WEBVTT - S3E8: National Hangover 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.000 Hey there, it's your host ed helms. 0:00:03.000 --> 0:00:03.200 Here. 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:06.400 Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I wanted 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.520 to remind you that my brand new book is coming 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.440 out on April twenty ninth. It's called Snaffo, The Definitive 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:17.000 Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups, and you can pre 0:00:17.200 --> 0:00:21.880 order it right now at snaffoodashbook dot com. Trust me, 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:24.600 if you like this show, you're gonna love this book. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.720 It's got all the wild disasters spectacular face plants we 0:00:28.840 --> 0:00:32.440 just couldn't squeeze into this podcast. And here's the kicker. 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:36.880 I am also going on tour to celebrate that's right. 0:00:37.040 --> 0:00:40.600 I'm coming to New York, DC, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, 0:00:40.640 --> 0:00:44.560 San Francisco, and my hometown Los Angeles. So if you've 0:00:44.640 --> 0:00:46.800 ever wanted to see me stumble through a live Q 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.600 and A or dramatically read about a kiddie cat getting 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.000 turned into a CIA operative, now's your chance again. Head 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:57.600 to snaffoo dashbook dot com to pre order the book 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.160 and check out all the tour details in day, or 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.280 just click the link in the show notes. That'll work too. Okay, 0:01:04.360 --> 0:01:08.040 that's it, on with the chaos. This is Snaffoo Season 0:01:08.120 --> 0:01:15.400 three formula six previously on Snaffoo, Norris and Gettler finally 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:16.560 got the nation's attention. 0:01:16.880 --> 0:01:19.920 You have the chief medical examiner of one of the 0:01:19.959 --> 0:01:24.400 most important American cities accusing the federal government of a 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:26.520 planned program of extermination. 0:01:27.080 --> 0:01:31.360 The DRIs tried to shrug it off. You can't poison poison, 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:37.160 but the backlash sent Mabel Walker Willebrandt packing. Hoover had 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:38.319 no use for her any longer. 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.160 She was kind of an irrelevancy. 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:44.480 Support for prohibition was on the ropes only when possessing 0:01:44.480 --> 0:01:47.520 the instincts of a wild beast would desire to kill 0:01:47.640 --> 0:01:50.480 or make blind the man who takes a drink of liquor. 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:08.000 James Duran, Prohibition Commissioner, is seated at a long table. 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:12.640 Spread Out around him are accounting documents, charts, lists of 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:17.119 warehouses across the country where industrial alcohol is stored. He's 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.359 flanked by his staff. He's been pulled into a Congressional 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:24.040 budget hearing for nineteen thirty. It ain't the c SPAN era, 0:02:24.160 --> 0:02:28.120 but you can practically see the sweat steaming up Duran's 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:32.720 round glasses. Stories have been swirling in the press about 0:02:32.720 --> 0:02:37.239 the Bureau's violence, its corruption, its cruel and casual approach 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:41.200 to mass poisoning, which means that when Duran sits down 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.560 to talk about funding his agency, he finds himself in 0:02:44.600 --> 0:02:49.160 a defensive posture. Part Way through, the congressman from New York, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:54.520 deliciously named mister Robert Bacon, decides to make Duran answer 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.440 the kinds of questions he usually ducks. 0:02:58.720 --> 0:03:02.480 You will recall fall there were a number of deaths 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:05.240 in New York City due to wood alcohol poisoning. 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:08.920 Yes, Sir Bacon presses him on whether or not the 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:11.880 people in New York were killed by his formulas, the 0:03:11.880 --> 0:03:15.239 ones that pumped lethal toxins into the industrial alcohol supply. 0:03:15.800 --> 0:03:19.440 In other words, did he sacrifice these people on the 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:24.800 altar of prohibition. Let me just say personally, I love 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:28.200 this moment. It's like, yeah, we're finally going to get 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:30.359 it all from the horse's mouth. I know we're back 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.000 in the nineteen twenties, but the drama of this moment 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:37.080 it's what I love about history. It's why we do 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:42.240 this damn podcast. As Deborah Blum says, the last. 