1981 First A Prize Barnum Competition Essay

A CASE OF NONCOMPLIANCE THE PERIOD IN HUMBOLDT COUNTY

1919-1933

by Stephan Seely A Case of Noncompliance

The Prohibition Period in Humboldt County, 1919-1933

Stephan Seely At midnight January 16, 1920, millions of Americans said goodbye to legalized . A new era of clean living, family harmony, full employment, and prosperity was envisioned in the not too distant future. "John is dead.

Thank God"1 applauded B.B. Conner, pastor of the Arcata Methodist church, in reference to the death of one John Barleycorn, otherwise knows as corn whiskey.

Conner's jubulation over the dry victory could hardly be contained:

Virtue has conquered over vice: Truth has triumphed over error: righteousness has been lifted up above sin: justice has defeated wrong: liberty is exalted above tyranny and freedom has driven out oppression. A glad new day has come in the history of a great land and a Stainless Flag will float over a Saloonless Nation. Long may she wave!2

The had certainly achieved a remarkable triumph.

According to the Eighteenth Amendment, John Barleycorn's death seemed assured.

If John ever really did die, even for a brief instant, his astounding recov- ery from that dreadful state is deserving of a place in the annals of medical history. It was, however, to take much more than legislative majorities, constitutional amendments, and idealistic dreams of a liquorless utopia to destroy the traffic in alcoholic beverages. Prohibition prophets, like Conner, were guilty of a fundamental misconception. The Eighteenth

Amendment, they assumed, was a final peace treaty with the liquor traffic.

They were wrong. The was, in fact, a declaration of war. Laws alone would never quench mankind's age-old thirst for intoxicating liquor.

The war against liquor was fought by an insufficient number of govern- ment agents who sorely lacked the funds and resources to meet the onrushing tide of illicit spiritous beverages. Of course, had the enforcers of the

1The Arcata Union, January 15, 1920, p.1, Co1.4. Full names are not available where initials are used. 2 Ibid. 2

Eighteenth Amendment been above reproach their success could have been improved upon. However, these law enforcement agencies, in charge of enforcing the Volstead Act, were far from virtuous. The period from 1920-

1933 was an era of unprecedented graft and corruption within the forces of the law. Those opposing the law enforcement agencies were legion in number

and unscrupulous in their methods. They used guerilla tactics; seldom

coming out into the open, blending well with the general public. In the end, though, it was not the bootlegger, rum-runner, or blind pigger in search of easy money that defeated the Eighteenth Amendment, but the general public's

unwillingness to relinquish its right to wet its palate with intoxicants.

"These are the days of real sport," wrote Fred W. Georgeson, editor of the

Humboldt Standard in 1920,

and the funny thing about it is that proper and dignified citizens who never broke anything before outside the traffic laws are inclined toward a little home brew. All of which goes to show that man has an inborn desire for personal liberty and a hankering conviction that laws are thrust upon him rather than given him as a blessing. That admonition, 'Don't do that' so much hated in childhood is similarly distasteful in later years when the state does the admonishing.3

It was an attitude of widespread public dissent towards temperance legis-

lation that doomed the law enforcement agencies to a losing battle from the

very inception of the Volstead Act in 1920 to its repeal in late 1933.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the course of noncompliance to

the Eighteenth Amendment that was chosen by a great number of Humboldt County

residents. First of all, the illicit liquor, it's source, it's distribution,

and it's consumption will be dealt with in some detail. Secondly, the efforts

of the law enforcement agencies in Humboldt County will also be a point of

concentration. How effective were they in stemming the flow of intoxicants?

3Humboldt Standard, May 8, 1920, p.4, Col. 1. 3

This writer will also attempt, throughout the course of this discussion, to compare and contrast Humboldt County with the nation as a whole. As a back- drop to these topics, it is essential to a full discussion of the prohibition period to consider the temperance movement in the county that was active prior to national prohibition and during its visitation.

Temperance came to Humboldt County as a result of a national movement rather than a local one. This is contrary to the situation in many areas of the country. The state of Maine went dry as early as 1847, and by 1913, fifty percent of the country had followed Maine's lead under local options.

The Anti-Saloon League and the Womens Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.)

with the support of a myriad of state and local temperance societies, as

well as the churches and outspoken evangelists, as Billy Sunday, were largely

responsible for the victories in those areas. Gilman Ostrander in his book,

The Prohibition Movement in California, claims that Humboldt County had

reached some degree of abstemiousness in 1894. "The movement reached a peak

of success in 1894, when prohibitory ordinances were in force outside the

municipalities in Riverside, Sutter, Humboldt, Lassen, and Lake counties."4

The ordinance that was issued in Humboldt County seems to contradict

Ostrander's assertion. It stipulates that liquor licenses be filed by dispensers of alcohol including a one thousand dollar fee to the county.

Although this exhorbitant fee must certainly have had the effect of reducing the number of saloons in the county, it was not prohibitory. The liquor licensing ordinance may simply have been an attempt by the county to bring money into the county coffers rather than an action to make the county out- side the municipalities a temperate zone.

The fact is that the temperance movement in Humboldt County was always

4 Gilman Ostrander, The Prohibition Movement in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), p. 72. 14 relatively weak and ineffectual. What little that can be gathered about temperance societies in the county prior to the twentieth century is

capsulized in Elliot's History of Humboldt County. What might have been the first temperance organization was an order started in Arcata in 1857 called the Reformed Drunkards. In 1858, another organization was formed with a

division in Eureka called the Morning Star. The purposes and the successes of these two groups are somewhat of a mystery. Susie Baker Fountain asserts that another group called the Sons of Temperance flourished for a time

before 1900 but go on to say that peak membership was a meager forty men.

The Good Templars, a group active in the 1880's achieved the greatest success

in numbers of any temperance organization prior to the twentieth century.

They sported seven separate branches with a total membership of almost three

hundred. According to Elliot, "The Good Templars in Humboldt are banded

together for the purpose of combating the fell - destroyer - intoxicating

- together with all its concomitant baleful evils and influences".5

The organization, for obscure reasons, folded not long after this 1882

census. They had amassed a truly substantial following for such a small

area. Nevertheless, if the accomplishments of the Good Templars, as well

as the other aforementioned temperance groups, are measured according to the

degree of "aridity" that the county experienced during their presence here,

they were a dismal failure. The area continued in its imbibing ways and by

the turn of the century was one of the "wettest" territories in the state.

The Women's Christian Temperance Union, or W.C.T.U., was active

throughout the county just prior to and during the prohibition period. The

W.C.T.U. was a national organization that played a prominent role in

temperance activity throughout the country. Records of the local chapter

5Elliots History of Humboldt County, California (Elliot, pub., San Francisco, 1882) p. 212. 5 have either been lost or are no longer extant. Their name can still be read on a plaque indicating their participation in erecting the statue of

McKinley on the Arcata Plaza and is also mentioned infrequently in the news- paper reports during the period. Local auxiliaries were organized in

Eureka, Arcata, and Fortuna. Each held monthly meetings in churches in their respective municipalities that were often, especially in the early twenties, well attended. "A large and appreciative audience nearly filled the Christian church (Fortuna) Sunday evening to hear the program prepared by the W.C.T.U.."6 The programs given by the organization regularly included an address by a local minister on a subject dealingwiththe "drink evil" in one form or another. The minister's speech was often supplemented by a wide array of songs either sung by a soloist, a quartet, or by the

congregation itself. "Temperance Glee," "Sound the Battle Cry," "From the

Hill and From the Valleys," are just a few titles of the impassioned

melodies heard at the meetings.

