Nelson Johnson - Boardwalk Empire - The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City

Edge’s opponent in the Republican primary was the wealthy Austin Colgate, heir to the toothpaste fortune. The primary was hotly contested and, in a time when there were no campaign finance reports, Colgate spent his money freely. Nucky helped Edge by raising the funds needed to wage a statewide campaign and by using his skill as a powerbroker to gain support for Edge from an unexpected source.

There was no contest in the Democratic primary; the candidate was Jersey City Mayor Otto Wittpenn. A reform mayor, Wittpenn was a headache for Hudson County Democratic boss Frank “I am the Law” Hague, who decided it was time for Wittpenn to move up and out—out of Hague’s way. Frank Hague was becoming a force in Democratic politics at about the same time Nucky was making his move to prominence as a Republican. Hague was the son of immigrant Irish parents, born in the “Horseshoe Section” of Jersey City in 1871. Despite having neither an education (he was expelled from school in the sixth grade) nor a family name to bolster him in local politics, Hague became a leader while still a young man. One step at a time, he amassed power as he went from constable to custodian of City Hill to the office of street and water commissioner. Like Nucky, Frank Hague branched out into state politics not because he wanted statewide power, but rather because it was useful to have the influence of state government to safeguard his city’s interests.

When the election of 1916 rolled around, there weren’t any Democrats whom Hague trusted enough to support for governor, making him ripe for an overture by Nucky. Prior to the 1947 State Constitution, a governor couldn’t succeed himself and when Wilson left Trenton for Washington, he was succeeded by James Fiedler, a party hack from Jersey City who happened to be president of the Senate at the right time. Hague controlled Fiedler and supported him in the election of 1913; however, come 1916, Hague could find no one to support. At Nucky’s prompting and with a pledge of cooperation from Edge, Hague instructed his people to “crossover” and support Nucky’s candidate in the primary. Hague then abandoned Wittpenn in the general election. Wittpenn was a pawn in Hague’s and Nucky’s game, and Walter Edge became governor. This was the first of many occasions when Nucky and Hague put aside party differences to work for their mutual interests.

As governor, Edge dutifully rewarded Nucky by appointing him clerk of the State Supreme Court. “Can you imagine that, a character like Nucky Johnson, the head clerk to New Jersey’s judiciary.” Johnson continued serving as Atlantic County Treasurer despite the fact that both jobs were supposed to be full-time. The position of clerk meant little to Nucky, but it gave him an excuse to be in Trenton and to begin making contacts in the state Republican organization. At the age of 33, having a close ally in the governor’s chair and the power to dispense favors beyond Atlantic City, Nucky had arrived as a force in statewide politics.

At about the same time Atlantic City was striving to move beyond being merely Philadelphia’s Playground into a national resort, the city’s popularity and, with it, Johnson’s power, were given an enormous boost. In 1919, with Woodrow Wilson in the White House, Victorian morality won a major victory with the adoption of the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the Volstead Act. Woodrow Wilson, the reformer, was again unwittingly advancing the career of Nucky Johnson along with hundreds of other racketeers. “Prohibition” banned the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating liquors—it was doomed to failure. For decades, the Anti-saloon League, and before it, the National Prohibition Party, had been waging a single-minded campaign to shut down the liquor industry. With Wilson as president, the Prohibitionists finally had someone who would listen to them. The 18th Amendment was adopted by the required three-fourths of the states within a single year. The Amendment had been written into the Constitution and scheduled to go into effect in a few months when Hague’s candidate, Edward I. Edwards, was elected governor. During the campaign, Edwards pledged, “I intend to interfere with the enforcement of Prohibition in this State.” Thanks to Edwards, New Jersey was the last state to ratify the Amendment, doing so after it had been in effect for two years.

That so many people in power could take leave of their senses by supporting a law so utterly unenforceable stands as a monument to the ignorance of single-issue politics. It’s the classic example of the “law of unintended consequences.” While Prohibition reduced the general availability of alcohol, it greatly increased the money available for political corruption and organized crime. Otherwise law-abiding citizens refused to give up the pleasure of an occasional drink and got their booze from illegal suppliers. An authority on Prohibition, Al Capone once said:I make my money by supplying a public demand. If I break the law, my customers, who number hundreds of the best people in Chicago, are as guilty as I am. The only difference between us is that I sell and they buy. Everybody calls me a racketeer. I call myself a businessman. When I sell liquor, it’s bootlegging. When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on Lake Shore Drive, it’s hospitality.

Selling liquor unlawfully was nothing new in Atlantic City. Resort tavern owners had violated the state’s Bishops’ Law for years by serving drinks on Sunday. If they could get away with it one day a week, why not seven? “Prohibition didn’t happen in Atlantic City.” As far as Atlantic City was concerned, the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution never existed. While other cities had speakeasies and private clubs, the sale of alcohol in the resort continued as usual in taverns, restaurants, hotels, and nightclubs. You could buy liquor in drugstores, the corner grocery, and the local farmer’s market. The resort was more than an outlet for illegal booze, it was a major port of entry for foreign-produced liquor. Large “mother ships,” bearing thousands of cases of whiskey and rum, anchored off the coast where they were greeted by speedboats, which were little more than empty hulls with twin motors. Cases of liquor were unloaded all along the island, with speedboats pulling into the bay near a city firehouse where they were greeted by the local firemen who helped unload the booze. “Everybody helped out. If you worked for the city you could count on one time or another working a night shift and being told to go to such and such place and help unload a boat. You weren’t supposed to know what it was but everybody did.”

It was the Coast Guard’s job to stop the flow of imported whiskey. More often than not, it was unsuccessful. In one incident, four coast guards were arrested on charges of assault with intent to kill for shooting at a rumrunner. Daniel Conover had refused to stop his boat in the Inlet at 2:00 A.M. on a May evening in 1924 when ordered to do so by Chief Petty Officer Edward Robert. Shots were fired and Conover was caught with 75 cases of liquor in the captured boat. Atlantic County Prosecutor Louis Repetto arrested Chief Robert and his three crewmates charging them with abuse of their authority for using firearms. “To my mind” he said, “the Federal men are as guilty as is the individual who uses a pistol without provocation. An officer may fire only in pursuit of persons guilty of felony. Rum smuggling comes under the designation of a misdemeanor.” This wasn’t an isolated incident. There were dozens of reported occurrences during the 1920s when local law enforcement authorities were used to obstruct federal officials attempting to secure compliance with Prohibition.

The uninterrupted flow of booze enhanced the resort’s standing among vacationing businessmen. “You gotta understand, nobody did it the way we did here. Sure you could get booze in New York or Philly, but it was always in a speakeasy you know, hush, hush. Here it was right out in the open, and that made us real attractive to businessmen looking for a place to hold a convention.”