Prohibition in Washington, D.C. by Garrett Peck

Author:Garrett Peck
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781614230892
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2013-10-27T16:00:00+00:00

In fact, most saloon owners had been law-abiding citizens rather than organized criminals. And some cities, like Washington, had no organized crime—just a lot of entrepreneurs who had spotted a business opportunity.

Enforcing prohibition in the district was constant work, but it also came in waves as politicians put pressure on law enforcement to do something about the problem. After the 1919 race riot, Congress appropriated funds to increase the size of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department by 300 people. The force had 1,000 people on its rolls to protect and serve the citizens of the nation’s capital. Only a small fraction, 28 men, was dedicated to enforcing prohibition, but it was a fairly effective team, one that largely remained free of corruption. There just weren’t enough of them to adequately shut down the liquor traffic.

The MPD had a “flying squad” of four people under Sergeant George Little whose job it was to chase after bootleggers in automobiles. They were also deputized federal revenue agents, which gave them authority to chase bootleggers into Maryland or Virginia and arrest them. Even with several hundred arrests each year, there were too many roads leading into the city for Little’s squad to catch more than a small fraction of rumrunners. A separate twenty-man vice squad, first under Sergeant Oscar Letterman and then under Sergeant J.R. Leach, went undercover to find people selling alcohol and then conducted raids after getting a search warrant, often in conjunction with a Prohibition Bureau agent. These same detectives also had to root out the city’s gambling parlors, which were nearly as prevalent as speakeasies and just as illegal. Only these twenty-eight men were allowed to make arrests for Volstead Act violations.

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