Evening star., 1925-05-17
GREATEST FLOOD
Of LIQUOR STOPPED
Coast Guards Effective War
on Rum Row to Be
Continued.
By the Associated Press.

Ing warehouses, after 10 days OF the
Coast Guards blockade of the At
lantic coast.
This figure is official. The rum
sellers We're checked up in an IN
spection cruise of dozen newspaper
men and representatives of press as
soCiations which was concluded to-
day. For four days Lieut.. Comdr.
Stephen s. Yeandle aide to the Coast
Guards commandant, Rear Admiral
Billiard, and who is known as the
officials ears and eyes" on the
blockade front. cruised the Atlantic
waters from Nantucket Light on the
north to Atlantic City on the south,
with the newspaper observers aboard
the Coast Guard cable cutter requot.
The inspection cruise, probably
the most comprehensive ever made of
the mid-Atlantic rum area, which
Comdr. Yeandle termed the national
shame" revealed that little II any
contraband liquor is getting ashore
through New York, Long Island. New
England or New Jersey channels.
Through these channels up to May
5. the day the Coast Guard offensive
got under way flowed the greatest
flood of liquor that the Government
has had to contend against, the
Guard officials admitted.
20 Rum Boats Leave.
The inspectors did a thorough job.
All the erstewhile rum bases were
visited and the number of remaining
rummies the name given the con-
traband carriers by the guardsmen-
checked up; the newspaper looked at
the end of the gigantic rum running
industry" in its every phase.
Ten days ago the Coast Guard had
38 whiskey selling ships charted on
the notorious New York-New Jersey
row, extending from a point south OF
Fire Island to Atlantic City. At dusk
Friday night the investigators found
seven ships there. With the block
ade'S start there were 80 "rummies"
in the MOntauk Point and Nantucket
light sectors The observers aboard
the Pequot found five ships in their
places, one of them the French
steamship Pellegrini, battered veteran
of many liquor selling crusades on the
row"
The inspection tour did not include
the waters off Boston, which held a
dozen or more 'rummies" at the start
of the drive. Coast Guard officials
declared, however, that these. too, had
been swept out of touch with their
land alliances.
This means that more than 20 rum
sellers have migrated since the open-
ing of the blockade. All were fol-
lowed by Coast Guard pickets or
patrols until they rounded Nantucket
on the north or got below Atlantic
City on the south. Other pickets
picked them up in those waters and
saw to it that they be kept off shore
Coast Guard officials said they had no
definite information concerning the
present whereabouts of the fugitives,
hut a number are known to have re-
turned their homo
Await Foggy Night.
A vast armada, however, is known
to have anchored from 80 to 200 miles
off shore, there to play a game of
patience with the enemy forces, or
await an opportunity to sneak shore
ward on a foggy or stormy night.
The Pequot steamed out of New
London, Conn. last Wednesday after
noon with Lieut.. Joseph Greenspun in
command and Lieut.. Comdr. Thomas
NJ. Molloy in charge of all the Coast
Guards bases in this part of the
coast, also aboard. Four hours later
the first ''rummy" was sighted-the
General Pau, out of Liverpool, Nova
Scotia. In the rays of the setting
sun newspaper photographers and
news reel camera crankers had their
will of the beleagured Pau, which was
under constant guard of two patrol
boats and a converted destroyer.
AT dusk the newspaper men on the
Pequot's bridge, about so feet from
the General Pau's SCARED sides, car
ried on a megaphone conversation
with a man on the liquor ship. a
couple more patrol boats had come up
in the meantime, and the Coast Guard
group began a colorful play of search
lights across the skies, turning that
portion of the seas into q miniature
white way. In the distance were two
other rum boats, each with its quota
of vigilant pickets, which also Joined
the festival of light. with Searchlight
beams that chased the darkness away.
Offered Liquor for Smokes.
On Thursday the Pequot and her
messengers went off Montauk, called
on the notorious and battered Pelle
GRIM, a French ship whose crew
shouted at the interviewing news
paper men IN excellent American"
Unlike the General Pau's spokesman,
a strong voiced member of the
Frenchman's crew readily admitted
the Pellegrini had a mighty load of
whisky and champagne aboard and
quoted prices of $50 a case for the
hard stuff" and s35 case for the
wine There was cigarette famine
aboard, and a case of champagne
was offered in exchange for a news
paper and a carton of cigarettes. But
the Coast Guardsmen forbade con-
tact with the Frenchman.
In the distance was but one more
"rummy," the schooner Tessie Aubrey.
Each "rummy'' had it's quota of vigil
ant pickets. In this area just two
nights before, Comdr. Yeandle had
been informed at Washington there
were II boats. Ten had vanished in
SO hours.
The Pequot then proceeded to the
New York-New Jersey rum row, which
up to a dozen days ago was admittedly
drenching Broadway with whiskies
and wines transported from its 81
bobbing "rummies' by Long Island
boat-to-shore runners. Seven ships, all
under close guard, were there. Not
a case Of liquor had left them in II
days, the Coast Guardsmen said.
Will Fight to Finish.
On Friday the Pequot put some of
the newspaper men ashore at Bay
shore, Long Island, where several re-
tail liquor dispensers, selling whisky
at so cents a drink, predicted gloomy
times ahead. One speed boat owner
who had no scruples in admitting he
was a rum runner, said he had brought
200 cases ashore since the blockade's
inception.
Ordinarily, he said. he ran" $1,000
cases a week. Still another dolefully
confessed he had not run the blockade
as yet.
At F'reeport, Long Island, the in
vestigators put off in a 200-case rum
boat, a 36-foeter with 300-horse- power
engines, and proceeded to the Atlantic
through the runner-infested areas of