WEBVTT - S3E4: Trust Issues 0:00:00.960 --> 0:00:02.960 Hey there, it's your host ed helms. 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:03.160 Here. 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.360 Real quick, before we dive into this episode, I wanted 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:09.480 to remind you that my brand new book is coming 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:13.400 out on April twenty ninth. It's called Snaffo, The Definitive 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.959 Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups, and you can pre 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:21.840 order it right now at snaffoodashbook dot com. Trust me, 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:24.560 if you like this show, you're gonna love this book. 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.680 It's got all the wild disasters spectacular face plants we 0:00:28.800 --> 0:00:32.400 just couldn't squeeze into this podcast. And here's the kicker. 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.839 I am also going on tour to celebrate that's right. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.519 I'm coming to New York, DC, Boston, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.520 San Francisco, and my hometown Los Angeles. So if you've 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:46.760 ever wanted to see me stumble through a live Q 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.520 and A or dramatically read about a kiddie cat getting 0:00:49.560 --> 0:00:53.960 turned into a CIA operative, now's your chance again. Head 0:00:53.960 --> 0:00:57.560 to snaffoo dashbook dot com to pre order the book 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.080 and check out all the tour details in day, or 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:04.240 just click the link in the show notes. That'll work too. Okay, 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:08.040 that's it, on with the chaos. This is Snaffoo Season 0:01:08.080 --> 0:01:15.600 three formula six. Previously on Snaffoo. The head of prohibition 0:01:15.720 --> 0:01:18.080 Enforcement cracked down on bootleggers. 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:21.400 Mabel Walker Willebrant was a very serious woman, and she 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:23.200 woke up every day. The first thing she did was 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:24.360 takeing an ice cold bath. 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:28.760 World War One soldier George Cassidy became the top bootlegger 0:01:28.800 --> 0:01:31.080 to Congress. He was a dapper dude. 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:34.640 You would have thought he was a general of the 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:36.840 most powerful army in the world or something. 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:41.399 And as deaths from alcohol began to rise, American drinkers 0:01:41.840 --> 0:01:43.240 kept right on drinking. 0:01:43.880 --> 0:01:47.760 The acceptance of risk that came with prohibition at these 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:51.040 levels is kind of horrifying, but it was there, and 0:01:51.080 --> 0:01:51.680 it was real. 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.400 On an November afternoon in nineteen twenty two, Assistant Attorney 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:07.360 General Mabel Walker Willibrandt takes a trip to the Capitol Building. 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:11.760 I imagine her with a bulging briefcase, maybe a couple 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:14.560 of clerks scrambling along behind her trying to keep up. 0:02:17.960 --> 0:02:21.560 They're carrying everything she needs for the case she's about 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:25.160 to argue. She climbs the stone steps and crosses into 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:29.000 the shade of white stone columns, then enters a red 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.680 carpeted two story chamber with a domed ceiling. It's the 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.400 old Senate Chamber, which in nineteen twenty two was home 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:40.160 to the Supreme Court. And today Mabel is presenting her 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:44.640 case before the nine Supreme Court justices. It's her big moment. 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:47.720 The gallery is packed for a court case that's made 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:53.760 national news, the United States versus George Remis. So far, 0:02:53.919 --> 0:02:58.160 prohibition enforcement wasn't going so well. It wasn't going well 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:01.560 in the liquor capital of America, New York City, where 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:05.160 the bodies were piling up at Alexander Getler's lab. And 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:09.639 it wasn't going well in the nation's actual capital, Washington, 0:03:09.760 --> 0:03:13.280 d C. Where speakeasies were popping up on every corner 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:17.720 and business was booming for the bootleggers, and no bootlegger 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:22.160 was making a bigger profit than George Remas. Remis wasn't 0:03:22.320 --> 0:03:25.359 just a bootlegger. He was a lawyer and a pharmacist too, 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:28.200 