THE DYNAMIC
DUO
NORMAN V.
KELLY
Prohibition and Depression: now there is a dynamic duo if there ever was
one. It was those two culprits that went
about destroying the financial stability of this great Nation and towns like
ours…Peoria, Illinois. It all began in
late 1929 and stayed with some parts of Peoria until 1935. However, most
Peorians believed it all started for them in 1917. I will tell you right off the bat that a hell
of a lot of Peorians made a fortune during the Depression but as always it was
the ‘man in the street’ that suffered most, that was certainly true here in
Peoria, Illinois.
I spent thirty-two years researching Peoria’s history
and during that time I personally interviewed a hundred or so of our ‘older
folks,’ and I can tell you they told me that financial problems for the working
stiff began in 1917 and the subsequent National Prohibition Act. When the
Doughboys came home to Peoria they expected to get their old brewery and
distillery jobs back, but of course, they never did. The Federal Government
took an immediate hit on lost taxes and Congress was forced to make huge
expenditures to uphold the Volstead Act. After all, the government just went
through the expense of fighting a war in Europe. Where in the hell did the
idiots think they were going to get the money to fund all those enforcement
tools to make sure that Prohibition could be the law of the land? It sure as
hell was not going to come from the taxes on alcohol being produced by 700
distilleries and hundreds of breweries.
The Government simply ‘shot themselves in the foot,’ as quite a few older
Peorians used to say. Don’t forget when people are out of work they don’t pay
taxes and usually turn to the government for some kind of assistance. That’s what happened back in the ‘20’s and it
continued on in to early 1935. By then
Peoria was the home of the World’s largest distillery, Prohibition and
Depression were over and life here in Peoria began to perk right along. The
moral was simple for folks here in town and that was this: “Government stay the
hell out of our lives.”
PEORIA IN
EARLY 1929
Winters in Peoria were still wrecking havoc in Peoria
in 1929, causing some folks to refer to it as “King Winter.” Blowing snow, frozen roads, massive
snowdrifts and sleet added to the daily woes of Peorians way back then when
getting around was ‘virtually impossible.’
Folks getting to jobs, trying to get the damn car started and hoping the
streetcars were running. The cold caused
deaths and hardships and of course affected the local economy.
Mayor Woodruff was Mayor once again and a lot of
Peorians felt better when he was in command. I have gotten telephone calls
while I was on the radio and at my lectures wherein the callers actually told
me that their fathers, grandfathers or cronies thought Woodruff was a
‘crook.’ They even said that he was ‘on
the take’ or in ‘bed with the
gamblers.’ I confronted each and every
one of those people telling them that they were wrong. Woodruff had a lot of enemies, political and
other wise, and of course they were not about to say a kind word about
him. I can tell you that I have read all
of the council and alderman meetings when he was mayor and that should be
mandatory for those people who put Mr. Woodruff down. I can also tell you he did more for Peoria’s
infrastructure and economy than any other mayor in our history. But…it’s fun to
pass on cruel things about people…and there are plenty of older Peorians that
delighted in doing it. There is still that element of older Peorian that loved
to talk about our ‘gangster past,’ and Peoria’s pet gangster Bernie Shelton. It
surely is easier to do that than actually make the effort to learn the
truth. Hell, I guess that is what I am
supposed to be doing in all this research and writing of books. You think?
Now this was early 1929 and any hint that some big
market crash was in the future certainly was not on the mind of the average
worker in Peoria, Illinois. I always
laughed at this concept when I thought of my dad, brothers, uncles and my other
relatives being very lucky if they had a job that paid them as much as $16.00 or
$20.00 a week. How much do you think
they had invested in the Stock Market?
What a joke. So the average Peorian was all about first getting a job,
secondly keeping it, and that gave them the opportunity to continue the
struggle to keep their family fed and the rent paid.
1929 was the year the Illinois Supreme Court upheld
the lower court’s decision to allow Peoria to annex Averyville. In the south
side of Peoria John Horn’s body was found in a weedy field. Police later told
Peorians that this was the man that shot railroad Detective Emmett Keene down
along side the railroad tracks. A small
gang of men had attempted to break into the boxcars and Keene tried to stop
them. To a crook every boxcar had whiskey in it and Keene died while doing his
duty. Officers matched the bullets in both those men’s bodies and told the
press that they had shot each other. So for all you bootlegging fans this is
the second murder that we can attribute to the ‘violent Prohibition era,’ but
of the 79 murders committed during that time only two were given that dubious
distinction. Keene was not an employee of the Peoria Police Department so he
was not given the burial honors accorded our city police officers, and his name
is not on any police memorial in Peoria or anywhere else. He died in the line
of duty and then just slipped off into oblivion. I find that shameful so I
thought I would mention him in my story about Prohibition…surely he deserved
more.
