Poge Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY Saturday, June 7; 1975 Page Six THE MICHIGAN DAILY Saturday, June 7, 1975 By BILL HEENAN Hugging a dock on the Canadian aide, a wind-whipped figure scans the Detroit ..- River. Two flashes from Belle Tale indi- cate the coast is clear. Leaping into a canvass-covered Car Wood pwer boat, he opens the throttle wide, and the ves- sel lunges toward Detroit's gaudy blue whiteness, where eager hands await its illicit cargo of choice Canadian gin. Minutes after docking, the boats will be hurtling down bribe-protected highways to local s well no notional destinations. The setting was Prohibition-era De- troit and western L.ake Erie, 1920-1933. gun-waln ewith liqur, ipped across the 102 mle lake and river border separat- ing th Ud S and Canada, inm dineof or Volstead Ac', wehich prohibited the constimption of heverages containing more lb.an .5 per cent alcohol. Due to its proximity to Canadian breweries, Motown was easily America's wettest city, with saturalian speakeas- ins, boisterous blind pigs, hootchy koot- chy girlo and gangsters galore. Accord- - ~ / ~ ~ - ing to Nation umagazine, Detroit hand- led Si per cent of the U. S. illegal Ii- qitor trade in 1928. Placid doworiver fishing com'n'nities such as Detray, Lin- coln Park, Wyandotte, and Trenton be-- came gambling hans overnight. Water- front caharets ,rid the latest, moot ex- pensive tonring -a'tomobiles graced their streets. The hulk of the booze was transported by fast speedboats which boldly dis- patched their goods within sight of U.S. urns Custom s H ead..::rt:r .r.r . " ... .:.r ' " :'{ .... .s.: . :v:"[ }}x:}}:' .r"v- - .xx' Custms Hadqurter. - May 28, 1929: Rumronner on Canadian side of Detroit no agents are in sight. Ken Dahlka, 65, presently superinten- River waits for lookout on American side to signal that Rumrunners: Prohibition 's bad boys dent of Detroit Boat Basin, was a rum- runner at the tender age of 14. Pooling his pennies, he bought five cases of Canadian whiskey and towed it by sled from Amherstburg, Canada, to Newport across frozen Lake Erie. Dahlka gradu- ated to captaincy of a 90-foot commer- cial craft and a smaller 30-foot Dart, which smuggled liquor from Amherst- berg, Rondeau and Kingsville, Canada to Toledo, Sandusky and Cleveland. For six weekly crossings he was paid $400. "Rumrunning was a young man's Dart, typical of the upholstered, well- varnished cruisers, had raised decks which enclosed the cockpit, a cargo hold and seating areas which were covered with canvas to conceal the liquid cargo. When the going got rough, the rum- mies went underwater. Throughout Pro- hibition, rumors of pipelines were regu- larly circulated and occasionally con- firmed. On September 14, 1929, customs offic- ials discovered an underwater tramway leading from Mud Island to Ecorse. A The SaturdYa y Magazine honor: "Names didn't mean much in those days. If someone didn't know your name, he couldn't tell on you," explains Dahlka. "If you were a good boater, everyone sought you, and you got a lot of protection from people around you. After all, Prohibition was only support- ed by little old ladies in church." Peter Saros, 67 and a real estate broker in Detroit, had a different con- ception of bootleggers. At age 14, he un- loaded Gar Woods at the foot of Hast- ings, Orleans and Russell Street. "At first it was a thrill," Saros re- calls, "but when they (rumrunners) got into smuggling aliens, I wanted no part of it. There were lots of killings, too. One gang would rip off another." Plagued by internal corruption, unco- operative citizens and Canadian indif- ference, Detroit's lawmen were trying to stop the liquor fire hose with a wine bottle cork. The state police, U.S. Customs Bu- reau, and the Coast Guard shared the responsibility of cutting the Canadian connection. Their favorite tactic was the drive, a concentrated, meticulous search of one particular area. But the liquor smug- glers had only to divert their operations up or downriver to keep the coppers off their trail. What was the extent of the rum run- ning trade? Accurate figures are diffi- cult to obtain due to its illicit nature. Seymour Lowman, assistant secretary of the U. S. Treasury Department, estimat- ed 21 million gallons of booze entered the country in 1929. However, the De- troit Times claimed at least 5.2 million were hustled into Motown alone that year. Furthermore, the Detroit News re- ported that six million cases (7.2 million gallons) passed through the area. scope of the smuggling rackets. In 1928, 29,000 were nabbed. Or the record for official corruption: 14 customs inspectors were indicted in a $2 million graft plot in 1928, and Trenton was a virtual free port until Federal agents arrested its chief of police in 1930. The Canadian government probably had the most accurate statistics. In 1929, "The trick was to hug the Canadian coastline until the Detroit River was clear of patrol boats, then d a s h across its one-half mile width and quickly stash the liquor in waiting automobiles or nearby garages. some 7.5 million gallons of liquor were exported to some unknown destination; customs receipts from the importing country just weren't returning. Canadian legislation finally doomed the rumrunners. A 1930 act of Parlia- ment prohibited sales of liquor to na- tions under prohibition laws. Local beer prices loomed to 75 cents a bottle, and domestic production of booze began to predominate. It was the end of an era. Things would never quite be the same again. + s ea i s rrs r r r s r n game. It took nerve and good boathand- ling," recalls Dahlka. "You couldn't stop doing it. Because if you stopped- and started thinking about what you were doing, then you'd stop for good." Dahlka had his share of close calls during the days of rumrunning in De- troit,,when he would cross the river eight to nine times a day. The trick was to hug the Canadian coastline until the De- troit River was clear of patrol boats, then dash across its one-half mile width and quickly stash the liquor in waiting automobiles - a. 1923 Ford sedan held 30 cases - or nearby garages. sled carrying 15 to 20 cases travelled along a 500-foot cable and was recovered by rummie divers. Booze smugglers had an elaborate ap- paratus for protecting their operations. "Airdales," land-based spotters, would keep tabs on the Coast Guard stations at Trenton and Wyandotte while compa- triots on Belle Isle, Gross Ile, and Fighting Island would follow patrol movements by car. Dock guards, or monkeys, would protect the procedure at its most vulnerable juncture - unload- ing. Since radios were not available, the rumrunner and his spotters would com- municate by flashing lights. Detroit's rum boats were gentlemen's cruisers, and bootleggers took great Nefarious as their activities may have pains to appear legitimate. Dahkla's been, rumrunners did have a code of Perhaps arrest records for public in- toxication more accurately reflect the Bill Heenan is an LSA senior.