Arthur Vandenberg

Marching Through Michigan

As Seen In...

March/April 2018hsmichigan.org $6.95

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Controversy often surrounded the enforcement of Prohibition laws.

Dry agents during the Volstead Era (1920-1933) were known to

strong-arm suspects, accept bribes, and engage in many other corrupt

policing tactics. Overlooked, however, is the fact that when the

Eighteenth Amendment first became national law in 1920, policemen

in Southeastern Michigan already had two years of experience fighting

an unceasing tide of bootleggers and alcohol-related crime.

A “Great Booze Rush” in Monroe County by Joe Boggs

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Frigid to the bone, troopers from the newly formed Michigan State Constabulary shook off the winter cold and set their sights southward toward the Ohio border during the early hours of February 7, 1919. A caravan of headlights

approached just after 3 o’clock in the morning, and it was quite possible that those cars were jammed full of illegal booze.

Sure enough, one racing car refused orders to stop. Prepared, one squad signaled up the road to the other

set of policemen awaiting the order. Message received, the second squad plopped a telephone pole upon the roadway. At 70 miles an hour, the vehicle struck the pole, bounded into the air, and hurled the passengers and bottles of whiskey “out like peas.”

Two occupants of the car, Fred Brown and C.P. Gude—both from Toledo—were knocked unconscious but miraculously suffered just minor injuries. However, both bootleggers interestingly claimed a third man, “Eddy,” was driving the vehicle and did not end up in the county jail with them. Despite the sheriff department’s denial, “persistent rumors” shocked Monroe residents, hinting at the idea that enforcement officials had covered up the potentially-controversial death of a liquor smuggler. Higher-ups in Lansing soon caught wind of the new enforcement tactic and ordered the officers responsible to never repeat it again.

Keeping Michigan DryWhen national Prohibition began in 1920, Michigan

had already been dry for nearly two years. Enforcing statewide Prohibition in Monroe County, which lay on the Michigan-Ohio border, in 1918 and 1919 ultimately demonstrated the difficulties of implementing such an unpopular law.

At the heart of the county was the city of Monroe. A town of nearly 12,000 residents that was situated midway between Toledo and Detroit, Monroe and its surrounding communities became dominated by the transportation of goods and people long before Prohibition. Connecting the Glass City to the Motor City was a confluence of railways, newly paved roads, and an electric trolley. Those pathways all crossed in Monroe.

Considering such distinct geographical and transportation features, it was natural that Monroe County would become the epicenter of a massive exchange of bootlegged alcohol during Prohibition. Once Michigan went dry on May 1, 1918, enterprising Toledoans, Monroeites, and Detroiters began smuggling alcohol purchased legally in Ohio across the state line, through Monroe, and into Detroit in every way imaginable.

Consequently, Monroe County police officers were completely overwhelmed during the early days of statewide Prohibition. On May 24, when statewide Prohibition was just over three weeks old, the county jail already housed 41 inmates—mostly bootleggers—setting a record for the most ever imprisoned there at one time. Sentencing of those smugglers gummed up local courts day after day.

On the night of June 24, 1918, an emergency conference was held in Monroe to remedy the issues with enforcement. County officials present were under

A local Prohibition-Era bust conducted in Monroe

County. (Photo courtesy of the Monroe County

Historical Museum and the Monroe Evening

News Archives.)

A 1917 map of Monroe County, where rum-running was prevalent during Michigan’s Prohibition Era. (Photo courtesy of the author.)

A “Great Booze Rush” in Monroe County

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the belief that “some action by the state” was needed. Therefore, with the approval of Michigan Governor Albert Sleeper, State Food and Drug Commissioner Fred Woodworth, and Colonel Roy C. Vandercook of the Michigan State Constabulary, the officials concluded it would be best to bring 30 of Vandercook’s state troopers to Monroe County.

The Constabulary

Arrives in MonroeArriving on horseback in downtown Monroe on the

afternoon of June 27, the khaki-clad Michigan State Troopers were welcomed with “quite an amount of excitement.” Colonel Vandercook and his troopers immediately moved to the south toward the Ohio border to confront the wave of bootleggers head-on.

Early on, it appeared that the presence of the state troopers was paying off. Two weeks after the constabulary’s arrival, the local news reported “arrests

a quart, and automobiles equipped with two hidden 15-gallon tanks—one for whiskey and one for beer.

Under intense pressure from the governor’s office to halt the flood of illegal alcohol coming from Toledo, liquor agents became much more intrusive, actively searching vehicles and bodies alike. State troopers frequently set up roadblocks on Dixie Highway, forcing passing automobile drivers to halt and subject their cars to thorough searches. Officers conducted raids on the passenger train and interurban that passed through Monroe County as well.