a trifecta that made him one of the richest men 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:32.160 in America. Since the start of Prohibition, Remus had been 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:36.800 building an illegal alcohol empire that rivaled al Capones, which 0:03:36.840 --> 0:03:40.800 made him the target of Mabel Walker Willebrandt. When she 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.280 faced George Remas in court. Mabel was determined that this 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.520 would be a turning point in her war. Remus was 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.000 a big fish, and Mabel was going to gut him. 0:03:51.160 --> 0:04:03.600 With the whole nation watching, I'm Ed Helms and this 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:08.720 is Snafu, a show about history's greatest screw ups. This 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.480 season a dark tale from the heart of the Prohibition 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:16.560 era Formula six, how prohibitions war on alcohol went so 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:22.480 off the rails the government wound up poisoning its own people. Today, 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:26.039 we'll follow Mabel Walker Willebrandt in Washington, d C. As 0:04:26.040 --> 0:04:30.240 she faces one formidable challenge after another. Her bosses are drunks, 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.080 her agents are incompetent, and she's about to realize that 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:37.920 across the government and even within her own Department of Justice, 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:53.640 she can't trust anyone. 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:57.719 She was a lone warrior. 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.760 That's historian and author Dan Grint. 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:04.080 And she really had an uphill battle for a bunch 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:04.720 of reasons. 0:05:04.920 --> 0:05:07.640 As you may remember, Mabel was surrounded at her job 0:05:07.720 --> 0:05:12.239 by straight up drunks, starting with the President. 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:15.040 Harding drank a lot. Harry Dougherty, the Attorney General, who 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.919 was the immediate boss to Mabel wille Brandt, he was 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:20.560 a a drunk and be corrupt. 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:24.039 And again, like we said before, the guy leading the 0:05:24.080 --> 0:05:29.200 Treasury Department and supervising the Prohibition Bureau owned a whiskey company. 0:05:29.720 --> 0:05:31.839 So when it came time for Mabel to do some 0:05:31.960 --> 0:05:36.680 basic stuff like higher clerks for legal research, well, she 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:37.280 hit a wall. 0:05:38.960 --> 0:05:41.360 She didn't have much in the way of financial support. 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.960 And one of the things that was indicative of the 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.599 attitude of the dryes is that they passed these laws 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:49.240 but gave no money for enforcement. 0:05:49.760 --> 0:05:52.560 She didn't have anywhere near the manpower she needed to 0:05:52.600 --> 0:05:56.919 stop the alcohol coming across two borders and sixty thousand 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:58.839 miles of open coastline. 0:05:59.160 --> 0:06:01.720 The fact that they were only twenty six hundred prohibitionations 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.800 covering the entire Canadian border, the Mexican border, and both coasts, 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:07.080 it's ridiculous. 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.559 And as for that army of agents, even that man 0:06:10.600 --> 0:06:14.440 power was quickly dwindling. Hundreds of agents were being dismissed 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.599 around the country for brazen corruption, and even the ones 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:21.200 who weren't corrupt were pretty much useless. Sure they were 0:06:21.240 --> 0:06:23.960 given guns and cars, but little or no training to 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:25.599 do the actual job. 0:06:26.360 --> 0:06:29.200 Someone said about the Canadian border, you know you can't 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:33.000 stop a liquid from leaking through a dotted line that 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:34.200 dotted line on the map. 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:37.640 So what could Mabel actually do from behind her barge 0:06:37.720 --> 0:06:40.560 sized mahogany desk in Room five oh one at the 0:06:40.600 --> 0:06:41.880 Department of Justice. 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.279 Well, she had the power to bring indictments, the. 0:06:45.200 --> 0:06:49.400 Power of the courts, and as you may remember, her 0:06:49.480 --> 0:06:53.480 job was to work with the bespectacled accountants at the IRS, 0:06:53.880 --> 0:06:56.760 a group of agents supremely qualified to crack down on 0:06:56.800 --> 0:07:00.800 inflated tax deductions, but maybe not so much collecting the 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:02.520 evidence of illicit bootlegging. 0:07:02.839 --> 0:07:05.560 Open up IRS, No one's here. 