was required, just guts and muscle. But the scale of the logistical problem was something the criminal element had never confronted before. While a speedboat full of Canadian whiskey might turn a tidy little profit, it made no dent in the thirst of fifty million drinkers. Supplying thousands of clandestine taverns on a daily basis called for organization, manpower, fleets of trucks, breweries, distilleries, warehouses—all the components of major corporations—and since they’re dealing with contraband, they can only hire criminals.  This simple dictate brought together thousands of muscle men, cutthroats, gamblers and con artists who otherwise would never have spoken to each other, and welded them into a panoply of efficient law-breaking machines. It was this demand for integrated operations that would create the crime syndicate as we know it today.^[8] As historian Andrew Sinclair put it, “national prohibition transferred $2 billion a year from the hands of brewers, distillers, and shareholders to the hands of murderers, crooks, and illiterates.”^[9]

The seeds of organized crime had been in place since the Civil War. In the 1870s, professional gamblers began banding together to defend themselves against civic minded reformers and other do-gooders.^[10]  Men like John Torrio, who ran gambling and prostitution operations, had already planted seeds of corruption in city hall and the police department. Torrio was in a position to fertilize those seeds because he had what the others lacked: vision.

 For nearly thirty years the Anti-Saloon League had lobbied for Prohibition and on the eve of their triumph, they issued a statement to the press: “At one minute past midnight tomorrow a new nation will be born... tonight John Barleycorn makes his last will and testament.  Now for an era of clean thinking and clean living!”^[11]  For Bishop James Cannon, who had devoted his life to the temperance crusade, this was a moment of ultimate victory.  For John Torrio and Al Capone, for the Purple Gang in Detroit, for Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello, for Charlie “King” Soloman in Boston and Max “Boo Boo” Hoff in Philly,^[12] for