Adding further controversy to those searches, “matron” officers—typically the wives of dry agents—tagged along and patted down female bootlegger suspects, some of whom smuggled liquor inside their undergarments, sported fake breasts that were filled with alcohol, or even carried booze-concealing devices on their bodies that mimicked full-term pregnancy.

Prohibition officers were also becoming more aggressive with their guns. Just days after Sleeper’s open letter, state troopers on horseback fired half a dozen bullets toward a “pretty Detroit Miss” who attempted to turn back for the Ohio border in her vehicle. She halted after the weapons were fired and, despite her attempts to bribe the officers, was arrested for having ten gallons of whiskey in tow. In mid-August, even a county deputy sheriff came under fire when he failed to stop his car for a state trooper.

The uptick in troopers using their firearms was likely a reflection of the illegal liquor exchange in the region becoming increasingly violent itself. In July, a young man’s body was found riddled with bullets just a mile south of downtown Monroe. The following month, another body was found beside a railroad located four miles north of Monroe. Another news report indicated that a rum smuggler was shot and killed on a northbound train with criminals throwing the lifeless body into a creek as the train raced down the tracks.

A Changing TideAt first, the citizens of Monroe were fine with dry

enforcement as long as it targeted out-of-towners and minorities, which was predominantly the case during the first few months of statewide Prohibition. However, the mid-September arrest and trial of two prominent Monroe

A whiskey corset, which could hide 2 1/2 gallons of alcohol. (Photo courtesy of

the Michigan Food and Drug Monthly.)

Automobiles carrying 1,500 quarts of whiskey, which were stopped in Monroe County in the summer of 1919. (Photo

courtesy of the Michigan Food and Drug Monthly.)

in the last few days have been dwindling.” Lansing was pleased with the results too. Governor Sleeper penned a letter to the local dry agents commending the good work being done in Monroe and assuring that his office “will stand behind you in every particular, to see that the statute will be enforced.”

As that letter was being written, Monroe County’s only completely paved road—known formally as US-25 and more commonly as Dixie Highway—was gaining a reputation as the “Avenue de Booze.” Liquor smugglers attempted numerous tricks to get their caches of alcohol past the prying eyes of law enforcers. There were baskets of whiskey-filled eggs, spare tires pumped full with alcohol, hollow papier-mâché books with space inside for

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residents changed many local opinions of the dry agents. When Albert Hale and Lawrence Lee were found guilty of bootlegging charges, it “created no little talk” that spread like wildfire through the county. A massive audience watched as both men received 20-day jail sentences and $150 fines in the circuit court.

That trial marked a turning point in the relationship between the local Monroe County community and the dry agents deployed there to stop the illegal liquor trade. Immediately following Hale’s and Lee’s convictions, the local Monroe Evening News began to publish front page stories that informed local residents of the state troopers’ supposed immoral conduct and questionable tactics while enforcing Michigan’s Prohibition law.

By the year’s end, state troopers in Monroe County arrested and convicted 1,004 rumrunners and confiscated more than 16,000 gallons of booze. Though sometimes aggressive in their tactics, local enforcement had done quite a bit to curtail the flood of illegal alcohol that poured over the Michigan border in 1918. Troopers and public officials alike probably hoped that the beginning of 1919 and the onslaught of winter would all but halt bootlegging endeavors.

Instead, the New Year only brought more smugglers and controversy. In January, investigators from the Michigan State Food and Drug Department and other officers began to frequently raid passenger and freight trains making daily treks from Toledo to Detroit. Dozens of rumrunners were arrested and gallons of booze were confiscated. Questionable policing occurred in those instances, including one bootlegger having his face partially shot off, a handcuffed smuggler mysteriously thrown off a train, and another ending up paralyzed due to a broken back. Later in the month, the state police mobilized the “Little Bertha,” an armored vehicle, to the state line due to the increasing number of “professional” bootleggers who toted guns alongside their caches of alcohol.

Monroe County communities and newspapers began to increasingly voice their complaints against the local dry enforcers. Those who owned automobiles drove less frequently on the region’s roads due to fears of being shot at by troopers and bootleggers alike. Moreover, some county residents advocated for the Michigan State Constabulary to be dispelled altogether from their towns. Even Mayor Clinton B. Southworth of Monroe openly criticized the dry agents, declaring that the “state police are drunken toughs and should not be tolerated outside of state prison.”

Rush Hour on the

“Avenue de Booze”On February 18, a Michigan State Supreme Court

case ruled that the Damon Law, which prohibited the importation of alcohol into Michigan, was null and void, largely due to search warrant abuses by dry agents in the region. Consequently, the “Great Booze Rush” on the “Avenue de Booze” ensued. Professional and amateur rumrunners alike filled up their vehicles and suitcases with as much alcohol as possible from Toledo and set their eyes north to Detroit.