LAST YEAR’S
STATISTICS
Police tell the local press that it was their educated
guess that over 20,000 crammed the downtown streets for the 1928 New Year’s
celebration. It was below zero and most folks that were there were pretty well
fortified by alcohol, just to ward off the cold…donch’a know. Police reports indicated that they had made
very few arrests and that although the crowd was noisy and wild the freezing
cold kept the revelers inside. The end
of the year statistics, according to the police, revealed that there were 5,126
people arrested during 1928. Of that number 620 were women and police said that
assaults were up from 1927. In all of 1929 there were 5 reported murders and if
history repeated itself, some of those were reduced to manslaughter. Of all those people that police had picked up
on drunken charges only 132 had been charged with the crime. It was apparent to
folks that the police were quick to pick up a person but once the smoke cleared
they released a hell of a lot of them after a night in jail. Peorians appreciated that and understood it
was probably best for the person’s own safety to remain in jail than to be
turned back onto the street.
Just over one thousand of the 5,126 people rounded up
in 1928 were booked as ‘being held for investigation,’ which meant for the
moment the problem they had been causing the police was over. Once most of those people sobered up they
were as nice ‘as a pussy cat waiting for milk.’ The local cops knew the folks
they were hired to protect and most police officers knew whom they should
protect and whom they should push around a bit.
That’s how the police officers operated way back then. Sixteen men were
arrested for rape and a new charge popped up when police arrested 66 for
forgery. Don’t forget men are still
counterfeiting those prescription pads and phony twenty-dollar bills. Now
remember this is ‘bloody Prohibition’, yet only 3 murders occurred during
1928. I keep bringing this up because of
all the articles you have read about gangsters in Peoria. If we had all those dangerous, machine-gun
carrying men in town they sure as hell did not go in for murder did they?
AGENTS AGENTS
EVERYWHERE
Just like today Peorians read the newspapers but
nothing like they did back in the ‘olden days.’
The older we get the more we move quickly to the obituaries in the
newspaper. The joke since Vaudeville had been “if I am not in the obits, I
guess I’m still alive.” No wonder
Vaudeville died. In 1929 folks noticed that an awful lot of people had died in
a very short time in Peoria and it was not long before the answer was
known. Also an influx of dry agents
seemed to have flooded the town. The
truth was that thirteen people had come up dead and Coroner Elliott said it was
‘bad whiskey.’ Now tons of people had
died over the years from rotgut booze, but this was something different. I realize dead is dead but this had
implications that might involve folks other than the ‘bums.’ Of course that could not be tolerated so that
is why all the investigators were running around trying to get to the bottom of
the ‘booze mystery.’
The newspapers reporters were just as busy and finally
the news was in all the papers that a man named Morris Mansfield had been
arrested and charged with thirteen counts of murder. Now, believe me that would
be shocking news even in America today. They indicted him and tried him three
times, twice here and one time in Springfield and all to no avail. They accused him of selling deadly whiskey
that resulted in the death of all those people. The FEDS really went after him
but what they never understood was the hatred the average WET Peorian had for
them and their tactics. In order to
assure a hung jury all the defense attorney had to do was make sure that the
juries had a few WETS on it along with the DRYS and that was all it took. All
three times the jury was deadlock and the simple truth was that the WETS and
the DRYS could never agree. Finally,
after three trials the FEDS gave up and that was the end of the case and of
course the financial end of Mansfield who also spent damn near a year in jail
waiting for all those trials. For almost the entire year of 1929 this story was
in and out of the newspapers and made for damn good reading,
FIRES
AND SUCH
In March a huge market fire downtown killed three men,
two firemen and a night watchman. The firemen were Tom O’Connor and Richard
Teufel and the watchman was Milton Strayer, all native Peorians. Thousands of Peorians made their way downtown
to watch that spectacular blaze. The estimated damages in some instances went
as high as a half million dollars and disrupted things downtown for a couple of
days. The firemen were buried with all the ceremonies attached to police and
firemen who die in the line of duty. In
all, I think it was ten firemen died fighting fires here in Peoria and
countless others were injured over the years. The dry agents, some of them
honest, of course, tried hard, but the facts showed that they did a very poor
job. During the first decade just over
800 million gallons of whiskey found its way into the United States. The dry
agents managed to apprehend about 5% of all that booze. Can’t you see how
insane the law was? Did that convince
the DRYS to get behind the Appeal of the 18th. Amendment? Of course
not…God’s work, doncha’ know.
Rum running seemed to be the most fun for observers of
the FEDS against the WETS. I have no
idea why they called it rum running, unless you were off the coast of Florida,
because whiskey was the cargo here in Peoria, Illinois. The Illinois River here
at Peoria had an awful lot of traffic and just a handful of agents who tried
awfully hard to put the fear of God in the hearts of the rumrunners, but of
course as I mentioned it was more of a game than a threat. Remember, hundreds
of men lived alongside the river and many of them were given money and booze to
alert the smugglers and rumrunners of the locations of the dry agents, and that
intelligence link worked like a charm. A lot of those men actually lived on the
river in run down old houseboats and fished the river both day and night. Too bad they didn’t have cell phones, huh?
