Here's Where It Gets Interesting - The Tide Begins to Turn

Episode Date: May 24, 2023

At its beginning, prohibition was spearheaded by outspoken women. Women who saw a need for social change and then set up the scaffolding to build, what they thought, would be a better America. So maybe it won’t be a surprise to hear that the repeal of Prohibition began in pretty much the same way. By the late 1920s, it was clear to many that Prohibition was a big flop. It was especially clear to one of its initial supporters who realized it was time to change her mind. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Written and researched by: Heather Jackson, Valerie Hoback, Amy Watkin, and Mandy Reid Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends. Welcome. Welcome to the 11th episode in our series about prohibition from hatchets to hoods. And at this point in our series, we have well established the fact that prohibition was spearheaded by outspoken women, women who saw a need for social change and then set up the scaffolding to build what they thought would be a better America. So maybe it won't be a surprise to hear that the repeal of Prohibition began in pretty much the same way. By the late 1920s, it was clear to many that Prohibition was a big flop. It was especially clear to one of its initial supporters who realized it was time to change her mind. That flip-flopper was Pauline Morton Sabin, a blue-blooded New York heiress who knew how to throw a killer cocktail party.

who knew how to throw a killer cocktail party. She had money. She had influence. She had something to say. Pauline was unstoppable. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting. Pauline was a Morton, and while the name may not ring a bell in the same way that Rockefeller does, her family is certainly an American institution. Her father was a wealthy railroad executive and had served closely under President Theodore Roosevelt. But it's her uncle who brought the family's name into every home's pantry. In the shape of a dark blue cardboard cylinder featuring an umbrella wielding girl wearing a yellow dress and rain boots. I bet you've already guessed it. Morton Salt. And even though Pauline didn't inherit millions of dollars from the success of the company until she was in

her 50s, her own parents were plenty loaded. She was educated in the best private schools, outfitted in the finest fabrics, and made her formal debut in high society shortly before marrying into, you guessed it, even more wealth. Isn't it the problem we would all like to have? Looking around at everyone's problems, we're like, I would take that one. I would take, has too much money as my burden to bear. Technically, Pauline's first marriage was not the success that she hoped it would be. It lasted seven years before they divorced. She met Charles Saban, who owned a very prestigious trust company a few years later, and this time around, it stuck. Paulina Charles married in 1916

and built a beautiful country home on Long Island that they called Bayberryland. If you need a little context for how vast their wealth was, the grounds at Bayberry had eight different buildings, a swimming pool, a private beach, tennis courts, grounds for polo, and a private link to the nearby golf course. The main house itself had nearly 30 rooms. 11 of them were bedrooms, and another 11 were bathrooms. It had nine chimneys. Nine. How many chimneys does your house have? Okay, mine has one chimney. Nine is a lot of chimneys for one house, I feel like. That's a large home. It's a very large home, and they love to entertain, and they did. Often at Bayberry, politics was the favorite topic of conversation.

Pauline had grown up accustomed to politics being discussed at the dinner table. Both her father and her uncle were well-connected, and her grandfather had been an influential Illinois Democrat, a trusted advisor in the Grover Cleveland administration. But Pauline's own interest in politics was not just a legacy she had inherited from her male relatives. No, she was a proud Republican, a leader in her own right, and she had a knack for recruiting her friends into her political activism. She was one of those people, you know, like one minute you're politely talking about the rainy weather and the next you've promised to join her meeting on the 5th and she's going to call you next week, get you on the fundraising schedule and you don't even know what happened. We have all met people like this, by the way. I definitely have. Pauline co-founded and led the Women's National Republican Club and honestly, pretty much single-handedly kept it running through her

recruiting efforts. Thousands of women joined during the early 1920s. And one of its biggest projects, one of Pauline's biggest projects, was Prohibition. Pauline had two sons from her first marriage. And as a Republican and a mother, she felt very strongly about supporting Prohibition efforts. Interestingly, her new husband, Charles, did not share her point of view on the topic. He was her political opposite, a hardcore Democrat and a founding member of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment, or the AAPA. The AAPA's membership was largely made up of brewers, distillers, restaurant owners, business owners, and union members, basically anyone who was up of brewers, distillers, restaurant owners, business owners,

and union members, basically anyone who was out of a job, thanks to the ratification of the 18th Amendment. The organization's goal was to influence elections that would lead to the eventual repeal of the 18th, but they had pretty poor success, maybe because Pauline, the natural organizer, was working for the other side. Despite their political differences, Pauline and Charles loved each other very much. They found debate invigorating and frequently threw lavish dinner parties with guests from both political parties. The Bayberry Land manor house was always hopping, and one of the most well-trod paths was the one that took a person from a wall of books in the library down to the not-so-secret wine cellar. So how come speakeasies and taverns were regularly raided, but the Sabins got away

