facts at hand, makes it more and more apparent how fitting is the term, “boob Gentile.”
Why, even Norman Hapgood knew how bad it was, and Collier’s Weekly, under his editorship, was the first journal in the land to print the names of Jews in connection with the liquor debauchery of the country. But those were the good old days, when Hapgood could tell the truth even about Hearst, the man for whom he now writes his graceless palaver of pro-Jewish propaganda.
In Collier’s Weekly, during the year 1908, solid truths appeared, which are in point today as proofs of what was transpiring. There was a specially scathing attack on what was called “nigger gin,” a peculiarly vile beverage which was compounded to act upon the Negro in a most vicious manner. Will Irwin spoke of this gin as “the king iniquity in the degenerated liquor traffic of these United States.” This author and Collier’s started a new fashion in giving publicity not only to the names of certain brands of liquors, but also the names of the men who made them. It turned out that the maker of a brand of “nigger gin” which had spurred certain Negroes on to the nameless crime, was one Lee Levy. Mr. Irwin wrote:
“Because the South is not through with Lee Levy, and because its citizens may at least drive him out of business—if they cannot get him behind the bars—one declaration of the Commercial Appeal is worthy of reply. That paper raises a question of fact—it charges that Levy’s gin, Dreyfuss, Weil & Company’s gin, Bluthenthal & Blickert’s gin, the Old Spring Distilling Company’s gin, do not exist; or that, if they exist, their sales are insignificant. Let me present my own evidence on that point.”
Mr. Irwin then details some of his experiences. The gin which he was discussing was provocative of peculiar lawlessness, its labels bore lascivious suggestions and were decorated with highly indecent