Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1918-09-12
Mountain Dew"
By Frederic J. Haskin

tricts, said 10 be the greatest ever under
taken by the government, fourteen in
fernai revenue agents caused the arrest
OF 200 moonshinerA and seized 4s6 stills.
| This is n record Of capture which would
be worthy OF honorable mention even on
the western front, but over here it Il
simply taken for granted. The internal
revenue agent has always been taken for
granted, and probably always will be
by the wliiskcy tax evaders, who recog-
nize him as All inevitable calamity, by the
law abiding public, which hears only
vaguely Of his exploits and by the movie
scenario writer, who frequently exploits,
Occasionally you hear that the gov
| eminent" has raided certain suspected
| districts, capturing a hundred or so Illicit
! stills, but the names Of the men engaged in
these raids, their biographies and their
| photographs, are never published For
| the internal revenue agent faces many
dangers IN the transaction of government
| business, but none is quite 80 great ms the
possibility Of becoming known. He
fears publicity more than he docs a
"squirrel-hunter's" gun.
CASUALTY LIST LARGE.
That is why very few people know
that the casualty list Of the internal
have been killed but the government has
had To create special fund 10 pay the
hospital expenses Of internal revenue
agents wounded in the performance Of
their duty In the recent raid the revenue
men escaped, but five outlaws and two
sherfs were killed. Only after severe
fight was the moonsbIne property cap
tured by the government, totaling 500
600 worth Of distliing apparatus, Fl 900
pounds Of sugar and 10000 gallons of
pale mountain uhlskey The last Was
promptly poured down the mountain rills
All the stills we're captured being
operated in prohibition states. Prohlbi-
ton, according 10 internal revenue men,
always causes n large boom in the moon
shining business Men who have been
accustomed to alcoholic drinks are sud
denly deprived Of them, the nearest source
Of supply sometimes moving from the store
around the corner 10 point fifty miles
away. Usually, they have no means Of
importing them INTO a dry" section.
There is only one way Of getting liquor,
and that is TO make it
Ii ~ very simple In some sections
Of the rural south the women make the
family's supply of alcoholic beverages
An internal revenue officer visiting q
@tlNEtftNfI Ii~tlfti titf k'tL-f VI -
one summer collected sufficient evidence
to convict over fifty different famiIIes Of
this practice. He would appear at the
farmhouse IN the heat Of nId-afternoon
and claim that he was about 20 faint from
weakness after long tramp over the
mountains The mountain farmers, who
are very kindly and hospitablc people,
would invariably doctor hum with drink
Of unlabcled whskey, and the revenue
officer would be compelled 10 add one
more name 10 his list Of law breakers.
GOVERNMENT VAGUE THING
To the people Of the rural mountain
who rarely see railroad train
or newsstand or q public library, the
government Is q remote and vague in
stitutiOn Separated from the rest Of the |
world by rugged natural boundaries, they
live in a provincial atmosphere Of their |
own ] hus their private manufacture Of
beverages IS not always a de- !
lIberate attempt 10 break the law They /
SIMPLY cannot see why the government :
should tax them for a product made by |
their own hands from apples or corn
grown on their own lands And when the /
government, in the form Of the internal
revenue officers appears 70 investigate.
This summer an internal revenue officer /
happened TO spend the night in a noun
tain town on his way across the boundary
of a southern state. II was Saturday /
night and the streets were filed with men
from the neighboring farms. There was /
not a bar in the town, which had been I
dry for a couple Of years. there was no /
concrete evidence Of alcoholic drinks +
anywhere, but most Of the men were OBJ I
vio'Isly drunk The internal revenue
officer decided 10 remain in that town
4 tall. heavily timbered mountain rose
ibruptly to the lett Of it, and the internal
revenue officer was interested IN that /
\ few DAYS later he stood on a ledge
lalf way up the mountain, his eyes fixed
N polnt near the top from which issued
thin cloud OF SMOKE. Suddenly, a
in blue oyeralls appeared
rom behind 4 tree, carrying a shotgun.
CAmoUFLAGE.
"Lookin for anything? challenged
he mountalneer.
Just for a trout stream they told me
vas up here" declared the government
gent Innocently. Say, that looks like
ad fire you've got up there.
"Lightnin' struck there the other
light, explained the mountalneer, but
. don't amount To much. A brief
lie nee ensued Then If re lookin
1r' trout, there's right smart over on the
ther mountain, he continued
4 week later the internal revenue officer
as nursing bandaged arm IN distant
ospltal; five mountaneer moonshiners
ere IN the local iaI, and the fire had
one out on the mountain.
Women moonshlners are not uncom-
ION. and are always the hardest to trace,
TO the revenue agents They
lffer from the farmers wives who put
p so-called grape iuIce aud blackberry
)rdlal for family use IN that they make
quor To sell, fully aware that they are
reaklng the law and prepared 70 resist
Some interesting stories Of these /
outlaws occasionally leak /
1T OF the internal revenue archives One /
ri, tall blond with the strength of
an and possessing extraordinary quali- /
rs of generalshIp, kept the revenue men
bav from her sixteenth to her twenty
cond year while she manufactured
oonshine along the North and South
arolina border Ii was stated that she
ID a band of strong men at her call,
nom she summoned by a peculiar blood
riding cry that was sometimes heard in /
e valleys, where II was used as a means
discipline for refractory children.
At last she was betrayed by Jealous =
lmen spies, and delivered into the Z