The distribution of temperance literature was one tangible activity

the W.C.T.U. used to convince the local residents of the baneful effect of

unrestricted consumption of alcoholic beverages. Vick Peterson, whose mother

was a member of the Union, recalls the contents of some of this literature.

They had pictures of stomachs that were full of sores and ulcers and bleeding, livers that were yellow and black and green, and kidneys that looked like prunes - all wrinkled up, and livers that were sometimes three times their size.?

These pictures apparently had a remarkable effect upon Peterson's young and

impressionable mind as he remains a teetotaler to this day. The hideously

graphic pictures were not enough to convince his father, however, who

6Humboldt Standard, February 19, 1921, p.5, Co1.3.

7Statement by Vick Peterson, personal interview, Eureka, California, March 30, 1981. 6

continued to drink moderately and enjoy an occasional cigar. Peterson recalls that his mother used drastic means to alter her husband's behavior.

She spiked his father's beer with bitter substances and sprinkled kerosene on his favorite cigars. Peterson's father began to worry quite feverishly

about quality control. Eventually, he denounced drink altogether.

As with Vick Peterson's father, the W.C.T.U. found the general populace largely unreceptive to their extremist viewpoints. They often alienated the

moderate drinker who made up the vast majority of Humboldt County residents.

In October of 1921 the W.C.T.U. bonded together with another local temperance organization called the Progressive Temperance League hoping to

convince the Eureka City Council that it should adopt a "Little Volstead"

ordinance. The Progressive Temperance League was a powerful state organi-

zation. Concentrating on the single issue of temperance they used pressure

politics to elect officials that held views consistent with their own. In

1920 they bought full page adds in local papers dilineating their support

for certain local and state candidates. The "Little Volstead" law that the

two organizations advocated, placed municipal law enforcement agencies

behind the dry amendment. Without the ordinance, enforcement was left

primarily to the Federal government. During the city council meetings, when

the "Little Volstead" ordinance was discussed, members of the W.C.T.U. and

the Progressive Temperance League were both accusatory and obnoxious. The

audience was made up almost entirely of Union and League members. Several

of them took the podium and denounced Eureka as a city that was immoral and

full of violators of the Volstead Act. City council members became defen-

sive of their beloved city. The meeting became a hotly contested debate

with the city council and the two temperance groups trading livid remarks.

At a later date the council passed the ordinance and it went into effect in

December, 1920.. The action seems to have come in spite of and not because 7 of temperance pressure. The county had passed a similar ordinance earlier in the year and was deriving a rather tidy income from the transgressors of the law. The council's decision seems to have been born of a desire to increase revenues, rather than a desire to placate the W.C.T.U. and the

Progressive Temperance League.

Although the temperance movement within Humboldt County was able to convince a segment of the county's populace (primarily those closely affiliated with the Protestant churches) of their views, they were never successful in gaining widespread public support. They were uncompromising in orientation, holding that all drinking, even moderate drinking, was wrong. The gold rush in California had brought a cosmopolitan mix of people to the state, and consequently, to the county. Humboldt County was inundated

by ethnics from Italy, Portugal, and France. Rio Dell, probably the county's

wettest city during prohibition, was commonly known as "Little Italy"

because of the large number of Italian settlers residing there. The first

and second generation Southern European families that resided in the county

had a long history of wine drinking to defend in reference to prohibition.

Moderate wine drinking was a natural, well entrenched practice among these

non-Anglo people. Wine was a staple, an appendage to the evening meal that

was seen as essential. Within this atmosphere the temperance movement

floundered, and their attempts to initiate a groundswell of temperance

support was met by indifference and hostility.

Prohibition came to Humboldt County as a result of a national movement

that was able to convince a large number of people and enough politicians

that their platform was economically, morally, and militarily advantageous.

An editorial in the Humboldt Standard points to the economic argument

propounded by the drys as being their most powerful ammunition:

Today the ordinary observer is impressed by the extent 8

of the moral victory. He forgets that the struggle against the liquor evil was to only a small extent warfare against moral evil. He has failed too frequently to discern that the fight was an economic one, and in so failing he loses the value of the great lesson which8the outcome of the war against liquor might present his.

The economic argument claimed that if workers have no access to liquor then injuries will be reduced, production will increase, and wages will be used to feed the family rather than for drinking sprees. The economy will be bolstered and family stability will be increased. The temperance movement, in the knowledge that the moral argument was unacceptable to most people, placed much of their emphasis on the economic advantages of their proposals.

It was for this reason that the mill town of Scotia prohibited the sale of liquor within it's boundaries prior to the national prohibition amendment.

The temperance movement achieved its greatest successes during our involvement in the first World War. Most of the beer sold in this country bore German brand names. The war effort was used by the temperance men as the occasion for national wartime prohibition which actually preceded the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. Wartime prohibition was passed as a food conservation measure. But the war did more than provide a new rational for prohibition; it gave temperance men the opportunity to identify temperance with Americanism and to identify the liquor interests with treason.

The drys tried to identify, in the minds of the public, the liquor interests with the European enemy in general, and they used the closing of the saloons around military establishments as a means of drying up metropolitan areas.

The perceived association of the brewers with the German enemy was exploited especially by the radical prohibitionist who claimed that every man serving liquor cultivates the appetite that is later exploited by the

8 Editorial, Humboldt Standard, January 16, 1920,.p.4, Col. 1. 9 owner of brewery stock in Germany who used his tainted wealth to buy poison gas or liquid fire to torture the troops of the Allies.

The moral, economic, and military reasoning of the prohibitionist provided the fuel that eventually brought on the enactment of the wartime prohibition act in June, 1919 (ironically, after the war was over) and the

Eighteenth Amendment to Humboldt County in January, 1920. The National will had triumphed over the local will. Or had it?

In 1917, Eureka was declared the wettest city in the state of California.

Sixty-nine saloons catered to the city's 13,000 residents and weekend visit- ors. On the eve of prohibition in 1920 the number had been reduced to forty- seven saloons. The city had, because of earlier infamous notoriety it had

received, taken steps to reduce the number of saloons by refusing to renew liquor licenses to those saloons with expired licenses. The annual revenue to the city from the liquor industry was 22,000 dollars. Wildwood (or Rio

Dell) was another city that was well known for its inbibing ways. If

Eureka was the wettest city in the state prior to prohibition, Rio Dell vied

for top honors during the prohibition period. In Arcata J.J. Lima's Grand

Hotel had dispensed liquor for seventy years when in 1920 he was forced to

close his bar. The saloon had become an integral part of Humboldt County

society by providing the cities and county with a steady income. The

Eighteenth Amendment was bound to encounter heavy opposition in the county

in the form of antipathy toward bone dry legislation. The county was wet -

extremely wet. It stood as an antithesis to the ideals that the Eighteenth

Amendment hoped to achieve.

In June, 1919 the wartime prohibition act went into effect in Humboldt

County. Six months later the Eighteenth Amendment made the production,

transportation and consumption of alcoholic beverages illegal. The Volstead

Act simply brought a sense of permanence to the wartime predecessor. Aside 10 from the fact that Humboldt County residents seemed to have a natural inclination toward the consumption of alcohol, the county had other inherent characteristics that made enforcement of these acts exceedingly difficult.

