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| The Silence of Prohibition | Started by: StonedSilent on Aug 15, '08 20:30 |
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Whenever any successful man tells me that along with the hard work and ability there was a bit of good luck in his background, I believe him. There must be any number of people who would have made it except for a bit of bad luck. Lucky for Silence, he was and still is on the winning side of such luck. Now that I think of it, maybe it wasn't luck at all. Silence's story begins back in the late Roaring Twenties and still to this day, when the States first started fooling around with Prohibition long after it was dropped in Canada. Fortunes were made "rum-running" on the Detroit River. I don't know why it was called that. There wasn't much rum involved. It was mostly good Canadian beer and whiskey being funneled through the Border Cities to quench a gigantic thirst in the Detroit/Chicago region. In 1924 alone, $30 million dollars worth of Canadian liquor was shipped to the U.S. Estimated value in the States: $100 million. And a very large percentage of it flowed through the Border Cities. There was opportunity and Silence took advantage. He was one of the hundreds of good men involved in what was generally regarded as a perfectly legitimate business. Buying Canadian booze and shipping it across the river, usually after dark, in the fastest and most powerful motorboats afloat. It was a colorful (and vicious) game of cops and robbers played between the rum runners and the Detroit patrol boats. The booze was purchased legally in Canada and exported. The boats would slip across the river to Wyandotte or Ecorse on the Michigan side and be back in a few hours. That's why they were known as the fastest boats afloat. A lot of money was made and lost quickly. When it was all over some of these entrepreneurs had kings' ransoms in the banks and palatial homes in Walkerville. And others were broke. Silence and his cohorts weren't the only ones involved. Many little guys made money on the fringes of the operations, renting cars, trucks or docks to the bootleggers. Even high school boys used to skip classes occasionally and receive what was then the fantastic wage of a dollar an hour loading booze on little docks in the old Town of Sandwich. Silence told me his story. He had a job with one of the outlying municipalities, reading hydro meters or something like that. He earned enough to keep body and soul together. When you start at the bottom, you strive harder than most to get to the the top. I first visited him in his small waterfront home in LaSalle after I heard about him though the local bootleggers. I found him fascinating. There was a rumour around that Silence had been a wealthy man. No one knew the exact details. Normally he didn't talk about it much, but one day I thought he was in a receptive mood and I asked him point-blank if any of the rumours were true. He sat down on the chesterfield and started talking. He didn't sound like a man looking for sympathy, he was a man that was proud of his business and accomplishments. He had started small - a few cases at a time. Then shipments of a few dozen cases. After a year he was doing very well. He had a truck operating. By 1933 he had to decide whether he was going to be little all of his life or make it big. He had the contacts and reputation. He'd take the plunge. Go by rail. "I was all set," he told me. "I had a fair pile in the bank and people willing to lend me lots more. I was shipping out of a little field. You can see it out the window there. I decided to put in a railway spur-line and bring it in by box-car load. Safer than by highway. And a lot more profitable." I thought of Sophocles writing more than Thousands years ago: A wise gamester ought to take the dice Even as they fall, and pay down quietly, Rather than grumble at his luck. Yet, Silence liked to gamble, and was good at beating the odds. Maybe that's why he is so successful at what he does, in this business we take chances everyday, it's what we do. I thought as I looked at Silence: what a beautiful philosophy and what a great addition he would make to the Family. In a heart beat I knew he was one of the greats. So with a bit of talk and gestures I welcomed him into Alessia's Family. What a great mafioso he has become, supplying the streets and dens of Chicago with Alchohol, still as wealthy as ever proving to me, that this Mafioso is hard working and one off the best you can find when it comes to quick earnings and dependability. That ladies and gentlemen, is the story of the man we call Silence. |
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ahhhhh Prohibition goodtimes goodtimes Smiles and tips his hat before wlaking off into the distance |
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| Reply by: TM-Scarface at Aug 15, '08 20:33 | |
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| Wow very nice...when will we be hearin more of this eh? | |
| Reply by: -Montiego- at Aug 16, '08 11:41 | |
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