One Summer: America, 1927

Prohibition wasn’t working very well that Wheeler and his supporters insisted that the government poison industrial alcohol. Other denaturants such as soap or detergents would have worked just as well in making drinks unpalatable, but hardcore drys weren’t satisfied with that. Wheeler sincerely believed that people who drank poisoned alcohol got what they deserved. It was, in his view, ‘deliberate suicide’. The Reverend John Roach Straton, last seen here hoping for the speedy execution of Ruth Snyder, was even more unyielding. When he learned that the governor and attorney general of Indiana had both given small doses of whisky to desperately ill loved ones on doctor’s orders, Straton declared: ‘They should have permitted the members of their family to die, and have died themselves, rather than violate their oaths of office.’
    In June 1927, Prohibition seemed set to endure for ever. In fact, it was about to reach a turning point. Though there was no sign of it quite yet, for Wayne Wheeler the summer of 1927 would prove to be both the worst summer of his life and the last one.
     
    fn1 The force was later increased slightly, but at no point exceeded 2,300 agents.

C HAPTER 13
     

     
    AFTER PRESENTING CHARLES Lindbergh with his Distinguished Flying Cross in Washington on 11 June, Calvin Coolidge didn’t hang around. As soon as he could decently get away, he went with Mrs Coolidge to Union Station, where a special train was waiting to take them and a small army of reporters and presidential staff – some seventy-five people in all, along with two collies and a pet raccoon named Rebecca – to South Dakota for a long summer vacation. Coolidge suffered from chronic indigestion and asthma, which left him eager to flee muggy Washington for clean western air. It was the first time that the White House had decamped to such a distant spot.
    In effect, the seat of government of the United States for the next three months would be Rapid City High School. The Coolidges themselves, however, were to be based thirty-two miles away at a residence called the State Game Lodge at the foot of Mount Harney in Custer State Park. ‘State Game Lodge’ sounds rather grand, but the Coolidges’ accommodation was in fact just a sitting room and bedroom, with a bathroom down the hall. They didn’t mind in the least. It was a simpler age.
    President Coolidge delighted in seeing himself in newsreels. Because he did not reach the game lodge until after dusk, the nextmorning he had the whole presidential party – now grown to some two hundred people with the addition of local officials and support staff – reload every bag and suitcase into cars, drive two hundred yards down the road and re-enact the presidential arrival as the cameras recorded the fictitiously historic moment.
    For the state of South Dakota, the president’s presence was a very big deal. It desperately wanted to be perceived as an attractive destination for tourists. The thought occurred to someone that if the president was seen to be enjoying himself fishing in the state’s sparkling waters then other anglers might be tempted to travel there as well. To make sure the exercise was a success, two thousand full-grown trout were sent from the state trout hatchery at Spearfish. These trout – all large, sluggish and hand-fed from birth – were secretly confined to a pool of water outside the Coolidge residence by submerged nets strung strategically between the banks. To his hosts’ dismay Coolidge declared that he had no interest in fishing. Eventually he was persuaded to give it a try. Dressed in a business suit, he dipped a baited rod in the water. Instantly the starving fish erupted in a silvery frenzy around the hook and a moment later Coolidge lifted a wriggling prize from the water. He beamed from ear to ear and could barely be coaxed away from the stream after that. He and Mrs Coolidge dined proudly on his caught trout daily even though they were, by all accounts, almost inedible. Coolidge didn’t like dealing with worms, however, and had his Secret Service men bait his fish hook for him. Apart from the worms, he was immensely happy.
     
    While the Coolidges enjoyed themselves in the Black Hills, Charles Lindbergh continued, with ever-decreasing enthusiasm, to receive the adulation of the American people. Alva Johnston, writing in the New York Times from St Louis, was struck by how unmoved Lindbergh appeared to be by the parade and other festivities