208 a short history of the united states
voted for Prohibition, the law was ignored. Congressmen even had
their own bootlegger, a man by the name of George L. Cassiday, who
operated out of the House Office Building on Inde pendence Avenue.
When Prohibition “first came in,” declared Alice Roo sevelt
Longworth—the daughter of Theodore Roo sevelt and the wife of the
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nicholas Longworth—“we
grumbled, shrugged our shoulders, decided to use the stock we had,
and when that was gone turn our attention to wine making and distill-
ing in the home, thinking that undoubtedly supplies would trickle in
from one source or another. I don’t think that we foresaw in the slight-
est degree the great bootlegging industry that was to develop, the com-
plete and organized violation of law and order.”
Because of the number of customers and the profits involved in the
illegal transportation of liquor from foreign countries, such as Canada,
criminals were drawn to the operation. Or ganized crime became ram-
pant. The Mafi a, an offshoot of a Sicilian criminal organization, con-
trolled not only bootlegging but gambling and prostitution in the major
cities.
Many ordinary citizens frequented “speakeasies,” where they could
purchase illegal liquor. In these dark, crowded places young women,
called flappers, could be seen dancing the Charleston or listening to
jazz and the blues. Jazz began among black musicians in New Orleans
but quickly spread north and reached Chicago just before World War I.
Fundamentally African in its rhythms and tradition, jazz drew from
black ragtime, but also included French, Spanish, and English ele-
ments. In the 1920 s it circled the globe and attracted the attention of
serious composers. A number of pop ular musicians, such as Cole Por-
ter, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and George Gershwin, provided songs
that became classics and were sung worldwide. These songs marked
the beginning of an American musical tradition that was innovative
and unique and extremely pop ular.
In this jazz age flappers wore short dresses, cut their hair short, and
smoked cigarettes. Having lost husbands, brothers, and boyfriends in
the war, and parents in the influenza epidemic of 1919 – 1920 , they ex-
hibited a carefree wildness and inde pendence that represented an en-
tirely new version of the American woman. They had the vote and a
sense of freedom that encouraged a boldness never expressed before.