LIFE AS
USUAL
The Flappers and the It Girl seemed to have evolved as
time went on, but the ladies in downtown Peoria were always exciting to the
local gentry. In 1929 the ladies bobbed their hair and wore bell-bottom pants
and still hid whiskey in a flask secreted on their inner thigh. The lady
do-gooders always condemned them by telling the press that they were “Decadent
and had loose morals,” and were “Ukulele players.” I won’t even pretend to know what that meant.
The local preachers loved to give sermons about those ‘fallen women,’ calling
them ‘sinful and morally bankrupt.’ Ordinary Peorians, especially the men,
thought they were charming and ‘free spirited.’
Peorians are still entertained by the United States
Coast Guard and the agents that raced up and down the river after imagined
smugglers of booze. Peorians always thought it was nothing ‘but a big show,’
and enjoyed it as such. However along
our coasts men were dying in the ‘game’ and the figures were shocking. Folks here thought it was such a waste of
money and manpower to try and stop rumrunning and smuggling. The simple answer here is town was this: “Appeal Prohibition.” The 1929 Peoria City
Directory showed that our population was 112,650 within the city limits. I
think I mentioned this once before, but during the 13 years of Prohibition in
Peoria, the population grew by slightly more than 28,000 people.
In Peoria the mayor was king and when a new one was
elected a lot “of heads rolled.” That
was just political jargon for getting rid of the other mayor’s boys and putting
the new mayors “boys” in their place. Hell, that was the political game that
played here in Peoria
STILLS AND
THINGS
Over one weekend dry agents knocked over sixteen
stills, a couple in the city and the rest out in the county. The agents
attacked those places, beat up the equipment and grabbed anyone slow or dumb
enough to be in the vicinity. They made
a big show of this kind of activity but it never slowed down the making of
booze. For every one they busted a dozen or so were started up in another
remote spot out in the county. It was really rare to have one operating in the
city during 1929. Like I said, this kind
of booze had no sophisticated market and was consumed by the unfortunate
‘bums.’
Dry agents discovered that 45 barrels of whiskey in a
local warehouse was water. Clever thieves had removed the whiskey and then went
through the trouble of filling them back up with water. Apparently months had
gone by before their little ruse was discovered. Peorians loved this kind of story, well the
WETS, that is. One volunteer told the local press that he would “be happy to go
in and test the other barrels.”
Music in Peoria during 1929 was a lot of the old songs
but some new ones too, like “Why Was I Born?”
Dancers swayed to “You Do Something To Me,” and something called the Charleston
The chamber of commerce is offering twenty dollars to
the person that could come up with best slogan that praised Peoria. The top picks
were, ‘Peoria,
City of no regrets’, ‘Peoria ,
Gateway to everything’ and this one that made people laugh, ‘Peoria Peoria
The 1929 crash brought us Black Tuesday and Black
Thursday and the agony of the Great Depression. In Peoria things got extremely
bad but there were ‘pockets of prosperity’ and somehow our relatives and
forefathers managed to survive. Here in Peoria, 1929 was a mixed bag, but
finally things began to go bust financially and a pall of discontent slipped
over the city. I will not go into the details of the depression, since an awful
lot of books have been written on the subject. Peoria, however, like always
some how survived. Our relatives were damn tough folks way back in the ‘olden
days.’
IS IT
OVER YET?
I don’t think there was a WET Peorian that believed
Prohibition would still be the law of the land in 1930. Not only is Prohibition
still around the added bane of Depression was just really getting a start. Was it all gloom and doom in Peoria,
Illinois? The only saving grace for Peorians was the radio and the escape type
programs and music it offered. Most of
you would have probably said ‘the movies.’
Hell that was true but remember you had to pay to see one and I can tell
you a lot of people in Peoria, Illinois during the early 1930’s did not have a
damn dime. 1930 brought “Tiger Rag,” sung by the Mills Brothers, and the great
Bobby Jones helped folks dream of green, rich golf courses. The ‘Lone Ranger’
had a fiery horse named Silver, and Eddie Cantor made the poor folks laugh.
The United States Supreme Court ruled that is was not
illegal to buy alcohol…but it was illegal to sell it. That ruling sounded a bit stupid but it had
far reaching effect on federal cases that were pending against people that
bought the stuff and were charged. The Cedar Street Bridge was rising up over
the Illinois River and on warm days hundreds of people got as close as they
could to watch the construction. Our population was set at 105,155 and on that
day Peorian’s learned that eight automobiles had been stolen. That was one crime that really irritated
people and they could not trust the police department to stop it.
