Free Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century by John Paul Godges Page A

her prolonged exposure to the poison. The surgery could be just the start of another round of bills with no end in sight. Someday, there could be nothing left in the cigar box at all. Then what? He had to find a way to stop the bleeding.
    The men of Lehigh Row did many things, legal and illegal, to obtain money for doctors in hard economic times. Serafino had done everything legally up to that point; he had played by the rules. But he found himself questioning the wisdom of the rules that had allowed a doctor, who had been either corrupt or incompetent, to profit handsomely from his corruption or incompetence. “That’s not right,” the inner voice spoke again.
    Serafino steadied his balance as he stepped off the paved road at the edge of town and onto the railroad ties that straddled the tracks. He felt proud to pay for bills that were fair. He didn’t expect everything in life to be fair. But above all else, he felt obligated to do what was fair for the family. He didn’t have to think hard about creative ways to cover the cost of Elsie’s tonsillectomy, but he had to consider the potential consequences.
    Bootlegging was practically a way of life on Lehigh Row. No one wanted to talk too openly about it, but almost everyone was doing it. Since 1920, Prohibition had opened up a whole new way for a working man to supplement his income, especially a working man who had once lovingly tended the vineyards of Italy. The Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution had banned the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors”—as well as their importation and exportation—“for beverage purposes.” By so doing, the amendment opened up a brisk black market for the stuff. Oddly, the amendment explicitly prohibited the “sale” of liquor but not its “purchase,” practically inviting folks to fill the gaping loophole in the law with barrels of booze.
    The people on Lehigh Row who weren’t selling booze were almost assuredly purchasing it from their neighbors. The Greeks were known for their sweet wines. The Italians were known for their smooth wines. Families of other nationalities were known for their beers, whiskeys, or moonshines. Some people made alcohol in their basements and sold it by word of mouth to folks from all around town. Other people bought alcohol from elsewhere and quickly sold it for a profit.
    “ But a lot of the stuff floating around town isn’t that good,” Serafino knew. “I could do better.” As he stepped off the railroad ties and strode toward 30 Lehigh Row, he spotted the wild grapevines climbing the arbor against his porch and reminisced about the wine he had sold freely in Farindola, the wine that had paid his passage to America.
    On the other hand, Serafino had to think about the law. Under the National Prohibition Act, Serafino was not breaking the law by possessing or even making wine for himself, his family, and his guests. But he would certainly be breaking the law by selling the stuff. If caught, he would end up at the mercy of the hostile social forces that had inspired the law in the first place, codifying into the Constitution the terms of a culture war.
    Serafino knew that across America in those days, and especially in small towns across rural America, liquor was associated with lower-class Catholic immigrants. And because Prohibitionists suspected liquor of being an instrument of the devil, lower-class Catholic immigrants were suspected of being, well, instruments of the devil. As a social, political, and religious movement, Prohibition pitted rural, native-born, Protestant fundamentalist Americans against mostly urban, Catholic immigrants. Prohibition was an anti-liquor movement by law, but it tended to be an anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant movement in spirit, cleaving the country between dry states in the heartland and wet states on the fringes. In the dry state of Iowa, Serafino knew that he was a likely suspect no matter what he did.
    Yet the law was