All language subtitles for The.Booze.Bets.and.Sex.That.Built.America.S01E02.Empires.Lost.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-MaBa

Since before the
birth of the United States,

alcohol, sex and gambling have
lurked in every dark corner.

Every city has neighborhoods
that are offering leisure

and vice and
sometimes seediness.

I'll make it worth
your while.

America's really fertile

for these types
of sin industries.

You just gotta pick your poison.

At the turn
of the 20th century,

visionary entrepreneurs,
Buck Duke,

Jack Daniel, and Adolphus Busch,

have turned small
regional indulgences

into powerful national brands.

Hedonism is in the
grasp of every American.

♪ I can dance with the devil ♪

Now, the temperance
movement is battling back.

Who's Carrie Nation?

A problem.

If they wanna ban
the sale of cigarettes,

let them.

They'll only make the
rest of the country

want them even more.

And protection

from sexually
transmitted diseases.

Condoms, rubber condoms.

Is outlawed.

While one woman's
underground numbers racket

will give rise to the
state lotto system.

You're light.

You think you can come
in here and intimidate me?

As a battle
for America's soul erupts.

You are under arrest

for violating Section 37,
Article 2 of the penal code.

America
will never go dry.

You'll never get
away with this.

Get out!

♪ Aye aye ♪

♪ I did it and aye aye ♪

♪ I proved it and aye aye ♪

♪ I finished, I came and I saw ♪

♪ I gave it my all ♪

♪ I changed the game ♪

♪ I made it a boss ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

The Gilded Age,

it's remembered as a time of
wealth, opulence and glamor,

but a closer look
reveals another side.

It was an age of excessive
aggression and business.

The wealth was extraordinary

and the poverty was
absolutely brutal.

What we don't realize is there
was no social safety net.

So you literally
could starve to death.

You had to go beg in the street.

Mark Twain describes
it as an age,

where on the surface, everything
is gleaming with gold.

But underneath that surface,
it's rotten at the core.

You see that in the
proliferation of vices.

Alcohol and tobacco

are becoming easier
to find than ever.

While they're still prevalent

in sketchy saloons
and back alleys,

now they're showing up in local
shops, the general stores.

Driven by the first national
brands of their kind,

Jack Daniel's, Budweiser,
and American Tobacco.

Anheuser-Busch in the Midwest,

they're able to adopt
refrigerated carts.

They can send their
products to Los Angeles,

to Texas, to New York.

You can have somebody
smoking a cigarette

that has tobacco that was
cultivated in the south.

You could be in a town
that has no distillery,

and you could get your hands
on a bottle of Jack Daniel's.

Americans sucked
down almost 24 gallons of beer

each year, more than
double the amount

of just a few years before,

and Adolphus Busch's
signature Budweiser

sells more than a
million bottles a year.

These innovators,
people like a Henry Ford,

a Adolphus Busch, a Bill
Gates and a Elon Musk,

all are gamblers.

And they're willing to
gamble on their own ability,

their own vision.

Busch took that ambition

and was able to
succeed at wild levels.

This one.

Now, Busch
is trying to groom

his eventual successor,
his son, August.

This is you.

Sit,

watch,

learn.

August had grown
up in the brewery,

but he simply did not want
anything to do with it.

And just not
particularly interested

in having somebody else,
especially his father,

tell him what to
do all the time.

He was used to doing
whatever he wanted.

Instead
of learning the ropes,

August spent years

running a failing
cattle ranch in Montana.

Before being
forced back by his dad.

I'm here.

You look ridiculous.

Take that off.

Sit down.

Now,
he's second in command

at the biggest beer
company in the country.

When August came back
from being a cowboy,

and he came back to St. Louis

and rather grudgingly settled in

at the brewery with his father.

The timing
couldn't be worse.

The biggest obstacle
Anheuser-Busch has ever faced

is quickly gaining power.

Who's Carrie Nation?

Ugh.

A problem.