A DIFFERENT
SORT OF CRIME
If you have read articles in our local papers over the
last 2 decades, you know there were writers that loved to play up ‘Peoria’s
gangster past.’ Anyone that has read my books and listened to me in lectures
and the radio knows that Peoria had no gangster past. We had crooks, bad guys, thieves, killers,
muggers, rapists, counterfeiters and our share of dangerous men running lose in
our town. We had some weirdoes, thugs, pugs, and molesters along with a few
‘dope fiends,’ but we had no real live gangsters. Our police department did a
great job rounding up those freaks, but over all our crime rate was reasonably
below the National average for a city our size. Now that stat came from the
FBI, so I would assume it was accurate. If you look at the arrests at the end
of each year, they seemed high, but the breakdown of the crimes clearly showed
that we certainly did not have any real gangsters in town. Now if you want to read about gangsters, just
get books on Prohibition in Cook County and Al Capone and his ilk. Now those bastards were gangsters at their
best or worst, it all depends on what you like to read.
In The 1930’s we had a new crime around here, not
completely new, but pretty damn rare, and that was kidnapping. The first one that upset the town was the
kidnapping of Bill Urban. Now here is a man some writers referred to as some
kind of crook, but he sure as hell was not. Bill owned the Empire Recreation Parlor and the Alcazar. Those places were nothing short of what we
call ‘casinos’ today. They were soft
drink parlors, restaurants, and entertainment centers. That of course meant gambling and Bill
controlled the ‘Baseball Pool,’ as well.
Now this meant that Urban was very wealthy, influential, and to meet him
was to like him, according to folks that knew him. Actually there were nine casinos among those
240 parlors downtown and of course they, along with our prostitutes, theaters,
restaurants and ‘other’ entertainment drew people to Peoria
Bill Urban was kidnapped by ‘a person or persons
unknown’ and his disappearance was major news here in town, that was for sure.
I laugh at the writers who make a big deal over the fact that only the owners
and major gamblers in town were kidnapped. What a joke. Who were they going to kidnap…my dad? Hell those men were the men that had the
money to pay the ransom…no big mystery there. So Urban was kidnapped out by his
dairy farm and his son was also taken. The kidnappers quickly returned the boy
and Urban was released a few days later. The rumor was that he had paid the
ransom of $80,000.00 to his kidnapers.
That is just another example of the myths that have been handed down by
reporters who would like you to believe they were in the know. That myth is perpetrated to this very day,
but I can tell you only Urban knew how much he paid, along with his captors, of
course, and never…ever did any reporter or anyone else hear it from Urban. Doesn’t make any difference anyway…does
it? Bill got back and he must have been
told to ‘shut up about it,’ and he did.
An investigation into the crime was useless and the local sheriff said
that Urban was ‘probably taken by some Chicago boys.’
WHO CAME
UP MISSING?
Frank Dougherty, a local gambler and saloon owner is
next to be whisked away. Fortunately,
just like Urban, Frank suddenly was back on the scene. The same rumors about his payoff floated around
town, but as usual it certainly did not come from Frank Dougherty. The way these victims stayed alive back in
those days was to keep their mouths shut.
Which they did.
On a quiet day in October, 1930, over on McClure the
sound of what neighbors and a sheriff said was the ‘rat-at-tat’ of a machine
gun shattered the silence in the backyard of gambler, owner of the Windsor and a
tough guy Clyde Garrison. Clyde, with his wife Cora had just returned from a
drive and pulled up to his garage at 201 W. McClure, here in Peoria, Illinois.
According to Clyde, he had just gotten his wife out of
the car when the bushes began to talk. “Just stop there, Clyde.” Finally some gangster activity…huh?
I mentioned that Clyde was a tough guy, but apparently
a fool, because he drew his .45 and fired at the ‘talking bushes.’ Naturally
they fired back killing Cora instantly with a single shot to the head. Clyde
caught a single slug in the leg. I bring
up the word single because experts told me that if a Thompson Machine Gun had
been fired at that close range some 26 slugs would have been fired at Cora and
Clyde in just over one second. Think of
that…and what about all those spent machine gun cartridges on the ground? I
wonder if you can imagine what the bodies of Clyde and Cora would have looked
like. Sorry they never found ANY…so you figure it out. The newspapers had dozens of kids downtown
yelling ‘Extra! Extra! on the streets
and the papers sold like the proverbial ‘hot cakes.’ Remember…machine guns sell a hell of a lot
more papers than just ordinary guns. Of
course Clyde was never the same without his beloved Cora, and the shooting
scared the hell out of him as well. You
can call this gangster activity…and perhaps it was, but no gang in Peoria had
the nerve or the wherewithal to take on the local ‘gambling cartel’, that I
feel certain of. Police picked up a ton of so-called ‘suspects,’ but they never
really expected to capture the shooters in Peoria…hell they were long gone back
to Saint Louis or Chicago. That did not stop the local newspapers in taking one
more crack at selling a few extra papers.
Now here is the headline after the police finally had to release every
man they had picked up.
FREE FOUR GANGSTERS
HERE
See what I mean?
Gangsters…what a joke. They
picked up a dozen or so known suspects, grilled the hell out of them and then
let them go. Gangsters?