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:08.920 Oh shit, Look there's a whole case of shar truth. 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:10.560 We should collect that. 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:12.559 Can't let good evidence go to waste. 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:16.960 I like the way you enforced the law. But Mabel 0:07:17.320 --> 0:07:20.440 was undeterred, and in the fall of nineteen twenty two, 0:07:20.800 --> 0:07:23.960 she decided to get creative. She came up with a 0:07:24.000 --> 0:07:27.120 plan to round up every last bootlegger, and she was 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:30.559 gonna start by going after the biggest bootlegger of all, 0:07:31.640 --> 0:07:32.520 George Remis. 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:36.520 Yes, you're under arrest for violating Title two of the 0:07:36.560 --> 0:07:37.360 Volstad Act. 0:07:37.880 --> 0:07:41.640 You ever watch Boardwalk Empire When the show's writer creator 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:46.200 Terry Winter began researching George Remis. He couldn't believe what 0:07:46.240 --> 0:07:46.720 he found. 0:07:47.200 --> 0:07:51.920 Here's Terry George Ramis one of the craziest stories here, 0:07:52.320 --> 0:07:56.440 Like an incredibly successful defense attorney becomes like the biggest 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:57.360 bootlegger ever. 0:07:57.720 --> 0:08:01.520 You're making a mistake. No, can't do this. Limis doesn't 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.040 get arrested. In the show, Remis is a large, bald, 0:08:05.480 --> 0:08:09.200 rich weirdo who, yes, you heard it right, refers to 0:08:09.280 --> 0:08:11.120 himself in the third person. 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:12.840 And he's like, like, if I made that up, you'd 0:08:12.880 --> 0:08:15.440 got like, come on, and this absolutely all happened. 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:18.920 Yeah, all of that's true, including the third person thing. 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:21.720 His parties were so over the top that people think 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:24.200 he may have been the inspiration for the Great Gatsby. 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:29.600 The whole city packed into automobiles and all weekend, every 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:33.960 weekend ended up at Gatspie's. 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.160 In nineteen twenty two, no one in America owned more 0:08:38.240 --> 0:08:42.040 of the illegal alcohol trade than Remus. At one point, 0:08:42.120 --> 0:08:45.000 he controlled thirty percent of the liquor making its way 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:46.640 into America. 0:08:46.000 --> 0:08:47.880 Because he had bought up a whole bunch of huge 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:49.400 rick houses full of whiskey. 0:08:49.960 --> 0:08:54.240 That's historian Garrett Peck. Remus's warehouse stored twenty five million 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.959 dollars worth of alcohol, which he sold and distributed using 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:00.920 a prohibition loophole from ad sintle alcohol. 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:03.560 And then he'd bribed people so he could have three 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:05.439 or four times as much as that he could distribute, 0:09:05.440 --> 0:09:09.960 and he was legally allowed to. So he made a fortune, yeah, 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:13.200 despite by being able to sell alcohol without any taxes 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:13.520 on it. 0:09:14.360 --> 0:09:18.680 Since Remus did all the illegal selling without paying taxes, obviously, 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:24.160 Mabel saw an opportunity. Maybe she could actually use tax 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:27.920 law in her favor. He could exploit loopholes in prohibition law, 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.960 but maybe she could finally bust Remis through the unforgiving 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:36.160 tax code. And this wasn't just about Remus. She wanted 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.720 to send a message to all of the bootleggers across 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:43.560 the country. One way or another, she was coming for them. 0:09:43.880 --> 0:09:47.559 With those black robed justices staring down from their tufted 0:09:47.679 --> 0:09:51.560 leather thrones, the room can be an intimidating place. But 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:56.199 for Mabel, Nah, She's unflappable, so cool in the courtroom 0:09:56.400 --> 0:10:00.560 that people joke she has ice in her veins. All 0:10:00.559 --> 0:10:03.960 that is to say, Mabel is tough, and it was 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.560 a good thing too. The new York papers lined up 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.440 against her in their coverage of a Supreme Court hearing. 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:15.600 One newspaper reported that Mabel wasn't quote exactly pretty because 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:19.080 her features were quote too large and too serious for that, 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:24.920 and she suffered from a quote suggestion of plumpness, which 0:10:25.000 --> 0:10:30.160 is what I might call a suggestion of shitty, misogynistic journalism. 