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.440 Thing you want is for your people to be called 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:48.160 murdering chemas in a congressional hearing. 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:53.760 So true, Deborah, with the screws finally being put to Duran. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.000 Would citizens finally get answers for the deaths of their 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.920 loved ones? Would Duran, or anyone else for that matter, 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:06.120 finally be held accountable for the Treasury Department's deadly poisoning scheme. 0:04:16.080 --> 0:04:20.040 I'm at Helms and this is Snaffo, a show about 0:04:20.080 --> 0:04:24.360 history's greatest screw ups. This is season three, the story 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:28.359 of Formula six. How prohibitions war on alcohol went so 0:04:28.680 --> 0:04:33.320 off the rails the government wound up poisoning its own people. 0:04:39.160 --> 0:04:43.400 In our final episode, James Durand faces a reckoning, first 0:04:43.480 --> 0:04:46.800 in Congress and then for his career. Along the way, 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:51.480 his Prohibition boys finally catch George Cassidy, But that slippery 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:55.080 George has one more trick up its sleeve. As the 0:04:55.080 --> 0:04:59.120 Great Depression pushes Prohibition off center stage, Charles Norris and 0:04:59.200 --> 0:05:24.839 Alexander get takes stock, and so do we. In the 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.640 US Senate mailroom, a new clerk is sorting the day's 0:05:27.640 --> 0:05:32.000 incoming letters. It's the spring of nineteen thirty, another election year. 0:05:32.320 --> 0:05:35.080 There's plenty of mail flying in and out as senators 0:05:35.160 --> 0:05:39.080 coordinate their campaigns. But this new clerk can't stay focused 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:42.160 on his work. He keeps looking up, watching the flow 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:44.800 of people coming into the building. He's got his eyes 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:48.839 peeled for one thing in particular. He's looking for a 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:54.640 green hat. He's looking for George Cassidy, as George's son says. 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:56.880 So this guy had it out for dad and he 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:58.280 wanted on bad. 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:01.440 The clerk job. It's a ruse, just a cover. The 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.159 guy's name is Roger Butts, and he's a young prohibition 0:06:04.200 --> 0:06:07.280 agent on his first big assignment. He's just twenty years old, 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:10.040 but he's been specially assigned to catch and I quote, 0:06:10.480 --> 0:06:14.200 the man in the green hat. You gotta admit your 0:06:14.240 --> 0:06:16.920 brand is strong when even the haters are using your handle. 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:21.800 Duran's Prohibition Bureau is making one final play to bring 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:27.640 him down. The mailroom charade goes on for a while, 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:32.559 but just scanning government offices for suspicious behavior isn't getting 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:37.200 him anywhere. So Butts gets off his duff and takes action. 0:06:37.839 --> 0:06:40.960 He starts asking around, say, do you know if. 0:06:40.920 --> 0:06:43.520 There's fella called the man in the green hat. I'm 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.640 trying to get something for the holidays, to make a 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:47.680 little whoopie yep. 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:51.039 According to his own testimony, Butts is and I quote 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:55.240 in search of some whiopie, one of those W words 0:06:55.279 --> 0:07:00.279 spelled with an H. I love those whiskey while what ever. 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:05.360 Someone eventually obliges and introduces Butts to Cassidy. Two days 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:09.320 later in the Senate stationary room, Butts squares George up 0:07:09.600 --> 0:07:12.680 and determines he matches the physical description he was given 0:07:12.720 --> 0:07:15.960 by the Prohibition Bureau. But on this day, Cassidy isn't 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:19.480 supporting his typical green hat. He's dressed to the nines 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:24.600 in a blue suit, but his hat is damn What 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.880 a tricksteh. So Butts orders a fifth of gin. They 0:07:28.880 --> 0:07:32.760 shake hands, but Cassidy doesn't fall for the trap. Rather 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.800 than deliver it to Butts personally, he passes the bottle 0:07:35.840 --> 0:07:40.440 off through a third party. No evidence, no gotcha. Butts 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:45.160 tries again and again, but round after round, Cassidy is 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:47.440 just a little too slick for him. 