For two straight days, the Dixie Highway was bumper to bumper from Toledo to Detroit. Gleeful due to the massive profits they were about to earn, vehicular rumrunners loudly sang impromptu tunes out their windows such as “We Are No Longer Dry” and “Hello Monroe, Hello Detroit.” The interurban and passenger rail system were also “taxed to their capacity” as smugglers traversed north to sell their liquor on Detroit’s black booze market. Wholesale liquor dealers, breweries, and distilleries in Toledo took advantage of the demand for alcohol by mobilizing “extra forces” and “banner carriers” to promote the various types of bottled drinks that could be purchased and packaged for rapid transport.

Meanwhile, officials responsible for enforcing Michigan’s Prohibition law were at a loss for what to do. The Monroe Evening News noted that the police headquarters in Monroe “resembled a morgue” and the constabulary’s troopers basically took the day off. “We are not doing anything and are simply waiting developments,” declared Captain Donald Childs. The county’s judges and attorneys seemed to enjoy the respite from their Prohibition responsibilities, and some went out onto frozen Lake Erie to ice fish. Supervisors of the Monroe jail likely twiddled their thumbs. Not only did they acquire very few new inmates, but due to the court ruling, the jail had to immediately release the 35 accused of rum-running it was detaining. In comparison to the previous nine months of stringent dry policing, the

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“Great Booze Rush” had seemingly turned the region’s enforcement culture upside-down.

In Lansing, Governor Sleeper, Colonel Vandercook, and other dry legislators and leaders in Michigan convened for an emergency meeting. Together, they cobbled up a plan for “plugging up the leak” that had been flooding the Toledo-Detroit corridor. The state’s existing Wiley Act was quickly modified, enabling Monroe County’s Circuit Court judge, Jesse Root, to deputize troopers and members of the sheriff’s office to arrest those coming into Michigan with illegal alcohol. More drastically, they decided that the federal Reed Act should also be utilized. Accordingly, U.S. marshals were allowed to “set up shop” and nab as many violators as possible. Thirty rumrunners were arrested by federal officers on the first day. Along with those arrests, the agents would collectively confiscate “four barrels, 309 cases, 20 guny sacks, 23 suitcases, 8 jugs and 150 bottles of whiskey.”

constabulary as a permanent force passed the Michigan State House in mid-March, but fierce opposition—primarily from Detroit and Monroe congressmen—against that measure and others bills that funded Prohibition enforcement hinted at the displeasure with the agents in the southeastern portion of the state. Soon thereafter, numerous officers in the constabulary were oddly transferred to Grand Rapids and Lansing, significantly thinning the ranks to enforce the state’s Prohibition law in Monroe County.

In contrast, the “Great Booze Rush” marked the beginning of an increasing presence of federal dry agents in the region, who assisted state and local officials attempting to “ferret out” big-time bootleggers. However, once Ohio’s own state Prohibition law came into effect in late May 1919, Michigan’s Food and Drug commissioner, Fred L. Woodworth, publicly announced that state troopers and detectives would “take back seat” to dry agents from the federal government.

Some may have been confident in the abilities of U.S. marshals and agents, but time would demonstrate that such confidence was ill-founded. Apparently learning little from their firsthand experiences enforcing Prohibition laws in Monroe County, federal officials largely failed to halt the flow of liquor and bootleggers along the Detroit-Toledo corridor for the next 12 years.

The “Great Booze Rush” and the overall Prohibition enforcement predicament in Monroe County foreboded significant developments that would plague the attempt to make the entire country completely dry in the years to come. Perhaps more important, the plethora of problems that coincided with the enforcement of dry legislation in Monroe County served as a microcosm of what would occur following the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. Spikes in violent crime, increased usage of questionable tactics by dry officers, and growing complaints by community members against those responsible for policing Prohibition became commonplace not only in Monroe but around the country.

Ultimately, the nation failed to heed the lessons from Southeastern Michigan and forged ahead with the “noble experiment,” watching on as similar enforcement issues plagued large cities such as New York City and Chicago during the following decade. A

Joe Boggs, a Monroe resident, teaches American history and psychology at Penta Career Center in Perrysburg, Ohio. He is also a graduate history student at Bowling Green State University.

A scene of rum-running on the Dixie Highway in Monroe County. (Photo courtesy of the Michigan Food and Drug Monthly.)

The Statewide Act

Turns NationalWith local, state, and federal agents cooperatively

working together, the “Great Booze Rush” was greatly diminished, and never again would Monroe County witness such rampant and blatant violations of Prohibition legislation. Nevertheless, professionals continued rum-running in Monroe County in the months to come. Daily newspaper headlines included criminals firing their weapons haphazardly, women wearing liquor-concealing contraptions, and even a drunken smuggler hitting and killing a teenage girl in the southern Monroe County town of Erie.

Despite those alarming developments, the Michigan State Troopers were gradually forced out of Monroe County during the first half of 1919. A bill establishing the

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