Nicknamed
a bulldog for Jesus,

Carrie Nation is
the radical face

of the temperance movement.

And she spread her
anti-vice rhetoric

from a small church in Kansas,
all across the Midwest.

Carrie Nation
or Hatchet Granny,

was part of the women's
Christian temperance movement.

Carrie Nation looked like
your grandmother or your aunt.

She was this small woman,
but she was fierce.

And she was famous or infamous

for going to saloons in
Kansas and chopping 'em up.

She has a way that she
goes about her business.

Serious woman.

And goes out and attacks.

I mean, you have
to think about it,

you had to be pretty committed
to your work to do that.

You could think
of American history

as being this long
kind of struggle

between forces of modernization

and forces towards, what
we would think of today,

as like traditional
family values.

But they really
take an intense form

around the turn of
the 20th century

because society was
changing so rapidly.

Nation's been
arrested more than 30 times.

And her 20 year crusade

is grabbing headlines
across the country.

Now, after years of
targeting liquor,

the movement is coming
for brewers as well.

They want to go after
the distillers, fine.

But there's a difference
between whiskey and beer.

So why don't you say that?

Liquor's the problem, not beer.

To
fight Carrie Nation,

Adolphus Busch spends
$100,000, 2.6 million today,

to advertise beer as a
healthy alternative to liquor.

♪ Dangerous, in control ♪

♪ I'm cuffing it, I know ♪

Busch systematically
and intentionally

set out to distinguish
the beer industry and beer

as a very different
product than hard liquor.

♪ Here I go ♪

The ads pitch beer
as a beverage of moderation,

focusing on its
lower alcohol content

and nutritional benefits.

Anheuser-Busch's ads,

there was always
like a family scene.

Everybody is sitting
there drinking Budweiser.

If that was gin,

like this scene wouldn't
look quite the same.

At least it wasn't whiskey.

It wasn't vodka.

It was wholesome for
wholesome Americans.

Busch's campaign

is a direct assault
on distillers.

As prohibition fever
became more intense,

the brewers just
aggressively pushed the idea

that they're not distillers,

which, no surprise, was
infuriating to the distillers.

Including the
most famous whiskey brand

in the country, Jack Daniel's.

Anheuser-Busch
is railroading us.

Last thing
we need right now

is to go to war
with the brewers.

Jack Daniel's

sells over half a
million bottles a year,

and his nephew, Lem Motlow,
helps run operations.

But now, temperance is
threatening to tear it all down.

Jack Daniel didn't marry,
didn't have any kids.

He really didn't have anybody
to pass his legacy down to.

Jack and Lem are
facing a growing crisis.

They may haven't
always seen eye to eye.

Lem sort of presented
himself to the world

in a different way
from Jack Daniels.

I'm a outlaw, a renegade,

I don't follow the
rules kind of thing.

Just inspecting the barrels.

They are old.

Now we say aged.

They are in need
of replacement.

I don't want you trying
to reinvent the wheel here.

We'll continue this later.

Already under attack

from the temperance movement,

and now from desperate
beer brewers,

Jack and Lem need to
get on the same page

if they're going to
weather the storm.

Maybe consider
putting out a peach brand.

No.

Just hear me out.

No, it's out of the question.

Nothing is out of
the question.

It's my name on the bottle.

Slap somebody else's
name on the label.

Hell, put mine on.

Lem really wanted to
build a brandy distillery

'cause brandy was a
lower proof than whiskey.

Jack was like, "No, no, no.

We're just gonna do this thing

and we're just gonna
do this thing great,

and that's what we're about."

So long as we keep making
the best whiskey in the world,

I suppose everything else
will work itself out.

Just thinking about
what's best for the company.

The product is the company.

You know, it's not personal.

It's just business.

By 1903, the
growing storm of temperance

continues to build.

Soon, three states
have gone dry,

and the rest of the country
begins to take notice.

Individual states were putting
in their own prohibitions

well before prohibition
itself actually hit.

