Prohibition-era murder story a dry read

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/12/2018 (2840 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canada’s recent legalization of cannabis has ended a long period of prohibition, for some of the same reasons that legal prohibition of alcohol did not work in North America almost a century ago.

The fascinating characters and events of the late 1910s and early ’20s in and around Windsor, Ont., should make for an engaging and exciting story, focused on one small part of the broader Prohibition picture.

Unfortunately, Windsor native Patrick Brode’s newest work of Canadian legal history presents intimate details about the Detroit-Windsor border 100 years ago with academic distance, which fails to engage the reader as fully as the material deserves.

Brode is a lawyer who has written four other books, including 2009’s The Slasher Killings: A Canadian Sex-Crime Panic, 1945-1946. His most recent book was last year’s Border Cities Powerhouse: The Rise of Windsor 1900-1945.

The salaciously titled Dying for a Drink focuses on the problem of drinking in the 20th century. Its effects polarized opinions and actions after the First World War, culminating in the killing of a roadhouse proprietor by a preacher who was also a provincial licence inspector.

Brode’s command of the background and specific minutiae surrounding the episode show his extensive research and understanding of the law.

The Ontario Temperance Act (OTA), which Methodist minister Leslie Spracklin was enforcing, was a poorly written and contradictory law, which allowed too much leeway to enforcers and judges: “It was a bad act, which ‘leaves a magistrate free to presume a man’s guilt,’” according to one opponent.

He notes early connections between Spracklin and his eventual victim, Beverly (Babe) Trumble, whose death was mourned by Spracklin’s mother.

Complicating the situation in the “border cities” around Windsor was the freedom to transport liquor within Canada and the desperation for drink in nearby Detroit, which was under constitutional and Volstead Act prohibition at the time.

Partiers coming from the U.S. to drink in Windsor and its environs caused a lot of problems, and “rum-runners” smuggling legal Canadian Club and other alcohol illegally across the Detroit River overwhelmed inadequate Canadian border security.

Spracklin was able to employ a sketchy team of thugs and enforcers, who seemed completely open to corruption by the local sellers and smugglers. The purveyors of alcohol, like some black market drug providers today, considered graft and official confiscation part of the cost of doing business in a lucrative market.

Brode eventually details what happened in the early-morning shooting, and chronicles the trial and eventual fallout, which included the defeat of the startlingly acronymed United Farmers of Ontario (UFO!) provincial government, and some, well, temperance of the Prohibition excesses in Windsor.

Trumble’s wife Lulu Bell appeared as a dramatic participant at the inquest into his death. Whether Trumble was armed when Spracklin shot him was a crucial but disputed point.

In the hands of a documentarian such as director Ken Burns or a more literary-inclined author, Dying for a Drink could easily be edge-of-the-seat stuff. Readers who can provide the drama inherent in the story’s characters and plot will enjoy the historical details. Students of the history of Canada can also find lots to ponder in this short account.

Others may be left wanting a less, uh, dry presentation.

Bill Rambo teaches at the Laureate Academyin St. Norbert.