New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-06-03
Illegal Distillers Expect to
Sell Whiskey at $40 a
Quart After July |
Sticking to Tradition
Have No Sense of Wrongdoing
in Turning Their Corn Into
Legal Tender"

Asheville. y. c., June ,. North Car
olina goes dry on July l, and the moon
shining mountaineers Of the western
part of the state are looking forward
to unlimited "boughten bread and
store clothes and automatic rifles and
other blessings which will come when
"moonshine" corn whiskey advances to
price that is expected TO be $40 a
quart. For that is what prohibition IS
going to mean in North Carolina. The
dryer the state becomes the happier
the mocnshiner will be.
The advent Of the "bone dry" law
promises to increase the Illegal manu-
facture Of corn whiskey to a point
where half the standing army of the
United States would be necessary to
suppress it.
Making corn whiskey without a gov
eminent license is traditional IN the
mountains of Western North Carolina.
The mountaineers, absolutely upright
and honest in every particular, and
scrupulously exact in meeting the
smallest obligation, cannot be made to
understand that making "moonshine" IS
a violation OF the law, and fines and
prison sentences fail utterly TO con-
vince them that the law must be obeyed.
No Sense Of Wrongdoing
There is no sense Of wrongdoing in
their evasion of the law. Their fathers
made whskey before them, and they
feel that they are perfectly justified in
converting their corn into the form IN
which it will bring the most money.
One Of the largest forces Of revenue
raiders in the United States works out
Of Asheyille, and never a week passes
that they do not destroy from two 70
five stills, although arrests are infre-
quent, owing to the nature of the terri
! tory in which the stills are located, and
the peculiar wireless" system among
; the mountaiueers that seems TO watt
ahead the news Of the coming of the
raiders.
And yet, with all this destruction of
stills. corn liquor is always available
to the man who knows where to look
and who has the necessary price.
The men who make the whiskey are
a picturesque lot. Mostly Of Scotch,
Irish and English descent, they com
prise probably the purest strains of the
Caucasian race in America to-day.
Although illiterate as a rule, these
moonshiners are kindly and gentle,
with an Unborn gentleness inherent to
the race, although they can be reused
TO deadly fury when wronged or led
to believe themselves wronged.
"Moonshne" Is Legal Tender
While not treacherous by nature, the
mountaineer who takes chances with
the government does not look on the
wavlaying of a "reyenuer" as either a
sin or crime All Of which explains
why Deputy Collector J. A. Galloway
recently had one eye removed, he hav-
ing been shot from ambush last fall
after making a successful raid.
Al times the spirit shown Is more
vindictiye. especially toward an in
former. who is held several degrees
lower in the social scale than rev
enuer.'
"Moonshine' is legal tender in the
mountains That it passes for cur
rency for food and clothing is perhaps
best demonstrated by the fact that
from one township alone in Buncombe
County Limestone Township there
are now fifteen men, merchants, farm
ers and others. being held to court on
the charge of illicit distilling and aid
ing and abetting the same.
Jugs and bottles are scarce in the
mountains. and the whiskey is trans
ported in lard pals, Oil cans and other
like receptacles, and tin cup furnishes
the usual method of taking a drink, if
indeed it is not drunk straight from the
lard can.
The prospect of whiskey at $40 a
quart is going to tempt even those who
now put their corn to legitimate use to
change il into its most valuable form,
"moonshine liquor" when the bone
dry" law takes effect in North Carolina.