with having massive parties with a seemingly unending supply of wine? The obvious answer is the one we know all too well. The rules that apply to most people never really seem to apply to the super wealthy, do they? But also, one of Prohibition's loopholes made it legal to drink in one's own home if the alcohol had been purchased prior to the start of Prohibition, which the Sabins always insisted was the case. They likely did have a stockpile because they were rich enough to order crates upon crates of wine before January 1920, but it's also probably true that they kept their supply regularly and illegally replenished throughout the years. With good wine and great conversation, their parties were always a success, but they started to wear a little on Pauline. Here she was, New York's first

woman to serve as a representative on the Republican National Committee, drinking behind closed doors while publicly advocating for dry laws. Worse, the Republican politicians at her table were voting dry at noon and then guzzling down their second glass of wine by six. She grew so bothered by the hypocrisy that she began to reconsider her position on prohibition altogether. The original goal of many prohibition activists had been to create healthier homes and communities. But that wasn't happening under strict dry laws. People were just breaking the rules and doing what they wanted anyway. Pauline said mothers had believed that prohibition would eliminate the temptation of drinking from their children's lives, but found instead that children are growing up with a total lack

of respect for the Constitution and for the law. So she'd had enough. Bootlegging and organized crime was out of control, and enforcement of the Volstead Act was hardly universal. The country, in many ways, was in chaos. Prohibitionition was failing and Pauline decided to shut it down. Pauline's first step was to look for allies in high places. For her, that meant convincing Republican presidential candidate Herbert Hoover to repeal Prohibition. Pauline wasn't altogether convinced that Hoover was the man for the job, but she did end up giving him her support. One of his campaign promises was to set up a committee to work on studying the

effectiveness of the Prohibition laws. But when Hoover took office in the spring of 1929, he had changed his tune. Y'all know that I am fascinated by the role of Quakers in American history. They're a small group with big influence. And Hoover was born into a Quaker farming family in West Branch, Iowa. Tragically, before he even reached the age of 10, his father had died of a heart attack and his mother from an illness, likely typhoid or pneumonia. And Herbert and his brother and sister were bounced between relatives before they were sent to live permanently with their uncle in Oregon. Despite struggling with shyness and

mediocre grades, Herbert was admitted to the very first class at Stanford University and spent four years studying geology and wooing fellow geologist Lou Henry. Herbert, who had sort of blended into the background for much of his young life, found his calling in geology. He worked hard and grew skilled at turning previously unproductive minds productive again. He and Lou spent the first several years of their marriage overseas in China and Australia developing gold mines. Not only did he have the Midas touch when it came to turning mines profitable, but he turned quite a profit for himself, investing wisely so that by the time he was 30, he had about $4 million in personal assets, which is like $110 million today. It was a complete 180 from a childhood spent modestly

with his Quaker parents and uncle, and Herbert understood this well. He was generous with his money so much so that he gained a reputation as the great humanitarian, and people turned his last name into a verb, to hooverize, meant to help people in need. During World War I, Herbert and Lou lived in London, and as private citizens, they shipped in food to Belgium after the German invasion cut off its food trade. He said that the feeding must go on. And for three years, he financed and organized food supplies for nearly 8 million people through an organization he created, the Commission for Relief in Belgium. Its success became the model for later international non-governmental

organizations. After the war, Herbert, Lou, and their two sons moved back to the U.S. and President Woodrow Wilson appointed Herbert as the United States Food Administrator. Hoover created food initiatives we still use today, like Meatless Mondays. Not the invention of mommy bloggers. Nope. That was all Herbert Hoover. He also established the practice of licensing restaurants and catering businesses through food safety inspections. When President Warren Harding took office in 1920, Hoover got a promotion. He served as the Secretary of Commerce. He took the role seriously. And if you've listened to our recent episode about President Harding, you may remember that while Harding valued Herbert Hoover's

opinion, Hoover kept himself firmly out of the corruption of the Ohio gang. He was too reserved and straight-laced for the debaucherous poker-playing group. After Harding died unexpectedly, President Calvin Coolidge kept Hoover in his position as Secretary of Commerce. While most of us remember Hoover best as the damn guy, like the Hoover Dam, he was responsible for a good number of programs that we still benefit from, including instituting driving and highway standards, using road signs and traffic lights and regulations for airplane transportation and railroads. I want those. I want airplane regulations, please. I need that. I need that. By the time he ran for president in 1928, prohibition was the hotbed issue. It had been carried out and enforced sporadically for eight years, and most people were over it.

