involved in anything illegal.
As we turn to the political issues of Prohibition for the presidential campaign, it should be noted that the Republican Party, which supported the continuation and enhanced enforcement of Prohibition and the candidates of which won the 1920 (Warren G. Harding) and 1924 (Calvin Coolidge) elections, held its convention in Kansas City, Missouri from 12-15 June, nominating Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, while the Democrats convened at Houston from the 26th through the 29th and anointed New York Governor Al Smith as its standard bearer.
The Times, resolutely Republican in its politics, made sure to let readers know of factionalism within the Democratic Party, largely borne out of the fragile coalition between northern and southern Dems, the latter often referred to as the “solid South,” but also highlighted schisms involving locals, as well. In its edition of the 3rd, for example, the paper ran an article by former federal judge Benjamin F. Bledsoe, said to be a lifelong Democrat, in which he switched his allegiance to Hoover.
Bledsoe called Prohibition “the greatest single step taken in furtherance of human betterment since Lincoln freed the slaves” and he supported stronger enforcement, proclaiming that “we are gradually drifting into a condition of lawlessness.” While he knew that Smith was personally against the law, but said he was bound to enforce it while in effect, Bledsoe asserted that “his election . . . will be a direct and positive encouragement to many of our people to further flout the law.” On the other hand, Bledsoe, a San Bernardino native, was a former classmate of Hoover at Stanford University, but pointed to the Republican candidate’s unstinting support of the law and of the “effort to reclaim mankind from inebriety.”
Another local example was when George F. Rinehart, publisher of the Democratic Covina Citizen, declared that he was bucking his party to renounce Smith and support Hoover, stating, that while he recognized Smith’s track record as a chief executive of New York state, his “viewpoint on prohibition is warped and twisted” and that “we have won a barren victory” if the Democrat prevailed in November. Though the governor was deemed honest, “his opinions on State control of the liquor traffic are so puerile and archaic as to be unworthy of any man with Presidential aspirations” and these positions were “illogical and unworkable.” Rinehart insisted Prohibition had not been given its best chance for enforcement and success.
The paper also gloried in such items as, reported in its edition of the 6th, the news that the Democratic publisher of the Houston Chronicle and also the party’s finance chair was concerned that Smith’s support of state-by-state decision-making about Prohibition enforcement—the governor endorsed this in his state—amounted to “nullification by indirection—nullification of national prohibition.” Not quite two weeks later, there was not much concealing of glee as the Times observed the work of anti-Smith Texas Democrats working for Hoover’s election, though one was quoted as declaring, apparently with the Angel City paper’s approval,
Any man who would strike down the Eighteenth Amendment also should strike down Section 3, Article VI, of the Constitution, pertaining to religious freedom . . . I don’t know if there is still a Ku Klux Klan organizatino [sic] in Texas, but if they are opposed to Al Smith I wish there were 10,000,000 of them in the State.
Broadly across the South, a coalition of anti-Smith Dems were organizing and gave four reasons for repudiating the candidate, including his disavowal of the party platform adopted at Houston that Prohibition was not to be challenged as the law of the land; the governor’s “wet” record; his choice of a “wet” Republican as chair of the Democratic National Committee; and Smith’s ties to the Tammany Hall political machine.
The new DNC chair was John J. Raskob (1879-1950), who, for a decade, was the finance head of chemical giant DuPont and General Motors, which were aligned under Chair Alfred Sloan, a Hoover supporter. Conflict between the two led Raskob to resign and, with the sale of his GM tock, the latter embarked on building the famed Empire State Building in New York City. Raskob’s views on Prohibition comported with those of Smith (who later served as president of the company that oversaw construction of the Empire State Building), but the Times never tired of pointing to examples of Democratic fractures over the issue, citing complaints from former Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels over how Raskob and Smith contradicted the party’s platform position at the convention.
In its number of the 15th, the Times published an editorial, “The Prohibition Question,” which mocked the Houston convention and Dems’ efforts to “carry water on one shoulder and booze on the other” by having “a self-proclaimed advocate for liquor running for President on a ‘dry’ platform.” It added,
So far as concerns a national verdict on prohibition, it has already been given and by an overwhelming majority of the people’s representatives . . . The legalizing of a trickle of liquor [sure to result from more state control over its traffic] always leads to a flood, which demoralizes, degrades and debases. The use of alcohol is not different from the use of any other narcotic drug; if it is less potent than some, its use, if permitted, is so much more widespread that its aggregate of harm is far greater . . .
There is no argument in favor of the use of liquor. What, then, is the case for its suppression? It may be summed up in the phrase, the greatest good to the greatest number . . .
There is still liquor consumption, but not even the most fanatical “wets” can assert with truth that its volume compares with that of pre-Volstead days . . . prohibition is the law, and that the law should be enforced and obeyed is a fundamental principle of organized society . . .
