\n<\/p>\n
A 1915 advert for Cascade Whisky from the Rock Island Argus.<\/em><\/p>\n Nashville<\/strong><\/p>\n From the 1890s through the tumultuous years leading to Prohibition, the city of Nashville was very much like the wild west\u2014a bustling, exciting, changing, and dangerous place. Political debates and rallies were frequently held in the downtown streets with hordes in attendance. Legal fun may have been hard to find in pre-Music City Nashville. Gunfire was frequent. In 1908, a senator and editor of the Nashville Tennessean<\/em>, Edward Carmack, was shot and killed on Union Avenue after he attempted to shoot a one-time friend and editor of the Nashville American<\/em>, Duncan Cooper. Their dispute related to prohibition.<\/p>\n From 1890 through 1920, Tennessee was a political war zone between the Wets and the Drys, the anti-prohibitionists and the prohibitionists, with entrepreneur and owner of the George Dickel whisky company, V. E. \u201cManny\u201d \u00a0Shwab, as the chief strategist and field general for the Wets. Shwab owned the state\u2019s most valuable distillery producing the \u201cfamous\u201d Cascade Whisky, \u201cMellow as Moonlight\u201d\u2013at the time, a far more popular and well-known whiskey than Jack Daniel\u2019s. The wet and dry battle blew Tennessee politics apart to the point that the Republican and Democrat parties split in half and reformed along prohibition position lines. The anti-liquor proponents were\u00a0 known as \u201cFusionists\u201d. <\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Cascade Hollow Seizure<\/strong><\/p>\n Senator Carmack\u2019s shooting provided the Drys the martyr they needed. In 1909, shortly\u00a0 after the shooting, Tennessee passed\u00a0 Bill #11 banning the\u00a0 manufacture of alcohol. Malcolm Patterson, Tennessee governor and Shwab ally, vetoed the bill, but the legislature overrode his veto. Five days later, in what was the largest federal seizure of any kind, Shwab\u2019s Cascade Hollow Distillery was shut down. Nine thousand barrels of Cascade whisky were seized along with the distillery\u2019s six buildings and 600 acres. The whiskey alone was values at over $30 million in today\u2019s dollars.<\/p>\n Newspapers were unabashedly biased, giving wildly differing \u201cfactual\u201d accounts of events. According to reports, Shwab was either \u201cthe debaucherer of more young men than any other man in Tennessee\u201d because of his whiskey company and many saloons, or a \u201cone man Tammany Hall\u201d, or \u201cNashville\u2019s richest citizen\u201d and a philanthropic, consensus building visionary, dragging Tennessee into the 20th century while elevating Tennessee whiskey to a stellar reputation. Newspapers throughout the country and Canada covered the seizure with headlines such as: \u201cBig Still Taken by U.S.\u201d, Chicago Tribune<\/em>;\u00a0 \u201cRaid on Whiskey\u201d, Vicksburg, Mississippi; \u201cThe Cascade distillery is the most valuable property of the kind in the state\u201d, Nashville Banner<\/em>; \u201cChattanoogans Think it Was Prompted by Politics\u201d, Chattanooga. To emphasize the importance of the distillery to the state, the Nashville American<\/em> stated that from 1905-1908, Manny\u2019s Dickel company that distributed Cascade paid one fourth of the taxes paid by all distilleries in middle and west Tennessee combined, including Jack Daniel\u2019s.<\/p>\n Tennessee Prohibition was not to go into effect until January of the next year, 1910. The alleged violation was tax evasion due to the common practice known as \u201cequalization of wantage\u201d. During the process of aging whiskey in wooden barrels, evaporation occurs. The government required payment of tax on a minimum of\u00a0 40 gallons per each 50 gallon barrel, even if there were only 35 gallons remaining after evaporation. To avoid paying tax on non-existent whiskey, distillers would take whiskey from barrels holding more than 40 gallons and add it to barrels containing less. The seizure occurred on Thursday, April 1. Through Manny\u2019s connection with the U.S. Attorney General and some powerful Tennessee allies, the distillery was back in Shwab\u2019s hands the following Monday after posting a bond of $275,000 ($8.4 million today).<\/p>\n Bill #11 did not stop the fight. In 1911, thirty four Republican legislators retreated to Decatur Alabama to deny a quorum to vote on legislation\u2014referred to by them as \u201cthe liquor election bill\u201d\u2014that would lead to the reversal of Tennessee\u2019s prohibition on distilling. Shwab had assured the bill\u2019s successful passage allegedly by bribing six Republicans. The April 12, 1911 Nashville Banner<\/em> headline exclaimed \u201cHigh-Handed Corruption Alleged in Election Bill Fight\u2026Member or Members Have Been Fixed\u2014Money Furnished by Well Known Liquor Dealer.