Mooney
I’ve heard of home occupations, but a discovery made by police at a house in Plymouth many years ago was almost beyond description.
In mid-October 1926, a century ago this month, police raiders enforcing the federal prohibition law reported finding the following: 3,000 gallons of wine, 400 gallons of beer, 20 gallons of assorted booze, plus a quantity of home-brewing equipment.
In the 1920s here in Wyoming Valley, though, that was nowhere near as wild and crazy as it would seem today.
That, my friends, is because we modern local folk live not in the old “Roaring Twenties” but, by comparison, in the modern “Boring Twenties.”
Where could you even store 3,000 gallons of wine in a local home today?
My mother, who was a teenager and high school student in that era, told me about the bootlegger who stopped by their Wilkes-Barre home each year to drop off her dad’s liquor order for the holiday season. She said he came from up north, probably Canada.
Looks like our local producers, though, were taking a back seat to no one in meeting the Valley public’s need for something illegal to slake its thirst as the year moved into its final months and the stores began trotting out their Christmas merchandise.
What provokes this memory of booze raids past?
I just read in the Times Leader the other day about the state politely warning owners of certain gaming machines to follow the law.
Really, now. Authorities issue a mild chastisement instead of coming barreling through the front doors in a truck, flashing badges and waving guns while shouting “federal agents,” like the Elliot Ness character in “The Untouchables”?
Well, there were other big stories going on a century ago this month. We have some interesting regional political issues going on, but is there anything today as heated as a 1926 proposal to end the independence of four local communities?
In November of that year, voters of Kingston, Plains Township and the boroughs of Parsons and Miners Mills went to the polls to decide if they wanted to become part of the city of Wilkes-Barre.
The issue was called “consolidation,” and when the polls closed and the dust settled in November, Parsons and Miners Mills had agreed to join Wilkes-Barre, but Kingston and Plains Township opted to remain independent.
For months, the issue was so heated that it pitted relative against relative and neighbor against neighbor. Discussion about data centers today is polite and reasoned, compared with the horror stories about waking up one morning and finding yourself in a whole new town.
Of course there were more issues all through that exciting era – issues that we just don’t have today.
One of them was Sunday baseball. When amateur teams went out to a local diamond on a nice sabbath day for a fun nine innings, they ran the risk of being raided, shut down and even cited.
Why? Well, they had violated the state’s “blue laws,” which strictly limited sabbath worldly activities like throwing a pitch and stealing a base. Today, watching a Sunday game involves more groaning over a strikeout or the price of hot dogs for the family than looking over your shoulder in fear of the law.
Bottom line: Are we of the Boring Twenties better or worse off than our Roaring Twenties predecessors?
I guess the final word is that it all depends on what you value most. And, you know, even Elliot Ness might drink to that.
Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history writer. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.
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Tom Mooney is a Times Leader history writer. Reach him at tommooney42@gmail.com.