And sometimes it even went
down to county to county,

Jack Daniel's, where
it's made, Lynchburg,

even today is a dry county.

And so you could buy
at the distillery,

but you can't buy in
the rest of the county.

Now, reformers
are targeting tobacco

and gambling too.

Part of the issue

is how much pleasure
are we allowed to have

that is acceptable to society.

Some individuals say the best
thing you can do for society

is to eliminate these
sources of ill health.

And other individuals
are gonna say,

"But I'm an American
and I have my freedom.

And if I wanna smoke,
I'm gonna smoke.

And if I wanna drink,
I'm gonna drink."

And there is no
easy answer to that.

Be therefore perfect,
even as your Father,

which is in heaven, is perfect.

Anti-vice crusaders

are also cracking
down on pornography,

which is transformed from
sketches and drawings

to photographs and
even moving pictures.

And thanks to their lobbying,

all forms of contraception
are virtually illegal.

If you were caught

manufacturing and
selling condoms,

you could be fined
or sent to prison.

So in some ways,

buying a condom in the late
19th and early 20th century,

would've been similar to
buying marijuana in the 1990s.

No one knows
the consequences better

than Julius Schmid, the
former factory worker

who was busted selling
illegal condoms

he made out of sausage casings.

Schmid was bailed out
and then a month later,

the judge gave him a fine of $50

and seized and destroyed
the 700 condoms

that were collected in
that September raid.

Undeterred,

Schmid jumps right
back into the game.

I mean, it was kind of crazy.

In spite of getting arrested,

he's determined to still
fulfill the demand for condoms.

He realizes that there's
still money to be made.

But while
he was out of commission,

other illicit dealers have
muscled in on his turf.

What's going on?

You disappeared.

I've made other arrangements.

Now, he's
looking for a new weapon

to take it back.

A lot of these early condoms

were made out of intestines,
linen or fish skin.

I can only imagine it
might not be as romantic.

So Julius Schmid knows
what needs to happen.

Schmid wants to
transform the condom entirely,

and to do it he
looks to a technology

used in industrial manufacturing.

We tailor it to
your exact specifications.

Called
vulcanized rubber.

Pioneered by Charles
Goodyear in 1839,

vulcanized rubber is
treated with heat and sulfur

to make it stronger
and more elastic.

Now it's used to make everything
from raincoats and galoshes

to industrial gaskets and
tires, but not condoms.

I don't believe you mentioned,

what exactly are
you manufacturing?

Rubber caps.

Vulcanized rubber

enables the rubber to be
manufactured much thinner

and also much more elastic.

And obviously these are two
characteristics of condoms

that are gonna make them
much more comfortable

and much more effective.

Even though

it could land him
right back in jail,

Julius Schmid wants
to bring the condom

into the industrial age.

Just a few miles uptown,

without regulation
to stand in his way,

Buck Duke has turned
America Tobacco

into one of the most powerful
conglomerates on the planet,

making him the third
richest man in the world

behind only Andrew Carnegie
and John D. Rockefeller.

We deem the Carnegie's
and the Vanderbilt's

and the Rockefeller's as
legitimate enterprise,

but we have a harder
time with people

or organizations that
are engaged in vice.

But Buck Duke is in many
ways the same as Henry Ford

or Carnegie,

they are just different
sides of the same coin.

Duke
is the biggest buyer

of raw tobacco in the world.

By the 20th century,
American Tobacco

sold 90% of the tobacco products

that were sold in
the United States.

And he's
used his leverage

to bully growers into
accepting rock bottom prices.

Couple of farmers outta
Kentucky and Tennessee

wanna renegotiate the price

of the tobacco
leaf they sell us.

Farmers were outraged
about the low prices

that they were receiving
for their tobacco.

And they blamed the
tobacco monopoly,

which had all the
power to set low prices

that farmers were
obliged to receive.

Price is already set.

