A bootlegger’s tale in Belen

A bootlegger’s tale in Belen

Part 1

Last week’s edition of La Historia del Rio Abajo described Adolph Becker’s career as a bootlegger who sold illegal alcohol in Belen during the Prohibition era of the 1920s.

Hiring George Washington Wise as a moonshiner who made his whiskey, Becker prospered until Prohibition agents learned of his operation, closed it down and arrested Becker in 1922.

The trial

Adolph Becker stood trial in U.S. District Court in late March 1922. Assistant U.S. District Attorney Albert Clancy served as the prosecutor. U.S. District Court Justice Colin Neblett presided, as he had done in hundreds of previous cases in the two years since prohibition began in 1920.

As Becker’s lawyer, William A. Keleher questioned potential jury members, especially regarding their opinion of Prohibition. Specifically, he asked them if they belonged to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, a sure sign they were “dries” and probably not sympathetic to the accused.

Once the jury had been selected and the trial was underway, the prosecution called its main witness — George Washington Wise. Wise was truthful about Becker’s “business” and his role in it. The elderly moonshiner may well have made a deal to testify in exchange for immunity.

Agreeing to take the witness stand in his own defense, Becker testified with some rather odd explanations for the evidence used against him. He admitted that he sold Wise some enormous copper stills but contended that they were only stock pots normally used to mix food for cattle.

He recalled selling one such pot to a man who used it to make bread in Gallup. He claimed he had bought some whiskey from Wise for purely personal consumption.

When asked about the many empty bottles federal agents had found in the basement of his Belen home, Becker insisted that local boys had collected the bottles from all over town in exchange for candy. He could not explain why the bottles reeked of whiskey when they were opened.

The sentence

Becker’s trial lasted only a few hours before his case was handed over to the jury. The jury returned with a verdict in just 25 minutes. They found Becker guilty on all three counts.

Judge Neblett imposed a sentence of six months in prison plus a fine of $50 (equal to $960 today). Of the 243 men Neblett had sentenced for breaking Prohibition laws since 1920, only 37 had been sentenced to from 90 days to six months in prison.

Becker received the maximum sentence because he was judged guilty on three counts, while the vast majority of those found guilty were found guilty of only one count. Although the Becker family may have helped Adolph obtain a good defense lawyer, family connections clearly had no impact on the outcome of his case or his penalty.

Becker’s identification card at the New Mexico state prison described him as standing 5-foot, 9-inches tall and weighing 144 pounds. His mugshot showed him neatly dressed in a suit and tie. His card reported that he had brown hair and blue eyes. Ironically, when prison officials asked him if he smoked, took drugs or drank, Becker replied no to each question, including the last.

Released

Once he had served his time and was released from prison, Becker returned to Belen to live with his family and work at his store, which his wife, children and parents probably kept open in his absence. Both of his parents died within the next seven years.

Becker’s business closed five years after he left prison, either by his own volition or by a corporate decision made at the Golden Eagle headquarters in Denver. In 1930, the U.S. census listed his occupation as the proprietor of a second-hand store. He and his family lived at 308 N. Fifth St. in Belen. By 1950, Becker had retired.

Adolph and Charity Belle celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1955, renewing their vows and hosting an open house with their friends, their four children and their two grandchildren. A photo of the couple appeared in the Albuquerque Journal on Feb. 15, 1955.

Adolph Becker died after a short illness while on a trip to Olmito, Texas, in 1961. It is likely that he was visiting his son, Virgil Adolph Becker, who lived nearby. Adolph was 79.

Becker’s ever-faithful wife, Charity Belle, died at a daughter’s home in Albuquerque in 1970. She was 86. She and Adolph were buried side-by-side beneath a mulberry tree in Belen’s Terrace Grove cemetery. Becker’s parents are buried directly to the south.

George Washington Wise died in Belen in 1931. He was probably 91. His burial place is unknown.

Not alone

Adolph Becker was hardly the only bootlegger in Belen, Valencia County or New Mexico. His competitors in Belen sold bootleg whiskey at many venues, including the Belen fiestas, dance halls, back alleys, pool halls and speakeasies (illegal bars).

Juan P. Aragon, who ran Belen’s most famous speakeasy, operated his bar so openly that it was said that he went to the bank on Monday mornings to deposit his weekend profits, blatantly standing in line and freely chatting with his fellow small businessmen of Belen.

So many men and women of all ages and backgrounds were arrested that judges like Colin Neblett, who had presided over Becker’s trial, periodically held “Bootlegger Days” during which only bootlegger cases were dealt with so that courts could clear their overcrowded dockets.

There was even a corrido (epic ballad) written about bootlegging in New Mexico. Seven places in New Mexico were so notorious for their moonshining or bootlegging activities that they became known as Bootleg Canyon, Moonshine Canyon, Bootleg Ridge and Whiskey Creek, of which there were four.

Illegal liquor was almost as prevalent during Prohibition as legal liquor had been before the start of this so-called “noble experiment.” According to a contemporary observer, New Mexico during Prohibition was “as wet as the Pacific Ocean.”

As ultimate proof of its failure, all the evils of drinking that prohibition’s supporters had identified prior to 1920 continued to exist or grew worse in the 1920s.

Although some people persisted in defending prohibition into the early 1930s, an increasing number of Americans could not. Nationwide, prohibition was repealed in 1933.

(La Historia del Rio Abajo is a regular column about Valencia County history written by members of the Valencia County Historical Society since 1998.

Opinions expressed in this and all columns of La Historia del Rio Abajo are the author’s alone and not necessarily those of the Valencia County Historical Society or any other group or individual.)