Most of the arguments used by the “wets” are illogical and puerile. People are told, for instance, that under prohibition there are large numbers of bootleggers—and the remedy proposed for the situation is to remove the restrictions on bootlegging! People are told that vast numbers are drinking—and to stop it it is proposed to make drinking easier! What a farce! . . .
Prohibition has come to stay; law enforcement is a vital necessity . . . Were all other things equal, [the administration] of Hoover and [running mate Charles] Curtis so accords with that taken by the majority of the American people that it alone should insure their success. The result should be one which will bury the liquor question beyond hope of resurrection.
Unsurprisingly, the paper, over the next couple of weeks, published letters from readers that gushed in praise of the editorial, including from Representative Joe Crail of California’s 10th District of the House of Representatives, who wrote that it “was so full of good sense and sound reasoning,” especially in its informing readers that “wets” were “actually making an assault upon our sacred institutions, the Constitution, our government, and the home.”
A member of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union cited a claim from economist Irving Fisher, who was a teetotaler, as well as a vegetarian and supporter of eugenics, that $6 billion of wealth was added to the American economy because of Prohibition, but his claims have been analyzed and criticized, even if much of his work was important and useful outside of his moral point of view. It should be added, though, that, in mid-October 1929, Fisher told a group at a dinner that “stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” Days later came the astounding market crash inaugurating the Great Depression and Fisher not only lost his wealth but much of his reputation.
In its edition of the 20th, the Times ran a letter from “Independent,” who averred that the incipient election was the most consequential since 1864 and that the questions involved were as obvious as day from night. Adding that principles had to be borne above party, the writer called for human improvement over self-interest and patriotism above any other ties, and the letter concluded with,
This nation has taken a mighty forward step in breaking away from the shackles of liquor slavery, if only partially.
What red-blooded American will say retreat—step back?
Shall we put Tammany in the White House? Tammany with its black record?
Let us not only elect Mr. Hoover and defeat Mr. Smith, but do it by the most emphatic vote ever cast for President.
Occasionally, though, the paper printed opposing positions, including by George Thompson, a self-described “antiprohibitionist and a moderate drinker of light wines and beer,” who took exception to some of the editorial’s points, while praising its “able exposition.” He concluded by inquiring whether Prohibition could be amended “in favor of the sale of light wines and beer,” while still allowing for the ban on saloons, asserting that “the male workers of this country are, as a rule, in favor” of that idea.
Kenneth J. Ambrose, calling himself a Mason, Protestant and a Republican, wrote to “express my appreciation” for the editorial, but then noted that “I am going to vote for Al Smith, the first and I hope the last Democrat it will ever be necessary for me to cast my vote for.” The reason was “because I am unalterably opposed to the principle of prohibition when applied to questions of personal liberty.” Ambrose went on to observe,
If the Federal Government can rightfully sustain prohibition as to the use of liquor, it can likewise sustain prohibition in the regulation of all other personal habits. It can declare that no man shall spend over 80 per cent of his earnings. Economically such a law would prove even more beneficial than prohibition. The prohibitionists love to credit prohibition will all our bank savings and material prosperity! If liquor prohibition is legally just and right, then prohibition of any individual or corporation earning more than one-half of 1 per cent profit on his investment, likewise would be just and right.
We are today facing a much bigger question than the question of the election of Herbert Hoover or Al Smith. We are facing the big question of whether the American government is going to turn her back on the broad fundamental principles of human rights which have formed the very foundation of our Constitution. We are facing the issue of whether every American citizen is going to surrender his individuality and accept a strait-jacket of government prohibition and censorship.
It is interesting to peruse commentaries by columnists for the Los Angeles Express, which was also in favor of maintaining Prohibition and expanding its enforcement. Chester H. Rowell, in his “Current Comment” column in the issue of the 7th, wrote that “Al Smith has really drawn the issue” and painted “wet” Democrats as arguing that “there is something offensive in supporting the Constitution” and which, allegedly, they argued “should not be tolerated among a free people,” while Republicans, he claimed, were “irrevocably on the side” of that founding document, of which we, this year, are commemorating the 250th anniversary.
Rowell told his readers “we will survive it, just as we will survive the honest enforcement and able leadership of the law under President Hoover.” Echoing the Times and dismissing the views of “the bibulous,” the journalist asserted unequivocally that “this thing is not a future matter, to be decided, but a past one, already done. It is finished. The only open question is how long it will take one to find it out.” A few days later, Rowell contrasted Smith’s campaign position, characterized as having “Congress pass unconstitutional laws” with the proper channel of altering or repealing the 18th Amendment. At the end of July, though, he asserted that repeal was something that “even the wildest ‘wet’ does not regard as now possible,” adding that it would be only likely as far out as 1975.
In his “Mark Sullivan Surveys The Field,” the columnist, in the Express of the 7th, commented that, at Houston and the ratification of the Dems’ platform, the wets outmaneuvered the drys, because, although Smith committed to enforcing the law as chief executive, “the platform leaves [him] free to propose any modification of the present statutes of prohibition that he may choose.” After all, Sullivan noted, Smith was now the candidate, so any idea proffered “will be the true Democratic plank on Prohibition” and he cited a remark in a speech of “the way is left open to find a new solution.”