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.319 And to top it all off, they couldn't even get 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.679 her job title right. One paper called her the woman 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:40.400 assistant of the Attorney General, but she's actually assistant Attorney General. 0:10:40.880 --> 0:10:43.560 These things matter. Just ask Dwight shrut. 0:10:43.920 --> 0:10:47.199 I am now sempi, which is assistant. 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:48.120 Sense assistant to the sense. 0:10:48.240 --> 0:10:51.520 That's pretty cool, assistant sense. Mabel wasn't shy about her 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.000 disdain for how she and other women in the working 0:10:54.040 --> 0:10:57.600 world had to deal with what she called girly girly stuff. 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:00.360 She once sat down for an interview with a literary 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.480 magazine called The Smart Set, basically the nineteen twenties version 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:05.640 of an Instagram Live. 0:11:06.200 --> 0:11:09.400 A boy must do the job well and develop personality. 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.000 A girl must do the job well and develop personality, 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:17.280 plus break down skepticism about her ability walk the type 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.400 rope of sexlessness without loss of her essential charm make 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.680 the hard choice between giving up children and home life 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.520 in order to advance or having them in the face 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:29.640 of increased prejudice. 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.720 So when Mabel faces down bootleggers like George Remus in court, 0:11:34.240 --> 0:11:36.520 she knows the guy in front of her isn't her 0:11:36.640 --> 0:11:41.520 only opponent, but she's undaunted. She's got to get shit done, 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:45.720 and now before the Supreme Court, she makes a stirring case. 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:51.360 Where other prosecutors might have overlooked tax law as a hammer, 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:55.040 I mean, let's be honest, it's pretty boring, obscure stuff. 0:11:55.559 --> 0:12:00.480 Mabel saw nothing but potential. Her approach was ingenia and 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:02.319 her arguments impassioned. 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:06.360 The tax penalties outlined in internal revenue laws are highly 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:10.040 important in the enforcement of prohibition. The government isn't giving 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.160 it stamp of approval to an illicit business by taxing them. 0:12:13.520 --> 0:12:16.840 An illegitimate business should not be exempt from paying taxes 0:12:16.880 --> 0:12:21.640 that legitimate businesses should pay. They must pay up too. 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:25.640 George Remas he was making a fortune because he was 0:12:25.679 --> 0:12:29.559 selling liquor without paying taxes on it. This was bold. 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:34.000 No one had the audacity or imagination to prosecute any 0:12:34.040 --> 0:12:40.120 major crime figures for income tax evasion, but Mabel determined. Unflinching, 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.800 Mabel decided that if it was going to take tax 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:49.160 law to enforce prohibition, then so be it. After arguments 0:12:49.200 --> 0:12:53.000 concluded and the Justices began deliberations, Mabel was on edge 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:57.400 because this trial clearly wasn't just about Remus. This was 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.520 about all the fat cat bootleggers in a Mana America, 0:13:01.080 --> 0:13:05.320 including a fella named Willie Harr, remember him, leader of 0:13:05.360 --> 0:13:09.040 the massive bootlegging operation the Savannah Four down in Georgia, 0:13:09.440 --> 0:13:13.319 and also captain of the vaunted and audaciously meta recreational 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:18.079 baseball squad, the Bootlegger Team. Well, Harr and his whole 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:22.520 gang were anxiously following Remis's trial from Savannah, knowing that 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:26.439 their fate was tied to Remises. This is because Mabel 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:30.559 had also charged Harr with the same crime, having determined 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.520 the Savannah Four owed two million dollars in unpaid taxes 0:13:34.559 --> 0:13:38.320 from their illegal bootlegging. If the Supreme Court ruled in 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.840 Mabel's favor and decided bootleggers had to pay taxes, well, 0:13:42.559 --> 0:13:46.520 that could be the ballgame for Horror and the Bootlegger team. 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:51.760 Of course, a few days later, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:56.600 Holmes renders the court's decision. First, some bad news for Mabel. 