Charles LeRoy Lewis - Special Collections - University of Baltimore

~EW1s;Q99 I: 2 :31
I've heard people say - and naturally I was too young to
even think about buying it - they" be kicking me in the
backside if I'd even thought about it - but I understand
there were places if you was known that you could buy a
drink on the side, In other words, bootleggers,or whatever
you might want to call it.
Harvey: Do you remember any of those places?
Lewis: Well, no, they were very careful in those days; I
know I heard them laugh about one place - in fact, it was
under where 1 formerly lived later on. But it wasn't
there when I lived there; they used to sell whiskey and the
man run the place used to sell it a nickel a shot. And on
pay day when we got paid once a month, he had good whiskey,
cost ten cents a shot. The difference was it was poured out
of the old jug into a fancy jug . . . and a nickel. more.
Of course them days was all before my time and I'd
heard names mentioned, but I don't repeat hearsay; I didn't
know, and I don't think it's right to use hearsay to say.
But the story about the ten-cent whiskey was evidently true,
because a lot of them laughed about it; and they only had the
ten-cent whiskey on payday. But it was the same whiskey they
drank all month for a nickel.
Harvey: Well, why do you think the mill owners wanted to
exclude liquor from being sold?
Lewis: Because liquor breeds trouble; you get people losing
time from work. You have it today; you have men that are
good mechanics. Call them alcoholics or whatever you want;