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.200 Since Cassidy knew the House office building better than the 0:07:50.240 --> 0:07:54.280 agents did and understood the Senate's side, it was mighty 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:58.400 hot to mislead him. 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.560 Finally, Butts decides he needs to take a different approach. 0:08:02.040 --> 0:08:04.840 He corners a staffer for a senator he knows as 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:08.240 a customer of Cassidys, and he reveals he's an undercover agent. 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:11.520 The man was not surprised. He said he had been 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:13.320 suspicious of me for some time. 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.560 Suspicious or no. The man agreed to help Butts make 0:08:17.600 --> 0:08:21.760 the arrest. The staffer calls Cassidy to place in order, 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.720 and George drives out to the parking lot of the 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:27.320 Senate Building to make the drop. 0:08:29.120 --> 0:08:29.360 Now. 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:31.640 I don't know if George let his guard down or what. 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.960 Maybe this particular staffer was a regular someone he trusted. 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:38.240 Regardless to George, it was just a normal day. As 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:39.520 his son Fred says. 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.360 He would have parked someplace close by. 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:50.760 When suddenly prohibition officers surround his car. They grab him, 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:54.040 pull him out. They popped the trunk and rummaged through 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:54.600 his vehicle. 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.840 Yeah, he was going in and he nabbed him. 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:01.600 I think we can all see Butts smugs smile right. 0:09:02.080 --> 0:09:04.960 All that hard work is finally paying off. He got 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:10.960 his man. But that smile fades because George is smart. 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:15.600 No bottles on him, no liquor in the car. A 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.800 trailing vehicle tries to pull away, and the prohibition agents 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:23.440 realize Cassidy is leading a two car caravan, the liquors 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.920 in the car behind him. Agents spring away from Cassidy 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:30.400 to stop the second car. I imagine it from George's perspective. 0:09:30.440 --> 0:09:33.320 Pushed onto the hood of his car, officers grabbing his wrists. 0:09:33.559 --> 0:09:35.680 He's got to be hoping his accomplice can shift into 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:38.160 reverse and peel out of there. But Butts and the 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:41.360 other agents are too quick. The second driver can't maneuver. 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:46.400 He stopped and dragged out. The search that follows turns 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:47.880 up a mother load. 0:09:48.679 --> 0:09:51.360 He probably had, you know, half a dozen or more 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:52.680 suitcases in the car. 0:09:53.320 --> 0:09:56.719 Butts says they nabbed at least six fifths of gin. 0:09:57.760 --> 0:10:00.319 George's mind must have been racing as Butts popped open 0:10:00.360 --> 0:10:03.640 the suitcases and counts the bottles. Was this finally it? 0:10:03.800 --> 0:10:04.360 For him? 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:06.840 His wife at home? What would she do if he 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.760 was in the slammer? Maybe he hoped he could skate 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:13.360 by because of his two car plan. He's got deniability, right. 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:16.160 They can't pin the liquor on him. But with the 0:10:16.200 --> 0:10:18.560 liquor in hand, Butts and the other agents turn their 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:21.440 attention to George. When they go through his pockets, they 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:24.959 pull out something even more incriminating than a hip flask. 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:28.719 They get their hands on the key to his whole operation. 0:10:29.480 --> 0:10:36.360 A little black book. It's George's client list. It seems 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.440 like many extra legal entrepreneurs before him. George took notes 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:43.600 on his criminal enterprise, and it's clear from his ledger 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:48.320 he's been bootlegging in Congress for a decade. The case 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:52.280 was a slam dunk for butts in the bureau. When 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.600 George went to trial, he found he was facing a 0:10:54.679 --> 0:10:57.560 year and a half in jail. That was bad enough, 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:00.439 but then something else really got his dander up. As 0:11:00.480 --> 0:11:03.120 the court's decision came down, they ruled it was not 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:08.200 a punishable crime for his m customers to purchase alcohol. 