Hoover supported prohibition, but he agreed to consider repeal. He was an absolute fence sitter at the 1928 Republican National Convention, which annoyed both sides who saw his mealy-mouthed response for what it was. He said, our country has deliberately undertaken a great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose. Yes, and they wanted to know what comes next. It would take an episode of mass violence to dislodge Hoover from that fence and address prohibition. Modern presidents are inaugurated on January 20th following their election in November of the previous year, but in the past, inaugurations took place later, in March. A few weeks ahead of Hoover's inauguration, on the 14th of February 1929,

the Valentine's Day Massacre rocked the city of Chicago. It was the violent culmination of two rival gangs' war for ultimate control of the city. of two rival gangs' war for ultimate control of the city. While Prohibition didn't birth organized crime, it certainly dialed up its power as syndicates all fought for control over the illicit alcohol trade. By 1920, Chicago was essentially controlled by two rival gangs, the North Side and the South Side. The North Side was run by George Bugs Moran and his gang, and the Chicago outfit ran the South Side under the direction of Al Capone. On February 13, 1929, Bugs Moran, who was more brawn than brains, got a call about a truckload of whiskey due in from Detroit. It was being offered at a too-good-to-be-true price, so Moran jumped on it.

Moran arranged for the alcohol to be delivered to the garage where he stashed his bootlegging trucks. The booze was due at 10.30 a.m., and a little before 11, a Cadillac pulled up next to the building. Five men, some in police uniforms, got out and entered the garage. They were inside for only a few minutes, while outside, loud sounds like vehicles backfiring were heard by nearby witnesses. The men exited the building and drove away. Curious neighbors decided to investigate and probably immediately regretted doing so. And it's here that I will offer a content warning that the following description contains blood and graphic violence, and it may not be suitable for all listeners.

I'll pause for just a second if you want to pop in your earbuds. The neighbors found six men, each shot multiple times, lying dead. A seventh, though he had been shot 14 times, was barely alive. All but one, a poor mechanic who simply worked in the garage and wasn't part of any illegal activity, were part of Bugs' gang, which was obvious by their dress, suits and ties with pins, shined shoes, and Valentine's Day carnations in their breast pockets. An investigation revealed that the men were lined up against a stone wall and slaughtered with machine gun rounds that struck in three distinct lines across heads,

across chests, and across abdomens. Some of the dead were shot more than this, and not all of the bodies were intact. The man who was still alive was identified by a first responder to the scene as Frank Gusenberg. Despite the curious neighbors straining to hear, no one knows exactly what Frank said to the officer. One report is that Frank held firm to the mobster's code of conduct of never revealing the identity of anyone who committed a crime by claiming, no one shot me. Another version is that Frank said, cops did it. We do know that shortly after, his voice grew louder and panicked. He said, for God's sake, get me to a hospital. They did, but Frank didn't make it. The only survivor of the massacre was the mechanic's dog, a German shepherd. The police

had little to go off of but an obvious suspect, Al Capone. But Al had an airtight alibi. He was in a courthouse meeting several states away in Florida. Meanwhile, Buggs, the likely target of the operation, had driven by the garage, seen the unfamiliar car parked outside, and kept driving as his men were being killed inside. Despite many Americans' frustration with Prohibition, by 1929, apathy had largely taken over. In cities, violence had become commonplace, but the clashes were usually between gang members. People became pros at looking the other way. But this time, it was different. National newspapers splashed photos of the Valentine's Day massacre across their front pages, and it forced Americans to look at the violence up close.

Chicago, the gang murder capital, had finally had enough. Al Capone may not have pulled the triggers himself, but it's estimated that he was responsible for over 200 murders, including the February 14th deaths. He was eventually put away by Mabel Walker Willebrand and Frank Wilson for tax evasion. But the Valentine's Day massacre was a turning point for the nation. Americans blamed prohibition. It wasn't the positive change that was promised. It had brought only violence hilarious guests, and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio! Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand-new guests,

and we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. When Hoover took office in March of 1929, he addressed the nation about his intention to uphold the law. He said, the American people are deeply concerned over the alarming disobedience of law, the abuses in law enforcement, and the growth of organized crime, which has spread in

every field of evil doing and in every part of our country. A nation does not fail from its growth of wealth or power, but no nation can for long survive the failure of its citizens to respect and obey the laws which they themselves make. President Hoover established the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement soon after. Nicknamed the Wickersham Commission after its chairperson, George Wickersham, its 11 members had two goals. To enforce prohibition and reduce organized crime. To start, the commission decided to investigate the extent to which prohibition violations were not enforced. They established benchmarks and made field observations. The works. The report the commission published about it,

