RUM WAR The U.S. Coast Guard and Prohibition BY CRAIG COLLINS
American coasts, particularly off the Eastern Seaboard. A pioneer bootlegger in these early days was the yachtbuilder Bill McCoy, who helped establish the practice of taking cargo onto schooners at ports in either Nassau, Bahamas, or Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, the French islands off the coast of Newfoundland, and then anchoring in international waters to operate a floating liquor store that sold to smaller, faster launches known as “contact boats.” A regular line of rum ships gathered in perpetuity off the shores of metropolitan New York, known as “Rum Row,” with several other areas – including the Virginia
The rum-runner Linwood afire. With capture and arrest imminent, the fire was set by the crew of bootleggers trying to destroy the evidence and sink the ship.
U.S. COAST GUARD PHOTO
On Jan. 17, 1920, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, banning the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcoholic beverages, became enforceable by law, launching the strange 13-year hiccup in American history known as Prohibition. The Volstead Act, the law that operationalized Prohibition, assigned enforcement authority to the Treasury Department – specifically to its new Prohibition Bureau. Anticipating that a few smugglers would try to bring illegal alcohol into the country by sea, the new bureau established a marine division with a small fleet of intercepting boats. Given the severe penalties imposed by the law, the bureau expected few violations. The bureau was mistaken. Smuggling alcohol immediately proved profitable, and prevalent, along
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Coast Guard OUTLOOK
