Dropping the Captain Morgan

The Columbus Day / Native Americans Day Holiday Weekend is upon us (please celebrate responsibly), so of course, our Graphical History Tour needs must get underway with this nod to the bifurcated festivities:

"Landing of Columbus in 1922" by John Knott in Galveston Daily News, Oct. 12, 1922

Leading off with John Knott for the third week in a row? Why not?

The issue Knott is so crudely addressing here is a ruling by Attorney General Harry M. Daugherty prohibiting foreign vessels in American waters from carrying alcoholic beverages. Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes backed up Daugherty's ruling by asserting a right of U.S. law enforcement to board any foreign vessel to confiscate or destroy whatever liquor they found.

"A Good Way to Start Something" by Dennis McCarthy in New Orleans Times-Picayune, Oct. 19, 1922

Predictably, this didn't sit well with other countries. The British and French government protested against Daugherty's ruling, and threatened reprisals. Seven ships of the Cunard and Bright Star line set sail from England for American ports, fully stocked with liquor aboard, daring the U.S. to go ahead and try to do something about it.

"Marooned" by Dorman H. Smith for Newspaper Enterprise Assn., ca. Oct. 11, 1922

"For Mutiny on the High Seas" by Elmer Bushnell for Central Press Assn., ca. Oct. 14, 1922

The practical considerations of Daugherty's ruling were daunting. Another country's luxury liner might have tons of beer, wine, and liquor aboard, more than could be safely off-loaded to some other ship at the three-mile limit (in those days) of U.S. territorial waters — especially during inclement weather. 

"Dropping the Profits" by Nelson Harding in Brooklyn Daily Eagle, Oct. 30, 1930

(Nelson Harding's cartoon, and the title of this post, parody a famous cartoon by Sir John Tenniel in Punch.)

"The Old Man of the Sea" by Daniel Fitzpatrick in St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Oct. 19, 1922

Daugherty's ruling also extended Prohibition to U.S.-registered ships outside territorial waters of the United States. "Under the rules of fair intendment," he wrote, "America's ships, wherever they may be, are included in the terms of the Eighteenth Amendment."

He thus closed a loophole that benefitted the sort of people who could afford international cruises. Now they would have to wait until they disembarked at their destination before enjoying a drink at the bar.

"Rewriting It" by Rollin Kirby in New York World, Oct. 28, 1922

"I can prove to you that Mr. Daugherty is the greatest lawmaker of all time," Albert D. Lasker, chair of the Shipping Board, told the audience at a dinner at which he and Daugherty shared the dais. "Moses only made the Red Sea dry."

And so, having solved the pesky problem of boozy cruises, the prohibitionists could now turn attention to plugging some other holes in the Volstead Act. 

Detail from "Some Big Holes" by John McCutcheon in Chicago Tribune, Oct. 18, 1922