BOOTLEGGING AND SMUGGLING. National pro hibition (q.v.) in the United States brought about a revival of the lost art of "bootlegging," and of the once rather popular pro fession of smuggling. The pioneers of early colonial days found it expedient to outlaw the sale of liquor to the Indians who, un accustomed to its use, drank to excess and often became danger ous. But unscrupulous citizens, caring more for financial profit than for community welfare, engaged in the forbidden traffic and often concealed in the legs of their boots the liquor they carried for sale. The gave the name "bootlegger" to the illicit liquor trafficker. The name was revived and applied to the various phases of the intricate outlaw business of supplying liquor to the market while national prohibition was in effect.
Smuggling was a lucrative and more or less accepted occupa tion in colonial times, there being no centralised Government in terested in customs revenues. After the central Government was formed, it established a Federal control of customs revenue and, through the Federal agencies of the customs internal revenue service and coast guard, it soon made smuggling unprofitable, and the practice almost disappeared. The boundary line between the United States and Mexico has been the one exception. This frontier is for each nation the farthest removed from its seat of Government and constitutes for each its least populous region. These conditions are ideal for smuggling, and both nations have suffered financially from its continued practice. In May 1925 the representatives of both nations met in El Paso, Tex., and formulated a treaty that was designed to stop smuggling along the boundary line.
Introduction of Prohibition.—While the early settlers found it expedient to forbid the sale of liquor to a certain class, it was only by slow stages that society in the United States be came willing to forbid the sale of liquor to all its members. Laws to this end first appeared in small communities; and here always someone was ready to import liquor for profit in violation of the law. The need was thus always felt for wider and wider control, until ultimately the Constitution of the United States was amended to forbid the manufacture, transportation or sale of in toxicating beverages anywhere within the nation. In its laws making this amendment effective, Congress defined intoxicating beverages as those containing one-half of I% or more of alcohol by volume.
Individuals who continued to drink created a demand for in toxicating beverages in violation of the law, and, as always, there were unscrupulous individuals willing to supply this illicit market. There was thus rapidly built up the outlaw business of obtaining supplies of liquor and of distributing them to the market—a busi ness involving the bribery of Government and other agents and the corruption of traffic in alcohol and liquors for legitimate pur poses. The Government easily controlled all the known supplies of liquor, and ultimately concentrated them in Government controlled warehouses from which they were withdrawn for legiti mate purposes by Government permit. Those people still de termined to drink turned at first to home manufacture. But boot leg liquor soon became available at such prices as made home manufacture unnecessary, as it always had been inconvenient and unsatisfactory.
Revival of Smuggling.—The first bootleg supply was liquor withdrawn from Government warehouses through the use of fraudulent permits, etc. This was soon prevented by the Gov ernment and the bootlegger then turned to importation from abroad. Smuggling, on an increasingly large scale, sprang into existence. Ships under the protection of foreign flags, laden with contraband liquor, hovered just without the territorial waters, within easy communication of the shore, and there established an unfailing source of supply to the bootlegger.
The U.S. coast guard, long since relieved of its duty to prevent smuggling, and for generations engaged in the happier duty of bringing relief to those in distress at sea, was ill prepared to break up this traffic. By 1924 as many as 336 rum ships were known to be engaged in bootlegging. All along the coasts, specially equipped high-power motor-boats, often armed and armoured, and innumerable fishing and other coastwise craft, were engaged in running liquor from these ships to countless in lets and landing places. Congress increased the personnel and equipment of the coast guard to meet this situation; and the Government made treaties with foreign powers which, for this purpose, extended the U.S. territorial waters from 3 m. to 12 miles. By June 1, 1925, the coast guard was sufficiently aug mented to make a serious effort to eliminate this smuggling busi ness off the Atlantic coast between Boston and Atlantic City. The method employed was to picket each rum ship with small patrol boats which rendered contact with the shore impracticable. This resulted in reducing the rum fleet along this front to negli gible proportions and in keeping at much greater distances the few ships which did appear.
Alcohol (q.v.) is one of the articles essential to industry. Its uses are so numerous in manufacture, and the quantities used legitimately by industry are so large, that its control introduced the most serious problems for the Government in the enforcement of the prohibition laws. This involved issuing annually over 4o,000 permits and supervising the operations of the permittees.
The bootleg industry invaded practically every field of alco hol using business and secured permits for its use, transacting just enough legitimate business to secure the permits, while divert ing to the liquor traffic the rest of the alcohol secured. To do this successfully they sold to legitimate customers at greatly reduced prices in order to get enough business to justify their existence. They thus menaced the stability of many legitimate business en terprises and almost forced them to participate in the illegiti mate profits derived from the bootleg industry. The Govern ment undertook to control this situation in its earlier develop ments by denaturing alcohol for industrial use, to make it unfit for beverage use. But the bootlegger, indifferent to considerations of public health, soon established the practice of "boiling," or redistilling—but indifferently well. A later expedient was the in troduction of chemicals to counteract the denaturant, liquors con taining a double dose of chemicals thus reaching the market. Nareotics.—While the conspicuous revival of smuggling in volved liquors primarily, it soon came to include narcotics and the illegal entry of foreigners, conspicuously Chinese. Smug gling was in 1928 practically the only source of supply for the illicit trade in narcotics. Because this trade offers tremendous profits, and because narcotics are moved in such small packages, the Government finds it difficult to control this smuggling. All manner of expedients are resorted to by the smugglers, and their detection requires constant vigilance on the part of highly trained agents. Real progress is, however, being made.
In this connection, Government took a most interesting step. The United States, recognizing that the success of Governmental efforts to control the illicit narcotic trade was dependent upon quick, decisive action on the part of police, initiated an effort which resulted in an international agreement by which the Secret Service agencies of these nations deal directly with each other in the detection and apprehension of criminals engaged in this nefarious traffic. This is a unique agreement, perhaps the first time in history that any nation has undertaken to have its Governmental agencies give information to those of another na tion which might lead to the arrest and punishment of one of its own criminal citizens.
The repeal of the 18th Amendment took the tremendous profits out of the business of bootlegging and smuggling, and normal pre prohibition conditions were gradually restored in the liquor traf fic. There remained however the baleful aftermath of organized crime accustomed to live extravagantly through illegal operations, with more or less political, legal, and expert highly paid assistance. Society has that problem yet to solve. (L. C. A.)