The War

Some time after May 5, the S.S. Pellegrini, big French tramp steamer, left her native waters. She slipped clumsily across the ocean, arrived, last week, at Rum Row. She was heavily laden. It may have been as much as 50,000 cases of liquor that she carried.

During the past four years, the value of a case at Rum Row has averaged between $20 and $25. Assuming the Pellegrini carried only 10,000 cases a mere 75-ft. schooner will carry 5,000-the value of her cargo would approximate a quarter of a million dollars.

Her crew set busily to work, preparing the cases for delivery over the ship's sides. Occasionally, a mate would gaze expectantly over the waters, looking for the swift little rum runner which would surely come. Hours passed. Then, suddenly, four small motor craft raced into sight, came up to the Pellegrini, but not alongside. They circled around and around-picket boats of the U. S. Coast Guard.

The Pellegrini, well provisioned, prepared to stay a month, until this new official nonsense might cease. But, a few days later, she was visited by a Coast Guard vessel on inspection, was notified that war had begun. Her crew offered a case of champagne for a package of cigarets, but the contract was not concluded.

A German steamer, half unloaded, decided to leave Rum Row a fortnight ago. Last week, she returned. No rummies came to her side. Two indefatigable picket boats greeted her. Surly, she departed once more.

What has happened?

In accordance with announcements made in March, there were assembled in the waters of the middle Atlantic, early in May, a score of revenue cutters (Customs Service), a dozen submarine chasers (borrowed from the U.S. Navy) and nearly 100 picket boats and larger vessels belonging to the U.S. Coast Guard under the command of Rear Admiral Billard. All these vessels were put at the disposal of General Lincoln C. Andrews, recently appointed Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (TIME, April 13). He directed them, under the general supervision of Secretary Mellon.

On May 5, this armada took up a position on Rum Row-a line running about 200 miles from Southwest to Northeast, about 30 miles offshore from Atlantic City, N.J., to New London, Conn.

Along this line were found about 90 vessels, steam and sail, engaged in liquor traffic. One or more U. S. vessels placed themselves a few yards from each of the smugglers. It became impossible for the smugglers to unload their cargoes into launches ("rummies"), with the result that the launches stayed idly at their docks along the shore.

By last week, all but ten or twelve of the 90 laden vessels left the Row.

Contributing quite as much to this result as the presence of the armada itself was the presence of a bolder, more ferocious spirit. Hitherto, U. S. vessels have sighted rum runners scurrying to shore, have urged them to stop, have even fired a wild shot. But the rum launches, faster than the average picket boat, have simply scurried on. The Coast Guard seamen have not been shooting with intent to kill.

When the May war was undertaken, it was made quite clear that if a rum launch would not stop when warned, every attempt would be made to blow it out of the water. Thus rum running became something more than risking a doubtful fine or a short imprisonment-it came to mean the risk of life.

The result of the war on shore was to send the price of branded Scotch whiskey, stamped in the cork and blown in the glass, from $6 to $7 or $8 a bottle.

Hitherto prices have run about as follows : A case at Rum Row, $25; on the beach, $40; to the retail bootlegger, $50; to the consumer, $70-or $6 a bottle.

But, of course, the objective of the war begun this month is to drive the price of whiskey et alii out of sight. And the question on which every one has an opinion is: "Will it?"

Obviously, if the whole power of the U. S. is brought to bear upon its borders, it could conceivably prevent whiskey from so much as trickling through in teaspoonsful. The cost of such effort is variously estimated up to $250,000.000 initial outlay on additional ships, etc., besides heavy annual expenses of a personnel of perhaps 25,000 men at sea (the present Coast Guard force is about 7,000). And it is suggested that Congress will be too parsimonious.

For a blockade to be effective, it must be effective on every mile of border. Last week, five rum-laden vessels appeared off San Diego* and successfully disposed of their cargo at the rate of at least $10,000 daily.

Furthermore, future battles are likely to prove harder to win than was the May battle at Rum Row. Countertactics even to the point of serious armed resistance may be developed by the smugglers.

The war can be won. It is simply a question of price. Will the U. S. pay it?

Court martial, last week, found six Coast Guardsmen on the Rum Row section guilty of smuggling.

*The region of San Diego and San Pedro is infested with hijackers, an indication that its rum-running business has not reached a high state of development. Smuggling has three stages. First comes the small individual smuggler. Then comes the hijacker, who is really a pirate. He preys on the rum runner, captures the nearly-landed rum or robs the rum runner of his money if the liquor has been landed. Then, finally, to defeat the hijacker, comes the highly organized smuggling concern which deals in credit, not money, and which protects its rum with guns if necessary.