Whiskey Men Honored from Abroad

Foreword:  While the great majority of whiskey men concentrated their attention on the communities in which they lived, some were deeply interested in other countries.  A few were recognized for their contributions abroad during their lifetime.  Three of them are featured here.  

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, Frank John Baptiste Duchateau, shown here, who had inherited a thriving liquor dealership from his father, used his riches to become a highly respected philanthropist.  His contributions to feeding the starving people of Europe during World War I earned him the King Albert medal of Belgium.

As a result of having been overrun by the armies of Prussian Germany,  Belgium faced a food crisis of major proportions.  Belgian Cardinal Mercier, shown here, came to the U.S. in 1914 to elicit public opinion for help.  During his visit may have met with Duchateau, whose father, Abelard, had been born in Belgium.  A Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB), headed by future President Herbert Hoover, was created to assist the starving in Belgium and Northern France.

The CRB purchased and imported millions of tons of foodstuffs to distribute, and watched over the process to make sure the Germans did not appropriate the food. The CRB became a veritable independent republic of relief, with its own flag, navy, factories, mills, and railroads. Private donations from Americans, prominent among them Duchateau, and government grants supplied an $11-million-a-month budget.  At its peak, 10.5 million people a day were being fed.

After the war by royal decree on 7 April 1919 a Belgian medal was created and awarded to both Belgians and foreigners who were exceptionally meritorious in promoting, organizing or administering humanitarian and charitable work that assisted Belgians in need.  The front, as shown here, bore the likeness of King Albert.  The reverse bore the words “In Testimony of National Recognition, 1914-1918.  The ribbon bore national colors of Belgium — red, yellow and black. Duchateau likely wore his with pride.

Beginning his life in America breaking coal in a Pennsylvania mine about 1887, Michael Bosak became the self-proclaimed “Richest Slovak in America.”  Shown here, Bosak began by opening a liquor store and a saloon in the early 1890s and then founding a company to manufacture a wine-based patent medicine that was reputed to remedy such ailments as constipation and loss of appetite.  By 1897 he had accrued sufficient wealth to open a bank.

Despite his business success, Bosak never forgot the place of his birth.  During World War I he organized collections of money and clothing to help native Slovaks who were suffering from wartime conditions in Europe.  With the final break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a movement emerged to create a new country to be called Czechoslovakia.  

Bosak played a key role in a conference of Czech and Slovak leaders who met in Pittsburgh in May 1818 to forge a joint approach to independence.  The agreement they formulated after two days at the Moose Temple, right, became known as the “Pittsburgh Pact.”  As a moving force and early signatory behind the agreement, Bosak became a celebrity among the Slovaks, receiving several awards. 

Since his death in 1937, the whiskey man has continued to be honored in Slovakia, now a country in its own right and under its own flag, something Bosak later had argued for.  In 1999 on the 130th anniversary of his birth, the Michael Bosak Society was organized among Slovak-Americans  Each year the Society presents monetary prizes in the name of Bosak to business and economics students in the secondary schools of Slovakia.  

Shown here, George Rudy Washburne founded and edited for 32 years a publication called the “Wine and Spirits Bulletin” where he became a vocal and influential leader in the ultimately losing fight against “Dry” forces pushing toward state and national prohibition of alcohol.  He failed to prevail and National Prohibition was imposed in 1920 by constitutional amendment.

At that point, Washburne shut down the Wine & Spirits Bulletin and founded a new periodical entitled:  “Revista,” a word in Portuguese that can mean “search” or “magazine,” connoting a publication of serious intent.  “Revista” was a trade journal in Portuguese aimed at Brazil, the flag shown here.  Its articles emphasized the business opportunities existing in the United States for companies that might be considering expanding here, and U.S. companies looking to Latin America.

The success of the magazine resulted in the government of Brazil honoring Washburn by appointing him its Vice Consul in Louisville.  Said the Courier-Journal of the appointment:  “The selection of this city indicates clearly that the Brazilian government expects American manufacturers in this section will be deeply interested in developing and extending their sales in Brazil.”

Washburn’s duties as Vice Consul would have included meeting with Brazilian businessmen visiting Louisville, briefing American businessmen on the investment climate in Brazil, and occasionally dealing with visa or import/export issues.  Working to advance international trade may have helped him ease the sting of losing the prohibition battle.  Washburne had only three years to serve as Vice Consul.  In February 1923, he became seriously ill and died at the age of 62. 

