What Made the Twenties Roar?
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
ROARING TWENTIES HM.qxd 24/02/2010 12:54 PM Page 1
POPULAR CULTURE
What Made the
Twenties Roar?
Bob Gordon examines one of history’s most storied, and controversial, decades
FEBRUARY 14, 1929 WAS cold and Arriving late for the meeting and defined the 1920s: They made
windy, a typical late winter’s day seeing a police car in front of the them roar. Underlying it all was
in Chicago. Neighbors thought garage, he had simply strolled by, the 18th Amendment and the clus-
nothing of it when a police car narrowly escaping death. ter of state and local laws that
with two uniformed officers and Nonetheless, the St. Valentine’s augmented it, known as Prohibi-
two detectives screeched to a halt Day massacre was the largest tion.
in front of S.C.M. Cartage on mass murder in a city already A second key event in the his-
North Clark Street. Moments after notorious for the gun battles, cor- tory of bootlegging that made the
entering the garage behind the ruption and criminality that made twenties roar occurred north of the
building, the two officers re- America roar during the 1920s. border, in Yorkton, Saskatch-ewan,
emerged and led two men, arms The 1920s began on 16 Janu- Canada. In December 1919, Harry
raised, back to the police car and ary 1920. On that date, the 18th and Sam Bronfman established the
sped away. The garage behind Amendment to the United States Canada Pure Drug Company and
2122 North Clark Street was Constitution (ratified 28 October obtained a provincial license and a
widely known as the headquarters 1919) took effect. Commonly federal bonded warehouse license
of George ‘Bugs’ Moran’s bootleg- known as the Volstead Act, after that permitted them to import,
ging operation and Prohibition Andrew Volstead, Chairman of the manufacture and export liquor. In
raids were nothing new in the House Judiciary Committee, it Canada, Prohibition legislation
neighborhood.
In Chicago during the ‘Roar-
ing Twenties’, things were rarely
what they seemed. Journalist
Robert St. John described the city
as “two fisted and rowdy, hard-
drinking and pugnacious…vibrant
and violent, stimulating and ruth-
less.” In typical Chicago fashion,
there were two sides to the events
of St. Valentine’s Day 1929. The
police car and uniforms were
stolen. The four men that arrived
in the stolen vehicle were not
police officers; nothing could have
been further from the truth. They
were gangsters, hired killers,
intent on eliminating the Moran
gang in one fell swoop.
Upon entering the garage,
they found seven of the gang
awaiting a shipment of booze.
They disarmed Moran’s men and
lined them up against the wall of
the garage. They then opened fire
with two submachine guns, a
shotgun and a .45 caliber hand- Left: Woman putting flask in her boot, Washington, DC, 21 January 1922.
gun. Six of their victims died Right: Actress Alice Joyce in typical “Flapper” fashion, 1926.
instantly and the seventh, three
hours later in the hospital. When stated, “No person shall manufac- had numerous loopholes and was
the ‘uniformed’ men left the ture, sell, barter, transport, import, laxly enforced. The Bronfman’s
garage, the two ‘prisoners’ they export, deliver, or furnish any established the Canada Pure Drug
led were the ‘detectives’ they had intoxicating liquor…” Company with the sole intention
arrived with. Bathtub gin and bootlegged of supplying the ‘dry’ American
The killers had missed Moran. suds, gin mills and speakeasies market.
16 History Magazine • April/May 2010ROARING TWENTIES HM.qxd 24/02/2010 12:54 PM Page 2
The Saskatchewan/North failed because Moran was out of breweries and contracts to provide
Dakota border is approximately ammunition when he approached booze to thousands of speakeasies
1,000 miles northwest of Chicago Torrio, intending to deliver the in Cicero and the South Side.
and the brothers planned to ship coup de grâce. Having recovered Between 1925 and 1929, Capone’s
their booze to Chicago.
This scheme highlights
one of the innovations
that, literally, made the
twenties roar, namely
the proliferation of the
automobile. According
to historian James Gray,
the idea of using trucks
and automobiles to
transport liquor “was as
visionary a scheme as
ever came down the
pike.”
The bootleggers in
the United States
adopted the automobile
quickly as well. From
warehouses in Chicago,
trucks transported Above: Prescription form for medicinal liquor.
booze to speakeasies and bootleg- Below: Bootlegger automobile crash in Washington, DC 1922.
gers throughout the Midwest. Gin
mills as far west as Denver and as
far south as St. Louis received
their supplies by the truckload
from Chicago. This development
also led to a new form of crime —
hijacking. Convoys of booze were
escorted by armed guards and fre-
quently attacked by rivals
attempting to steal the shipment.
