Prohibition
On January 17, 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, and Prohibition lasted until the amendment was repealed in 1933. The Amendment prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages. As there was still a substantial demand for alcohol, this provided criminals with an added source of income.
By 1921, Luciano had met many future Mafia leaders, including Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, his longtime friend and future business partner through the Five Points Gang. Also in 1921, Brooklyn gang boss Joe Masseria recruited Luciano as one of his gunmen.
At some point in the early 1920s, Luciano left Masseria and started working for gambler Arnold "the Brain" Rothstein. Rothstein immediately saw the potential windfall from Prohibition and educated Luciano on running bootleg alcohol as a business Luciano, Costello, and Genovese started their own bootlegging operation with financing from Rothstein.
Rothstein served as a mentor for Luciano. In 1923, after ruining his reputation in the criminal community with a botched drug deal, Luciano went to Rothstein for advice. Rothstein told Luciano to buy 200 expensive seats to the Jack Dempsey–Luis Firpo boxing match in the Bronx and distribute them to top gangsters and politicians. Rothstein then took Luciano on a shopping trip to Wanamaker's Department Store in Manhattan to buy high end, classy clothes for the fight. The strategy worked, and Luciano's reputation was saved.
By 1925, Luciano was grossing over $12 million a year; however, he was netting only about $4 million each year due to the costs of bribing politicians and police. Luciano and his partners ran the largest bootlegging operation in New York, one that also extended into Philadelphia. He imported Scotch whisky from Scotland, rum from the Caribbean, and whisky from Canada. Luciano was also involved in illegal gambling.
On November 2, 1928, a bookie shot and killed Rothstein over a gambling debt. With Rothstein's death, Luciano quickly pledged fealty again to Masseria.
Read more about this topic: Lucky Luciano
Famous quotes containing the word prohibition:
“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“He had never learned to live without delight. And he would have to learn to, just as, in a Prohibition country, he supposed he would have to learn to live without sherry. Theoretically he knew that life is possible, may be even pleasant, without joy, without passionate griefs. But it had never occurred to him that he might have to live like that.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“During Prohibition days, when South Carolina was actively advertising the iodine content of its vegetables, the Hell Hole brand of ‘liquid corn’ was notorious with its waggish slogan: ‘Not a Goiter in a Gallon.’”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)