the works. The report the commission published about it, Lawlessness in Law Enforcement, found to literally no one's surprise that corruption was widespread. Earlier in this series, we discussed the ways in which the law was intertwined with the Ku Klux Klan in places like Colorado, Oregon, and the hot mess of Indiana. But the town of Piedmont, California was about to bear witness to a gruesome murder, one that single-handedly handed the sheriff's position over to the KKK. I'm going to offer another content warning here. This section is not appropriate for our listeners. Much like the nosy neighbors outside of Bugs' garage in Chicago, a teenager and a man walking near the coast of the San Francisco Bay made two grisly discoveries. The teen discovered a human scalp floating among the weeds, and in an inlet near Oakland, the man found a sack full of dismembered body parts, including a skull that had been sawed in half. The remains were of Bessie Ferguson, a 34-year-old Oakland nurse who'd been missing for a week

in August 1925. She had to be identified by her dental records. Bessie's mother was forthright with the police from the get-go. She revealed that Bessie made money by scamming married men and falsely claiming that she was pregnant with their child. If they paid her, she'd keep their paternity a secret. A search of Bessie's things found three letters to three local men, an accountant, a veterinarian, and a dentist. accountant, a veterinarian, and a dentist. Weirdly enough, each letter referred to Bessie's relationship with Sheriff Frank Barnett, the man she was supposed to see the night she went missing. Allegedly, Bessie was also blackmailing the sheriff, and when her mother warned her to stop, Bessie replied, don't worry, mother. He will pay like all the rest of them. And that was the women's last conversation. I'm going to spare you the details of what it took

to make Bessie fit into a sack, other than to say that the veterinarian became the prime suspect because of the skills required to do so. Sheriff Frank Barnett, who was well-liked in the community, was never named as an official suspect, but his career was over. The local news printed a private letter detailing a trip to Seattle Frank and Bessie had taken. His involvement was too much for voters and led to the election of KKK leader Burton Becker in his place. If you've listened to our series Momentum, then you may remember Earl Warren. He was an Alameda County District Attorney then before eventually landing on the Supreme Court and he worked on Bessie's case. Unfortunately, it was never solved. And in case you're wondering,

the newly elected Sheriff Burton Becker was absolutely corrupt. He took payoffs from illegal gambling operations, raided and stole from bootleggers who wouldn't pay, and carefully appointed more Klan members as lawmen. But even though Earl Warren couldn't convict anyone in Bessie's murder, he did manage to nail Burton Becker. His investigation took years to complete and revealed that 150 police officers in the Oakland force were being paid a collective $50,000 a month for protecting over 200 local speakeasies. And for his crimes, Burton Becker was convicted, banned from holding public office for the rest of his life, and served a few years at San Quentin. By the way, Burton Becker was like openly in the

KKK. It wasn't like, oh no, we had no idea. No, no, no. He was openly in the KKK when he was elected, but because Frank Barnett had been sort of implicated or like associated with Bessie's murder, it made Burton Becker, who ran on this, like, I'm going to clean up this joint. KKK is here to stay. Like it made that seem appealing in contrast to somebody who was a potential suspect in a horrific murder. Back in the Capitol, President Hoover, who had once pledged to consider the repeal of prohibition, did the exact opposite. Instead, he vowed to create harsher penalties for prohibition violators. Pauline Sabin, who had reluctantly given him her support and used her high society influence to get others to do the same, was not impressed. She wanted him to end prohibition, not double down. Pauline quietly

resigned from her role with the Republican National Committee and began to take matters into her own hands. At the end of 1928, Pauline had written a widely distributed article called I Changed My Mind on Prohibition. In it, she wrote, I was one of the women who favored prohibition when I heard it discussed in the abstract, but now I am convinced that it has been proven a failure. I began to see that whether my boys drank or not was my responsibility and not the government's. Where she had once recruited women to the Women's National Republican Club,

she began organizing them to join her new Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform. She worked from the top down, persuading her smart and sophisticated society friends to join first. The press already reported on their movements in society, so Pauline knew that news of her new project would eventually make its way into middle and working class households too. To them, the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform became the organization to join. Sure, housewives across America may have agreed with the cause, but it was Pauline's influence that made taking a stand against prohibition seem both responsible and fashionable. In under two years, membership grew