No wonder Peoria had the reputation it had with silly
reporting like that. It was not until 1940 when Bernie and Carl Shelton came
here to Peoria that our town had a ‘real gangster’ which Bernie was at one time
in Southern Illinois. But that is another story and you can read all about it
in my book “Lost In Yesterday’s News,” Volume 2, available only in our library.
LET’S GO TO PEORIA
It’s Saturday
and the streets in town are crowded with shoppers, local folks, and
visitors. ‘If you can’t find it in
Peoria’…you don’t need it’. There were
movies and restaurants and live shows all around town. You could gamble, drink
booze, and stay in a nice hotel. If you
wanted to find the ‘underbelly’ of Peoria, just wander a bit off the beaten
path. Our ‘fallen sparrows,’ as some
preachers liked to refer to our whores
were all there waiting for men to seek them out. There were a few ‘brazen women’ that walked
about town, but the police frowned on that activity. The prostitutes were in their own sections
and as long as they stayed there…they were pretty much protected by the madams
and their ‘arrangements’ with city hall.
If you get my drift.
Mayor Woodruff bragged that Peoria was a ‘pocket of
prosperity’ and to prove it Caterpillar was in the process of shipping 1,500
tractors to Russia.
Headlines tell folks that the Bartonville Bank had
been robbed of $10,000,00, and in Peoria
Madam Parole McNeal, known in Peoria by her
professional name as Diamond Lil’, was a beautiful, well-dressed lady that was
very well known here in town. Not only because she was a madam but because she
flaunted her wealth and was definitely politically connected. She had several
whore- houses in town and lived in a beautifully furnished home over on Second
Street where she liked to entertain the ‘local gentry.’ She actually did no ‘business’ in her home,
but she sure put on some extravagant parties that had a tendency to ‘show off
the girls.’
One morning in the fall of 1930 some irate customer
barged into her private home. She was sleeping and did not take kindly to the
intrusion. She came out of her room with
a six-shooter strapped to her rather generous hips. Moments later she fired at the intruder,
hitting him in the thumb. Once down stairs she fought with the man, falling on
the floor. Her friend and employee, Joni
Yelm fired a shotgun blast at the man, pretty much tearing off his arm. Lil then retreated up the steps, turned and
fired at her tormentor as he raced up after her. The dead man’s name was Joe Markely and he
had broken into the house to retrieve his friend’s watch. Now do you think that Lil’ was justified in
shooting this man? I do, but a local
jury thought otherwise and convicted Lil’ and Joni of murder. The do-gooders were not about to let a ‘damn
whore get away with killing a white man.’
That was the attitude here in town in 1930. Oh…Diamond Lil’ was a mulatto…and in Peoria
that was not a white person. They were sentenced to 1-14 in a state prison.
The year-end statistics are pretty much the same as
they were in the previous years. As I
mentioned the police never let the city get out of control and for Peoria it
worked very well. There were 4,972 people arrested and of those 471 were women.
Of all those arrests only 345 ended up in our local jail with a few being
sentenced to Illinois State Prisons. Auto theft was still high at 396 vehicles
being stolen, many of them were quickly recovered but some, of course, were
gone forever. Of those people arrested
1,090 were released with no charges pending at all. We had nine ‘murders,’ but all but four of
them were reduced to manslaughter. Now
you gangster fans can interrupt these stats anyway you want, but to me Peoria
was a safe town, a great town to have lived, and if we had gangsters they sure
as hell did not act like it. Now if you feel gamblers were gangsters then
perhaps you would have had half of the men in town in jail. Peorians are
weathering the storm of the dynamic duo, but many are growing weary.
1931: DOES ANYTHING
EVER CHANGE?
There were five or six bomb scares in town all meant
to tell somebody that they meant business. Nothing is really destroyed and no
one was ever injured, but the press loved this kind of activity. After all, all those gangsters in town had to
have one way or the other to intimidate each other…right? The new sheriff, sure
of getting his picture taken, destroyed 34 slot machines out in the county and
the do-gooders cheered.
There was a new mayor in town, Homer Ehrends, a rare
bird, in that he was a Democrat. To ‘save tax payers money’ Homer fired
seventeen police officers and three firemen. You guessed it… a month later he
tried to hire twenty-five new officers, but settled for seven. See how that all works? It was just jobs and the power over them that
drove those politicians, which equated to votes. It was a never-ending game here in your town,
Peoria, Illinois. A few years later Mr. Ehrends stepped off a curb on Knoxville
Avenue and was struck by a car and killed by a Peoria Alderman.
Natural gas was heading Peoria’s way and a big ditch
out near Yates City was proof it was coming our way. It was still Depression
here in town and there were ‘soup kitchen and lines.’ Peorians were told that over a million people
were out riding ‘the rails’ going from town to town looking for jobs. Peoria
seemed to be just a little bit better off than a lot of cities and of course
people came here looking for jobs. Most
of them ended up in some kind of ‘soup line,’ but somehow folks endured.
