Spirits of Just Men: Mountaineers, Liquor Bosses, and Lawmen in the Moonshine Capital of the World

2. Wettest Section in the U.S.A.

2 Wettest Section in the U.S.A. Involved in the trial at Roanoke were some of the solid men of the big mountain county. There were merchants, automobile salesmen, liquor financiers , sheriffs and deputy sheriffs, a member of the state prohibition force, a federal revenue man—makers and more makers of moon—and the charge on which these men were tried was not that of liquor making, but of a conspiracy to beat the government out of the tax on liquor. Carter Lee, a grandnephew of Robert E. Lee, was up there, facing a possible prison term, and the South was shocked. —Sherwood Anderson, “City Gangs Enslave Moonshine Mountaineers” assistant u.s. attorney general Joseph B. Keenan, one of the prosecutors of the conspiracy, knew right away how formidable his Franklin County opponents would be. On April 12, 1935, ten days before the trial was to begin, Keenan wrote a letter to his boss in Washington, DC, calling to his attention how the Wickersham Crime Commission had singled out Franklin County as “the most notorious spot in the country for liquor violations.” Then he added that during the latest Treasury Department’s investigation of the county, “Considerable political and other pressure has been brought on the case, the Government’s witnesses intimidated, and one or two killed.” He warned of further trouble, particularly that the jury could fall prey to the same bullying. Before writing the letter, he had telephoned lead prosecuting attorney Frank Tavenner Jr. to ask him what he thought of the situation. Tavenner admitted that he was unfamiliar with the territory and therefore “greatly handicapped” in the selection of the jurors. Knowing this, Keenan asked his home office to seek help from the FBI. The attorney general’s office immediately relayed the request, and just days later FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover rushed a memorandum to Keenan, signing it himself. Hoover promised an “investigation of the jury panel at Roanoke, Virginia.” Noting that the trial would begin in four days with a real possibility of jury tampering or worse, Hoover promised to expedite his department’s work.1 But that’s as far as the investigation went, as presiding judge John Paul refused to bow to the pressure from Washington and declined to give out Wettest Section in the U.S.A. 29 the names of the potential jurors. Only slowly would the feds realize how decisive Judge Paul’s move would prove in the outcome of the trial. At a few minutes past ten o’clock in the morning on April 22, Judge Paul rapped his gavel and called the court to session. He then asked the fortyfive potential jurors sitting in the front rows to go to the jury chambers for group questioning. When they had filed into the room, he read the list of defendants and asked the jurors whether they knew any of them. One man stepped forward and said he owned a farm next to a defendant’s father. One from Rocky Mount said he knew nearly every one of the defendants personally . The judge excused those two, along with seven others who told him they’d already formed opinions about the case from what they’d heard or Figure 9. Luther Smith (second from left) and fellow deputies pose with guns during the heyday of the moonshine raids in Franklin County. Smith’s jurisdiction was near Endicott, Virginia, circa 1920. Author’s personal collection. 30 chapter 2 read. From the remaining group, all of whom claimed no prior knowledge of the defendants or the case, the defense struck two and the government one, alternating turns, until they reduced the number to the requisite twelve with two alternates. There is a photograph from the Roanoke Times of all fourteen of the jury members and alternates posed alongside the deputy marshal in charge of their supervision. For the picture, the fifteen men wore suits and ties and most wore fedora hats with wide bands or had removed them for the picture and held them in their hands. All were white. From the court’s jury list, we know that none of them were from Franklin County, but all were from adjacent counties: Craig, Montgomery, Botetourt, Patrick, and Roanoke Counties. Of the jurors and the alternates, ten of the fourteen were farmers, with four living in small towns. With all the men in one posed shot made in front of the...