Note:  Expanded vignette on each of these individuals may be found on this site as follows: Frank Duchateau, September 28, 2014;  Michael Bosak, August 23, 2013, and George Washburne, June 11, 2019

Whiskey Men and International Diplomacy

           

Foreword:  With more than 500 individual posts on pre-Prohibition American distillers, liquor dealers and saloonkeepers featured on this blog, it seems appropriate from time to time to describe patterns of behavior that link individuals and enlarging the perspective on what they were contributing to our Nation.  I have decided to begin the series by briefly relating the stories of four whiskey men historically involved in international diplomacy. 

Whiskey millionaire Samuel Taylor Suit whose distillery and estate sat in what is now Suitland, Maryland, was an early example of a “Washington insider.” At his mansion he wined and dined Presidents, members of Congress, and top Executive Branch officials.  Shown right, Suit also was responsible for the venue of negotiations that settled a major crisis between the United States and England.

The dispute concerned warships built in Britain and sold to the Confederacy during the Civil War.  The most famous of these was the CSS Alabama, shown above as it was being sunk in battle with the USS Kearsarge.  Before its end, however, the Alabama had done significant damage to U.S. merchant shipping. Powerful forces in Washington howled for retribution in what became known as “The Alabama Claims.”   Some wanted the equivalent today of $50 billion in damages;  others called for ceding to the U.S.  parts or all of Canada.  The British responded by stalling.

When President Ulysses S. Grant sought negotiations to end the prolonged controversy he needed a location.  Remembering Suit’s ample food and drink, including his excellent whiskey, in 1871 Grant asked him to host American and British diplomats to hammer out an agreement.  Suit was delighted to oblige and played genial host throughout the deliberations.  

The ambiance — and perhaps the whiskey — Suit provided seems to have helped break the deadlock and the result became known as the Treaty of Washington.  In the end the U.S. settled for neither billions nor chunks of Canada but a relatively paltry $15.5 million — equivalent to about $387 million today.  The British quickly paid up.  And Suit took his place in the history books.

Grant’s successor, Rutherford B. Hayes, was responsible forGuido Marx, a whiskey wholesaler from Toledo, Ohio, playing a role in international diplomacy.  Marx’s story begins in Germany where in his youth he became a revolutionary, fighting for German political rights against Prussian authoritarianism, as in the scene shown below.  When the Revolution of 1848 was crushed, he was among those “Forty-Eighters” who fled to the United States.

Settling in Toledo, Ohio, Marx became, in turn, a grocer, the owner of a German-language newspaper, and finally proprietor of the oldest and largest wholesale liquor business in town.  He also embarked on a political career that took him into the Ohio legislature and later as Mayor of Toledo, the city’s first chief executive of Jewish heritage.  A Republican, along the way he had befriended Rutherford B. Hayes from nearby Fremont, an Ohio governor who became U.S. President in 1877. 

Hayes appointed Marx ambassador to Chile.  That landed him squarely in the middle of the so-called “War of the Pacific” a conflict that pitted Chile against the combined forces of Peru and Bolivia in land and naval battles, as shown here.  The U.S. was neutral in the war.  Marx along with his counterparts in the belligerent countries arranged peace talks among delegates from Peru, Bolivia and Chile aboard an American ship, the USS Lackawanna.  Peru and Bolivia made extreme demands that Chile rejected and the talks failed.  Chile eventually prevailed in the war.

As a sidelight, the British barred selling warships to either side because, it was said, they were “in mortal dread of another Alabama award.”  With the end of his term as ambassador, Guido Marx returned to Toledo and resumed running his liquor business.

Fast forward to World War I and an immigrant named Michael Bosak, a man who began life here breaking coal in a Pennsylvania mine and ended the self-proclaimed “Richest Slovak in America.”  Shown here, Bosak began by opening a liquor store and a saloon in the early 1890s and then founding a company to manufacture a wine-based patent medicine that was reputed to remedy such ailments as constipation and loss of appetite.  By 1897 he had accrued sufficient wealth to open a bank.

Despite his business success, Bosak never forgot the place of his birth.  During World War I he organized collections of money and clothing to help native Slovaks who were suffering from wartime conditions in Europe.  With the final break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a movement emerged to create a new country to be called Czechoslovakia.  

Bosak played a key role in a conference of Czech and Slovak leaders who met in Pittsburgh in May 1818 to forge a joint approach to independence.  The agreement they formulated after two days at the Moose Temple, right, became known as the “Pittsburgh Pact.”  As a moving force and early signatory behind the agreement, Bosak became a celebrity among the Slovaks. 

