The St. Valentine's Day Massacre
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The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre by Mike McPhee TEXT OF AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE SYDNEY UNITARIAN CHURCH ON SUNDAY, 18 FEBRUARY 2007 This may seem a perverse topic for a service, even in a church like ours, but I did offer the Worship Sub-Committee a choice of the Massacre and Einstein – so, you can blame them rather than me! In any case, there is much valuable information to found in a serious examination of the Prohibition Era in the United States, especially since most of us mainly know about it from watching The Untouchables on television. That is no way to learn history properly, as we should all realise. Most people know that the massacre occurred in Chicago on 14 February 1929 during a struggle between two rival criminal gangs for dominance of the illegal liquor trade. The shootings took place in a warehouse where George ‘Bugs’ Moran’s organisation garaged and serviced their trucks, the casualties being five gang members, a mechanic and a visitor. Though it was never proven in court, the assailants were sent by Moran’s arch-rival, Alphonse ‘Scarface’ Capone. They had hoped to find Moran there, as well, but he had seen Capone’s men arrive disguised as police in a fake or stolen (reports vary) police car and had fled. Accustomed as they were to sham police raids, the seven in the warehouse dutifully faced the wall – whereupon they were shot with their own machine guns. To understand this bizarre event requires an understanding of what Prohibition had done to American society by that time and how it came about in the first place. Not everyone knows that Prohibition actually commenced in 1920 and lasted for 14 years – so, our first question should be to ask what prompted this insane ‘social experiment’. Who wanted it? How did such a radical policy become law? And how was it ever expected to work? The story goes back a long way and serves as an object lesson in US constitutional law. The prohibition movement began in the 1840s, spearheaded by pietistic religious denominations, especially the Methodists. Alcohol consumption, particularly of ‘hard liquor’, was a serious problem in those days and the notorious saloons were often dens of violence, gambling and prostitution. After a lull during the Civil War, the movement revived in the 1880s under the leadership of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union and the Prohibition Party, who were convinced that alcohol was the source of virtually all social problems. Campaigning for prohibition commenced at county, town and state level, because the regulation of alcohol was not a federal responsibility, and met with considerable success. By 1905, three states had already outlawed alcohol; nine by 1912; and, by 1916, prohibition was in effect in 26 of the 48 states. By this time, the Anti-Saloon League – essentially a more political version of the WCTU – was also making its influence felt. Prohibition was not an issue in the 1916 election that saw Woodrow Wilson re-elected as president, but the caucuses of both the Democratic and Republican parties in the 65th Congress had strong ‘dry’ majorities. The entry of the US into World War I in 1917 gave the prohibition forces the excuse to launch a vehement campaign against beer, on the grounds that most of the large breweries were owned by people of German extraction. National prohibition was presented as a war measure to reserve grain and coal for more productive uses. In December 1917, Congress passed the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, which sought to ban the production, sale, importation and exportation of ‘intoxicating beverages’. Any such amendment needs to be ratified by three-quarters of the states in order to take effect. A month later, President Wilson instituted partial prohibition to conserve grain for the war effort. Beer was limited to 2.75% alcohol content and the allocations of grain and coal to the breweries were reduced to 70% of the previous year’s consumption. However, he declined the authorization by Congress to ban the production of beer altogether. The brewing industry argued unsuccessfully that liquor taxes were paying more for the war effort than were Liberty Bonds. By January 1919, the requisite 36 state governments had ratified the Amendment - ultimately, all but two states did so. In October of that year, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act (also known as the Volstead Act). Those who had hoped that only spirits would be banned were to be disappointed, as the Act defined ‘intoxicating beverages’ as anything over 0.5% alcohol. It was a painfully detailed document specifying the fines and jail sentences applicable for various infringements, also tightly prescribed exemptions for sacramental wines and medicinal brandy. President Wilson vetoed the Act but that