Kentucky Lawyer

The prohibition era

 Mac Swinford trict, and who served with credit as Clerk of the United States District Court for Eastern Kentucky for many years, told this story. It was during the presidential election of 190 when Warren G. Harding, Republican, was running against James M. Co, Democrat. The big issue in the campaign was the League of Nations which Woodrow Wilson’s administration had espoused. The Democrats had adopted a League plank in their platform and were forced to protect it against a very effective assault by isolationists concentrated behind the Republican nominee. The Kenton County Democratic Committee was winding up its campaign with a big picnic and rally at Independence . The main speaker was Circuit Judge Harbison of Covington who spoke for two hours, principally etolling the virtues of the League of Nations and the obligation of Americans to support it by electing a Democratic president. Mr. Rouse was the local party treasurer. He said immediately after the speaking he called the jailer behind the courthouse and said, “Now, Jim, we’re going to win, but all of us must bend every effort to get the vote to the polls. We must get the vote out.” While so speaking he slipped seventy-five one dollar bills into the jailer’s hand. Jim looked at the roll of greenbacks. “Mr. Rouse,” he said, “you have thrown more light on the League of Nations in the last two minutes than Matt Harbison has in the past two hours.” The prohibition era In the days of national prohibition, in what is now referred to as the roaring twenties, the federal courts were 3 Kentucky Lawyer crowded with cases growing out of violations of the generally unpopular law. Racketeers and gangsters, with money derived from the illicit liquor traffic, conducted an invisible government. Law enforcement was confronted with the most difficult, if not impossible, task of any time in the history of our land, either before or since. The most celebrated hoodlum was “Scar Face” Al Capone, a thug whose headquarters were in Chicago. This king of vice and crime, it was said, had his henchmen , bootleggers, rum runners and killers throughout the whole United States and some of our island possessions. I give this background for the benefit of those who are not old enough to remember the famous era of American prohibition. Mr. Cleon Calvert was a distinguished lawyer of Pineville . He was recognized as a capable land lawyer and had for many years been retained by Henry Ford as his attorney in eastern Kentucky to look after the Ford interests in minerals and timber located in that area. Mr. Calvert did not practice criminal law but was a regular attendant on the first day of the term of the London federal court to hear the civil docket called and the assignment for trial of civil cases in which he was interested. He said that on one occasion after the call of the civil docket he sat in the courtroom waiting on a fellow Pineville attorney to return home and while so occupied became interested as an observer in the disposition of the criminal docket. One case in particular attracted his attention . Two very fine looking young men were on trial for stealing from an interstate shipment of freight. The cargo was a truck load of legal whiskey being transferred  Mac Swinford from one warehouse to another. The youths protested their innocence but had no counsel ecept a very young and ineperienced lawyer whom the court had appointed for them. The issue was one of identity. The government rested its whole case upon the testimony of the Negro driver of the truck who stated that, although the holdup was at night, he positively recognized the defendants by the light of a flashlight and when they walked within the glare of the headlights of the truck. The jury accepted the witness’ story and found the boys guilty. Judge Cochran sentenced them to five years in the penitentiary. Mr. Calvert said when he went home that night, he couldn’t get the two young defendants off of his mind. He was positive the jury had made a mistake. The boys were so young and clean-cut looking and had protested their innocence so vigorously. On the other hand, he knew that the driver, under all the circumstances of the holdup, would have been too frightened to have been able...