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:11.760 In other words, while George was taking the fall, every 0:11:11.920 --> 0:11:15.640 gen guzzling senator preaching the good word of prohibition was 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.840 effectively immune from charges. The law wasn't going to lay 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:20.960 a finger on them. 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:23.800 It was just a matter trying to catch them in 0:11:23.840 --> 0:11:26.240 such a way that it doesn't implicate high ups. 0:11:26.640 --> 0:11:29.560 So George decided, if the courts weren't going to give 0:11:29.559 --> 0:11:34.440 his sanctimonious customers their due, he would do it himself. 0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:47.240 Doctor Duran, are you familiar with the amendment providing that 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:52.280 no industrial alcohol should be denatured by any material injurious 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:54.320 to the human system, Yes, sir. 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:59.520 Back In his budget hearing turned culture war interrogation, James 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:04.040 Durant is fending off charges that he's been diabolically poisoning 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:09.640 American drinkers and cackling behind his spindly fingers. Robert Bacon, 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.439 the New York congressman asking the questions, wants to force 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:17.080 Duran to admit mass poisoning through the denaturing program. But 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:21.439 it's not just about that. He's trying to attack prohibition itself. 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:24.520 So Bacon brings up a case where drinkers in upstate 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.600 New York had tapped into a vat of methanol and 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:32.080 dropped dead. He points the finger at Duran. This is you, 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:36.079 This is your fault. These people died because of prohibition. 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:39.120 Duran deflects, you will. 0:12:38.880 --> 0:12:42.080 Recall this fall, there were a number of deaths in 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:44.840 New York City due to wood alcohol poisoning. 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:50.400 Yes, Sir, Bacon's convinced these deaths came from industrial denaturants. 0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:54.280 Duran counters that the wood alcohol could have come from anywhere. 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:59.160 These deaths by methanol aren't on him. In fact, since 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.880 he's facing a Congress from New York. He pulls in 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:04.840 the testimony of one famous New Yorker as evidence for 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:09.640 his side. He brings in analysis from Alexander Gettler. 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:12.480 The toxicologist of the City of New York, testified that 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:17.080 the autopsies showed that pure wood alcohol only was found 0:13:17.120 --> 0:13:19.360 in the brain cells of the people who had died. 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.400 It had no relation to the National Prohibition Act. 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:26.360 Now, this moment is, for lack of a better word, 0:13:26.720 --> 0:13:31.199 bananas because, as we know, if it weren't for prohibition, 0:13:31.800 --> 0:13:35.360 no one would be breaking into industrial warehouses to drink 0:13:35.440 --> 0:13:38.240 after shape ingredients. They could just walk down to the 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:40.280 liquor store on the corner and pick up some gin. 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:44.160 For Duran to say deaths like this had quote no 0:13:44.360 --> 0:13:47.920 relation to the National Prohibition Act, it's just well, it's 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:50.319 an insult to anyone's basic intelligence. 0:13:50.640 --> 0:13:53.960 You know, Is he a trustworthy source, No, he's not 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:55.280 a trustworthy source. 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:57.720 To be clear, it's true in the case of these 0:13:57.800 --> 0:14:02.000 particular methanol deaths that Get's analysis showed they were killed 0:14:02.040 --> 0:14:05.600 by pure wood alcohol, not wood alcohol that was mixed 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.800 into liquor. But Duran is using Getler's judgment of this 0:14:08.920 --> 0:14:12.800 one case to deflect from Norris and Gettler's bigger analysis 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:17.079 that prohibition was causing people to turn to denatured alcohol 0:14:17.559 --> 0:14:21.160 and that it was poisoning them. And by the way, 0:14:21.600 --> 0:14:25.360 James Duran knows what he's doing. See behind the scenes. 