was promptly overruled by a two-thirds majority in the Congress. Prohibition duly came into effect on 16 January 1920, twelve months after the 18th Amendment was declared ratified. Curiously, its proponents expected little trouble, allocating a mere $5 million for enforcement and leaving that to the agents of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (hence the expression, ‘revenuer’), a branch of the federal Treasury. Presumably, it was thought that breweries would only produce 'near-beer'; wineries would make fruit juices; and bars would sell soft drinks. It should also be noted that, while the production and sale of alcoholic beverages was illegal, the purchase, possession and transportation of these was not. Consequently, Prohibition was a flop from its very inception and only sparked an upsurge in illegal activities. Too much is made of ‘bathtub gin’ and backyard stills, however, when in fact the vast bulk of contraband liquor was smuggled in from Canada, Mexico and even Europe. Some breweries operated illicitly, or else legal beer was spiked with pure alcohol. It is estimated that there were twice as many ‘speakeasies’ operating as there had been bars before 1920. Corruption was rampant and, despite tens of thousands of persons being charged with Prohibition violations, the courts only convicted 7% of them! It was not only the poorly-paid police who were easily bought off, however, but also prosecutors and city officials. George Remus, a Cincinnati bootlegger, employed many police officers among his thousand salesmen and estimated that half of his receipts went as bribes. Al Capone’s organisation in Chicago reportedly took in $60 million in 1927 and had half of the city’s police on its payroll. Prohibition enriched and empowered organised crime by creating an underground, but very public, industry whose profits were subsequently invested in gambling, prostitution and other activities. Men like Capone and Moran were regarded by most people (and also the popular press) as swashbuckling folk-heroes. Prohibition had always had the least support in the cosmopolitan cities of the Northeast and Midwest. After a raid on an illegal club in New York trapped some of the city’s leading citizens, the Bureau’s efforts were halted. By 1925, half a dozen states, (including New York) had passed laws banning local police from investigating Prohibition violations. Further sources of discontent included a death rate of approximately 50,000 in 1927 from drinking adulterated liquor and many more cases of blindness and paralysis. Prohibition was increasingly seen as causing worse problems than those which it had sought to solve. In the presidential election of 1928, the Democrats pledged to repeal Prohibition if elected but lost to Herbert Hoover, who publicly (but not personally) supported it. However, two pivotal events occurred in 1929 that would put an end to the ‘noble experiment’: the Massacre and the Wall Street collapse on ‘Black Friday’. The shootings in Chicago prompted public outcry that Capone’s public works, such as soup kitchens in the poorest suburbs, did little to assuage. Also, the federal government resolved to put a stop to the gangs and bring their leaders to justice, which it realised that the city and state authorities either would not or could not do. In 1930, on orders from President Hoover, Capone came under a two-pronged attack from the Department of the Treasury – while the Bureau of Internal Revenue investigated his tax returns, Treasury agent Eliot Ness and the ‘Untouchables’ moved against his illegal operations. (Later in that year, responsibility for the enforcement of Prohibition was transferred to the Department of Justice and its Bureau of Investigation, precursor of the FBI, but Ness and his team remained with the Treasury.) Capone had just spent ten months in a state penitentiary for possession of a concealed weapon, where he had continued to run his syndicate from a privileged cell. His celebrity status made him an ideal target for prosecution, especially after he was named ‘Public Enemy No. 1’ by the Chicago Crimes Commission. In a number of federal grand jury cases in 1931, Capone was charged with 22 counts of tax evasion and 5000 violations of the Volstead Act. Capone pleaded guilty to the charges, hoping for a plea bargain, but the judge refused his lawyer’s offers and the jury was replaced on the day of the trial to frustrate his associates’ efforts to bribe or intimidate the original jurors. Capone was found guilty on five counts of tax evasion and willful failure to file returns, for which he was sentenced to eleven years in a federal prison and one year in the county jail. He also had to pay substantial fines and court costs, but Eliot Ness’ raft of charges under the Volstead Act was not proceeded with. Expecting only to have to pay his back taxes, interest thereon and fines, Capone was enraged when he was sentenced to prison.