The ability to ship booze over
long distances to diverse locations
was also a key to the development
of ‘the rackets’: What we refer to
today as organized crime. As the
decade progressed, it was Al ‘Scar-
face’ Capone, operating from his
base in Cicero, a Chicago suburb,
who rose to be the undisputed
king of the rackets.
Capone arrived in Chicago in
the spring of 1921. He had cut his
teeth in the rackets in New York
and been mentored by gangster
Frankie Yale. He came to Chicago
to assist Johnny Torrio and the
‘Chicago Outfit’ make the move
from prostitution and gambling from his wounds, Torrio spent a ‘Chicago Outfit’ is estimated to
into bootlegging. Their principle year in jail for Prohibition viola- have had an annual income of
rivals were the Irish-American tions. approximately 100 million US dol-
‘North Side’ Gang led by Dion Upon his release, Torrio lars.
O’Banion. retired and left the operation to Capone biographer Laurence
In the fall of 1924, O’Banion Capone. With alleged final words Bergreen regards this as the most
was murdered. After the murder, a to Capone of, “It’s all yours Al. significant change in his status. He
prolonged war erupted between Me? I’m quittin,” Torrio left “had real power in Chicago, and
the two gangs resulting in Torrio’s Chicago. ‘All’ consisted of night- power changed him, and just as
severe wounding in a hit that only clubs, gambling dens, brothels, importantly, it changed the way
History Magazine • April/May 2010 17ROARING TWENTIES HM.qxd 24/02/2010 12:54 PM Page 3
POPULAR CULTURE
everyone regarded him. …He did revealed that they were plotting to income and expenses.
all he could to make himself visi- overthrow him. (No charges were Jack ‘Greasy Thumb’ Guzik
ble, and more than that, ever laid in the incident.) handled internal discipline. Law
respectable, at least by the stan- In almost every situation, firms on retainer and criminal jus-
dards of Prohibition-era Chicago.” Capone’s reputation and abject tice personnel from judges to beat
Capone became close to Harry fear made it impossible for other cops in their pockets, managed
Read, city editor of the Chicago racketeers, ordinary citizens, or their legal difficulties (if intimida-
Evening American, regularly even the authorities, to stand up tion hadn’t). After a raid, the key
attended Chicago Cubs home to him. Chicago police, politics person, the braumeister, would be
games and appeared at the Jack and justice were notoriously cor- immediately bailed out and at
Dempsey-Gene Tunney heavy- rupt before Capone and became work in another location the next
weight championship fight in the even more so in the 1920s. When day.
company of journalist Damon Capone lost his temper and shot a Bank robberies, a crime the
Runyon, his unofficial press agent. small-time hood named Joe Chicago racketeers generally
It was also during this period that Howard, all the witnesses sud- avoided was also evolving in the
Capone offered forth some of his denly developed amnesia. Roaring Twenties. The most
most memorable quotes, fre- The situation is captured per- famous gang, the Newton boys,
quently describing himself as a fectly in news reports of the trial four brothers from Uvalde County,
community-minded public ser- of ‘Lefty’ Lewis. A ‘union orga- Texas and Brent Glasscock, their
vant: nizer’ — a euphimism for a pro- safecracker and explosives expert,
“They call Al Capone a boot- tection racket — Lewis murdered became involved in petty crime
legger. Yes, it is bootlegging when a junk dealer who refused to pay before World War I. In nineteenth
it’s on the trucks, but when your for protection. Covering the trial century style, they robbed banks
host at the club, in the locker room
or on the Gold Coast [an affluent
neighborhood in Chicago] hands it
to you on a silver tray, its hospital-
ity.”
“All I ever did was supply
beer and whiskey, to our best peo-
ple. All I ever did was supply a
demand that was pretty popular.”
“Sure, [I am a bootlegger] and
some of our best judges use my
stuff.”
“Public service is my motto.
Ninety percent of the people of
Cook County drink and gamble
and my offense has been to fur-
nish them with those amuse-
ments.”
Capone’s generosity was also
noteworthy, and widely publi- Undated Al Capone Mugshot (Chicago Police Department).
cized by the ‘Big Fellow’, another
of his nicknames, himself. In the for the United Press, Edwin L. on horseback sporting pistols.
wake of the stock market crash in Heckler reported on 15 October In the 1920s, the automobile
October 1929, he established a 1927 that, “officials are finding it replaced the horse as the bank
soup kitchen. Throughout his impossible to obtain 12 men robber’s getaway vehicle of
career he spread his largesse among the city’s million who are choice. In Keys to Crookdom, pub-
throughout Chicago and came to willing to decide a murder case… lished in 1924, George C. Hender-
be seen as a ‘Robin Hood’ figure in one of the most widely dis- son wrote, “Seventy-five percent
by many. cussed gang murder cases since of all crimes are now perpetrated
Indisputably, ‘Scarface’ had a Chicago gained the reputation of with the aid of the automobile.
violent nature, whether it is to be being wilder than the wild west.” Automobiles and good roads have
attributed to habitual cocaine use While ‘Scarface’ became the done much to increase certain
or advancing and untreated public image of the organization, types of banditry. We now have a
syphilis. He frequently lost his the key to it’s success was corpo- definitely established type called
temper and murdered colleagues rate structure. Al’s brother, Ralph an automobile bandit who oper-
and opponents. He beat Albert ‘Bottles’ Capone, administered the ates exclusively in motor vehi-
Anselmi and John Scalise, the St. brewing and distilling side of the cles.”