Prohibition was certainly alive and well, but folks were more concerned with
just plain surviving. There was a hell of a lot less money left over for booze,
but there was an element that simply had to have it. Because of that the crime rate continued and
of course men were still being found dead or very ill. Those men were not only
malnourished they died from alcoholism as well, and that old bug-a-boo…rot gut
whiskey.
The temperatures went from the severe cold to hot and
Peoria was averaging 100 degrees and again people died and suffered. A lot of
families spent the evening and all night out in our parks to find a little
relief from the horrible heat. Electric fans were available, but anything that
cost money obviously went to those that could afford them. Again, I ask myself
exactly ‘when were the good old days?’
On the weekends folks took to anything that had water
in it, the river, the creeks and some free bathing facilities in our parks. The
result of that was that more people drowned than usual that summer of 1931.
Mayor Arends told the press that he wanted to rid the
city of the “bums and no-damn
gooders.” As a result the police, in
force, raced through the ‘despicable places,’ in town and rounded them up.
Everyone they got their hands on ended up in jail and with very little ado,
over thirty of them were carted off to Vandalia for a sixth month term. Today we talk a lot about the loss of our
civil rights, well, I can tell you back in the good old days, it was routine
for those people to be ‘rousted’ and forced into jails or given a ‘blow card,’
which meant leave town or else.
Robbers force the owner of the Empire Cigar Store back
to his office and robbed him of $400.00.
Cynical people in Peoria wondered why he didn’t tell his insurance
company they took a ‘couple of grand.’
See how some of us really were back in those olden days? There was
another ‘gangster bombing’ as the press called them, this time over at the
Windsor. As I mentioned those minor ‘bangs in the night,’ were just noisy, no
injuries, maybe a window cracked.
Believe me, if one of those bombers wanted to kill or inflict some
property damage they certainly knew how to do it. All this was just ‘bang and bluster,’ to tell
someone in the gambling business that they ‘were being watched,’ according to a
reporter’s ‘source.’
The bombings, as minor as they were, brought attention
to the ‘deplorable gambling conditions in Peoria.’ That meant the do-gooders were calling and
meeting with the mayor. The mayor, a
politician, of course in front of the excited newspaper reporters ‘banned all
gambling’ in the city of Peoria. Now
victories like that always made the do-gooders feel good and politically
powerful. What the gamblers and their
customers did was just go under ground for a week or so and of course they were
back in full force rather quickly. That
was the history of Peoria, Illinois. Why in the hell should it have changed in
the 1930’s?
DEPRESSING…AIN’T IT?
It was 1932 in Peoria, Illinois and the rumor here was
that Franklin D. Roosevelt will not only save America, he will see to it that
the 18th. Amendment to the Constitution is appealed. With the depression going full-blast and
Prohibition still in force most folks during interviews told reporters, “It’s
damn depressing ain’t it? And...of
course it was. It was not a matter of ‘getting ahead,’ it was more of just
plain trying to survive than anything else, and here in Peoria it was a little
bit better than most small towns in the United States.
Hey…it’s 1932 and Peorians were looking forward to a
new President and the future. FDR did a lot of early work with America’s banks
and all kinds of schemes to get America back to work. Anyway, you know all that history so let’s
get back to Peoria, Illinois. Here
anyone that could afford a radio or had a friend allowed them selves to get
lost in the magic of the radio shows and the music. From “George and Gracie” to
“Fred Allen” and “Fibber and Mollie”, Peorians laughed and forgot their
troubles for a few minutes. The music
was on the lips of folks around here, tunes like “Night and Day,” and a tune
that brought tears to the eyes of dancers, “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You.”
Folks were singing about “Shuffling Off To Baltimore
“Tiger Rag” was still popular and now the dancers were
going crazy dancing to “Forty Second Street,” and singing along with “You’re an
Old Smoothie.”
The next craze was
the “Big Apple,” and something called “Boogie Woogie” swept over the
local dancers. Smokers lit their fags
with a new lighter called Zippo and shared a new candy bar called Mounds. Life
was good for those that had a couple of dimes to rub together.
I mentioned that everyone in Peoria was not broke in
fact many were doing better now than they ever were. People somehow had to eat
and the folks that had to have a shot of booze somehow managed to get the job
done. The factories were still working and there was a market in Europe for the
product. People that had the big bucks lived like kings, after all the prices
were low and money talked. Peoria was a slightly better place to ‘sit out the
depression,” and most of them felt that they would survive.
The ‘bomb scares’ were still around, only the bombers
seemed to be ‘connected somehow with the local union problems.’ That’s what the
sheriff told the press. Three bombs were placed in front of plumbing shops, but
like always no one was injured and the damage was slight.
Peoria, as always had a way of lifting its people up a
bit. A huge parade was held in downtown Peoria, parades, bands, food and folks
had a hell of a time. The estimates were that over 60,000 people went downtown
for the festivities. Over 3,000 marched
in the parade and folks went back home a bit happier than before. Now remember
that was during the Great Depression and Prohibition, so it took some guts to
put that party on, don’t you think?
