The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-10-27
RUM RUNNING
MORE HAZARDOUS
Federal Officers Have Spied
Out Many Vermont
Smugglers
BIG RAIDS ARE
EXPECTED SOON
Thousands of Dollars Worth Seized
Liquors Stored at Newport-Canaan
Has Been Clearing House for Snug
giers-0fficers Close ON Their Trail.

SItIS--OHtSFS NiBSe on Ifle1f 1fdl1.
| ST. ALBANS, Oct. 27.-The rum
running traffic from Canada into Ver-
mont and from this state into New
| Hampshire has received considerable of
setback the past week by the confis- |
cation of approximately $1,000 worth of
Canadian liquor destined for points in
/ New England. Saturday night squad
| of federal agents. who have been oper-
ating along the international border
near Derby Line and farther east, at
times within a few hundred yards of
the New Hampshire Vermont boundary, |
told a Union-Leader correspondent that
j the price of contraband liquor is bound |
| to go up with jump for the reason that
the hazard of smuggling the stuff into
this part of the United States is daily
becoming greater.
When the news spread throughout
Essex county in this state and across
the Connecticut river to many towns in
Coos county, New Hampshire, late last |
week that a cache of liquor valued at |
$1,000 or more had been discovered by |
federal agents and that as a result a |
prominent Essex county farmer was inI
Jail at Newport there were a number of
eases resembling suspended animation
among residents along the boundary. |
The correspondent was told that it was
: impossible to secure liquor Saturday in |
places where a week ago it could bel
| purchased for 50 a quart.
| Nothing doing, the revenue men are
here" was the explanation given when
the prospective whiskey buyers wanted
/ to know the reason for the sudden
drouth.
The Union-Leade correspondent who
spent an evening with two federal
agents, was told that the publicity given
/ by newspapers to rum-running opera
| tions along this section of the interna
tional border has resulted exactly as the
government wiShed-it has directed the
attention of smugglers to this source of
liquid refreshment and it is like picking
pears off a tree to catch the rum rum
nerS.
! The word has been passed southwark,
westward and eastward from nearly ev-
lery point of entry on the Vermont Can
adam border that the country Is infected
with federal agents and that booze can
not be transported across the border to
this region except at the greatest haz-
ard.
4 visit to the customs house at New
port would lead one to believe that the
smuggling of liquor across the Canadian
border along this stretch of country IS
a losing proposition Here are tens of
thousands of dollars worth of liquors,
some of the choicest brands that money
I can buy in Canada. This valuable as
sortment of liquors is made up of booze
seized BY federal agents operating along
the entire Vcrmont-C anada boundary.
When it became known that one of
Essex county's most prominent citizens
had been hooked a booze smugglcr
There were sober faces i'm many towns
claimed other prominent citizens who
have been engaged in rum-running oper-
Eations and these men have been wonder
ling if they are to be included IN the
roundup being made by federal agents.
Across the Connecticut river in New
Hampshire it has been no secret for
months that liquor could be purchased
lin practically any quantity desired
through some underground connection
with smugglers in Vermont and the lit
tile town of Canaan in the Green noun
tain state had become known as the
clearing house for smugglers, or the
tpoint where Smugglers could get first
Ihand information regarding methods to
| be employed in securing a cargo of rum.
! For weeks federal agents have min
gled with the Canaan folks and across
| the Connecticut river with the natives
at West Stewartstown, n. IL. 1t was
this intimate association with the cltl-
zens of two states at the gateway to-
Canada that put the sleuths on the
| track of those who had gone into the
Smuggling of liquor in a wholesale way.
| The rest was easy. Last week word
tspread throughout the countryside that
a $4,000 cache of, booze had been located
| by Uncle Sans men few miles north
| of Colebrook. y. H., ON the Vermont
| side of the big river. As a result of this
| big haul there are a number of well
known citizens in both states who glance
apprehensiyely at every stranger they
meet. The Union-Leader representative
| is not betraying any condolences when
he intimates that across the Connecticut
river i'm Vermont there is likely to be
several cases of heart attack when the
federal agents close in on Il certain ter
Iritory under surveillance.