to almost 1.5 million, which was triple the membership of the dwindling Women's Christian Temperance Union at that time. The platform of the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform was simple. Women from all walks of life can support the repeal of prohibition while still supporting the values of temperance. And I believe that there are multitudes of women in this country who feel as I do. And as the time has come for us to organize and to become articulate and to work with some sane solution of this problem, which will replace the present corruption, lawlessness, and hypocrisy with honesty and sobriety. Pauline's crusade was not universally supported, though. Reporter Frank Kent of the Baltimore Sun publicly called her a hypocrite

and questioned whether her allegiance was to the wet cause or the country as a whole. Pauline paid her naysayers no mind as her organization grew by leaps and bounds, and the repeal of prohibition was about to pick up speed as the country crept closer to the fall of 1929. That spring, President Hoover had addressed the nation with lovely words, saying, In no nation is the government more worthy of respect, no country more loved by its people. I have an abiding faith in their capacity, integrity, and high purpose. I have no fears for the future of our country. It is bright with hope.

Hope is the thing with feathers, but it can only do so much. And six months later, the stock market crashed. In some ways, it was more shocking than the Valentine's Day massacre, because the idea of American exceptionalism was seen as sacred. Do your best, and you too can achieve greatness. Part of this mindset was fueled by the misconception that emerging industries and technologies like cars and radios had solidified the country's economic growth. It was an optimism that led many Americans to speculate in the stock market to such epic proportions that it grew by a whopping 600% between 1921 and 1929. Plus, people who couldn't afford to invest or purchase cool new appliances like refrigerators were extended credit in a very Oprah-like fashion. Like, you get credit, and you get credit,

and oh, you need more, you can have more credit. And you know where this is going. So here's an oversimplification of what happened. The economy slowed a bit, but the stock market continued to rise as folks desperate to make it big bought stocks on borrowed credit. And when the creditors called in their debts in order to save themselves, the borrowers weren't able to pay. Stock owners sold as fast as they could, which led to a selling frenzy on Black Monday, October 28th, and Black Tuesday, October 29th in 1929. In one day alone, the market lost $14 billion, and that boosted the week's losses up to $30 billion.

The bubble burst, and the American dream revealed itself to be a shimmering illusion to many. The hardest hit were average Americans. So many people lost everything. so many people lost everything. Savings, homes, one in four wage earners lost their jobs, and finding new ones became impossible as more and more businesses went bankrupt. Lois Long, or Lipstick, our favorite society writer for The New Yorker, wrote of that time, after a couple of dreary weeks in which the nightclubs of the town were half full of ruined stock market victims trying to get cheered up and inevitably ending the evening with a crying jag on the headwaiter's shoulder, things seem almost normal again. Though I suppose every time the market slips a point, the wailing will start up once more. The stock market struggled to regain lost

ground, and by the summer of 1932, it had dropped 89% from the pre-crash days. Billions of dollars were gone, and the loss was across the board. Banks, investors, and businesses were all wiped out. The country spiraled into the Great Depression. Americans, distraught and disillusioned, needed a scapegoat anymore. We'd like to thank you, Herbert Hoover. Hoover made some big miscalculations in dealing with the aftermath of the stock market crash. His response was to utilize a bootstrapping mindset, the one he had carried with him from his frugal childhood days. In his view, restoration came from people helping themselves and their neighbors, not from the government giving handouts. This ideology is called American individualism,

and it basically means that American society is built through individualism and industry, not government. This still remains a clear difference between the right and the left in the United States. Hoover and the right wanted limited government intervention, and the left called for government-sponsored social programs. By the time the 1932 presidential election rolled around, Herbert Hoover had long lost the confidence and loyalty of the American people. The country wanted a fresh start with someone who would use the power of the federal government to help them to change their lives. Enter Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Democratic candidate was ready for the job, and unlike Hoover, prepared to help Pauline Sabin in her quest to repeal Prohibition. Let's listen to Pauline, a lifelong Republican, speaking at the June 13, 1932 Chicago campaign

event for the Democratic candidate FDR. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, it is with a sense of grave responsibility that I address you tonight. I speak for the million women voters who are members of the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform. I speak on the eve of what I venture to regard as the most momentous election ever held in this country. The million women whom I represent come from every walk of life. They are home women, professional women, business women. They are women engaged in the arts, teachers, social workers. They are waitresses, hairdressers, clerks, women engaged in industry.

There is, I think, no occupation to which women are admitted in this country that is not included in our membership. Our political affiliations are as diverse as our vocations. Since we have had the franchise, we have been Democrats, Republicans, and socialists. But for the purpose of this crusade and its duration, we are none of these things. We are repealing. Helene knew the time had come. The tide on prohibition was turning. I'll see you next time. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to hit the follow or subscribe button on the podcast platform of your choice. We also benefit so much from ratings, reviews, and sharing on social media.

Thanks for being here, and we'll see you again soon.