The county was a bootlegger's paradise. Humboldt Bay made the importation of liquor from Canada facile. The rough topography of the county with its dense wooded areas had numerous hollows, gullies, and ravines amply supplied with the water necessary to distill alcohol for beverage purposes. In addition, the foreign-born, or second generation, Italian-Americans were well versed in the art of wine production. These talents were not destined to waste away and disappear because of a constitutional amendment. They were fostered and actually expanded during the prohibition period. There was always a market that had an insatiable thirst for liquor and this thirst made the enforcement of prohibition nearly impossible. The enforcers of the Eighteenth Amendment concentrated their efforts primarily upon the producers of illicit liquor rather than upon the consumers of the contraband.

The thirst for liquor remained constant during the prohibition period in

Humboldt County and mechanisms for producing and distributing alcoholic beverages were created to meet the demand for the substance in spite of its illegality.

On January twentieth, 1920 Martha Roscoe, a long time county resident, and her husband made the half-day journey from Mattole to Eureka to witness the death of John Barleycorn and the end of legal alcohol. They parked their Ford sedan on the corner of second and "E" street in Eureka and waited until midnight which was the witching hour for "old J.B.."

...at closing time the people came out of the saloons in a somber manner. It looked like a wake. The lights went out behind them and some of the people joined hands as many as eight abreast and walked across the street to their cars. There was no hilarity, no rowdyism or boisterous 11

activity. It was really kind of wierd.9

The headline in the Humboldt Standard above the article chronicling the event read, "J. Barleycorn Dies Quietly; Little Excitement Manifested." The article indicated that a great crowd gathered on second street composed mostly of people who simply stayed downtown to witness the obsequies.

Another large contingency filled the wholesale liquor houses and were so numerous:

...that they overflowed onto the street, while waiting for their turns to buy a demijohn or a few bottles of liquor to take home with them. By those who claim to know, it was said that by midnight the wholesale houses had disposed of every last drop of their stocks of liquors and beer, and at market prices10

Twelve men were arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct but they proved to be an unprofitable bunch for the city as only fifteen dollars could be collected from them the following morning.

January twentieth, 1920 marked the end of legal alcohol, but in Hum- boldt County, at least, illegal alcohol had its ignominious beginnings. In the words of Art Molander, who was a young man during the dry era; "...there was never any time during that period that you couldn't buy liquor in the area. Alcoholic beverages could be obtained from a variety of sources.

A few of the means whereby one could procure intoxicants were either legal or run under the guise of legality - most were not. Under prohibition any compound suitable for beverage purposes, medicinal alcohol excepted, with an alcohol content of more than one-half of one-percent was declared illegal.

9Statement by Martha Roscoe, telephone interview, Eureka, California, March 15, 1981. 10 Humboldt Standard, January 21, 1920, pg. 2, Col. 1. 11 Statement by Art Molander, personal interview, Arcata, California, March 29, 1981. 12

Nevertheless, booze, in Humboldt County, during the dry era, could always be purchased and consumed. Where did the booze come from?

No one ever knew how much good liquor was in the county at the start of 1920. An unknown quantity was in the hands of private citizens and farsighted bootleggers who had bought it before the prohibition era began and stored it away for future use or sale. Saloon keepers and wholesale dealers had some as well. In the early twenties much of the first alcohol that was consumed came from the stores of inebriants people were able to build up in anticipation of the long dry spell. Newspaper reports just prior to prohibition describe some spirited bidding at the wholesale houses and at the docks where alcohol was sometimes sold straight off the ships.

For many, then, the thirst for liquor was postponed by anticipatory hoarding of the available reserves prior to January twentieth, 1920. These reserves soon gave out and the precious contraband had to be obtained elsewhere.

A large number of people turned to home brew when the stocks of good liquor ran dry. Many of the county's residents, as the Italians, were experienced at the production of mild intoxicants and for them the transition from wet to dry came easily. For others, the dry amendment brought new life to those with knowledge from childhood of chemistry sets and experimentation.

One distraught Arcata man tried a mixture that he thought would bring relief to his yearning palate. He found, however, that "snuff" combined with water were not the correct ingredients to bring about the happy glow he desired.

Was this what Hoover referred to as the "noble experiment"? In another case, a devoted Humboldt Standard reporter tried a mixture that brought rather explosive reviews.

We heard that by the insertion of two raisins in a bottle of grape juice a brew of magnificent vitality and sudden effect could be obtained... It is a distinct failure. The raisins, justly enraged over being forced down into grape juice, had proceeded to raise a rumpus with such 13

effect that the entire top of the bottle had been blown. off. We wish to state for the benefit of all concerned that never will we absorb a concoction for our personal use that has the power to shatter bottles.12 The California grape industry, suffering the unhealthy impact of prohibition upon wine production, was able to alleviate some of the problems experienced by those uninitiated in the production of homemade wine. They began investing millions into the production of grape jelly. Now grape jelly is a harmless substance, suitable for consumption by even the youngest of customers. A curious transformation takes place in the virtuous substance, however, when a little water is added and the concoction is allowed to sit for a few days. The grape jelly could readily be made into wine. The grape industry was not at all ignorant of the change that could take place in the grape jelly and in the interest of the spirit of the law, they printed warnings on each jar that communicated to the unwary consumer how not to produce what was obviously an undesirable product. During the early days of prohibition, production of homemade jelly-wine was strictly a clandestine operation. Later, a loophole in the Volstead Act was found that enabled people to be more open about making home-brew of all types. Section 29 of the Volstead Act read:

"The penalties provided in this Act shall not apply to a person for manufacturing nonintoxicating cider and fruit juice exclusively for use in his home, but such cider and fruit juices shall not be sold or delivered except to persons having permits to manufacture vinegar."13

As pertaining to other liquor, one-half of one percent meant illegality.

Clause 29, however, came to be interpreted by the courts as excluding home- made ciders and fruit juices from the one-half of one percent stipulation,

12 Humboldt Standard, July 2, 1920, p.2, Col. 4. 13 Humboldt County, Civil Code, Ordinance number 151 (1920). 14 since the clause would be needless if such were the case. Therefore, the term "nonintoxicating" as applied to homemade wine meant something other than the one-half of one percent alcoholic content which applied to the rest of the law. When a person was indicted for making wine or hard cider for home consumption, it was left to the jury to determine whether the product was intoxicating in the mysterious meaning of the special clause. In a case brought against a private individual making wine for personal consumption a guilty verdict was difficult to obtain.

In practice, the law enforcement officers largely ignored home-made wines in their raids unless quantities were sufficient enough to warrant a belief that the producers were planning to sell the beverage. Pete Processi, who became a Eureka policeman after the prohibition period remembers how the dry squad made a raid on his parent's home. "There were a few bottles of wine under the sink but they left them alone. We were never prosecuted 14 for possession." George Littlefield, Chief of Police in Eureka during the latter part of the prohibition period, according to his daughter, made it his policy not to arrest those making beverages in their home for home use.

Dick Burton, a bootlegger during prohibition, claims that wine was seldom sold in the because people could make it themselves.

Grape jelly sales flourished. In 1931 a product called Vine -Glo

advertised itself thusly:

Now is the time to order your supply of Vine -Glo. It can be made in your home in sixty days - a fine, true - to - type guaranteed beverage ready for the Holiday Season. Vine -Glo....comes to you in nine varieties, Port, Dare, Muscatel, Angelica, Tokay, Sauterne, Ries- ling, Claret and Burgundy. It is entirely legal in your home - but it must not be transported.15

14Statement by Peter Processi, telephone interview, Eureka, California, April 6, 1981.