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:28.800 After the Christmas poisonings in nineteen twenty six, Duran must 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:32.600 have gotten a little nervous. Could those deaths actually be 0:14:32.800 --> 0:14:35.680 his fault? He wrote directly to the New York Health 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.720 Commissioner and asked for the city's data on the deaths. 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.400 The commission wrote back, it is my belief that some 0:14:42.480 --> 0:14:46.120 of these deaths were due to methanol or other substances 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.800 employed to denature alcohol. So Duran had it right there, 0:14:50.840 --> 0:14:53.560 in black and white. The New York Health Commissioner made 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:58.960 the damning connection denaturing alcohol was killing people. But back 0:14:58.960 --> 0:15:02.080 in the present, now sitting in front of Congress, Duran 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.440 has the audacity to tell the committee that Gettler's work 0:15:05.680 --> 0:15:10.640 exonerated him. It was a bold strategy. But then Duran 0:15:10.800 --> 0:15:12.280 was never going to just roll over. 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:17.560 He's clearly defending their policies and saying, no, this wasn't us. 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.440 My reaction is that's exactly what I would say if 0:15:20.440 --> 0:15:23.400 I was James Duran, which is deny all responsibility and 0:15:23.560 --> 0:15:24.240 wash his hands. 0:15:26.400 --> 0:15:28.320 I hate to be the bearer of bad news here, 0:15:28.480 --> 0:15:36.680 but this is a show about screw ups. Duran's gambit worked. Deny, evade, deflect. 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:40.320 It's an old playbook, and Duran was a natural. It 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.080 was practically a reflex for him. 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:44.960 I mean, this is not going to be a confessional moment. 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.680 And here's the real downer representative Bacon. He backed down. 0:15:50.200 --> 0:15:52.800 He asked a raft of questions, but at the key 0:15:52.840 --> 0:15:55.720 moment when he could have asked some you know, follow ups, 0:15:55.960 --> 0:16:00.160 he just kind of wilted. The hearing moved on. Just 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:03.480 imagine Duran wiping his forehead with a silk hanky and 0:16:03.520 --> 0:16:08.640 allowing himself a sly satisfied smile. No handcuffs, no trial, 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:11.360 just a little chit chat behind closed doors and a 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.160 slick set of lies, and he was home free. I mean, 0:16:15.520 --> 0:16:21.000 that's so fracking insane. Do all the stuff we've talked about, 0:16:21.320 --> 0:16:25.200 hurt and poison and kill so many people and just 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:29.520 walk away. The Prohibition Bureau was well aware that people 0:16:29.560 --> 0:16:33.520 were getting injured, even dying from drinking industrial chemicals. They 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:36.320 knew the system in place to manage those chemicals was 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:40.360 porous and corrupt. They knew it was getting out into 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.880 bootleg liquor. They knew that denaturing industrial alcohol was not 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:49.080 deterring people, and in fact, it was just killing them. 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:53.120 The indifference to all of those deaths by Duran and 0:16:53.320 --> 0:16:58.920 the Dries in Congress was negligent at best. Personally, I'd 0:16:58.920 --> 0:17:02.680 go for cruel, reckless, and rooted in a callous disregard 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:07.919 for human life. But even if Duran was able to 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.119 smoothly lie his way out of this one moment of 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:15.960 congressional accountability, not everyone was so easily fooled. Duran might 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.120 deny the link, but after the public outcry from Norris 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:23.159 and Getler's report, the American public was finally connecting the 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:27.840 dots between national prohibition and people dying in their own 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:35.159 towns and neighborhoods. And in nineteen thirty they got a 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:39.480 little more affirmation from a bootlegger in a green hat, 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:50.880 George Cassidy. As his case wound through the legal system, 0:17:51.040 --> 0:17:54.320 George made a connection a reporter at the Washington Post. 0:17:54.800 --> 0:17:56.959 I imagine him chatting with folks as he walked in 0:17:56.960 --> 0:18:00.000 and out of the courtroom. George was a colorful character, 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:03.600 and this was a high profile bust. Some newshound was 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:06.000 bound to catch him on a potty break. So that 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.439 meant when the verdict came down and he was going 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.159 to take the fall and no one else was going 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:15.119 to pay any price at all, George knew exactly what 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:19.159 to do. He was ready to tell his story. So, 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.800 as Garrett Peck says, he gave the Post their first 0:18:22.840 --> 0:18:24.840 scoop of the century. 