PROHIBITION: Prosit!

• Share

(2 of 3)

Still anxious lest they offend their Dry enemies, the New York brewers, through Col. Jacob Ruppert, had announced that the new brew would not be delivered until 6 a. m. on historic April 7 so that there would be no "carnival of untoward celebration." Next day at lunch time, New Yorkers thronged forth to try their beer. First problem was to find it. Most hotels and clubs were serving but elsewhere distribution was capricious. Some soft drink stands and cafeterias had it, some did not. Householders found 3.2% beer at most chain groceries, but late the first day most stocks were sold out.* On one point the entire populace seemed agreed: a bottle of 3.2% beer was about as stimulating as a box of chocolate cigars.

No arrests for drunkenness (except a few "smoke" victims) were recorded in New York City during the first 24 hours of legalized beer, a near-record.

Chicago, heedless to Col. Ruppert's national plea, got its beer cold and at the zero hour. While sirens, pistols and cowbells sounded, State Street establishments dispensed to rows four deep. Louis Schneider, winner of the Indianapolis Memorial Day auto race in 1931, piloted a beer truck bound out of town. The Illinois Legislature having failed to agree on a beer dispensary bill, Acting Mayor Frank Corr announced that no city licenses would be levied, that Chicago would be on "beer probation."

St. Louis sat up late to get the first taste of its famed foam. Citizens waited in their cars outside the Busch and Falstaff breweries, only ones operating, for the first issue of 3.2%. The Busch brewery had a brass band ready to play at midnight. When midnight came, steam whistles and sirens drowned the Busch music. By afternoon, the St. Louis beer supply was woefully low.

Milwaukee, the city that Schlitz made famous, welcomed beer back with special editions of its newspapers. Here again the State had provided no regulatory legislation. Milwaukee licensed 4,207 "taverns"; the thirsty stormed Juneau Avenue breweries at midnight. At the Miller Brewery, beer was passed out free to thirsters who brought milk bottles, tomato cans. Wisconsin Avenue was jammed with celebrants, some of whom stood on the tops of their cars singing "Sweet Adeline." Pabst had its product, screamingly escorted by police sirens, at downtown hotels eight minutes after legalization.

Vermonters in Burlington had the chance of drinking their first beer, which does not become legal in the State until May 1, on ferry boats in Lake Champlain, whose waters are under Federal jurisdiction.

In Baltimore, whose State Government had just passed local option laws, Henry Louis Mencken, famed for his beering, quaffed a glass before anxious spectators in the Rennert Hotel bar. "Pretty good." he pronounced. "Not bad at all. Fill it again."

At Louisville, Ky., the Louisville & Nashville Railroad was enjoined in a test suit to see whether it was legal to ship beer through the State, which was still bone-Dry.