15 Gilman Ostrander, The Prohibition Movement in California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), p. 179. 15

Vine -Glo was removed from the market in less than a year when it was shown that the intent to produce wine could be proved against the manufacturer.

Even with the failure of Vine -Glo, the production of homemade spiritous beverages was a major source of liquor to Humboldt County residents. Some people even got a little carried away. Newspaper reports during the period chronicle the fate of a number of people who were caught with not fifty or one-hundred gallons of wine on their premises but thousands of gallons of wine presumably for sale. Often, these large quantities were not sold, but were given away as gifts to those not able to manufacture their own supplies.

Home-brew was something to be shared, and it made up a large percentage of the illicit liquor that was consumed in Humboldt County during the period.

Medicinal liquor was another source of alcohol to the county and especially to those residents who had some degree of affluence. Not a single physician was brought to court for violating the Volstead Act in Humboldt

County. They were very selective in respect to who their customers were.

Art Molander claims that his parents, who were respectable and well known in the Arcata area, purchased a prescription for whiskey for seven dollars 16 and fifty cents. Medicinal liquor was bought at a price above the prescrip- tion price depending upon the quantity purchased. A limit was placed upon how much liquor could be prescribed by a physician. For example, only four and seven-eighths gallons of beer per month could be acquired by an ailing individual. Because of the price of the liquor and the restrictions upon the amount one could purchase, medicinal alcohol was usually bought only on special occasions by people with the money to pay for it and the influence to acquire the prescription. The practice was fairly widespread and to

16Statement by Art Molander, personal interview, Arcata, California, March 29, 1981. 16 respectable citizens who would not be caught dead in Eureka's "rum row" it was, if you will pardon the expression, a "Godsend."

Far and away the biggest supplies of alcohol in the area came from the numerous stills that produced jackass brandy, white lightning, and corn whiskey. The sixty-nine saloons Eureka sported in 1917 became a chain of one to two hundred speakeasies or blind pigs by 1925. By and large, the liquor sold in the establishments was a product of local distillaries. Stills could be found throughout the country, in the wooded areas or in back rooms or basements. To avoid suspicion and subsequent arrest, bootleggers resorted to a variety of means to conceal their operations.

Frank Clemente was arrested in December 1920 for operating a "high powered" still in a wildly wooded gulch, about two miles south of Harris street (Eureka) on the line of "F" street. Clemente's still produced eighty gallons of palitable corn per day that was sold to the blind piggers in Eureka and the outlying areas. Clemente, like many other boot- leggers was a former saloon-keeper. He had owned the Copenhagen saloon in

Eureka until the Eighteenth Amendment put him out of business. Clemente's operation, in many ways typifies that of the average Humboldt County boot- legger. His still was built next to a small creek underneath a fallen tree bridging the gulch. Using the tree as a ridgepole, he fashioned a makeshift house under it with gunny sacks covering the windows and door. The still was fashioned out of copper and had an eighteen gallon holding capacity. Fifty gallons of fermented "mash" were confiscated on the Clemente raid. "Mash" was a term used to describe a substance made from grains or fruit that had been broken down into a pulp. After a little yeast was added, the "mash" was allowed to ferment. The concoction was then heated in a copper still until the alcohol had been boiled out. In Clemente's operation, as well as in most other distillaries in the county, the heating source produced few 17 outward signs that would call the authorities to its location. The still

could run full blast and yet was without smoke to catch the eye of the

vigilant "revenooers." The cooking was done with a homemade coal-oil range, the coal-oil feeding down from a barrel on the roof of the shack. Using

wood for the heating source was definitely a bootlegger's taboo. In the

production of alcohol, water was a vital component; the water was essential to cool the alcohol in order to separate it from its impurities. The small

creek next to Clemente's still provided this necessary item. This type of

operation, its location, and its workings was probably repeated scores of times in Humboldt County. The labor was tedious, the risks manifold, but

the profits were potentially very fruitful.

Bootleggers expended a great deal of time and money to avoid the long

arm of the law. One still was discovered near Samoa at the end of a well

boarded, thirty foot tunnel dug into a sand dune. The tunnel led to a room

large enough to hold thirteen fifty gallon barrels of corn mash as well as

the apparatus to distill the mash. The entrance of the tunnel was hid from

sight by a series of chicken houses. While the still dripped its precious

liquid into barrels, chickens innocently pecked at the ground above. The

still was discovered by means of a lengthy stakeout that finally turned up

a small piece of pipe that led the officers to the underground operation.

That this still was located under a small scale chicken ranch is anything

but coincidental. Chicken feed, as it turns out, is very well suited to

conversion into mash. One way for a bootlegger to increase his business

risks was by buying large quantities of materials that were used for the

production of alcohol. The bootlegger could lessen his chances of being

apprehended by masquerading as a chicken rancher because the occupation

enabled him to buy chicken feed for an apparently legitimate use.

The bootlegging business could be very profitable. This quote from 18 a 1921 Humboldt Standard article illustrates this fact:

'I'll give you fifty dollars apiece if you will let us run off and get rid of this batch of mash', is what one of two accused moonshiners is alleged to have said to the four officers who captured them and their still on Elk River, early yesterday afternoon. If the officers had accepted the bribe the moonshiners would have realized enough profit from the sale of the product to pay the maximum fine of $500.00 each and for the cost of the distilling plant, for the still at current prices of , was making fifty dollars an hour .17

The moonshine that was produced in the stills in Humboldt County was almost invariably of good quality. Throughout the entire period, not a single report of sickness or death related to drinking locally produced liquor appeared in the Humboldt Standard. Given the fact that the paper was inclined to bugle stories of "rotgut" related deaths from the wire services, the paper would certainly have jumped on the chance to perk up what were for the most part slow news days in the county. "Its a shame to jail me," said John B. Gronenschild in May of 1925, "If I do say it myself.

I make the purest moonshine on the market. It is positively none of your deadly poisonous stuff but pure and as good as the best Old Kentucky 18 whisky of pre -Volstead days." Groenschild's statement may be an exaggeration akin to the gloating of a proud father, but by all accounts the liquor produced throughout the county was top-grade, and unlike people in various other parts of the country, residents here had little to worry about when it came to drinking local stocks. Moonshine, in its various forms, was very strong in alcoholic content. Erving Wrigley recalls his first experience with "jackass brandy." "A friend of mine introduced me to the stuff. It couldn't have been more than a beercap full but it didn't make

17Humboldt Standard, June 22, 1921, p. 1, Col. 3. 18 Humboldt Standard, May 20, 1925, p. 1. Col. 3. 19 it past my tongue. It was just too much!"19 Others related similar experiences that affirm Wrigley's statement. Apparently, moonshine liquor was not smooth, but it served its purpose well: results, as opposed to flavor, are often what the consumers desired.

Bootleggers entered into a very tenuous trade. They were subject to constant observation and even though they exhibited a great deal of ingen- uity in concealing their operations they often could not avoid detection.

One reason for this was that liquor producers continually bought large quantities of rather conspicuous items. D. Massoni was questioned by the police when it was discovered that he had a half-ton of sugar on his property.

The excuse he presented to the authorities was something less than plausible.