0:13:56.960 --> 0:13:59.840 Remus's arrest in this case had occurred a year earlier, 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.600 in October nineteen twenty one. The tax statutes that Mabel 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:07.200 was resting her entire case on they had passed a 0:14:07.280 --> 0:14:12.480 month later in November, so Remus is exempt. The law 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:17.800 Mabel was trying to slap onto him didn't even apply. 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:21.200 She missed her shot by a month. For now, Remus 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:24.560 was still a free man. That might seem like a 0:14:24.640 --> 0:14:28.000 setback for Mabel, but she's a creature of the law. 0:14:28.480 --> 0:14:30.840 She knows that hidden under the surface of a defeat, 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:35.160 victories can be one piece by piece, and in this 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:39.000 case there was a surprise twist. Even though Remis got 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.880 out on a technicality, the Justice is decided that Mabel 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:47.160 was actually right. In addition to all their other crimes, 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:51.680 bootleggers also owed taxes on their ill gotten revenue, and 0:14:51.720 --> 0:14:54.800 if they didn't pay up, it was another mark against them, 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:59.920 one that came with serious jail time. And that decision 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.760 reverberated all the way down to Savannah. And that is 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.120 a win for Mabel because she sees the potential of 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:13.000 this ruling to dramatically change prohibition enforcement. So even though 0:15:13.040 --> 0:15:16.920 George Remis is acquitted, Mabel emerges from the old Senate 0:15:17.000 --> 0:15:21.200 Chamber ecstatic. Think about this. She's having trouble locking up 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:25.040 bootleggers because it's virtually impossible to catch them red handed, 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.960 but this gives her a whole new angle of attack. 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:32.600 If she can prove they've been doing business and not 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.720 paying taxes on the income, she can lock them up 0:15:36.000 --> 0:15:40.160 without ever having to enter a keg into evidence boom. 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.040 And even though Remis had just gotten off the hook, 0:15:44.360 --> 0:15:47.520 he was bound to keep bootlegging, and he probably wasn't 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:51.200 going to just start paying taxes, so it wouldn't be 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:54.920 long until Mabel would see him in court again. Investigating, 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.720 Mabel can feel the tide beginning to turn. I can 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.000 picture Mabel now striding out of that capital with a 0:16:02.040 --> 0:16:06.880 bouncing her step, bursting with pride, which is sadly ironic, 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:10.200 because somewhere across town, a man is strolling along carrying 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:13.800 a suitcase with a smile. He tips his green hat 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.320 to the people he passes. He's on his way to 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:21.000 make a delivery and casually undermine everything she's fighting for. 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:37.760 This green headed fellow would be George Cassidy, merrily strolling 0:16:37.840 --> 0:16:42.880 through the halls of Congress. Because business is good, George 0:16:42.960 --> 0:16:47.400 is averaging two dozen deliveries a day. A bottle of 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.920 sweet red Vermouth to a congressman, two bottles of red 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.720 star Gin to a junior senator, a case of Duncan 0:16:55.760 --> 0:17:00.400 Harwood's Canadian whiskey for the house speaker. Yep, those are 0:17:00.440 --> 0:17:04.280 some big ass suitcases that George hal's around. His delivery's done. 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.280 He now takes the stairs down to the basement and 0:17:07.359 --> 0:17:12.720 finally arrives at an unassuming door. George takes out his keys, 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:15.679 unlocks the door, steps in, and flips on the lights. 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:19.679 The windowless room has a mahogany poker table, swivel chairs, 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:24.119 and lots and lots of bottles of booze. Welcome to 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.879 George's office, you see. A few months ago, one of 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.400 George's clients, a congressman, hooked George up with an office 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:34.800 which quickly became the warehouse for some of the best 0:17:34.880 --> 0:17:38.399 liquor in town. Not that his clients could tell the 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.720 difference between a McCallan eighteen seventy eight and at George's 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:46.520 bathtub nineteen twenty two. These politicians may have considered themselves connoisseurs, 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:48.639 but they had no idea. They were just drinking a 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.160 cheap blend with some food coloring. At the time, only 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:55.240 George himself knew just how much water he was using 0:17:55.320 --> 0:18:04.160 to cut the imported alcohol. The congressman start marching in. 