They want to sell
to someone else,

good luck to them.

So farmers in
Tennessee and Kentucky

form the Planters'
Protective Association,

essentially a cooperative
marketing society.

Farmers would come together

and pledge to
withhold their crop

from the marketplace
until prices rose.

Should we make
them a counter offer?

We're American Tobacco.

We do not negotiate.

As a businessman, one of
Duke's premier qualities

was a ruthlessness
that went hand in hand

with a disdain for
labor organizing.

Soon,
tensions begin to rise

along the fertile
tobacco growing portion

of the southeast,

known as the Black Patch.

And in 1905, it turns violent.

And Buck Duke doesn't know that
a vicious paramilitary group

is about to wreak havoc and
take aim squarely at his back.

Conglomerates
are growing to dominate

the US economy.

Andrew Carnegie's US steel

is worth over $34
billion in modern money.

John D. Rockefeller's
standard oil

brings in nearly a
billion dollars a year.

Buck Duke's American Tobacco
is worth over 7 1/2 billion.

You have a couple
of successive

presidential administrations

that are all about
laissez faire economics.

And the idea is if the market
is allowed to do its thing,

that then you will be even

a pretty strong
place economically.

So this kind of like
anti-regulatory sentiment

contributes to the
consolidation of great power

in several monopolies.

These big businessmen

who are able to control
entire industries.

Got a minute?

What is it?

There's
legislation on the books

to fight monopolies,
but it's never enforced.

And for years, Duke has
used his corporate power

to bully farmers into
taking pennies on the dollar

for their tobacco leaf.

Tobacco farmers could
not sell their tobacco

for a price that allowed
them to have a decent living.

Monopolies have such
an economy of scale

that they can really
piss off a lot of people.

You control the market and
they have to sell to you

at the price that you determine,
not the price they want.

So there's gonna be problems.

These farmers gather together

and they agreed
amongst themselves

that they would not
sell their tobacco

below a certain price.

And then they went around

and encouraged their
neighbors to participate

and to join this association.

Not everybody agreed.

In
response to Buck Duke's

hardball buying strategy,

by 1906, the Planters'
Protective Association

has 30,000 members that won't
sell to American Tobacco,

and they develop a
paramilitary wing

called the Night Riders to
intimidate anyone who will.

The Night Riders borrow tactics

from a brutal terrorist
group active at the time.

Night Riders are terrifying,

riding their horses into town,

setting things on fire,

cutting communication
with the outside world,

often in disguise.

It's not that different
from a Ku Klux Klan.

They would trample
on somebody's crop

if they had sold to the
American Tobacco Company,

or they might burn
their barn at night.

The Protective Association

is learning techniques
from the Klan.

It's got code words,
the hooded garb.

It does its work at night.

And over time, disproportionately,

African American farmers

become the victim
of this vigilantism.

The press
dubs the conflict,

the Black Patch Tobacco Wars,

and they dominate headlines
from coast to coast.

Coverage includes
scathing rebukes

of the most powerful tobacco
magnate in the world,

Buck Duke, who
continues to buy tobacco

outside the association,

which some see as
provoking the violence.

We need to issue a statement.

It's best to stay ahead of this,

make sure we control
the narrative.

No.

I don't think it was
really ever a question

whether or not to negotiate
with the association.

There was simply no reason to,
from a business perspective.

Farmers were in debt.

Farmers were desperate.

We can't let these farmers
keep terrorizing each other.

They want to burn
each other's farms down,

let them.

Just
a few miles away,

in the Tenderloin district,

Julius Schmid has
been hard at work,

trying to develop a
brand new kind of condom

made of vulcanized rubber.

We're still mostly talking
about very old fashioned

technology involving
sewing together

bladder from goats or sheep.

But then we get into
manufacturing using rubber.

When we think about these
early used condoms, right?

It was thick.

It was kind of heavy.

And one size, well, it
doesn't necessarily fit all.

