Prohibition in the United States

Prohibition in the United States appears in the book through the contrast between a national ban and the drinking, bootlegging, and political life of the early 1930s. Its end in December 1933 marks a practical change in Kansas City: liquor that had been traded illegally could once again be sold openly, including by the Pendergast organization.

Drinking During Prohibition

In Independence, Harry S. Truman’s regular Monday-night poker game took place in a back room above a bank. The game had a 10-cent limit, and the players drank beer or bourbon despite Prohibition. These gatherings—among Truman’s old friends, including Army companions—also turned to politics, making the ban part of ordinary social life rather than a distant abstraction.

The surrounding city presented a broader contrast. Gambling, prostitution, bootlegging, narcotics sales, and racketeering flourished in Kansas City, with Tom Pendergast widely understood to remain the dominant figure behind the city’s illegal businesses. The book places Truman’s modest card-game drinking against this larger, commercially organized world of illicit activity.

Repeal and the Return of Legal Liquor

Prohibition ended in December 1933. By the close of that year, the Pendergasts were back in the legal liquor business. The change did not mean that the organization’s role in Kansas City life had suddenly disappeared; rather, it could again make money from a trade that had previously operated outside the law.

Bourbon as a Sign of the New Market

The Pendergasts’ leading product was Old 1889 Brand, named for the year Tom Pendergast first arrived in Kansas City. It was a seven-and-a-half-year-old Kentucky bourbon bottled at 100 proof. The precise age, strength, and local naming of the brand give the return to lawful liquor a concrete form: repeal changed the conditions of business, and the organization quickly put a recognizable product back on the market.