0:18:24.600 --> 0:18:26.840 At this point, a really great newspaper at the time 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:30.080 as the Evening Star, and the Post is just this 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.639 small arrival of the city, kind of a gossip newspaper. 0:18:33.840 --> 0:18:36.400 But they get this great scoop, and they asked Cassidy 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.560 to spill the beans on Congress and he writes six 0:18:40.119 --> 0:18:41.280 front page articles. 0:18:41.880 --> 0:18:45.720 That's right, six front page articles each morning. People around 0:18:45.760 --> 0:18:48.760 the country waited with baited breath for the next installment 0:18:48.800 --> 0:18:53.320 of Old George's expose to land on newsstands. Will somebody 0:18:53.320 --> 0:18:55.520 please arrest me for bootlegging so I can get that 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:59.120 kind of press anyway, Three weeks before people were set 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:02.560 to cast their ballots in the nineteen thirty midterms, a 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:08.120 bombshell landed that made voters reconsider witchbox to check extra 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:09.720 extra Read all about it. 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.320 The government's hypocrisy on prohibition. 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:16.240 Exposed On October twenty third, nineteen thirty, George wrote, I. 0:19:16.200 --> 0:19:18.680 Saw a side of prohibition no one else has seen. 0:19:18.880 --> 0:19:21.040 I would say that four out of five Senators and 0:19:21.080 --> 0:19:24.560 Congressmen consume liquor, either at their offices or their homes. 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:26.919 This is a conservative estimate. 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:29.160 October twenty fourth, we would have a. 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.199 Few rounds of drinks, sing a few songs, and have 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.680 a general good time. And on the twenty fifth busiest day, 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:36.480 I have a put into the House office build and 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:39.680 I made forty seven calls on customers kept me hustling 0:19:39.720 --> 0:19:41.680 from the time the offices opened at three o'clock in 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.600 the morning until well along in the evening. On occasions, 0:19:45.640 --> 0:19:48.280 I've heard members of the House and Senate making strong 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:51.480 arguments on the floor the prohibition was being well enforced 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:54.879 when I knew good stuff was being regularly delivered at 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:56.000 their own offices. 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.080 The Washington Post was a wet newspaper, and they knew 0:19:59.119 --> 0:20:02.000 exactly what they were doing, which was to embarrass the 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:03.040 dry cause. 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:07.439 What's black and white and wet all over? Yeah, a 0:20:07.480 --> 0:20:12.280 wet newspaper doesn't sound particularly threatening, but with this story, 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.720 they were torching the dryes. It goes national. 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:19.159 Other newspapers around the country are all reporting on this. 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.639 This is a scandal, a good old DC scandal that 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:25.080 couldn't have been more perfectly timed if you were a 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:28.160 wet and gunning to kick prohibition to the curb. 0:20:28.480 --> 0:20:30.960 The last one of them was published one week before 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:32.720 the midterm election in nineteen thirty. 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.200 You can't blame these men for taking the same means 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:38.920 of refreshment and relaxation other people enjoy. If there's any 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:41.760 difference between members of Congress and other people in their 0:20:41.800 --> 0:20:44.520 personal habits and tastes, I didn't see it in ten 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:46.600 years In and about Congress. 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.719 As Fred Cassidy says, they didn't take any prisoners, and 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.480 neither did The Washington Post. They followed the George Cassidy 0:20:54.520 --> 0:20:58.640 stories with another series from Butts himself, with headlines like. 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:02.560 Prohibition in the Senate, Cassidy's arrest and caesarre of black 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:04.879 book Bear five bucks. 