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:06.840 One of these men of high taste is one of 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:10.600 George's most loyal customers. When he walks into George's tavern, 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:14.560 hopefully in a straight line, his colleagues joke, get out 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:17.359 the corn and put up the rye. He's known around 0:18:17.400 --> 0:18:20.480 the Capitol as a bottle of day man. George serves 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:23.200 him a tall glass of his special elixir all the 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:28.120 way to the brim and the crazy thing. Rumor had 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.280 it that he was one of the most eloquent speakers 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:31.240 on the House floor. 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.919 I would like to make an inquiry to the Senate 0:18:35.640 --> 0:18:40.160 for the purpose of understanding just the scope of this resolution. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:45.080 John Nance Garner. He would later become Speaker of the 0:18:45.119 --> 0:18:48.360 House and then Vice President of the United States under FDR. 0:18:49.000 --> 0:18:52.119 Add this guide to the list of lushes that surrounded 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:55.639 Mabel Walker Willebrandt as she tried to do her job. 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.840 Back in George's office, the boys are getting comfortable this 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:04.840 fully operational speakeas he is home to a secret congressional 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:08.119 drinking club. They even have a name for themselves, the 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:13.159 Barflies Association or BFA for short. Washington sure loves a 0:19:13.200 --> 0:19:14.080 three letter bureau. 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:16.480 We had a whole closet full of alcohol there he'd 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.200 sell to everyone, and also that people could come down 0:19:19.200 --> 0:19:21.119 and play cards with him. Mind you, this is a 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:23.399 guy with a third grade education, and yet he was 0:19:23.560 --> 0:19:24.479 enormously charming. 0:19:24.840 --> 0:19:26.040 That's Garrett Peck again. 0:19:26.600 --> 0:19:28.280 He was on a first name basis with all these 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:31.280 different congressmen and they liked him. He knew how to 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:33.040 put all the congressmen at ease. They had to sit 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.000 there and talk politics. They could just come down and 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:36.960 shoot the breeze with him and play some poker. 0:19:41.640 --> 0:19:46.399 At George's office. The nights are late. Sometimes George comes home, 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:52.919 sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes the party continues elsewhere outside the Capitol, 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:56.200 like on this particular night, as we followed George from 0:19:56.240 --> 0:19:59.240 the House Office building to a Victorian townhouse on a 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:04.280 tree lined just blocks from the White House. This is 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:07.840 K Street and the house is made of green limestone 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.520 with one big magnolia tree out front. It has a 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.840 nickname the Little green House. Every night, the Little Greenhouse 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:21.320 is full of men smoking, playing poker, and you guessed it, drinking. 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:24.679 There's always plenty of liquor on hand, the best stuff, 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:27.960 thanks to cases streaming in on wells fargo wagons driven 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:31.920 by armed guards. The regulars were men in high places, 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:36.679 George's lawmaking pals, sure, but also the Prohibition Commissioner, the 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:43.520 Attorney General, and even on occasion, the President himself. George 0:20:43.560 --> 0:20:47.040 didn't supply the Little Greenhouse, but he was a welcome guest, 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:51.480 along with several of his bootlegging compatriots, including the most 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:55.600 notorious bootlegger of all, the bald guy in the resplendent suit, 0:20:56.119 --> 0:21:02.600 George Remus. The Little Greenhouse was where guys like George 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:06.000 Remis could ask for favors, like for a big stack 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.399 of permits that gave them access to some