Free 1920 by Eric Burns Page B

intimidation throughout the halls of government to achieve their ends. If this is so, then an equally strong case can be made for lobbying, in the modern sense, having been born in 1920, and having been brought into existence by a man who, unlike many of today’s lobbyists, was not in it for the money, but for the cause. The tiny man with the iron-rimmed glasses was a true believer. They are, of course, the most dangerous kind.
    In truth, Wheeler was a kind of robber baron himself. But he did not hoard money. What he hoarded was votes.
    WITH PROHIBITION OFFICIALLY BEGINNING AT 12:01 A.M. on January 16, 1920, it is probably fair to say that attempts to avoid it began around 12:02. Since the ingredients to make ersatz kinds of beverage were still available on various black markets that had sprung up almost simultaneously with Prohibition’s enactment, and available as well under drugstore counters manned by friendly pharmacists, many Americans had readied themselves in advance. They had purchased equipment as well as ingredients; theywere able to start making their own alcoholic concoctions as soon as the need came upon them.
    Most commonly, they brewed their own beer. It was far from being the real thing, but if a person had a good memory of the way beer tasted yesterday, he could get by with home brew today, could drink his way through the long, black night of the spirits now under way, recalling on his reminiscences as well as his taste buds. And if he had enough perseverance, enough zest for experimentation, he could keep making his product better, closer and closer to the beverage he had once known. For some who achieved proximity, brewing became a business, and they sold their surplus to friends, sometimes even to strangers who had not acquired the knack of manufacturing beer at home themselves. For others, beer production turned into a hobby, all-consuming and much more rewarding than collecting stamps or building those little ships inside tiny bottles. For most, though, home brew was just a means of slaking thirst, not quite satisfactory but better than the punchless alternatives.
    So Americans had at it. They began malting, mashing, boiling, hopping, fermenting, siphoning, and settling. It was a complicated process, but few of the newly thirst-obsessed would be dissuaded. They took all the steps that a professional brewer would have taken, but did so amateurishly. A little less water, a little more malt. How to add the hops, what to do with the yeast? Or should it be
more
water and
less
malt? It was constant trial and error. Before long, some people noticed,
    [t]he air became thick with new kinds of industrial fumes; it was on some occasions possible for a person to walk an entire town or city block, if not more, without ever losing the scent of brew from the residences he passed. And after a man of unknown identity had paddled a canoe the entire length of the Mississippi River, he told the friends who greeted him in New Orleans that the telltale odors of home brew had been with him since Minnesota.
    Actually, Prohibition would eventually be flouted to such an extent that a congressman from New York City named Fiorello La Guardia made a public exhibition of his disregard. One day he invited friends, fellow legislators,casual passersby, and reporters and newsreel cameramen into the lobby of that bastion of national lawmaking, the Office Building of the House of Representatives. He even invited the Capitol Hill constabulary, whose attendance was, to say the least, awkward. La Guardia wanted it to be. They stood in the back of the crowd, barely able to see. He asked them to step forward, wanted them to have a better view. They silently declined, fingering the handcuffs looped to their belts.
    La Guardia went quickly to work, concocting his beverage by a simpler method than the one previously described, resulting in an inferior taste. But he wanted to keep the demonstration brief. “He blended two parts malt