 Since his death in 1937, Bosak has continued to be honored in Slovakia, now a country in its own right. In 1999 on the 130th anniversary of his birth, the Michael Bosak Society was formed among Slovaks in Northeast Pennsylvania.  Each year the Society presents a monetary prize in the name of Michael Bosak to business and economics students in the secondary schools of Slovakia.

Milton Kronheim dropped out of school in the District of Columbia in 1903 to open a liquor store on M Street in Georgetown.  He was only 14 years old.  He called his enterprise the Maryland Wine & Liquor Company — the name he kept throughout his eight decade career as a Washington liquor dealer.  Already a rich man when D.C. went “dry” in 1917, Kronheim opened a clothing store and bail bonding business.  With Repeal in 1934 he jumped back in the liquor trade.

Kronheim’s reputation as a Washington “mover and shaker” arrived with the Truman Administration in 1945. He had befriended the then senator in the restaurant of the Mayflower Hotel during the 1930s and thereafter contributed generously to the Missourian’s elections, including $25,000 for Truman’s presidential campaign in 1948After Truman became President, Milton was a frequent guest at the White House.A photo here shows them together.

One of the outcomes of World War II was the effort to resettle Jews from Europe and elsewhere in Palestine in the Middle East, a new country to be called “Israel.”  It was important to proponents that the United States recognize this new state but many in the State Department were skeptical, worried about reaction in the Arab world.  Strongly in favor of Israel, Kronheim offered advocates for Israel access into the Oval Office and has been credited with swaying Truman to recognize the State of Israel only minutes after its leaders, as shown below, had declared independence on May 14, 1948.

Kronheim himself always was careful to downplay any role in the President’s decision.  In an oral history for the Truman Library, he said: “I think Mr. Truman at heart…that he was whole-heartedly in favor of the establishment of a Jewish home. He knew more about Jewish history that a lot of people will ever know.” Despite his self-effacement, Kronheim has continued to be identified closely with Truman’s momentous decision.  In tribute to his contribution, a town in Israel is named Nachalat Kronheim.

Here we have four whiskey men who played a part in international diplomacy, each with a somewhat different role — host, ambassador, conferee, and political insider.  Three were assisted in their efforts by being friends of U.S. Presidents.  Moreover, despite whatever other activities they were called to, all four remained whiskey men throughout most of their working lives.

Note:  This blog contains fuller biographies of each of these men:  S. T. Suit, August 4, 2011; Guido Marx, May 21, 2011;  Michael Bosak, August 23, 2013; and Milton Kronheim, July 12, 2011.

Michael Bosak Claimed He Was “The Richest Slovak in America”

The function of a “breaker boy” in mining was to break coal into pieces and sort those pieces into categories of nearly uniform size, a process known as “breaking."  He also chipped away any impurities that might be clinging to the coal.  It was hard, low-paying labor.  How Michael Bosak went from breaker boy in a Pennsylvania mine to proclaiming himself “The Richest Slovak in America”  is a whiskey man’s tale.

Bosak was born in 1870 in Saris, a town then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but now part of the Slovak Republic.   He emigrated to the United States about 1887.  As many Eastern European immigrants did, he settled in the anthracite-rich region of Northeastern Pennsylvania and went to work in a mine at Hazelton as a breaker boy to make a living.  Finding the work unrewarding on many counts, he eventually shifted employment and worked for several Slovak liquor merchants in the area, taking orders and delivering merchandise.  Frugal in his habits, Bosak saved sufficient money to open his own liquor store in Hazelton during the 1890s.  When it prospered he opened a saloon called Glinsky’s Tavern in nearby Olyphant and subsequently a branch in Scranton, Pennsylvania on Lackawanna Avenue.

           
The Scranton branch was so successful that it outpaced the Slovak’s other outlets and became his headquarters for his operation, as shown here in an illustration.  He termed his business “importers
and wholesale liquor dealers.”  That designation omitted that he was also a “rectifier,”  that is, compounding whiskeys or adding neutral spirits to them, putting on his own label and merchandising them.   Unlike other rectifiers who issued a blizzard of brands, Bosak stuck to two:  “Old Dole Spring Rye,” and “Old Cold Spring Rye.”  He merchandised both vigorously to good effect,  selling them in quart and flask-sized bottles with attractive labels.   He issued shot glasses for each.