booze. You see, 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.560 under prohibition law there were still allowances made for a 0:21:12.600 --> 0:21:15.439 few kinds of alcohol. It was permitted for sale for 0:21:15.560 --> 0:21:19.200 religious ceremonies and medical purposes as long as you had 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.399 a permit. And there was one regular at the Little 0:21:22.400 --> 0:21:26.000 Greenhouse who had bags stuffed with those permits and could 0:21:26.040 --> 0:21:29.120 fix it up for bootleggers. He was, in fact, one 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:32.320 of George Remas's pals. He was the man with black 0:21:32.359 --> 0:21:35.600 wire glasses and a bushy mustache standing in a corner 0:21:35.640 --> 0:21:38.280 of the room. It was a face that Mabel Walker 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:41.520 Willebrandt would have known well because he was a doj 0:21:41.800 --> 0:21:47.320 man named Jess Smith. See. Jess was the right hand 0:21:47.400 --> 0:21:50.320 man of the Attorney General, a fixer for the entire 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:54.600 Department of Justice, and his office was literally next door 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:58.280 to Mabels. And Jess was always happy to oblige the 0:21:58.280 --> 0:22:01.199 fellows he met in the Little Greenhouse. It seemed like 0:22:01.280 --> 0:22:05.040 Jess almost relished undermining Mabel's work. He was happy to 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:07.760 give out permits and even make promises of immunity to 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:12.000 loads of bootleggers like Remus, happily handing him wads of 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:16.080 cash in return. But all this wheeling and dealing was 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:18.960 about to catch up with Jess Smith, and it was 0:22:19.000 --> 0:22:22.320 only a matter of time before Mabel caught wind of 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:32.639 all his shenanigans. In May of nineteen twenty three, a 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.480 few months after her big legal win, Mabel Walker willebrand 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:40.280 had big plans. She was going to take a vacation, 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:45.080 and she deserved it. Mabel was still on cloud nine 0:22:45.119 --> 0:22:48.240 over her Supreme Court win. She wrote to her parents. 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:50.359 It was a gorgeous victory and one of which I 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:52.760 am prouder than of anything I've done so far. 0:22:53.640 --> 0:22:56.640 And months after the Supreme Court decision, Mabel actually went 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:00.480 after George Remas again, and this time she ailed him 0:23:00.480 --> 0:23:03.560 on the tax evasion charges. This case had been a 0:23:03.600 --> 0:23:08.040 simple one conviction in no time flat. Yep, George was 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:11.040 headed to the slammer, and not only him, Willie Harror 0:23:11.040 --> 0:23:14.359 had been convicted of breaking tax law too. Willie was 0:23:14.520 --> 0:23:17.760 also going to prison. It had taken some careful maneuvering 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:21.399 and some patience, but Mabel had lined him up and 0:23:21.520 --> 0:23:25.080 knocked him down. So she was in a mood to celebrate. 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:27.840 Her bags were packed. She was headed west for a 0:23:27.840 --> 0:23:30.000 few days of R and R, you know, a little 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:33.679 me time in those ice baths. Mabel was just about 0:23:33.680 --> 0:23:39.080 out the door when her phone rang, the Attorney General 0:23:39.119 --> 0:23:42.639 on the line with news about her colleague Jess Smith. 0:23:43.359 --> 0:23:46.560 Oh yeah, that guy at the office with the weird mustache. 0:23:46.760 --> 0:23:49.240 What about him could possibly warrant a call from the 0:23:49.280 --> 0:23:53.080 Attorney General? Well. She recalls that the Attorney General and 0:23:53.320 --> 0:23:57.160 Jess are pretty buddy buddy. They even share an apartment 0:23:57.240 --> 0:24:00.600 at the Wardman Park Inn. It's the swank kest place 0:24:00.680 --> 0:24:04.199 in town, with its white gloved bell hops, chandeliers the 0:24:04.240 --> 0:24:08.000 size of Merry Go rounds, and gold plated atrium. It 0:24:08.040 --> 0:24:12.320 was a hotel hotspot and home to DC's upper crust, 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:16.520 a place for meetings and soares would go on into 0:24:16.560 --> 0:24:19.760 the night. He tells her that in the wee hours 0:24:19.800 --> 0:24:23.840 of last night, May nineteenth, nineteen twenty three, a gunshot 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:28.840 rang out across the hotel's sixth floor. It came from 0:24:28.840 --> 0:24:34.000 a corner suite, the Attorney General's own apartment, the very 0:24:34.040 --> 0:24:38.119 one he shares with Jess Smith, as fate would have it, 0:24:38.400 --> 0:24:42.000 Directly below Darty's sixth floor suite lives the director of 0:24:42.040 --> 0:24:46.159 the fed's brand spank anew Bureau of Investigation, which is 0:24:46.200 --> 0:24:50.199 the predecessor to the FBI. Moments after the gunshot, the 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:53.200 director of the bureau is on the scene with I'm 0:24:53.240 --> 0:24:58.600 assuming a very bad case of BedHead. The bureau director 0:24:58.800 --> 0:25:01.520