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:07.600 Okay, they definitely went for the Bear Butts thing, and 0:21:07.680 --> 0:21:11.720 God bless them for it. But of course, exposing the 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.639 hypocrisy of the dries wasn't the only factor in the election, 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.840 because in nineteen twenty nine it was. 0:21:19.880 --> 0:21:24.119 Panic sixteen and a half million shares of stock sold 0:21:24.160 --> 0:21:26.280 in a single day at any price. 0:21:27.400 --> 0:21:30.199 That frenzy set a wrecking ball through the economy. 0:21:30.600 --> 0:21:33.280 You have the collapse of the stock market, signaling the 0:21:33.320 --> 0:21:36.399 Great Depression. People are really getting cynical at this point. 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:40.080 Who's just the worst economic catastrophe in our nation's history 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.720 is absoutely unreal. And the Democrats seized on this. They're like, look, 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:47.639 let's create jobs again, alcohol, let's do it. You know, 0:21:48.320 --> 0:21:50.280 you know, Cassidy had done a huge amount of damage 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:52.520 here to the drys and people were all just like, 0:21:52.560 --> 0:21:54.760 we're done with this. Let's let's elect some wets and 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:56.359 let's end this thing because it's not working. 0:21:57.200 --> 0:22:00.760 That November, the wets flooded the House, going from seventy 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.879 six seats to one hundred and forty six. Republican states 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.920 like Ohio and Illinois and Kansas flung aside dry Republicans 0:22:08.000 --> 0:22:10.920 for wet Democrats. As for the man who helped push 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.000 the title wave, George Cassidy was behind bars, locked away, 0:22:15.400 --> 0:22:18.000 serving his time, well sort of. 0:22:18.480 --> 0:22:21.160 According to my mother and Hill, he never spent one 0:22:21.160 --> 0:22:22.200 full night in jail. 0:22:22.560 --> 0:22:24.120 He's sitting around, play with a ward and to play 0:22:24.160 --> 0:22:25.000 poker and whatnot. 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:28.320 He was handed an eighteen month sentence at a jail 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:30.920 about two blocks away from his house on Capitol Hill. 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:33.119 So you go get dressed up in the morning, go 0:22:33.200 --> 0:22:35.800 into the jail, sign and go do his work in 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:38.880 the jail. After his shift was over, he'd come back 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:39.760 sign out. 0:22:40.000 --> 0:22:41.840 So they let him go home every night. 0:22:42.400 --> 0:22:42.600 Ah. 0:22:42.680 --> 0:22:46.360 Yes, the old George remas treatment a jail term fit 0:22:46.440 --> 0:22:49.359 for a king, King of the bootleggers, at least. 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:52.320 As part of Cassie's Lee agreement. He tells the judge 0:22:52.359 --> 0:22:54.920 he will stop bootlegging. And by the way, I got 0:22:54.920 --> 0:22:57.600 his FBI folder, he did not stop bootlegging. 0:22:58.520 --> 0:23:02.120 And remember Cassidy's little black book, replete with the contact 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.359 information of each and every one of his customers, every 0:23:05.400 --> 0:23:09.840 politician who secretly solicited bootlegged liquor. While the Treasury Department 0:23:09.920 --> 0:23:12.960 got their hands on that little book, James Duran and 0:23:13.000 --> 0:23:16.200 his bosses, So what did they do with this comprehensive 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:19.920 list of every fat cat and hypocrite in Washington? Did 0:23:20.000 --> 0:23:24.960 Duran sneak into their offices and drip methanol into their whiskies. Well, 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:27.960 of course not. But at least they cracked down on them, right, 0:23:29.080 --> 0:23:33.120 not a chance. In fact, they did the exact opposite. 0:23:33.240 --> 0:23:36.600 Every photocopied record of Cassidy's client list was tossed into 0:23:36.600 --> 0:23:40.439 a fire and burned. If George Cassidy got the treatment 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:43.560 of a king, then the members of Congress were I 0:23:43.600 --> 0:23:48.760 don't know emperors. The point is, even when it's clear 0:23:48.840 --> 0:23:51.960 and emperor has no clothes, in the American old boy 0:23:52.080 --> 0:23:55.399 crony system, he can always count on a James Duran 0:23:55.520 --> 0:24:02.600 to cover his ass. After the nineteen thirties midterms, prohibition 0:24:02.960 --> 0:24:07.080 was really on the ropes. Alexander Getler and Charles Norris 0:24:07.080 --> 0:24:11.240 have spelled out the failures of the Prohibition Bureau's denaturing program. 0:24:11.400 --> 0:24:15.840 Cassidy exposed the dry politicians for what they were, hypocrites 0:24:16.280 --> 0:24:21.200 getting sloshed. James Durand's crew, having failed miserably in their 0:24:21.280 --> 0:24:24.400 poisoning campaign, were totally flailing. 0:24:25.480 --> 0:24:28.720 The strategy at the federal government was that we're running 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:30.960 out of chemical options, Let's try everything. 0:24:32.680 --> 0:24:36.920