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JULY 1922

INTERVIEW WITH HELEN KELLER
(Click here for full text of Interview)
PROHIBITION
JAZZ

Get into a conversation with a long time Queens resident and you're likely to discover a subscriber of the Long Island Star- Journal, a daily paper that informed the community about local and world news until it folded in 1968. A banner across the Star Journal masthead reminded readers that the newspaper's name came from the merger of the Long Island Daily Star (1876) and the North Shore Daily Journal - The Flushing Journal (1841).

Welcome to July 1922!

It was the "Roaring Twenties" and "hooch-hounds" were on the prowl in our borough, tracking down illegal stills and enterprising local moonshiners. New York State had been "dry" since the passage of the Volstead Act in 1920 but the pages of the Star-Journal make it clear that when it came to bootlegging Queens had little to learn from Chicago.

In Jamaica seven police officers were injured during a raid when a 100-gallon still exploded in an innocent-looking neighborhood house. On July 29 the Star-Journal reported that the owner of the house had been banking an average of $1,000 a day prior to the explosion of the highly profitable still.

On July 18 "considerable excitement was caused" when federal agents visited a saloon in Long Island City "and arrested the bartender on a charge of selling and possessing liquor. The two agents were disguised as laborers." During Prohibition bartenders often refused to serve anything but non-alcoholic beer to people they didn’t know or who looked like the law. The federal "dry men" seem to have been modeling themselves after Brooklyn’s own Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith, whose partnership resulted in the confiscation of 5 million bottles of alcohol and who were famous for disguising themselves as cowboys, football players, trombone players or street cleaners to trap unwary bartenders.

Izzy and Moe’s creative antics made them popular heroes, but in general the enforcement of the prohibition laws was highly unpopular. Tensions in Queens boiled over on July 23 when one James Sullivan was arrested for possession of whiskey at Celtic Park in Laurel Hill, a popular sports ground and pleasure resort. Next day’s headline reported: "Riot on Sunday May Result in Closing Up of Celtic Park - Revolver Shots and Bottles Fly As Crowd Battles Police." Three people, including a policeman, were shot during the riot. "Scores of arrests have been made this year at the park on charges of violation of the city’s dry laws, and it is believed that yesterday’s riots will result in drastic action. Several hundred men and women took part in the fight against the police."

In addition to the enterprising home brewers, some hooch was being imported. The arrest of two bootleggers on July 27 led to the Star-Journal report that: "Whitestone is Bootleg Port, Police Theorize-Big Beer Seizure Leads to Hunter For Runners-Two Caught With Truck Load of Amber Brew." "The police today are investigating reports that liquor shipped on Long Island Sound is being unloaded at the docks or on the beach at Whitestone for distribution in the city. The investigation by the police follows the arrest of Frederick Suda and Ira Call while driving a motor truck carrying 1,800 bottles of beer near Whitestone Landing. The police have been aware for some time that liquor was being brought into Whitestone either from the water side of the town or by land."

The shore areas of Queens were particularly plagued with the attentions of the "dry men." Queens undertakers complained that their hearses were being stopped and searched for moonshine. Even the most respectable expeditions, like that of the Hoboken Elks to their annual clambake in Whitestone on September 24, were liable to come under suspicion. Strangely, when the revenue cutter Hahn boarded the Elks’ sidewheel steamboat Pocohantas, agents found $600 worth of whiskey, gin and brandy on board!

In another seaside community, the Bayside Yacht Club was embroiled in a dispute about dancing to that new-fangled jazz music. On July 31 the chairman of the entertainment committee warned that "some of the younger members may be spanked if they persist in defying an edict that the ‘Lorraine dance’ and other objectionable dances are taboo. The youngsters have continued to indulge in their daring dances at private parties at the club, and their alleged violation soon came to the attention of other members who shy at ‘syncopated jazz.’"

Jazz music would become so popular in the 1920s that it came to symbolize the lighthearted and innovative spirit of the decade. But in the Queens of 1922 it had yet to invade the airwaves. Although radio was becoming very popular, classical music and sentimental Victorian songs were what was broadcast from the local stations. And sports - on July 27 in Astoria a crowd of "more than 500 fight fans visited the radio supply station of M. Eberhardt and Son and received the returns of the Benny Leonard-Lew Tendler fight. The news was transmitted to this station from the ringside. Round for round and many telling blows were announced to the audience in front of the place."

Radio was one of the topics mentioned in the Star-Journal’s exclusive interview on July 5 with Helen Keller at her home in Queens. Blind and deaf from the age of two, Alabamian Helen Keller had captured the world’s attention when she learned to communicate with the outside world. She could read lips by touch and also words spelt into the palm of her hand. For several years she lived in Forest Hills with her teacher, Anne Sullivan Macy. "In April, Miss Keller and her teacher concluded a successful vaudeville tour of eight months which carried them throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Miss Keller gave demonstrations on the stage of her lip-reading ability."

"Using her sense of touch, Miss Keller can catch the vibrations of the throat, particularly those of a singer. The late Enrico Caruso on several occasions sang especially for Miss Keller." On radio, "Miss Keller had this to say: ‘It staggers my imagination, the wonders that are coming so thick and fast in science. I wish they would come as thick and fast in human civilization.’" Helen Keller was known for her left-wing political views; when asked by the reporter about the railroad strike that was then going on, she stated firmly that both workers and bosses should work together "for a saner and just society."

At the time of the interview, Helen Keller had just turned 42. "Asked how she enjoyed a visit with her nieces to the Bronx Park zoo on her birthday last week, Miss Keller’s face lighted up with pleasure. ‘Although I could not see or hear the animals, it was delightful to get the impressions of joy and wonder from the lips of the young nieces who accompanied me.’" Her six-year-old niece Patty, at this point, "proud of the fact that she could be of some help in the interview, permitted Aunt Helen to read her lips. Miss Keller repeated, clearly and distinctly, several sentences spoken by the child."

"That her teacher, Mrs. Macy, who first opened to her the beauties of a world she can see only mentally, should be included in the list of the twelve greatest women in the United States, is the firm belief of Helen Keller, Queens’ most famous woman."

That’s the way it was in July 1922.

Compiled by Clare Doyle, librarian, Greater Astoria Historical Society.