You actually had to
measure it to your penis

and cut it to the right size

before actually adding the
ribbons and tying it on.

These older condoms
were reusable.

So you would wash them and
you would let them dry out

and reuse them,
put them in a box,

and then you would use them
again until they disintegrated.

At the time,

rubber condoms are
virtually unknown.

So instead of putting them
in plain paper packaging,

he brands them and he uses a
symbol of power and virility

taken from ancient Egypt.

The Pharaoh, Ramses.

Julius Schmid was
very clever at marketing

and selling his condoms.

They also had extremely
appealing graphics.

Westerners had begun to do
archeological excavations

in Egypt, and this had sparked
a real Egyptology craze.

And so when Julius Schmid
created the Ramses condom,

he was really buying
into a bigger trend.

At the beginning
of the 19th century,

Napoleon's forces brought
back a treasure trove

of Egyptian relics, including
the famed Rosetta Stone.

It unlocked translation of
ancient hieroglyphs in 1822,

igniting a craze
called Egyptomania.

It influenced everything,
from art to architecture,

and interest remains high
well into the 20th century.

When we look at the early
names for these condoms,

they're really
projecting onto non-White

non-Christian people,
an unbridled sexuality.

So people are reading stories.

They're seeing
burlesque sketches

and early films in which
people are wearing turbines

and there's harems, and
basically this idea of orgies,

and all this kind of fun.

Branding and
marketing is critical

because when that consumer
thinks about your business,

you wanna have one thought
coming to their mind.

So for example, Apple computers,
it's about innovation.

For UPS, it's about
being on time.

You gotta have that one thing

that consumers will
remember you by

in a very crowded market.

To avoid
being busted again,

rather than selling his Ramses
condoms out of his apartment,

Schmid decentralizes,

selling them out of a
network of apartments,

hotel rooms and back
alleys, all over the city.

Julius Schmid
saw an opportunity

and he took advantage
of the opportunity.

His condoms tended to
be even more reliable.

So if you were looking
to buy a good condom,

you bought one of his products.

He came to the United
States from Germany

and like many immigrants,

he built a business
from the ground up

and he was an incredible
success story,

an innovator and
an entrepreneur.

Soon, Schmid is
selling nearly 100,000 condoms

a day, but still
working outside the law,

there's no way he
can expand for now.

Condoms have been
illegal for decades.

Now booze seems
headed that way too.

And Jack Daniel's brash
nephew, Lem Motlow,

wants to implement a
risky new strategy.

Currently our warehouses
are stocked at 65%.

Now I wanna get that to
95% by the end of the year.

Most distillers didn't think,

well, the temperance movement,

if it was actually
going to stick.

Lem Motlow saw it coming, and
so he ramped up production.

But we're already producing

as much as this
distillery can handle.

Which is why I
started next week,

we'll begin diluting
the mixture by 5%.

Customer won't know
the difference.

But the quality of the
production started to suffer.

Did you run that
by your uncle?

Lem was a little
less brand protective.

Lem was more, "How do we make
money off of distilling?"

And Jack Daniel was more,

"How do we make the best
whiskey that money can make?"

My uncle put me in charge.

From here on in, y'all
report directly to me,

and only to me.

Uncle Jack is many things,

but he is a man
living in the past.

I am thinking about the future.

From here on, our top
priority is expansion.

Get out.

Now.

You too, George.

Okay, let me make
this crystal clear.

Quality is our top priority.

You're excused for the day.

Get out.

Come on Jack, let's
be a little bit-

Get out!

By 1908, six states

have banned the sale of alcohol.

On one part it's
fear of alcohol

as a essentially sinful thing.

But also we are experiencing
the Industrial Revolution

and new ways of working
are being developed.

And some of the
biggest enthusiasts

behind the temperance
movement are employers

who want workers that
are showing up on time,

and that's a whole
new concept, right?

You don't just show
up at work at dawn.

Now we have this thing
called the clock.

