Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
federal police officers, agents of the U.S. Prohibition Unit
Bureau of Prohibition
The Bureau of Prohibition was the federal law enforcement agency formed to enforce the National Prohibition Act of 1919, commonly known as the Volstead Act, which backed up the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution regarding the prohibition of the manufacture, sale, and transportation...
, who achieved the most successful number of arrests and convictions during the first years of the alcohol
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
prohibition
Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
era (1920–1925). They were known nationally for successfully shutting down illegal speakeasies
Speakeasy
A speakeasy, also called a blind pig or blind tiger, is an establishment that illegally sells alcoholic beverages. Such establishments came into prominence in the United States during the period known as Prohibition...
and for using disguises in their work.
They made 4,932 arrests, of which 95% (around 4,680) gained convictions. In late 1925, Izzy and Moe were laid off in a reorganization of the bureau of enforcement. A report in Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine suggested they had attracted more publicity than wanted by the new political appointee heading the bureau, although the press and public loved the team. By 1930, both men were working as insurance salesmen.
Early lives and educations
Isidor Einstein was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to a Jewish family about 1880 He grew up speaking YiddishYiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
and likely was educated at a schul; he also learned Hungarian, Polish and German, together with a smattering of other European languages. He emigrated to the United States about 1901.
Moe W. Smith was born ca. 1887 in New York to Jewish immigrant parents from Galicia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He went to public schools, and grew up speaking Yiddish and English. As a young man, he started boxing.
Marriages and families
About 1906, Einstein married Esther xxxx (b. ca. 1888, Austria/Galicia; imm. ca. 1891), who was also an immigrant from Galicia. They had at least seven children together, but two died young before 1910. Surviving children were Joseph (ca. 1910), Charles (ca. 1912), Edward (ca. 1914), Albert (ca. 1916), and Milton (ca. 1927).Before 1920 Smith married Sadie Strauch, a Jewish native of Bohemia in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and immigrant to New York, who was a native Yiddish speaker. Moe and Sadie Smith (b. ca. 1891, imm./nat. 1898 or 1900) were then living with her brother, Benjamin Strauch in Brooklyn. Their daughter Estelle was born ca. 1925.
Careers
After boxing, Smith had a cigar store. Einstein was working as a postal clerk. The ratification in 1919 of the amendment to establish ProhibitionProhibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
required federal and local police forces to add staffing. With no background in law enforcement, but speaking several languages (Yiddish, Hungarian
Hungarian language
Hungarian is a Uralic language, part of the Ugric group. With some 14 million speakers, it is one of the most widely spoken non-Indo-European languages in Europe....
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
, Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
, with a little Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
and Italian
Italian language
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
) in addition to English, Izzy Einstein signed up as Prohibition Agent No. 1. In a short time, he invited his friend Moe Smith to join him as a partner. (They were both Masons
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
, and may have met in the fraternal group. Though both were personally indifferent to temperance, they felt the law must be upheld, no matter how hard it was to enforce.)
Izzy and Moe were both rather round and apparently disarmed many of their quarry. They claimed to have used more than 100 disguises and never been detected. Izzy developed what he called the "Einstein Theory of Rum Snooping" (referring to the theory of relativity by the physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
.) They frequently made arrests while unarmed.
As Prohibition Bureau agents, they were the most famous and successful, known nationally for making thousands of arrests and gaining a high rate of convictions. They made 4,932 arrests, and achieved a 95% conviction rate. They confiscated 5 million gallons of liquor, worth an estimated $15 million. As a result of their work, thousands of bartenders, bootleggers and speakeasy owners were sentenced to jail. They used disguises to make their way into illegal bars, appearing as "streetcar conductor, gravedigger, fisherman, iceman, opera singer" and as the state of Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
delegates to the Democratic National Convention
Democratic National Convention
The Democratic National Convention is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 1852 national convention...
of 1924 held in New York, where they found only soda being served. They once went to a bar and identified themselves as Prohibition agents. The bouncer, thinking they were joking, simply laughed and let them in, where they proceeded to arrest him and everyone inside.
Izzy and Moe used the press to build support:
"They frequently scheduled their raids to suit the convenience of the reporters and the newspaper photographers, and soon learned that there was more room in the papers on Monday mornings than on any other day of the week. One Sunday, accompanied by a swarm of eager reporters, they established a record by making seventy-one raids in a little more than twelve hours."
In November 1925, the partners were among 38 men laid off from the New York office after a reorganization plan announced by General Lincoln C. Andrews of the national bureau. He and other officials in Washington appeared to resent the favorable coverage that Izzy and Moe received, who gained far more attention than higher officials. He was reported as disapproving Prohibition agents who gained publicity, and Izzy and Moe's exploits had been well covered by the press, both tabloids and major papers such as the New York Times; their successes were sensational. As Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine reported at the time,
"The public which looked upon them with as much delight as ever it looked on Robin HoodRobin HoodRobin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....
was denied their adventures —adventures as thrilling as those of Sir Launcelot, as those of Richard Coeur de Lion, as those of Don Quixote de la Mancha."
Later lives
Both men went into the insurance business and did well, despite the Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
. Einstein worked for the New York Life Insurance Company. He died at age 57 in February 1938, several days after having a leg amputated (perhaps as a result of diabetes.) He was buried at Mount Zion Cemetery, Queens County, New York.
Moe lived until 1960, and died in Yonkers, New York
Yonkers, New York
Yonkers is the fourth most populous city in the state of New York , and the most populous city in Westchester County, with a population of 195,976...
.
Legacy and honors
- Izzy wrote an autobiography telling of their exploits, called Prohibition Agent No 1 (1932).
- At their deaths, each man was featured in an obituaryObituaryAn obituary is a news article that reports the recent death of a person, typically along with an account of the person's life and information about the upcoming funeral. In large cities and larger newspapers, obituaries are written only for people considered significant...
in the national magazine Time, which noted their joint achievements during ProhibitionProhibitionProhibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
as the "funniest and most effective team" of federal agents, who made more than 4,900 arrests and confiscated an estimated 5 million bottles of illegal liquor.
In popular culture
- Izzy and Moe's achievements inspired the television film, Izzy and MoeIzzy and MoeIzzy & Moe is a 1985 made for TV crime/comedy film, starring Jackie Gleason and Art Carney. It is a fictional account of two Prohibition-era policemen, Izzy Einstein and Moe Smith, and their adventures in tracking down illegal bars and gangsters....
(1985), directed by Jackie CooperJackie CooperJackie Cooper was an American actor, television director, producer and executive. He was a child actor who managed to make the transition to an adult career. Cooper was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award nomination...
. Jackie GleasonJackie GleasonJackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor and musician. He was known for his brash visual and verbal comedy style, especially by his character Ralph Kramden on The Honeymooners, a situation-comedy television series. His most noted film roles were as Minnesota Fats in the drama film The...
starred as Izzy, and Art CarneyArt CarneyArthur William Matthew “Art” Carney was an American actor in film, stage, television and radio. He is best known for playing Ed Norton, opposite Jackie Gleason's Ralph Kramden in the situation comedy The Honeymooners....
as Moe. Izzy's great-grandson appears in the film.
Further reading
- Einstein, Isidor. Prohibition Agent No 1, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co., 1932
External links
- Izzy and Moe, Freemasonry
- "The Enforcers: Izzy and Moe", Montgomery College
- "Izzy, the Busy Rum Sleuth, and his Dizzy Life", The Literary Digest, 15 April 1922v