Crime was still a major problem in Peoria and the
newspapers were busy reporting it. Assaults were up and of course the robberies
as well. The ‘pickin’s were slim’ according to a man the police picked up. Naturally, the average man in the street was
not carrying any real money, so the attacks had to be repeated just to
accumulate a little cash for the crook.
In 1932 even murder seemed to be on the slight upswing, which probably
reflected the desperation and frustration of some people. The newspapers reported that today marked the
thirteenth anniversary of the ‘Noble Experiment.’ Local folks were asked to comment on that
event. The WETS deplored it as usual,
but the DRYS essentially told the reporters “Prohibition was the best thing
that ever happened to America.”
“The Chosen Few” is what Peorians called the men the
mayor hired with an extra $100.00 in the budget for each of them. These men were to help law enforcement ‘curb
the crime in Peoria.’ Peorians tell the
press that all they will do is “get killed or kill somebody.” Of course some
people agree, the crime in Peoria is very upsetting to the good folks, and they
wanted it stopped. State Tax passed
today and people gripe to high heaven.
Some people in town just laugh at the tax. “I ain’t had a decent job in three years,”
one man said, “I don’t have to worry about any tax.” The Joyce-Loflan warehouse
was tunneled into and thieves made off with $10,000.00 worth of cigarettes.
Some local folks don’t believe it but some said “if it was true they would expect
to buy some fags pretty cheaply around town.”
CALLING DOCTOR
PARKER
A lot of headlines and stories were written about the
disappearance of
Doctor James W. Parker, a respected dentist from Peoria,
Illinois
DR. PARKER IS
HOME SAFE
In May of 1932 the trial began here in Peoria against
the twelve people the authorities had arrested in the Parker kidnapping. Sorry,
all you gangster fans, but most of those defendants were members of an ordinary
family or friends that lived in East Peoria, Illinois. No machine guns, bombs, threats or gang
activities, just local folks that thought they could make some easy money.
All twelve of the defendants, except one was found
guilty and given varied sentences up to forty-five years. It was a desperate
time and many decent, honest folks took desperate measures to survive. This family and those connected with the
kidnapping thought that this was a chance they could not pass up. ‘Fools rush
in,’ as they used to say.
All folks in Peoria
ANOTHER PEORIAN
Mrs. Lydia Bradley gave so much to Peoria, Illinois
and every golfer should be thankful to her as well. She handed over to Peoria, among othere things
the 160 acres of Bradley Golf Course.
She had previously granted Bradley Park to Peoria and then in 1932 the
golf course was opened. It soon became Milton Newman Golf Course, named after a
banker and park district member that had devoted his adult life to making sure
we had beautiful parks for our families.
I am always guilty of thinking ‘what if?’ I wonder if we would ever had a Bradley Park
and a Bradley Golf Course and even a Bradley
University
There were very efficient soup kitchens and missions
in Peoria that took care of many, many Peorians during the depression,
including the Sisters over at Saint Francis.
Enough flour was handed out in Peoria in one week to make 20,000 loves
of bread and in some cases it was a life-saving gift. 1932 is coming to the end
of its time and Peoria, Illinois and its inhabitants were looking forward to
1933. Folks living here knew in their
hearts that F.D.R. was what this country needed and they felt that he was the
only man that could save them. They were
certain that he would end Prohibition, get jobs for Americans and straighten
out the banks and the country as well.
It turns out that they were right, and from what I know about our
history, New Years Eve in Peoria, Illinois, which welcomed in 1933, was the
wildest end of the year recorded in our history. As I said before, booze was easy to come by
and believe me plenty of it was consumed and the folks in town “Had one hell of
a party.”
1933: MY
STORY ENDS
CEDAR STREET BRIDGE OPENS! That was THE news in Peoria that cold January
6, 1933 as most of Peoria headed downtown for the ‘official opening.’ This long
awaited bridge which took five long years to construct, and spanned three
mayoral administrations was finally open for business. A huge crowd shivered in the cold listening
to the political speeches in which Mayor Ahrends said, “This is the happiest
day of my life.” The crowd fell in behind the police escort and walked across
the bridge in high spirits. It spanned
2,131 feet across the Illinois River to East Peoria…and of course the
Caterpillar plants. I was surprised to hear that only one worker was killed
during the construction of that bridge.
Folks were dancing to “Blue Moon” and were nuts about
Al Jolson, and
loved listening to the Bradley games on WMBD, all six
of them by game announcer Clayton Tate. Charles L. O’Brien was Peoria’s mayor
and he beat out Triebel and Lyman for the job. It had been a long time since a
Peorian had a really good beer and they were happy to hear that Pabst was staying
right here in Peoria and had plans to expand.
Folks were certain that the rumor about ending Prohibition was real, and
excitement ran rampant here in town. An article in the local papers mentioned
that somebody named Hitler had become dictator ‘or something like that’ in
Germany. Peorians had a ‘so what?” attitude.
When was Prohibition going to end.