Half the workers
don't show up on time,

the other half sort of
trickle in by lunchtime.

They kick off and go have
a couple beers at noon.

And so there's a real
incentive among employers

to promote temperance
as the something

gonna get you into heaven,

but it's also gonna make you
a more productive citizen

in this new industrial economy.

In 1909, North
Carolina goes dry too,

then Tennessee.

And the changes pour
fuel on another movement

gaining steam
across the country.

Fighting for a temperance
was kind of the first time

that a lot of women enter
the quasi political realm

of organizing for
a social cause.

The argument was really
that alcohol ruins homes,

and we women are the
guardians of the home

and of morality and virtue,

and so you should
give us the vote.

Because those are
the kind of causes

that we're gonna vote for.

So women's suffrage is
definitely tied to temperance.

Lem Motlow pushes
to sell as much Jack Daniel's

as he can before any
more states go dry,

but his uncle has
been holding him back.

Lem, can I speak
to you a second?

It's important.

What?

Then,
on October 9th, 1911.

Your uncle passed
away last night.

Jack
Daniel dies unexpectedly

of blood poisoning.

I'm sorry.

Thanks for letting me know.

Forged with the
help of his friend and mentor,

Nearest Green, Jack
Daniel's legacy

is the best selling American
whiskey in the world,

available in over 170 countries.

And it helped
transform distilling

from barnyard moonshine to a
respected American tradition.

Jack Daniel's makes things
cheaper and more available.

You don't have to go
out to the juke joint

or to wherever,
to get a whiskey.

You get it in your store
and it looks legitimate,

just as legitimate
as your tomato soup.

Now, the
threat of prohibition

is looming closer than ever.

Lem Motlow is in charge, and
he's prepared to risk anything,

including the brand's
quality and reputation,

to cash in while he can,

desperate to keep
the company alive.

While anti-alcohol
further rises,

the Black Patch Tobacco Wars

have now dragged
on for four years.

All right, what else we got?

And Buck
Duke's refusal to negotiate

has put him and his
American Tobacco empire

under a microscope.

Clear the room.

What is this?

We've been indicted

for violation of the
Sherman Antitrust Act.

The Sherman Act
is designed to keep companies

from manipulating
or fixing prices.

It was sponsored by
Senator John Sherman,

all the way back in 1890.

But after years of
not enforcing it,

a new wave of
progressive politicians

are using it to go
after monopolies.

With the presidency
of Teddy Roosevelt,

who saw himself as a
progressive and a trust buster,

the federal government
began to turn its attention

to what people saw as the abuses

of these giant corporations.

Monopolies come to be seen,

particularly by progressive
and federal reformers,

as harming consumers,
as harming workers,

as preventing the competition

that the American
economy would need

to grow in a robust way

and really to concentrate the
spoils of industrial activity

in the hands a select few.

The government is suing us.

While the
government cracks down

on American Tobacco,

Julius Schmid dodges
anti-vice laws

tied to the temperance movement.

His rubber condoms are
spreading like wildfire,

but selling them is illegal.

And he's already
been arrested once.

I think to be
the type of person

to run an illegal business,

you really have to be
driven by this belief

that your product or
service is so needed

or desired by a community
or a population,

that it's worth it to run
this illegal enterprise.

Production management
will go here, by the windows.

Makes sense.

Despite
keeping a low profile,

Schmid is determined
to bring his condoms

into the industrial age,

with a brilliant plan
to cover his trail.

And, as requested, the...

specialty items

will be produced
solely down here,

on the basement level.

Schmid invests
all his ill-gotten gains

into a state-of-the-art factory

that'll produce rubber gaskets
used to seal perfume bottles.

Don't show these to anyone.

Understood.

With a secret
facility for producing condoms.

Schmid is certainly
a great example

of an American
entrepreneur, innovator,

who combines this
spirit of capitalism

with willingness
to try new things.

Schmid
opens his factory

in Little Falls, New Jersey,

and begins advertising
his condoms

as French goods and medicines.

