Systematized Hypocrisy

In Tulsa last week tinsel decorations stretched across the main streets, and in Oklahoma City shoppers shivered against the cold. Outside the cities and towns, over stick-straight highways and the winding side roads, fast automobiles and trucks sped on late-night runs from close-to-the-border cities in Missouri and Texas. Artfully dodging police prowl cars, they slipped into Tulsa and Oklahoma City bringing bootlegged Scotch at $7 a fifth, vodka at $5.50 and gin at $5. Admiring the tinsel, feeling the cold, buying the whisky (in gift decanters), Oklahomans knew that the Christmas season was in full swing.

Last (with Mississippi) of the dry states, Oklahoma is a stronghold of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and the United Drys. The state was dry when it entered the union in 1907, and has remained militantly dry since; six repeal referendums have been defeated (as much through the bootleggers' efforts as the W.C.T.U.'s). Today there are no open saloons, but a $100 million-a-year bootleg business will supply 400 varieties of liquor at reasonable prices to anyone who wants them. On the other hand, the state loses $15 million each year-in tax revenues, industries refuse to locate in Oklahoma because they think employees will be discontented, and small wars are erupting between bootleggers, e.g., three Oklahoma City boots were arrested last week, charged with a badly botched conspiracy to kill four competitors. Surveying the situation, Tulsa Tribune Editor Jenkin Lloyd Jones concluded: "What we have is a system of gigantic hypocrisy."

The Pint Pitcher. Feeding on the hypocrisy are the bootleggers, who buy federal retail liquor tax stamps (420 of them this year) to keep in federal good graces, but who openly defy the state. The bootleggers buy whisky wholesale in such outlets as Joplin, Mo. or Dallas, have the cases broken down into "lugs" (packages) of three fifths or six pints each for easier handling, load the lugs into stock cars with heavy-duty rear springs (so the cops cannot detect any telltale sag). They use whatever they believe is the fastest new car available (Oldsmobiles this year in preference to their longtime favorite, Mercurys), or fit used cars with Cadillac engines. Some still prefer the old technique of concealing a hundred or more cases under the hay of a cattle truck.

An average bootlegger makes three trips a week to his out-of-state wholesaler, brings back the lugs to an isolated barn or a garage. From this cache lugs are divided among "pint pitchers," young drivers who distribute the liquor to service stations or barbershops that function as "package stores." More and more, pint pitchers are delivering directly to the consumer; advertising flyers stuck on automobiles or mailed to homes provide the telephone numbers to call, promise 15-minute delivery.

Act Refined. Working against strong competition, the bootlegger keeps his customers happy by offering speedy delivery, discounts, occasional gifts to steady customers, and a flow of such promotional material as cocktail-recipe booklets. In return, he may clear $130,000 a year. His pint pitchers may make as much as $100 a week, must follow rigid rules: e.g., act refined when you enter good homes, drive carefully to avoid a traffic ticket and possible search, surrender peaceably if you're stopped.

In such an atmosphere, the policeman's lot is an unhappy one. If he stops a recognized pint pitcher without cause and finds whisky, the case can be tossed out of court for lack of a search warrant. But if he goes after a warrant, the pint pitcher disappears. As fast as he raids and closes one package store, another opens. Police liquor details are inadequate; Tulsa attempts to stem a 30,000-case-per-month consumption with a three-man detail. As it was during national Prohibition, Oklahoma public opinion is more with the bootlegger than with the police.

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