Now that was a question for Peorians to ponder.
LEGAL BEER GOES ON SALE AT 12:01
Now there was a headline that Peorians had been
dreaming about for all those many years.
The WETS had finally won…the DRYS stated that they “Had tried to save
America.” As I mentioned to the bitter end and many years after the DRYS had
felt that Prohibition was an enormous success.
Thousands of men and boys and a few women began
gathering in all of the Soft Drink Parlors downtown waiting for the ‘zero
hour.’ One minute after midnight, April 6, 1933, the first legal beer would be
sold to thirsty Peorians.
The problem was that the meager supply ran out rather
quickly but remember, there was always whiskey and many men stayed up the
entire night. By 6:30 the next morning an even larger crowd was downtown
waiting for the trucks and trains to bring in ‘some real beer.’ Beer
distributors could not keep up with the demands as trucks roared around town
delivering the warm beer to their customers.
It was a frantic scene as the beer was sold right off
the trucks, busses, trains and wagons for $2.50 to $2.75 plus a deposit of one
dollar for the bottles.
All during that time the parlors…now called taverns or
saloons were supplied all over town with beer.
The patrons guzzled the warm beer while they straddled the case of beer
between their feet. One disgusted onlooker told a reporter, “You know, maybe
the DRYS were right after all.” Out at
the airport rumor was that a large airplane was bringing in beer so hundreds
raced out to meet it. At 9:17 a huge Pan American plane landed loaded with
beer. The mob cheered and helped remove
the cargo.
Once the suds cleared drinkers learned that what they
had been drinking and getting ‘drunk’ on was nothing but 2.75 beer. Later they bought 3.2 beer and that too was
far from satisfying, but for the moment any beer would do, since it represented
freedom to buy alcohol. That of course meant
jobs, jobs and more jobs for all the folks that worked in that industry. There was an immediate impact here in Peoria
and it was just getting started.
FDR came through for the
people that hoped he would. The vast
numbers of projects like the WPA and the CCC created jobs and almost over night
the People in Peoria had a feeling of promise, and all over the city there were
sights and sounds that indicated things were on the mend. Hard-working Peorians
slowly got back to work, and 1933 began a dream come true for our relatives and
fellow Peorians. Hiram Walkers announced that they were going to build the
largest distillery in the world right here in good old Peoria, Illinois
Peoria, Illinois was
back…and even legitimate. What a
concept.
The distilleries were next
to show some real life, and the first one to crank out alcohol was the United
States Industrial Plant. Soon, as Hiram Walker was being built the booze
business worked to get back to normal. All the whiskey the government seized
when Prohibition became the law would begin the process of going back to the
distillery owners and the good news was the drug companies were now ‘out of the
booze business.’ Just think, overnight the bootleggers, the crooks, the thieves
and the gangsters were put out of work simply because folks could buy a drink
without violating the law of the land.
FDR closed the banks and folks
were scared about that. As usual Peorians were convinced that he knew what he
was doing. The ‘new women’ in town were
called ‘The Gold Diggers,’ and they were exciting for the local men. They wore a small waist and wide shoulders
and skirts that flared. The ladies had a certain ‘cockiness’ to them, had money
to spend and pretty much scared the hell out of some of the men in town.
Across America just over
fifteen million folks were still out of work, but they were doing well here in
town. Machine gun Kelly was in the news
and Esquire magazine was hitting the stands in Peoria, Illinois. Peorians were drinking something called SANKA
and ‘for digestive reasons’ Peorians smoked CAMELS. Bob Hope was big on radio and
the newest hits were “Blow Gabriel Blow,” and “I Only Have Eyes For You.” Shirley was singing “Good Ship Lollipop,” and
in between fire damage repair at the Ing, folks were dancing to “What A
Difference A Day Makes.”
On November 13, 1933
Peorians poured over the newspapers for more information on the shootout in the
south end that killed one of Peoria’s greatest detectives, Bob Moran. I think
is safe to leave Peoria, Illinois right here in 1933 with so much hope and ‘an
eye on the future.’
I still feel after all this
research that it was Prohibition that virtually destroyed America and of course
Peoria, Illinois. The damn do-gooders,
the temperance groups and the stupid government officials, owned by the
temperance people, damned near got the job done. I certainly feel that the
repeal of the 18th. Amendment triggered the economy like no other
event in our history. If Peoria was typical of the rest of America then that is
proof in my opinion.
Anytime one element of our
society can dictate the morals and activity of the rest of us…then we are in
trouble. Contrast today with the history
you have just read and make up your own mind.
Throughout it all Peoria stood tall, sometimes head and shoulders above
other parts of America as it struggled to survive. Peoria, Illinois…my hometown, one damn good
place to have grown up in…believe me.
NORMAN KELLY IS A
LOCAL AUTHOR AND HISTORIAN, LIFE LONG PEORIAN.
HIS BOOKS ARE ONLY AVAILABLE IN THE LOCAL LIBRARY.
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