Mayer Margolies: Convicted Expert on Bootleg Whiskey

           

“There was rapt and breathless attention” in a Canton, Ohio, courtroom, accord to a news account, when a witness took the stand in July 1925 to testify to the age and origin of bottles of whiskey arrayed on a table in front of him.  He was Mayer E. Margolies, a former local liquor dealer, recruited as an expert on whether the whiskey was pre-Prohibition or bootlegged.  The selection of Margolies for this judicial task was ironic because years earlier he himself had been hauled before an Ohio court and convicted of bootlegging. 

Born in Augustow, Poland, in April 1873, Meyer was the son of Joseph B. and Sarah L. Sparling Margolies.  He emigrated at the age of 16 in 1888 to the United States, early settling in Circleville, Ohio, south of Columbus.  The 1900 federal census found him living there in a boarding house and working in a liquor store.

By the early 1900s  Margolies had moved 160 miles north to Stark County.  His first stop was in Massillon where he managed a saloon on Erie Street owned by Samuel Rosenbloom.  In Stark County Mayer also found a bride in Josephine Dittenhafer, a local woman born in Illinois who was 10 years younger than he.  Married in December 1906, the couple would have four children, Leah born in 1908;  Robert, 1809;  Gertrude, 1912, who died in her teens; and Joseph, 1916.

By the time of his marriage Mayer had moved the short distance to Canton, opening a liquor store on West Ninth Street he called the Canton Liquor Company.  His success was such that he expanded to the main commercial avenue, Market Street, where his liquor house was located on Canton’s Public Square, shown above.  He also opened a branch store 20 miles northeast in Alliance, Ohio.

Margolies was rectifying whiskey in his store, buying whiskey

by the barrel, blending it to achieve desired taste and textures, and bottling it with his own labels.  His flagship brands were “Belle of Canton,” sold with the slogan, “Get the Best,” and “Green Bag” touted as ”Good as Old Gold.”  He advertised these whiskeys widely through giveaway items like shot glasses, cork screws, and mini-jugs containing a swallow or two.

He also publicized his products vigorously in the Canton Daily News.  At Christmas 1913, he advertised:  “Whether they be for the Christmas table or for cooking—all wines and liquors bought at Margolies’ can be depended upon—absolutely. An immense assortment, each selected with scrupulous care to hold to that standard which this store has always maintained—absolute purity, fine body, delightful banquet—and at prices that make them rare values.”  He promised to deliver his goods to any part of Canton. 

The year 1913 had its setbacks for the liquor dealer.  In April the Xenia Daily Gazette had headlined: “Mayer E. Margolies Tried for Shipping intoxicants Into Dry Territory Under Fictitious Label.”   Green County, of which Xenia is the seat, had gone “dry” under local option prohibition laws.  Federal law still allowed liquor shipments to such localities from out of state.  Margolies, firmly in Ohio, sought to ship his booze into Xenia via the Western Union Express Company using a fictitious label appearing to originate out of state.

This ruse did not fool local officials, however, and the Greene County’s sheriff confiscated four boxes of liquor shipped to Xenia by Margolies.  His lawyer argued that authorities had not proved the liquid found in the four boxes was intoxicating and asked the court to dismiss the charges.  The judge was not impressed and two weeks later issued a verdict finding Margolies guilty of bootlegging.  His sentence was not immediately announced.

Likely discouraged by this event, Margolies exited the liquor business about 1919 when Ohio went completely dry ahead of National Prohibition.  He now became a  real estate dealer and insurance agent — occupations that more than a few whiskey men found compatible with their earlier careers.  Meanwhile, across town, a Hungarian immigrant named Elek Takacs had been forced to close up his saloon to become a steamship ticket and foreign exchange agent.

Fast forward to July 1825.  When Takacs left his saloon, he reputedly had taken home liquor worth $10,000 (equivalent to $220,000 today), a perfectly legal move.  Getting word of this valuable stash an Ohio state prohibition officer had come to the Takacs’ home and confiscated the bottles as latter-day bootleg moonshine.  When authorities sought to prove that the whiskey originated post-Prohibition and was “contraband,”  a court hearing was scheduled to determine the origins and quality of the liquor.

The courtroom was packed with spectators, including Elek Takacs, likely with his wife, Vilma, the couple shown here on a passport photo.  As Mayer Margolies took the stand, the tension was palpable.  The Polish immigrant did not disappoint.  He broke the seal on the first of twenty bottles and sniffed the aroma. As reported in the press:  “Then amid an expectant hush he put it to his lips and tasted the amber fluid….’I can say that this is whiskey,’ he testified.”

The courtroom crowd sighed frequently as Margolies opened bottle after bottle, twenty in all with his cork screw, poured some out and tasted it.  He testified that it all was pre-Prohibition liquor and not moonshine.  There were no illegal “modern concoctions among it,” he testified.  The headline in the Canon Daily News the next day told the story:

After that moment in the limelight, Margolies went back to selling real estate and insurance.  By the time of Repeal in 1934 he was 63 years old, semi-retired, and had no interest in returning to the liquor business.  He died in May 1941 and is buried in Canton.  His monument is shown here.  His widow, Josephine, lived another thirty years and when she died in 1971 was buried adjacent to him.

One question about this story continues to nag at me:  Did Canton authorities know of Margolies' conviction on bootlegging in Xenia when they failed to object and allowed him to assume “expert” status on the witness stand?