In his piece on the 23rd, Sullivan repeated the failure of the dry Democrats to use the party platform as a check on the candidate and asserted that Smith’s allies “seized the party altogether.” He remarked that the Tammany Hall brass utilized “expert politics” and that “their understanding of the psychology and strategy of politics was superb,” so that “in the end Tammany won everything” and did so subtly. He observed,
They would like to have had the plank on prohibition just a little different, but even as to that they got the privilege they wished. They got freedom for Governor Smith in effect to write his own plank on prohibition. Not only did Tammany win every move of the game, but they took over the Democratic national organization. Beginning now, the headquarters of that is as clearly at Fourteenth street, New York, as the headquarters of Tammany itself.
The Los Angeles Record was more liberal than the Express and the Times and supported Smith’s candidacy, noting he would not be “soft” on prohibition and predicting that the “solid South” would hold for him and it reviewed several states and the likelihood of his success. When it came to California, it averred that “Smith’s chances are much better . . . than many laymen believe” and stated he “has a strong following . . . north and south” and it believed it was possible to repeat Woodrow Wilson’s 1916 win in the Golden State.
In its number of the 14th, the paper reported that prohibition commissioner James M. Doran guaranteed that “rough stuff” would no longer be tolerated, including “no more unnecessary destruction of property.” Enforcement was being retooled “and a new type of agent selected,” so that they would “enforce a dignified law in a dignified manner.” This was welcomed by the Record as meaning an end to searches and seizures without warrants and that “dry agents will not feel at liberty to shoot at citizens they merely suspect of being dry law violators.” The paper, however, commented that, “the prohibition law will, of course, remain unpopular, and bootlegging will continue to flourish.”
The Record of the 19th claimed “Cal Gives Al Big Boost” in that the feds began “offering a reward for sneaks and snitchers to report violations of the Volstead act,” reportedly from $5 to $200 for tips to authorities. Envisioning scenarios in which “Old Man John Doe has a bottle of bitters hidden behind the clock, and should be sent to the penitentiary for life,” the editorial continued,
Prohibition enforcement has gone to extreme lengths in violating the constitution, invading the home and assailing human life, but this is the first time it has openly made an attempt to transform the United States into a nation of snoopers by the corrupting use of money. It is as degrading as it is astounding that the federal government thus employs itself.
Candidate Smith’s honest statement—which has confounded the common run of politicians who drink in the privacy of their homes and government offices while smugly boosting the snoop organizations’ game by lip service to the Volstead act—that modification is the only possible road to temperance, takes on new significance in light of this recent bid to sneaks by a government which is supposed to represent the people.
Eight days later, the Record was more pointed and direct in its editorial titled “A FIGHT FOR FREEDOM” and which was issued in answer to a letter from Robert F. Paine, a reader and “old friend,” who inquired as to the main issues of the campaign. It observed that “neither law nor alcohol is a curse,” it was the abuse of the latter by a relative few, as well as “the perversion of the law by hordes of scoundrels, liars and grifters for their personal benefit,” this presumably meaning politicians.
The paper continued that the question wasn’t about restoring alcoholic beverages to the nation, but, instead, “Shall we restore freedom to America?” because “liquor merely is the symbol in the battle.” It went on,
The question isn’t whether you shall be allowed to put your foot on a brass rail [at a bar] and blow of the foam [in a glass of beer.] It is whether you shall be governed by yourself or misgoverned by wowsers, bounders and num[b]skulls.
It is whether you will be allowed to find protection under the Bill of Rights; or see that forgotten document torn up by deputy sheriffs, strolling gendarmes, government spies, ivory-headed “agents,” chinless reformers, lying politicians and the mad mullahs who lead on the ghostly hosts of the various “leagues” to regulate Americans.
This election is a fight for Americanism; a battle to get back to first principles; a struggle to free America from the scoundrels who have fastened on her and destroyed the independence her citizens once boasted.
It isn’t a question of liquor and prohibition, of Smith or Hoover. It’s a question of freedom and decency in government.
The Record‘s rosy predictions for Smith were way off the mark as, when the votes were counted after the November election, Hoover won the popular vote by over 17 points and won all but eight states, including a good portion of the “solid South,” and swamped Smith in electoral votes by a count of 444-87. In California, Hoover triumphed by over 30 points, while in Los Angeles County it was a resounding 41.5 points. It was a substantial victory, but Hoover soon presided over a nation mired in the worse economic depression in American history and served just one term.
He was defeated in 1932 by Smith’s successor as New York governor and Democratic Party standard bearer, Franklin D. Roosevelt. Moreover, the growing public distaste for Prohibition rapidly brought its end, as the 18th Amendment became the only in our history to be repealed, through the 21st Amendment, finalized on 5 December 1933. So much for that certainty of permanency espoused by the Times!