\u201d The allegation was that the Shwabs had furnished over $20,000 ($660,000 today) to \u201cfix\u201d votes. With the legislative process ground to a halt, the April 14, 1911 Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/em>\u00a0 opined that \u201cthe whole public machinery of the state would be clogged so long as the present situation exists.\u201d<\/p>\n And the \u201cpresent situation\u201d persisted. The May 4th\u00a0 Tennessean<\/em> deemed Prohibitionist legislators who were supporting the bill, \u201carrant hypocrite and\u2026 mutton-headed ignoramuses\u201d who have \u201c\u2026an inherited affliction which cannot be cured and for which [they] should be pitied, and not censured.\u201d So much for objective journalism. By June 26, the three-month stand-off must have finally subsided as the legislature had a quorum to pass resolution #57 calling for an investigation into the slush-fund allegations as well as new allegations against several legislators. In July, Governor Ben Hooper vetoed the joint resolution. The fight persisted.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Boss Crump and Liquor by the Drink<\/strong><\/p>\n In October 1913, Governor Hooper called a special and highly contentious legislative session of both houses. The issues were the shipping of liquor into Tennessee from other states and the \u201cNuisance Bill\u201d. The bill would \u201cdeclare a saloon, gambling den, bawdy house, or any other business the conduct of which is a violation of the law, a\u00a0 public nuisance.\u201d Similar to modern day anti-abortion bills considered by some states, any five qualified voters could shut a business down in an effort to get around public officials who were seen as ignoring the activity. For example, Shwab was consistently accused of using his influence to avoid raids \u00a0on his saloons as well as influencing legislation and dictating nominees for office.<\/p>\n Thirty-nine year old mayor of Memphis, E.H. \u201cBoss\u201d Crump, went to Nashville to fight and alter the legislation and to secure Manny\u2019s support. Crump would be a major figure in Tennessee politics for the next twenty years, very much following in Shwab\u2019s footsteps. He wanted to manipulate the language of the law so eleven of his wards could sell liquor by the drink. Manny was all for it, as it would allow liquor to be sold in the major cities. Papers referred to the issue as a \u201cbattle royal\u201d. According to the Knoxville Journal:<\/em><\/p>\n Backing up mayor Crump and his henchmen was V. E. Shwab the wealthiest whiskey man in Tennessee the owner of Cascade, and the Gibraltar of the whiskey interests in Tennessee.\u2026He was seen to talk with various members of the house and senate on the floor of the Maxwell (hotel) lobby this morning\u2026Some little excitement went the round in whispers this morning when it got started that the whiskey interests are threatening the weak-kneed fellows. <\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Indicative of the atmosphere in Nashville, the Bristol Courier<\/em> declared \u201cThe Tennessee Legislature has been in session and nobody has been killed, not even Boss Crump\u201d. The lobbyists were accused of \u201cthreatening dire consequences to those who have accepted courtesies from them.\u201d But the Crump and Shwab forces were unsuccessful. On October 14, 1913, the Tennessean<\/em> exuberantly announced \u201cJohn Barleycorn Knocked Out in Second Round\u201d, declaring \u201cNashville Arid\u201d. Shwab moved operations to Louisville to continue distilling and selling his renowned Cascade internationally until federal prohibition in 1920.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Clay Shwab\u2019s book, Manny Shwab and the George Dickel Company, is available here: <\/em>Amazon US<\/em><\/span><\/a> | <\/em>Amazon UK<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A 1915 advert for Cascade Whisky from the Rock Island Argus. Nashville From the 1890s through the tumultuous years leading to Prohibition, the city of Nashville was very much like the wild west\u2014a bustling, exciting, changing, and dangerous place. Political debates and rallies were frequently held in the downtown streets with hordes in attendance. Legal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[3767,1752,3734,2083,6247,13348,26984,12976,3739],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-102174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-history","tag-blog","tag-books","tag-history","tag-magazine","tag-podcasts","tag-political","tag-prohibition","tag-tennessee","tag-war"],"yoast_head":"\n