As usual, you get to find that your vision of historical events is restricted to whatever authors of history books decide should be taught. Unfortunately, that leaves a wide gap which lacks details that may or may not have influenced other historic events.
Prohibition is one of those historical events. The term “Dry Agent” was applied to those in Law Enforcement assigned to enforce Prohibition, the Dry Law of the land. It is embedded in the American consciousness the legend of Elliot Ness and The Untouchables facing against a well heeded and armed Al Capone and his minions. The stuff of heroes them Agents of days past.
And then you start finding out that dry agents were not as heroic and righteous as the legend goes.
There are more cases of raids gone badly out of control as in shooting for the hell of it and people getting killed unnecessarily.
And, of course knowing the people back then, a response was given.
A lot of these agent kills were not coming from the Armani wearing Mobs you see in the well known The Untouchables movie but for common American citizens who were trading in corn liquor at county level and were being abusively targeted by Dry Agents. It became open season on Dry Agents and I have to wonder how much of that killing made Washington say “You know? So many bodies dropped and all the crap surrounding Prohibition is simply not worth the effort.”
One of many nails in that coffin.
PS: And yes, I cannot but think some traits of present agencies do come from that checkered past.
The one who “stubbed his toe” causing his gun to go off must have been carrying in a very, very unusual way.
Lots of people, including most Tennesseans, do not know that the* state song “Rocky Top” actually has a verse about Dry Agents being murdered:
Once two strangers climbed ol’ Rocky Top
Lookin’ for a moonshine still
Strangers ain’t come down from Rocky Top
Reckon they never will
So there’s that.
*apparently we now have ten state songs…
And now we know…
I thought everyone knew that.
I am in Florida, if the song went like this, i would have gotten it 😀
“Once two strangers cruised thru’ the ‘Glades
Lookin’ for a moonshine still
Strangers ain’t come back from the ‘Glades
Reckon they never will”
I also noticed that the agent who stubbed his toe barely had time to recover from it when he was relieved of life in an ambush after another raid. I winder if any of the nine men charged were convicted. We do know that one was acquitted.
“… some traits of present agencies do come from that checkered past.”
Yeah. I semi-randomly looked up “Palmer Raids” recently. Happened just as the Spanish Flu pandemic was winding down, doncha know. Apparently it involved cooking up a vast conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. Government, and using that as an excuse for rounding up various sorts of Untermenschen – in those days, that would have been Italians, Jewish immigrants, lefties, and suchlike. Made a reputation for a young feller name of J. Edgar Hoover, it did.
And there’s that famous LBJ line: “I never trust a man till I’ve got his pecker in my pocket.” Think J. Edgar & Co. might have played a role in providing LBJ with leverage over people he needed to trust?
The reason Eliot Ness and his team got nicknamed “The Untouchables” was because they couldn’t be bribed, unlike the rest of the “Dry Agents” in the Chicago area and most agents in other urban areas. Even in the rural areas the Dry Agents were often in the pay of one or another moonshiner, and the publicized raids on stills were less enforcement of the Volstead Act than hits by rival moonshiners. During Prohibition, “Dry Agent” was often a synonym for corrupt cop.
It’s worth remembering that the drug scare and the DEA were created to give employment to prohibition enforcers left without a job by the repeal of prohibition.
Look up the supreme court case challenging the National Firearms Act. A dry agent, finding no moonshine, arrested a man for a sawed-off shotgun. The lawyer was not informed in time to present the case, and the Supreme Court upheld the NFA.
Without the Dry Laws, we wouldn’t have an NFA.
…
As I understand it, the lawyer knew perfectly well, but decided to blow off the court because his client had died, so the court (a) decided the case (Miller) with input only from the government side, and (b) didn’t sanction the offending lawyer for malpractice.
“Without the Dry Laws, we wouldn’t have an NFA.”
Without Dry Laws there would have no St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, giving the progs the excuse they wanted to ban ban machine guns, and other weapons. So yeah the progressive dream of prohibition caused a number of ills lasting to this day. Including but not limited to “The War on Drugs,” criminal gangs running many cities, and courts abusing the Bill of Rights.
Yes, yes, and yes.
Sometimes I wish I had a time machine…..