In the meantime Bosak was having a personal life.   He married when he was in his early twenties to another Slovak immigrant named Susanna, still in her teens.  The 1910 census found him, age 40, living in Scranton with his wife and four children, two boys and two girls ranging in age from 19 to a baby under a year.  Although listed in the census as “proprietor-wholesale liquor,” Bosak already was branching out in his business interests.

As an outgrowth of his liquor business,  he founded the Bosak Manufacturing Co. about 1894. It turned out bottles of Bosak’s Horke Vino,  a wine-based nostrum that was alleged to be a remedy for a variety of ailments, including constipation and loss of appetite.  Presumably the potion was taken from an old Slovak recipe in Bosak’s possession.  During a period when other liquor was subject to a special tax, he was able to claim its medicinal value and thus avoid the levy, a fact that he displayed prominently in his advertising and on his labels.  He issued a fancy etched dose glass for Horke Vino, a product that proved to be a potent money maker.

Bosak’s wealth allowed him to pursue other business interests.  Early on he moved into banking.  The force of his personality led other Slovak immigrants to trust him and seek his help in purchasing steamship tickets, exchanging foreign currency, and making small loans.   Bosak established a private bank in 1897 which grew into Bosak State Bank by 1915.  He organized numerous financial institutions in Northeastern Pennsylvania and was president of the Miners Savings Bank of Olyphant and the Pennsylvania Bank and Trust Company of Wilkes-Barre.   in 1915 he established the Bosak State Bank in Scranton. His operations reaped such a financial bonanza, that about 1920 Bosak proclaimed he was the  "richest Slovak in America.”  His signature could be found on U.S. backed bank notes. His mansion was featured on a Scranton post card.

Despite his business success, Bosak never forgot the place of his birth.  During World War One he organized collections to help the Slovak residents who were suffering from wartime conditions.   The government was exhausted by the war and could not take care of its people,  many of whom were refugees and prisoners of war.  From all over America concerned citizens sent new and used clothing, as well as money through Bosak who made the necessary arrangements for their transfer to Eastern Europe.  A Slovak newspaper hailed his efforts, saying “Oh, how they rejoice that their brothers in distant America remember them.”

At the conclusion of the war and the final break-up of the Austro-Hungarian state,  strong efforts were made to create a new country called Czechoslovakia.  Czech and Slovak leaders,  including Bosak, met in Pittsburgh in May of 1818 and agreed to cooperate in setting up a new nation for their peoples in the northern provinces of Austria.  The agreement they formulated after a two day meeting in the Moose Temple became known as the “Pittsburgh Pact.”  As a moving force and early signatory behind the agreement,  Bosak became a celebrity among the Slovaks.  He also is credited with building schools and churches in both the U.S. and Slovakia.

At home, however, Bosak was facing problems with U.S. officialdom.  In 1913, he was hauled into court by the State of Pennsylvania who accused him of  misbranding vodka.  He was found guilty by a District Court and fined.  About the same time the Internal Revenue Service began taking a hard look at Horke Vino.  Its officials decided that the amount of alcohol it contained and its dubious medicinal value required it be consider liquor and subject to full tax.  The American Medical Association’s publication “Nostrums and Quackery” attacked Horke Vino as “booze medicine.”

A few years later the imposition of National Prohibition shut down Bosak’s liquor business entirely.   Shown here is the Bosak State Bank. Comparing it with the illustration of the building housing his liquor empire you find they were one and the same.  From “booze to banking” apparently was an easy transition.  Bosak also took the step of claiming a trademark for Horke Vino, under the category of “chemical, medicines and pharmaceutical preparations.” Despite the trademark, as Prohibition progressed, the IRS began to take increasing interest in Horke Vino as liquor in another guise.  Whatever the reason, Michael found it expedient to sell the Bosak Manufacturing Co.  The name was changed by the new ownership to the Gold Seal Manufacturing Co. 

The ultimate blow to Bosak’s business empire came in 1929 and the dawn of the Great Depression.  His banks faltered and finally in 1931, failed and closed.   His earning of a lifetime virtually were wiped out.   Bosak was 61 years old.  He would live another six years, dying on February 18, 1937.   Although gone, he has been far from forgotten.  Two of his descendants memorialized him in a book called “Michael Bosak: An American Banker from Saris.” In 1999 on the 130th Anniversary of his birth, the Michael Bosak Society came into existence.   The main aim of the Society, in addition to keeping alive Bosak’s contributions and legacy, is organizing a yearly competition for business and economics students in Slovakian secondary schools. They vie to win a monetary prize in Bosak’s name.