Valentine’s Day massacre gunmen, organization. Teams of accoun- Additionally, automatic
with a baseball bat when it was tants kept detailed records of weapons replaced handguns as
18 History Magazine • April/May 2010ROARING TWENTIES HM.qxd 24/02/2010 12:54 PM Page 4
the criminals’ weapons of choice.
The Thompson submachine gun, THE ROARING TWENTIES IN FILM AND FICTION
invented in 1917, fired 800 rounds
per minute and made the classic The Roaring Twenties left an indelible mark on the American imagi-
six-shooter redundant. These two nation that film and fiction have memorialized since before the
innovations constituted `modern` decade ended. Following is a brief, and necessarily incomplete, list
crime. Their style, heavy fire- of some of the best.
power and fast cars, set the stage
for the more famous public ene- Film
mies of the 1930s, such as the Little Caesar – 1931. Country boy Rico (Edward G. Robinson) and his
Barkers, John Dillinger and `Pretty best friend, Joe Massara (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) move to the big city
Boy` Floyd. to pursue the big-time. Joe has visions of being a singer, but Rico
The Newton boys’ organized chooses a life of crime and draws Joe into it.
bank-robbing career began in
1920, when Dock Newton escaped Scarface – 1932. Tony Camonte (Paul Muni), an ambitious and near
from a Texas prison and the boys insanely violent gangster climbs the ladder of success in the mob,
embarked on a bank-robbing but his weaknesses prove to be his downfall.
spree. In a development similar to
the division of labor that Capone Pete Kelly’s Blue’s – 1955. Pete Kelly’s (Jack Webb) Dixieland combo
introduced to bootlegging, they runs into trouble when a racketeer demands ‘management’ fees. Ella
identified specific roles for each Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee perform and Jayne Mansfield has a small
gang member. A `driver` remained role.
in the car equipped with a `git’: A
detailed map outlining the precise The Untouchables – 1987. Directed by Robert De Palma, the film ahis-
escape route. A `street cleaner` torically depicts the battle between Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) and
equipped with a concealed auto- Al Capone (Robert De Niro). Cast includes Sean Connery and Andy
matic weapon remained outside Garcia as ‘Untouchable’ Treasury Agents.
the bank, keeping passers-by and
unsuspecting bank customers Mobsters – 1991. Charlie ‘Lucky’ Luciano (Christian Slater) and
away, while their explosives Meyer Lansky (Patrick Dempsey) organize the New York rackets.
expert, Glasscock, blew the safe
and the brothers accompanying Fiction
him filled sacks with money and Dashiell Hammett’s (1894-1961) publishing life encompassed the
negotiable bonds and securities. twenties. After 1931, he published only one novel, although he con-
They committed dozens of tinued to work in film, writing and rewriting scripts. Throughout the
bank robberies throughout the twenties, his work was published in Black Mask and other pulp
Midwest (ranging as far north as detective magazines. Commencing in February 1929, he rapidly pub-
Toronto, Canada). In their most lished four roman noir about crime and corruption in the 1920s.
famous coup, they scored more
than $3 million robbing the postal Red Harvest (1929) In Poisonville, Montana, the ‘Continental Op’
train running north out of instigates a war between rival gangs in order to solve the murder of
Chicago. a newspaper editor.
Automobiles and automatic
weapons created a technological The Dain Curse (1929) Cults, morphine and corruption all figure into
gap between criminals and law the ‘Continental Op’s’ investigation of a diamond heist.
enforcement. Of even greater
importance, there was also an The Maltese Falcon (1930) After his partner is killed, Sam Spade is
administrative and organizational drawn into a search for a mysterious figurine known as the ‘Maltese
gap between them. While bootleg- Falcon’.
gers and bank robbers became
increasingly sophisticated The Glass Key (1931) – Gambler and racketeer Ned Beaumont investi-
throughout the ‘Roaring Twen- gates a murder while his boss faces a difficult reelection campaign
ties’, the forces of law and order and a gang war brews.
remained stuck in an earlier era.