"You see my wife she like sugar. She put it on her spaghetti, on her macaroni, on her salami, on everything she eats. My neighbors, too, they like much sugar."20 No matter how clever a moonshiner was, he was often unable to avoid suspicion and subsequent apprehension. Moonshiners moved their stills periodically. A stationary operation, even if it was expertly concealed was a sitting duck.

Another practice moonshiners employed was simply to post a sentry on the roads around the distilling operation. In order to prosecute a distiller, authorities had to catch him in the act of doing the dirty deed. The dry squad usually destroyed stills that they had found in order to avoid the often lengthy stake-out that would be needed to wait for the moonshiner to return. One can easily imagine a situation in which the authorities would

19 Statement by Irving Wrigley, personal interview, Elk River, California, April 2, 1981. 20 Humboldt Standard, August 25, 1923, p. 8, Col. 2. 20 sit and wait for the moonshiner to return while the moonshiner sat and waited for the authorities to leave. Subsequently, stills were destroyed on location with hatchets and picks. The beleagured moonshiner, although he had avoided apprehension, had to build another costly cooper still in order to make a new start.

Avoiding the dry squad was not the only problem that the moonshiner had to overcome. Some unscrupulous people were not above stealing a finished batch of liquor that was stored close to the operation prior to sale. One man reportedly began coloring his liquor pink so that he could readily identify it if it was pilfered. Lest this sound a bit spurious, remember, cattle ranchers employ a similar practice when they brand their cattle.

Thus, the moonshiner had to overcome the efforts by countrymen on both sides of the Eighteenth Amendment who wanted to get his liquor. Of course, the plight of the moonshiner was of no concern to his thirsty patrons. One way or another, the show went on. Since the "thirst" remained there were always those who would take the risks and expend the effort to satiate the appetite for liquor.

Along with the liquor that was locally produced, alcoholic beverages also came by way of a fleet of rum-runners transporting liquor mostly from the Santa Rosa area and from the infamous "whiskey strip" that grew up between San Francisco and Sacramento. The amount of liquor brought in from outside the county seems to have increased in proportion to the ability of law agencies to stem the tide of local "hooch." In 1924 after an effective spring drive that temporarily put a large number of moonshiners out of business, the dry squad turned its attention toward the increased incidence of rum running that had occurred as a consequence of their efforts.

Vehicles that were used for the transportation of liquor were subject to confiscation upon the discovery of alcohol in the car. In June, 1924, the 21 number of booze-running autos in the county garage reached twenty-one.

Less than a year later sixty cars completely filled that garage so that what would have been the sixty-first car was released. The fact that the vehicle was worth only two-hundred dollars was said to have had something to do with letting it go. Many of these autos were of the large touring car variety and were able to carry substantial amounts of liquor (usually between seventy-five and one-hundred and fifty gallons). The cars that the rum- runners used were often extremely fast and also very expensive.

Dick Burton worked as a night man at the Pacific Garage in Eureka. The garage was used as a storage facility for liquor that came in by way of the rum-running fleet. He recalls the type of cars and two of the people who deposited some of their liquor there:

The most beautiful cars you have ever seen in your life used to come in there. Great big Buicks, Cadillacs, and Jewitts. I remember one car quite well. It was a hand-made Leach with an all leather interior and beautiful woodwork throughout. It had truck tires and truck springs and it must have been longer than this motor home I live in. In the drivers seat were two elderly whitehaired people. They looked like a million dollars. They were nothing but rum- runners coming in from Canada and Eureka was one of the stops along their way. 21

Burton's wage for working in the garage consisted entirely of a small portion of the booze that came in during his shift.

It is difficult to assess the amount of liquor that came in from out- side the county, but judging from the number of cars that were confiscated one must assume that a large number must have escaped the grasps of the law and that a generous quantity of liquor was brought in.

Rum-running was not restricted to a land based operation in Humboldt

County. Alcohol also came by sea. To what degree liquor coming in from

21Statement by Dick Burton, personal interview, Eureka, California, April 3, 1981. 22

Canada by way of the Pacific contributed to Humboldt County stocks is difficult to ascertain. The Coast Guard did station an additional cutter, the Cahokia, in Humboldt bay for the express purpose of discouraging the liquor trade. The Coast Guard's efforts were never reported in the news- paper, though. Either the amount of liquid coming in on boats was minimal or the authorities were just not able to catch the crafty Captains.

That some liquor was coming in through the mouth of Humboldt Bay is certain. In January of 1923 it was reported that the importation of

Humboldt Bay crabs to San Francisco would be restricted because, it was claimed, Humboldt crabs had a "kick" to them. "Sure there's a kick in

Humboldt County crabs," reported the Humboldt Standard,

"It comes from bootleg whiskey. You see, a number of boats trying to smuggle in whisky from Canada go on the rocks in Humboldt Bay. The bottles break and the whisky mixes with the ocean water. The crabs with a piquant flavor are caught just off the rocks. That's why they are in such great demand."22

This bit of information seems so far fetched that it is difficult to lend it even a marginal degree of credence. It does, however, point to the fact that liquor was coming into the county by way of the sea. Dick Burton, also, testifies that liquor reached the county through this means. In fact, he derived a rather tidy income from absconding with cases of Canadian whisky from under the cold docks lining the bay. Canadian whisky sold for five-dollars a quart while local moonshine was priced at a paltry four-

dollars a gallon. It was of much better quality. That it existed in

Humboldt County in larger quantities is unlikely. Newspaper reports from

the period usually listed the type of liquor that was confiscated from the

blind-pigs in the area and they seldom mentioned Canadian liquor. It seems

22 Humboldt Standard, January 3, 1923, p. 8, Col. 4. 23 likely that alcohol coming in on boats from Canada was sold to a narrow market that had the money to purchase the stock.

Illegal alcoholic beverages, that which was produced locally and that which was brought in from outside the area, were, for the most part, sold in the blind pigs that replaced what had formerly been the numerous legitimate saloons that were in business in the pre-Volstead days. Con- trary to what one might think, most saloons remained in business even after the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. They operated under the pretext that they were selling "soft" beverages such as soda water, ginger ale, root beer, and sarsaparilla. "Its strange to say," reported the Humboldt Standard,

"the patrons in many instances are the same old habitues of the places who were used to the sterner stuff."23 Now that is a rather curious fact, isn't it? During the prohibition period, blind pigs manifested themselves most prominently in two cities in the county, Eureka and Rio Dell. As already mentioned, sixty-nine saloons operated in Eureka in 1917 and all but two were located in the second street area. During the prohibition period the paper dubbed second street, "rum row", because the liquor business, in spite of the constitutional amendment, went on unabated. The media also had a nick- name for Eureka's counterpart, Rio Dell, it was appropriately called "Wild-

wood." Although blindpigging certainly went on in various other municipalities throughout the county, these two towns dominated the liquor business and were

a constant thorn in the side of the law enforcement agencies.

The number of arrests for drunkenness throughout the period show just

how effective the blind pigs were at distributing liquor and they also

present a rather valuable index for judging just how wet the county was. In

23Humboldt Standard, March 22, 1921, p. 6, Col. 2. 24

1920, the first year of constitutional dryness in Eureka, thirty percent

of all arrests were for drunkenness. December was the banner month with

forty arrests cited in that month alone. The Humboldt Standard called it 24 one of the wettest Christmases on record." In 1921 the incidence of

drunkenness increased and the crime was far and away the leader in criminal

activity. Fifty-three percent of all arrests were made due to drunkenness.

