If Woodrow Wilson had his way, there would have been a stronger, more endurable League of Nations for one thing, and for another, there would never have been a Prohibition.
It was On This Day in 1919 that President Woodrow Wilson’ veto of the Volstead Act was overridden by Congress and hence provided for the enforcement of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, thereby ending the sale of alcohol.
Buffalo had over 20 breweries at the time, producing over 30 million gallons of beer.
After the 13 year dry stretch, only seven breweries restarted. Of the 14,000 breweries across the country in operation before Prohibition, less than half that amount restarted afterward. Today’s still thriving Hodge Liquor store on Elmwood was the first store in Buffalo to get a license after Prohibition.
The Volstead Act was the result of the prohibition movement which had been led largely by women. Women still had a hard time securing a living on their own; and many saw their lives ruined when their husbands would squander the family milk funds on alcohol.
We tend to remember Prohibition as a failure, and it truly was a failure in the bigger cities because the local police refused to enforce the law. In rural America, however, Prohibition was quite effective. Cirrhosis death rates fell by more than 50 percent—as did admissions to state mental hospitals for alcoholism. Arrests for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct also went way down.
The big city newspapers rode hard and consistent on how easy it was to find alcohol.
In Buffalo, the beaches lined with hidden beer depots where “rumrunners” successfully smuggled alcohol across the river. (Perhaps the real incentive for building the Peace Bridge at that time?…but we digress).
The United States Congress even boasted a private club where they drank liquor openly. By Roosevelt’s time in 1932, Prohibition was deemed a complete failure. FDR would announce daily at 4:30 p.m. that it was Children’s Hour (his version of Happy Hour) and out came the tray of cocktails. Soon the 18th Amendment, which had been the first amendment ever passed to limit the rights of American citizens, also became the first and only amendment– so far– to have been repealed.
Buffalo historian Stephen R. Powell, writes that “for Americans, alcohol Prohibition meant that one couldn’t legally go to the local saloon or tavern to have a drink. Citizens were allowed to keep what was stockpiled prior to the enactment of the Prohibition amendment, but when supplies ran out there was no more to be had. For the brewer, distiller, and saloon owner alike, Prohibition meant ruin (at least on the outside).”
The Buffalo Courier-Express wrote often about the criminal arrests for rum running efforts along the border—and the reporters likely wrote many of these stories next store to the paper at the speakeasy that later came to be known as Ray Flynn’s (and was recently torn down to many’s dismay). Here is a Courier Express article Stephen Powell cites that appeared on November 1, 1928.
“Runner Leaps From Boat, Swims Ashore; Craft Seized”
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Customs men chase unmanned vessel half mile before overtaking it
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“Customs border patrolmen chased a motorboat a half mile in the little Niagara River in the La Salle section yesterday before catching it. The boat was unmanned, an unidentified rumrunner having leaped overboard, leaving the engine running, and swam to safety when he realized the boat was being pursued. Sixty cases of ale, smuggled from the Canadian side of the river, were recovered from the boat. The ale and boat were confiscated.
Two other seizures were made by the border patrolmen on the upper river yesterday. One was halfway between Buffalo and Tonawanda where a motorboat with twenty cases of ale and twenty case of whisky was seized and two men arrested. The other seizure was off Riverside Park in the Niagara River, where a motorboat and 65 cases of ale were seized and one man arrested.”
My friend Professor Kolbe remembers the post Prohibition days while working his way through school at a local brewery in Buffalo. “We’d get to work at the brewery at 7 a.m. and the old fellow next to me, Smitty, would hand me a tall draft and then take one himself. Throughout the morning we’d work and the beer would flow. Then we’d take a break—for beer, and then get back to work, with more beer. And then at lunchtime, we’d go out for beer, and then come back and get to work, with more beer, and beer breaks.” He remembers that “by the time I got home from work, well—what can I say? Everyone was on a constant beer high.”
Buffalo was never really that dry a town before, during or after Prohibition. The late Chief Petty Officer Tony Christopher, when he was 92 a couple years back, would gather us around at the CPO Club and point down the river’s way mentioning points of arrival for rumrunners, and recall the beer depots, referring to much of the squabble as a game of chase rarely taken too seriously. He also mentioned that no one in Buffalo who had their Friday fish fry ever went without an attending beer if they so desired.
Ulrich’s Pub is the oldest continual operating restaurant and bar in Western New York. Their website boasts the following:
“Prohibition changed Ulrich’s’ look, but not its function. The downstairs became a delicatessen and restaurant. The barbershop and upstairs hotel were closed and the second floor became a private speakeasy for the political community known as the Hasenpfeffer Club. This would last the entire 13 years of Prohibition with whiskey and wine being made in the basement and beer being smuggled in the dead of night. The huge lift that was used to bring the illegal alcohol up from the basement is still there today.”
Go figure. Some towns and counties in this country remain dry to this day. One is Lynchburg, in Tennessee—it’s dry to the bone, but still home to none other than the Jack Daniels’ bourbon distillery.
Cheers. And that’s the news from On This Day from Buffalo’s World.