Detroit, Windsor and a ‘grand carnival of booze’
Excerpt from Dying For a Drink: How a Prohibition Preacher Got Away With Murder
Known to history as “The Fighting Parson,” Reverend J.O.L. Spracklin broke into anotorious Windsor roadhouse one chilly November night in 1920 and shot and killed barkeep Beverly “Babe” Trumble. He never served a day of time, easily being acquitted in his trial for self-defence. A provincial liquor licence inspector already known for his brash tactics, Spracklin’s unabashed carnage solidified across North America the Detroit-Windsor borderlands’ reputation as the new Wild West — where whisky flowed freely, warrants were forged on the spot and ministers toted guns to keep the peace. To the rest of Ontario, a dry province, Spracklin had been the saviour they had been waiting for, the answer to the lawlessness of the Border Cities — that is, until he shot a man at point blank range.
Spracklin’s first official day as a provincial license inspector ended in a brawl. On the Saturday after his appointment, he was with two veteran inspectors raiding three hotels. Unsurprisingly, they found liquor being sold at each establishment. Just outside Windsor, at Jackson’s Corners, the inspectors forced their way into a room where the proprietor had protested that his wife was taking a bath. After breaking in, the inspectors discovered a bottle of whisky instead of a soaking spouse. An officer handed the bottle to Spracklin to hold as evidence. However, one of the occupants attacked the Minister with a hammer, and he was barely rescued.
In many ways, the ascendancy of rum running along the Detroit River was a god-send to the Toronto newspapers. But none of the Toronto press could match the Daily Star for the depth and vitality of its coverage, who sent a young reporter, Roy Greenaway, to cover the exploits of Spracklin’s crew. As the Daily Star’s publisher Joseph Atkinson was a fervent anti-liquor man, and a close friend of Attorney General Raney, there was no question that Greenaway’s reports (if he wished to retain his job) would glorify the exploits of License Inspector Spracklin.
Reports from the Toronto Daily Star gave almost daily accounts of derring-do on the Detroit River border. The Reverend Spracklin was depicted as something of an action hero with his “huge frame, hardened by years of toil in a machine shop, lent itself admirably to the rough and tumble in fact too readily for his opponents.”
The local newspaper, the Border Cities Star, rarely mentioned Spracklin at all. Since his appointment as Inspector, he had almost disappeared from local view except when he blundered and filed the wrong papers in Court or exceeded his jurisdiction. The reality was that he was simply bad for business. So many businessmen in the Border Cities were now engaged in liquor transport in one way or another that Spracklin’s antics had disrupted what was an enormously profitable enterprise at a time when the post-war economy was faltering and hundreds of veterans and their families were destitute. To many veterans, bootlegging offered the prospect of at least a little money and should be encouraged.
As he was so convinced that he was fighting God’s battle, there would be no circumspection on Spracklin’s part. Spracklin had little knowledge of the law, or even of elementary policing. He misdated charges which resulted in their being thrown out of court. On another occasion he arrested a man, took him to jail and then released him on bail.
In one of his most spectacular fiascos, Spracklin had used the patrol boat to follow a large yacht down the Detroit River and into Lake St. Clair. He had no reason whatsoever to believe that there was any liquor onboard the targeted vessel.
Nevertheless, together with two other gun-brandishing officers, Spracklin boarded the ship and demanded that the occupants submit to a search. It turned out that the yacht was the private property of Oscar E. Fleming, Windsor’s first mayor and one of its wealthiest and most influential citizens.
At its masthead, Fleming’s ship sported the blue ensign of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club, one of Canada’s most elite clubs. At the time Spracklin and his men charged on board, Fleming’s son was about to serve dinner to a number of distinguished ladies and gentlemen. They found their soirée rudely interrupted as gun-waving officers swarmed through the ship in search of alcohol. They found none. Oscar Fleming was outraged and demanded an apology. Spracklin refused, and Fleming filed a lawsuit.
Smashing in doors without warrants and demanding that the occupants explain themselves seemed to have become the preferred method of Spracklin and his men. The traditions of British law wherein authorities had to have a properly issued search warrant to enter premises seemed to the Reverend to be an unnecessary nuisance. Besides, he was empowered by a Higher Authority. Despite the mayhem he was leaving in his wake, there was no indication that Spracklin and his men had an appreciable effect in stopping or even slowing down the liquor trade. By late October, even the Toronto Daily Star conceded that the weekend along the Detroit River border was still “a grand carnival of booze.” Adapted from Dying For a Drink: How a Prohibition Preacher Got Away With Murder by Patrick Brode. Copyright © 2018 All rights reserved.