The papers failed to report the yearly arrest reports consistently for the

remainder of the period, but a few reports were listed that show a prominent

occurrence of drunkenness. In 1923 the Humboldt Standard reported that the 25 "majority of arrests for last year were for drunkenness." In 1926, 225 of

1,286 arrests were drunks. In 1927, 289 of 703 arrests for drunkenness were

made. The trend continued in 1928 with 450 of 1,886 arrests being categorized

as drunks.

Although a number of these cases cannot be directly attributed to the

blind pigs in Eureka, there is no denying that they were largely responsible

for these statistics. Just how widespread were the blind pigging establish-

ments in Eureka? This quote from the Humboldt Standard gives us a clue:

Just how many bootlegging establishments are operated within this city is a matter of conjecture. Some place the number at more than one-hundred while others declare that counting the small operators, the figure will exceed two hundred.

Considering this large number, one does not have to think very long to

realize that Eureka was a very wet community. To support that many

businesses, an incredible amount of liquor and money had to have been

exchanged.

24Humboldt Standard, December 27, 1921, p. 8, Col. 1.

25Humboldt Standard, January 8, 1924, p. 4, Col. 3.

26Humboldt Standard, March 3, 1928, p. 1, Col. 1. 24

The record does not permit a clear understanding about the situation in

Rio Dell. Nevertheless, every old-timer this writer interviewed agreed that

Rio Dell earned the name "Wildwood." By all accounts the tiny municipality was proportionately even wetter than Eureka. The town had only a single constable and the trip from Eureka for either the Sheriff or the dry squad took four hours. The community was not visited very often. Secondly, the town's populace consisted largely of Italians who were more inclined to show antipathy toward the dry law than other sectors of the county's populace. In addition, Rio Dell was located next to the mill town Scotia, and was closer to a number of the large lumber camps than was Eureka.

Loggers, often were the primary consumer of liquor in the area.

In the early part of the prohibition period, Rio Dell was subject to a number of surprise raids by the law enforcement agencies. In 1923, merchants substantially reduced their business risks by installing what the authorities called an "electric booze alarm." An elaborate buzzer alarm, similar to a fire alarm system, was strung from one end of the city to the other. From each end of the road that ran through the town the approach of the dry squad could be seen so that all that was necessary to do by the first person who saw the approach was to press a button which immediately activated every buzzer in town. At this point a considerable amount of "buzzing" was created by the blind piggers as they hastened to dispose of their contraband liquor.

These blind piggers used various means to escape apprehension. The most common of these was to keep the supplies of liquor in copper holding tanks in the walls of their establishments. The location of these tanks was often ingeniously disguised. In one case a gas stove was connected to the cache so that the knob that would have ordinarily produced a flame would now

yield ample amounts of another firey substance. To show how well hidden 26 these holding tanks were, one of them was not found until some remodeling took place in the late 1970's in a Eureka second street establishment. One lawman, disgruntled by the fact that he could not find a cache of liquor, purposely kicked a pale of water over onto the floor of one blind pigging establishment and left in an apparent huff. He returned shortly thereafter and, following water marked footprints, found the hidden "hooch."

The blind piggers usually were very careful about who they permitted to enter their place of business. Often each prospective customer was screened through a peep hole in a locked door. A sharp lookout was kept for known informants and law enforcement officers. Sometimes customers had to utter a special password in order to gain admittance.

The buzzer system, the hidden caches, the peep holes, and the special passwords frequently stifled those who were trying to enforce the Volstead

Act. On numerous occasions, though, even the most careful precautions were not enough to save the blind piggers from a stiff fine. Often with the help of federal officers from outside the area, law enforcement agencies made mass raids on second street establishments and on the Rio Dell blind pigs. In 1928 and 1929 two successive spring drives produced between eighty and ninety defendants for the Federal Court in Eureka. For the most part, though, the period can be characterized best by a steady stream of blind piggers passing through what one newspaper report called the "clearing house."

The penalty for running a blind pig was usually a fine that ranged from

$400 to $1,000. A six month stint in the county jail could also be levied, but the latter was applied only on rare occasions. One would think that a thousand dollar fine would be an adequate deterrent to check blind pigging operations. It was not. Over a period of several years a curious pattern developed whereby fines for illicit sale of intoxicants amounted to no more than "dues" to the city or county. Most established blind piggers treated 27 the fines as a part of their overhead and continued in business. Their line of work was very lucrative. "Figuratively and literally some 'big' money showed up yesterday in the blind pig case in Justice Adam's Court against the

Old Dante restraunt at 123 "C" street (Eureka) when $1000 and $500 bills “27 were handed around like two-cent postage stamps. Blind piggers appeared in court often. It was not at all unusual for a proprietor to be in court one day to pay one fine and back again the next day to make another sub- stantial contribution to the city or county treasury.

Dick Burton sold liquor out of his cab on second street in Eureka.

According to Burton it was the practice of all those who were in the liquor sales business to keep a $1,000 reserve in their bank accounts at all times in order to be ready for any eventuality. 28Burton, who was just a small time operator bought his liquor for four dollars a gallon and sold it for three dollars a pint. That is a profit of twenty dollars per gallon. His cab seldom moved.

This is not to say that the fines were not a burden to the blind piggers. At the going rate of "four-bits” per shot proprietors had to sell a substantial amount of liquor to pay a single fine. Nevertheless, they always seemed to come up with the money, and in scanning the newspapers from the period, one is hard pressed to find a liquor man who spent time in jail because he could not pay the mandatory fine.

At the start of prohibition it appeared to the county's municipalities that the coming of prohibition would reduce local revenues. Several cities

(Eureka and Arcata) even adjusted their property tax rates to recover the expected loss in revenues from the removal of the liquor licensing fees.

27Humboldt Standard, May 15, 1923, p. 8, Col. 1. 28 Statement by Dick Burton, personal interview, Eureka, California, April 3, 1981. 28

However, prohibition turned out to be a windfall for the various county

agencies. Moonshiners, rum-runners, and blind piggers contributed much

greater sums to the cities' and county's coffers than the revenue that had earlier been lost. Although Eureka no longer had 22,000 dollars in yearly saloon license revenues, during an eight month period by 1922, enforcement

of Eureka's Little Volstead Act produced $12,000 in revenues to the city treasury. This amounted to 91% of all the police department's administrative costs. In 1925, District Attorney Hill turned in a report to the County

Board of Supervisors concerning the amount the dry squad had brought in the proceding four years, 1921, 1922, 1923, and 1924. During that period, the dry squad was responsible for the collection of $217,000 in fines. Total expenses of the squad amounted to $74,000 dollars. Profit for the county was $143,000 for a four year period. Fred W. Georgeson, editor of the

Humboldt Standard and supporter of the Volstead Act, had this somewhat paradoxical statement to make concerning Volstead revenues:

All who appreciate the demoralizing effects of alcoholic beverages will deplore their continued use at a time when the county is supposed to be "dry". But while moon- shine whiskey and similar vicious brews are being made and sold there is no reason why this city (Eureka) as well as other cities should not profit by lawlessness.29

220,000 dollars represents a substantial amount of money for the liquor business to bestow upon the county. However, this figure does not even include fines paid to the respective cities in the county. Did the liquor business slow up after 1924? In spite of the stiff fines, it went on unabated. Raids along with their subsequent fines only slowed down the liquor trade. Such restraints could not block the flow of illegal intoxicants to a thirsty county.

