Evening star., 1925-06-21
RACING RUM AUTOS
LINK CAPITAL WITH
COUNTLESS STILLS
Flood of Blockade Liquor
Comes in Nightly, Star In
vestigation DiscIoses.
SALES MADE BRAZENLY
IN NEARBY MARYLAND
Stills Are Carefully Concealed,
However, and Rubber Is Burned
to Hide 0dor of Liquor.

scented at times DQC rarely
seen by alien eyes, the bubbling stills
of southern Maryland gurgle away
cheerfully week after week, dribbling
enough alcoholic liquid to supply a
goodly half Of Washington's illicit
traffic in corn and green rye whisky.
After these stills have done their bit
for the law-breaking thirsty, high
powered, high geared motor cars en-
ter into the scheme of things. In
the quiet hours Of early morning just
before dawn they thunder over the
roads with shrieking sirens. warning
some belated straggler off the path,
and, aided by speed. luck and smoke
screens, rush the fruit OF the stills
into the secret caches of the city.
The rest is simple. The chain which
starts at the stills is first linked by
these rum running cars, and then by
the wholesaler, who allows his re-
| tailers and runners to convey the
products to the particular site of the
| individual thirst.
Source Is Probed.
In view of the recent move of Com
missioner Frederick a. Fenning III
creating a special rum squad to check,
if possible. the flow Of Illicit liquor
lIllO TIC LlSllltl. l"O lIINSSllSdlCIS
of The Star last week made an In
spection of the more obscure initial
links in the anti-Nolstead chain-the
bubbling stills and the laundering
motors.
The inspection of the first link the
stills, produced no tangible results.
| Visual inspection seems to be the last
thing desired by these operators. For
that reason they modestly retire into
! the swamps that stretch their murky
| treachery between the Wicomico, the
! Potomac, the PatuXent and the Ches-
apeake Bay. These optimistic in
yestigators thought-poor wits-that
| by running up hidden trails into some
/ OF the woods, thickets, swamps and
! jungles that crop up here and there,
| they might .perchance blunder into a
still or two. They were TO be dis
appointed. And they felt keenly about
/ it. too, until they learned from sources
i of unquestioned authority, that many
| of the rum cars-in fact, the majority
! of them-do not go direct to the still
but to the cache near it.
Work i'm Inaccessible Spots.
! And from this same source they
/ learned that the still operators like 10
work in solitude. unhampered by pry-
! ing eyes, and accordingly construct
| shacks and plants in the most mac
some doubling motorist who goes zip
| ping merrily over the smooth south
ern Maryland roads believes that this
! is poppycock because ii cannot be
seen, let them live serene in their be-
/ liefs. For it approaches the impossi-
! BILE to convince them otherwise by
visual evidence
Every now and then a prohibition
agent by some strenuous work spots
a still and raids it But these raids do
not even mar the surface of the rum
making industry. Weeks of work, and
possibly months, will be needed to fer
ret out some of the swampS and
| marshes which shield the stills, ac-
cording to the general opinion held by
natives and authorities alike.
AS for the Bafney OldfieIds of boot
leggerdom-who act as the Gany-
medes for the thirsty-they have evi-
| IDENTIFY conceived a system of fleet
transportation that is going to prove
at least troublesome to those attempt
ing to break it up.
Go With Sirens Shrieking.
With the inspection of this branch
of the industry the investigators had
better luck-much better luck Short
| ly after IL o'clock Friday night
| during their tour on southern Mary
| land roads, the investigators began
! to be aware of the presence of these
rum racers. Out from the dark in
| the rear, just over the District line,
came one of the first groups of ma
! chimes: a siren shrieked a warning,
! dark hulk went by with an accom-
paniment much like that of machine
| gun-then another-and still another.
| These were cars of the block system.
On the journey back-it may have
been the same machines, 1t may have
been others-the investigators saw
three cars scurrying toward Washing
ton. During the instantaneous
glimpse that they had the investi.
gators noted that the first car ran
| high on the springs; the second, bit
saggy, and the third, like the first.
| light. Each of the guard machines
had two men. The center one had
three in it. That is the system-a
vanguard, the load" and the rear
guard And to get the Toad" police
or prohibition agents will have to
take chances in wrecking some motor
cars, it seems, for they go like the
wind and whoever tries to stop them
has some stopping to do.
Make so Miles An Hour.
| The investigators noted eleven ma
chimes from IL pm. to $3.50 am. There
/ were two groups of three-one en-
! route to the cache near the stills, the
other headed for Washington. The
! other five were lone wolves. Each
| had three men in the front seat. And
! not one of the eleven, when seen, was
going at less speed than so miles an
hour with the tail lights out SO as to
hide the numbers on the license plates.
Three hundred miles of southern
Maryland's ideal "moonshine" country
| were covered by the investigators in
| their search for stills and rum.run-
! ners The trip took them through the
| jungle-like wooded sections of Calvert,
| Charles and ST. Mary's Counties. Stills
| are known to border many of the
streams that run through the Isolated
| swamp lands, but they are camou
| iaged by natures own heavy veil Of
! woods and underbrush.
Even revenue agents long eX-
| perienced in the work of ferreting out
| the illicit distilleries have found it
| difficult to locate them.
| The investigators began their trail
| for stills just east of Waldorf on the
| road that leads to Leonardtown, the
county seat of historic st. Marys
! Continued on Page 2. Column ID