The Department of Justice Little Caesar (1929) – W. R. Burnett. Loosely based on the life of Al
established the Bureau of Investi- Capone, this novel provided the basis for the film noted above.
gation (BOI) in 1908. Initially, it
was staffed by 12 agents seconded
from the Secret Service. Through- role. Prohibition agents were of the Department of Treasury.
out the 1920s, the BOI remained employees of the Bureau of Inter- Otherwise, law enforcement
small, subject to jurisdictional lim- nal Revenue until 1927, when the was the responsibility of local offi-
its and largely constrained in its Bureau came under the authority cials and, to a lesser extent, the
History Magazine • April/May 2010 19ROARING TWENTIES HM.qxd 24/02/2010 12:54 PM Page 5
POPULAR CULTURE
state police forces being scandal carried into the first
formed. Thus, while the years of the Twenties.
rackets operated on an Although baseball’s popular-
interstate basis, and offend- ity grew throughout the
ers could easily leave one decade, it was never again
jurisdiction for another to the innocent past time it had
avoid prosecution, the fed- once been.
eral government was largely Fundamentalist preachers
unable to pursue them. decried automobiles as
Also, local police forces ‘bawdy houses on wheels’.
were subject to both intimi- Reverend E. F. Stanton of
dation and corruption. Kansas City claimed that,
In the case of Al “women who once dressed
Capone, it was ultimately decently now wear clothes
neither violations of Prohi- high and low. High at the
bition laws nor other crimi- bottom and low at the top.”
nal charges that ended his Jazz, increasingly popular,
career: It was income tax was decried as the devil’s
evasion. That fact alone music and the Charleston
stands as mute testimony to was dismissed for its wonton
the inability of the forces of sensuality. Diving horses and
law and order, federal or occasionally deadly dance
otherwise, to prosecute marathons became all the
bootleggers and racketeers. rage.
The mayhem in the Cultural historian Modris
streets that terrorized resi- Eksteins argues that society
dents of Chicago and New underwent a moral crisis in
York City was only one of the wake of World War I.
the most visible aspects of Josephine Baker dancing the controversial “Old authority and tradi-
the hysteria that swept “Charleston” at the Folies Bergère, Paris in 1926. tional values no longer had
America during credibility…The
the 1920s. The The ‘Roaring Twenties’ on the Silver Screen twenties, as a result,
decade began witnessed a hedo-
with the roundup The Roaring Twenties were Chaney (until 1925) and Erich nism and narcissism
of thousands of seminal years for the American von Stroheim. of remarkable pro-
suspected ‘Reds’ film industry. The move from Undeniably, the brightest of portions… A pro-
and their fellow New York City to the West these was Douglas Fairbanks found sense of
travellers. Unem- Coast had begun before World who starred in The Mark of Zorro spiritual crisis was
ployed veterans War I, but it was in the 1920s (1920), The Three Musketeers the hallmark of the
of the American that Hollywood emerged as the (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The decade.”
Expeditionary Mecca of the ‘Silver Screen’, an Thief of Baghdad (1924), The Iron Automatic
Force who industry based on the studio Mask (1929), and The Taming of weapons and auto-
returned home as and star systems. the Shrew (1929). mobiles were the
heroes in 1919, The leading studios and The movies and their stars physical manifesta-
suddenly came to their stars were: were promoted in mass-market tions of World War
be viewed as a • Paramount – Clara Bow, Glo- magazines, the most famous of I’s impact on Ameri-
revolutionary ria Swanson and Rudolph these was Photoplay. It’s Medal can society. A sense
threat to social Valentino. of Honor was a forerunner of of hysteria and exis-
stability. • Warner Brothers – John Barry- the Academy Awards. In 1922, it tential crisis was a
In the fall of more, Al Jolson and Rin Tin Tin was awarded to Fairbanks, who less visible, but
1919, America’s (the dog) at $100 per week. not only starred in Robin Hood, more profound,
game was shat- • MGM– Lon Chaney (after but also wrote and produced it. impact of the war.
tered by the reve- 1925), Greta Garbo and Buster In 1927, Warner Brothers Underlying it all,
lations that the Keaton. revolutionized the industry was bathtub gin and
Chicago White • United Artists (controlled by with the release of the first bootlegged beer, the
Sox had thrown the actors and directors them- ‘talkie’, The Jazz Singer, starring racketeers that con-
the World Series, selves)– Charlie Chaplin, Dou- Al Jolson. At the time, film critic trolled its sale, and
(in what became glas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford Robert Sherwood wrote, “I for the crime wave that
known as the and director D. W. Griffith one suddenly realized that the they brought to the
‘Black’ Sox Scan- among its members. end of the silent drama is in streets of America.
dal.) Investiga- • Universal – Harry Carey, Lon sight.”
HM
tion of the
20 History Magazine • April/May 2010Copyright of History Magazine is the property of Moorshead Magazines Limited and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.
You can also read