29 Humboldt Standard, March 3, 1924, p. 6, Col. 1. 29

Who were the thristy patrons who provided the blind piggers with a steady flow of business? By the 1920's logging was an integral part of the county economy. Loggers worked in the relatively remote backwaters of the county. Many of these men were single and lonely. The excitement of town life on weekends made their dangerous job seem bearable. Fortunately for them, and also for the blind pig establishments, the railroad connected many of the lumber camps directly to Eureka's second street district. There, prostitution, gambling, and of course, liquor were available to them.

Saturday night was the big night and more than one long time resident of

Eureka said that the loggers nearly took over the town on Saturday night.

Erving Wrigley remembers it this way:

There were two things that were ever so dear to these young loggers, one was booze and the other you can easily guess at. The train brought them in. Many of them hadn't even changed their clothes yet. Still in their cork boots, they would jump off the train and head straight for the bars on a flat run so fast that sparks flew from their boots. They were so eager to get down to the business of real living.30

Loggers were not the only patrons frequenting the blind pigs in Eureka and the other municipalities, but they could add goodly amounts of cash to the blind pigger's coffers. Take, for example, this quote from a Eureka newspaper:

Wilson stated to Police Judge Falk that he had come in from Scotia last Saturday, with $239 and that he had spent it all in the purchase of jackass brandy in the second street saloons, at four bits a shot, and small shots at that.31

Many logger's paychecks were deposited in the lower second street "soft- drink" parlors. Logger's earnings, as well as capital from other sectors of the county populace, made the liquor business profitable and insured its continuance.

30Statement by Irving Wrigley , personal interview, Elk River, California, April 2, 1981.

31Humboldt Standard, December 15, 1920, p. 1, Col. 6. 30

Humboldt County's illegal liquor industry differed with the liquor industries in many of the more infamous bootlegging capitals around the

country in several important ways. Unlike many of the large eastern cities,

such as, Chicago, New York, and Detroit, that had well organized criminal

elements engaged in every aspect of the liquor traffic, Humboldt County

sported a large number of independent operators with no overall organi-

zation. Consequently, competing gangs did not emerge in the county, and

monopolies did not exist. This had the effect of reducing the violence

among the bootleggers, rum-runners, and blind piggers to a very low level.

There were occasional fights of course, but people were not mowed down in

the streets with machine guns hidden indiscretely in violin cases. There is

no record locally of a single fatality as a result of rivaling liquor men.

This is in stark contrast to the period that beeame popularized nationally

in movie epics that showed Humphrey Bogart and Jimmy Cagney blasting their

way through to a bloody finish. So, the liquor trade in Humboldt County was

atypical in two ways. It was unorganized, being composed of a large number

of independent operators; and, it was more nonviolent when compared to the

national scene.

We have attempted to indicate that the forces of noncompliance were

quite strong in Humboldt County. They were opposed by a group of men small

in number, but, for the most part, committed to enforcing the Eighteenth

Amendment.

In 1920, at the start of the prohibition period, the responsibility of

insuring compliance to the Volstead Act was given to the Commissioners of

Internal Revenue in the county, Inspectors, Roper, Reid, and Mahan. These

men, especially Reid, were instructed by the Federal government to enlist

the help of the local authorities and general populace to fight against the

illegal liquor traffic. These men were often out of the area attending to 31 their tax collection duties so that their organizational and watchdog roles were sometimes neglected. Nevertheless, Inspector Reid along with Sheriff

Bob Redmond and other local officials had a definite impact upon manufacture and role of alcohol in the area. In 1921, the Internal Revenue Commissioners turned over enforcement of the act to men who had that as their sole responsibility. Redmond too was gone, having died in an automobile crash in

December, 1920. A new sheriff, Arthur Ross, replaced Redmond. The new group of men, under the direction of District Attorney A. W. Hill, came to be known as the dry squad. The dry squad was composed of a fluctuating number of men. On the average they numbered seven, the Chief, Bill McKay, and dry squad members, Nifty Hill, John Cunning, Vince Getty, Steve Hash,

George Wyman, and Jack Lennon. The seven men listed above are those who served most consistently on the squad throughout the period. At times the squad's membership was only four, while as many as thirteen were employed

during peak raiding periods such as holiday seasons. The dry squad had the full support of the local authorities under the area's "Little Volstead" laws. In addition, Federal officers from outside the area often visited the

county to assist in locating blind pigs and to join with the dry squad in intensive raids. Because of their small number, law enforcement officials in the county were easily recognizeable. Their movements were watched

closely by liquor men so that raids were frequently checked in midstream.

Lawmen from outside the area, because of their anonymity, could repeatedly

gather evidence where local officials had been throttled.

One rather interesting officer named Delphia Halvorsen posed as a

saloon girl in Young's cabaret on Eureka's second street in early 1924. She

was able to collect enough evidence to produce two successful raids, one at

Young's, and a second at the Sequoia saloon. Miss Halvorson, although she

assisted the dry squad in making the successful raids, later made an 32 ardent enemy of Eureka Chief of Police Len Bannister by making this statement in a San Francisco newspaper:

Followed by caberet girls, lumberjacks who come to Eureka for a good time are walking the streets begging for food. Caberets are running wide open, fights are a nightly occurence, and police make no attempt to suppress liquor sales.32

To Halvorson's statement, Len Bannister caustically remarked: "Where do they get that noise?"33 Federal agents often could be of great help to the city and county law enforcement officers. Of course in Delphia Halvorson's case, it was help Len Bannister would like to have done without.

For the most part, enforcing the Volstead Act fell on the shoulders of the county dry squad. They raided the various saloons, searched through back rooms, basements, and woods for stills, and stopped rum running cars coming through the area. Drying up Humboldt County was a near impossible task and the dry squad in collaboration with local and federal officials never really came close to achieving their goal. They did antagonize the liquor traders, and they brought in a great deal of money in fines, as well as large caches of liquor. At the end of each year during prohibition thousands of gallons of inebrients were dumped into Humboldt Bay. To a degree, the agents were effective; but overall, they failed. The task was just too large for so few. The enemy was much too clever and strong. A large majority of the county's residents were indifferent and hostile toward a law that they perceived as an infringement upon their personal liberty. The general public was thirsty and the liquor trade, in spite of the efforts of the law enforcement agencies, carried on a lucrative business.

32Humboldt Standard, January 31, 1924, p. 1, Col. 3.

33Ibid. 33

Corruption and also indifference toward the dry law on the part of some

law enforcement officers may have assisted the liquor trade in the county.

Certainly these two adjectives cannot be applied to all of the local

officials. There could never have been the incredible number of raids and

arrests had there been extensive corruption or indifference. "Electric

booze alarms," wall holding tanks, stills built inside thirty foot tunnels,

secret passwords, peep-holes, and sentries all are testimony to the fact that someone was, in earnest, enforcing the law.

What of Delphia Halvorson's statement, "Police make no attempt to

suppress liquor sales."? She does not stand alone in her statement. Dick

Burton was involved first-hand in the illegal liquor business in the county.

He claims that some of the policemen actually forewarned blind piggers regarding upcoming raids planned by the dry squad. He would not, however, supply names. Julio Rovai, in his book, Rio Dell- (Wildwood) As I Saw it in the Early Twenties, makes this statement concerning the dry squad: "The ironic thing about this group was when they confiscated booze they would submit a small portion of it for evidence and the rest of it they would sell 34 to friendly bootleggers in Eureka and split the profits". These statements in no way represent conclusive proof. Corruption did exist to a certain extent; but, how widespread it was is problematical.

