The Capitol Dome

Winter 2015-16

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17 Following a Capitol Police chase, bootleggers crash their car near the Capitol. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS & PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION of gin. At the appointed time, Cassiday appeared, and Prohibi- tion agents closed in for the arrest. While the bootlegger carried no alcohol (the liquor was stored in another man's car), he did hold a "little black book" containing the names of "senators, con- gressmen and their secretaries"—all customers of the Man in the Green Hat. 37 Two hours aer Cassiday's arrest, agents surrounded another Senate bootlegger, William David Goldberg, as he stepped from his car. Startled, the man dropped a package, breaking six bottles of gin. e police held both bootleggers for transporting illegal liquor, while Cassiday protested that he was "framed." 38 Later that day, Senator Burton Wheeler, a "wet" Democrat from Montana, used the bootleggers' arrests to publicize a resolu- tion he had recently sponsored, authorizing the Senate Judiciary Committee to "investigate the activities of the Bureau of Prohi- bition in the Department of the Treasury and all matters in any wise pertaining to the enforcement of the prohibition laws of the United States." Wheeler argued that, aer ten years of Prohibi- tion, there had been "a complete breaking down of law enforce- ment in this country." 39 Other members maintained the opposite: the two sting operations demonstrated that Prohibition was being enforced. Pro-temperance senators and representatives reveled in Cassiday's conviction in April 1931, resulting in an eighteen-month jail sentence, which, they believed, would finally end his bootleg- ging career. ey were disappointed, though, that the Prohibi- tion Bureau never released Cassiday's customer list, which Com- missioner Doran himself acknowledged included "'an extensive' compilation of members of Congress." According to Butts, the original black book was returned to the Man in the Green Hat and later the book and any copies made were destroyed. Cassiday himself soon faded from history. According to his son Fred, the elder Cassiday never spent a night in jail, but would check out each evening and return home. Aer serving his last jail sentence, he worked at a shoe factory and in Washington hotels before his death in 1967 at the age of 74. 40 *** Although the Judiciary Committee never acted on Wheeler's resolution, the senator and his "wet" colleagues considered Cassiday's Capitol exploits proof positive that Prohibition simply could not be enforced; it was a "farce." at sentiment may have influenced the pro-repeal movement that accelerated following the Democrats' congressional victories in 1930 and Franklin Roosevelt's presidential inauguration in 1933. Enforce- ment measures were inadequate and expensive, while legalized drinking promised much-needed additional tax revenue during

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