Some local law enforcement officers were brought to court for alleged

corrupt activities. Otto Klemp, a Eureka policeman, was aquitted of the

charge that he was informing blind piggers of impending raids in 1924. His

was the first case of alleged corruption. J.T. Falin operated as a

prohibition agent in the county for a short period in 1926. He returned in

34 Julio J. Rovai, Rio Dell - (Wildwood As I Saw it in the Early Twenties (Santa Rosa: Julio Rovai, 19T9), pp. 88-89. 34

1927 and it was charged that he impersonated a Federal officer in order to

confiscate liquor he later sold. Furthermore, it was said that he even sent out other phony "officers" in order to seize greater stores of illicit

beverages. His case was moved to San Francisco and it is unknown, to this

writer, whether or not he was convicted of the charges. In yet another case,

four Eureka police officers were dismissed from the force in 1929 when it

was shown that they had not turned in all the evidence that had been

confiscated on a raid. The amount of missing liquor was nominal. It may

have been taken for the personal consumption of the officers, rather than

being sold to local liquor men. These three cases represent scant proof of widespread corruption among local law enforcement officers. The most blatant and conclusive case to be uncovered came in 1931 when District

Attorney S.E. Metzler and prohibition agent, J.J. Lennon, were both convicted

and sent to prison for taking bribes from local liquor men over a three year

period. The government called witnesses who were still operators, boot- leggers, and intermediaries in the conspiracy. In the Metzler case we have

an example of a blazen attempt by an enforcement official to profit from liquor trade. Still, his case only led to two convictions. It would appear, therefore, that the failure of the Eighteenth Amendment in Humboldt County

cannot be directly attributed to graft. The evidence just is not conclusive

enough to draw that conclusion. These cases do show, however, that a

certain degree of shadiness was present and that such action had some effect

on the degree to which the Volstead Act was enforced.

Another problem among the law enforcers probably had a greater effect

on the enforcement of the dry law than corruption. The problem was

indifference. In the face of local populace that was largely unsupportive

of the Eighteenth Amendment it may have been much easier for the Volstead

enforcers to turn their heads and ignore the thriving liquor trade. This 34 may be an explanation for Delphia Halvorson's statement and also for the arrests for drunkenness that have been cited.

In 1929, a large group of Federal operatives moved into Eureka's "rum row" and arrested fifty-three blind piggers in a twenty-four hour period.

A new state record had been set for arrests within that limited time span.

Some ninety men were brought to trial for alleged violation of the national prohibition laws in a short three day period of raids made by the Federal operatives. Most were convicted. George J. Hatfield, the U.S. District

Attorney who tried the cases said that "the failure of local authorities to enforce the law has resulted in the Federal government's unsurpation of local police powers."35 It is apparent from the success of the Federal operatives to carry out such a large number of successful raids where the local official's success had been mediocre, that the dry forces in the county were either undermanned or that, some of them at least, were indifferent to what was a very unpopular law.

The Eighteenth Amendment failed in Humboldt County for a variety of reasons. The law enforcement officers were small in number in comparison to the huge forces of noncompliance present in the county. In addition, the forces of the law were somewhat corrupt and indifferent: this fact must have had an effect on the failure of the Eighteenth Amendment. The clever- ness of the liquor men, as well as a general public's willingness to pay their prices struck another blow to the Volstead Act. The problems that the Volstead Act faced in Humboldt County were prevalent in many other areas of the country as well. Just as a national movement brought prohibition to the county, a national propensity counter to the temperance movement ushered in the laws that brought an end to the prohibition period. In

35Humboldt Standard, April 6, 1929, p. 3, Col. 3. 36

1928, the Democratic presidential nominee was the Catholic Al Smith. His platform called for the repeal of national prohibition. His campaign failed, and so did the move toward the annulment of the Eighteenth Amendment.

In 1932, behind the charismatic leadership of Franklin Roosevelt, the

Democratic party won control of the presidency. Roosevelt's statement at the 1932 Democratic convention was indicative of the future of national prohibition:

The Convention wants Repeal. I want Repeal. I am confident that the of America wants Repeal. I say to you 36 now that from this date on, the Eighteenth Amendment is doomed.

Roosevelt took office in March, 1933. By April, 3.2 percent beer was legal throughout the country. In anticipation of the coming of legal beer to

Humboldt County, the Hotel Vance advertised itself thusly:

HOTEL VANCE DECLARES MORATORIAM ON GLOOM Friday afternoon will find Eureka with Beer, the like of which she has not seen for 15 droughty years. So we say, we must act accordingly - we invite the public to our Fri- day and Saturday night Bohemian Nights. First glass of beer on the House.37

The Humboldt Standard poetically described the return of beer to the county.

A golden river flowed through Eureka today. First a trickle, then a rivulet, then a rushing stream rapidly gathering way, then a raging torrent, and, finally, as the day wore on, a flood whose bubbling, exhilirating waters flashed back the reflection of happy skies and whose limped depths stirred to the echoes of happy, carefree laughter and joy.38

Beer had returned and wine and distilled liquors followed closely behind.

By the end of 1933 the Eighteenth Amendment was history. The "noble

Experiment" was ended and illegality became legality once again.

36Larry Engelmann, Intemperance (New York: The FREE PRESS, 1979), p. 188. 37Humboldt Standard, April 6, 1933, p. 7, Col. 5.

5.7,38 Standard,1933,Humboldt Aprilp. 1, Col. 37

Bibliography

BOOKS

Asbury, Herbert The Great Illusion. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company Inc., 1950. 344pp.

Elliot's History of Humboldt County, California. San Francisco: Elliot pub., 1882. p. 212.

Englemann, Larry Intemperance. New York: The Free Press, 1979. 252pp. Kobler, John Ardent Spirits. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1973. 386pp. Krout, John A. The Originals of Prohibition. New York: Russel and Russel, 1967. 339 PP. Merz, Charles The Dry Decade. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, Inc., 1932. Ostrander, Gilman The Prohibition Movement in California. Los Angeles, California: University of California Press at Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1957. Rovai, Julio J. Rio Dell - Wildwood. Santa Rosa, California: Julio J. Jovai, 1979.

NEWSPAPERS

Arcata Union, July - August 1919, January - February 1920, March - May 1933.

Ferndale Enterprise, July - August 1919, January - February 1920, March - May 1933. Humboldt Beacon, July - August 1919, January - February 1920, March - May 1933.

Humboldt Standard, July 1919 - April 1933.

INTERVIEWS

Burton, Dick. Personal interview. Eureka, California, April 3, 1981.

Fraser, Tommy. Telephone interview. Eureka, California, April 6, 1981.

Hash, Joe. Telephone interview. Freshwater, California, March 29, 1981. Littlefield, Beverly. Personal interview. Eureka, California, March 28, 1981. Molander, Art. Personal interview. Arcata, California, March 29, 1981.

Peterson, Vick. Personal interview. Eureka, California, March 30, 1981. 38

Processi, Pete. Personal interview. Eureka, California, April 6, 1981.

Roscoe, Martha. Telephone interview. Eureka, California, March 15, 1981. Rovai, Julio. Telephone interview. Santa Rosa, California, April 6, 1981.

Wrigley, Irving. Personal interview. Elk River, California, April 2, 1981.

DOCUMENTS

Humboldt County. Civil Code. Ordinance 151. (1920). Susie Baker Fountain Papers.