Someone like Julius Schmid,

who is marketing
and selling condoms,

he could have argued that he
was doing a public service

for Americans by protecting
them against disease.

When you think
about how a factory,

employing hundreds of people,
making an illegal object,

manages to stay out of the
courts, out of the newspapers.

There is really only one answer

and that's, they're
clearly very popular.

Schmid can
now supply all the condoms

New York City needs
10 times over,

if he could keep
skirting the law.

Despite his best efforts,
Adolphus Busch's attempt

to differentiate beer
from liquor is failing.

It was already definitely
affecting the business.

It was affecting every brewery.

Some breweries
were shutting down.

I'm sorry, son.

Temperance is not going away.

It's inevitable.

Come on, America
will never go dry.

Don't be so sure.

At a time when the life
expectancy rate was 44,

and years of hard work
and no doubt drinking

had taken its toll,
his health began to fail.

11 states have
now banned the sale of alcohol

and Anheuser-Busch is forced
to close down warehouses

and saloons in
every one of them.

Drink up

while you still can.

Prohibition
is threatening

to bring the entire
company crashing down.

Nearly a dozen
states have gone dry,

with more threatening to
ban alcohol every day.

Anti-vice crusaders are calling
for national prohibition,

which would be a disaster
for Anheuser-Busch.

You have to think
beyond just one person

and the brand itself,

these employ literally
the entire town.

And so they were very nervous

as to how prohibition was
going to shut that down

because it essentially
would kill the economy

for their communities as well.

So great pressure.

And I can't imagine how
stressful that might have been.

I can't imagine being
in the shoes of someone

who put your blood, sweat, and
tears into building a company

and the government
changes the rules midway

and it all might be taken away.

That is a whole added pressure

that most entrepreneurs, fortunately,

don't have to deal with.

Have you seen my father?

What?

What is it?
- Son,

I'm sorry.

He passed.

On
October 10th, 1913,

the man who revolutionized
the American brewing industry,

dies of a heart attack.

Memorials are held

at all 36 remaining
Anheuser-Busch facilities

across the country,

with countless
mourners in attendance.

How Adolphus Busch is not
spoken in the same realm

with all of those
other business titans

of the late 19th, early
20th century, is beyond me.

He was employing
thousands of people

in the city of St. Louis
and across the country.

His payroll was huge and it
wasn't just in the brewing.

It was in the bottling,
it was in the driving,

it was in the design,
it was in farming.

It was in manufacturing railroad
cars and other machinery.

Will it be long enough
to keep the beer fresh?

He just, across the board,
had this vertical integration

that other giants
of the day have.

When he
dies, Adolphus Busch

leaves behind a personal
fortune of nearly $60 million,

the equivalent of 1.6
billion in today's money.

We are talking about
thousands of bottles a day.

The reason that Adolphus
Busch probably isn't studied

with the great captains
of industry of his day,

like Rockefeller and Carnegie,

is simply because of
the product he produced.

Steel and oil themselves
are uncontroversial,

even if some of the
business methods used

by the tycoon's work.

Here was a product that
had a social stigma,

and it's probably
not an easy sell

for the textbooks or
the teachers of the land

to teach youngsters about
somebody who made beer

as somebody that
they should emulate.

August Busch
is suddenly on his own.

And the wave of
nationwide prohibition

is getting stronger every day.

He took the company

at a moment where his
father had built it up

to one of the two largest
breweries in the world,

and then this monster, this
barbarian at the gate shows up,

and its August's responsibility
to try to usher the company

through these really
treacherous waters.

While
anti-vice crusaders

lobby to shut down
the brewing industry,

American Tobacco is
fighting federal regulators

on a different front.

Duke's monopolistic
practices culminate in a suit

brought by the
Department of Justice,

and American Tobacco's lawyers

basically say that American
Tobacco Corporation is a person

and as such, it ought to
have all of the rights

that an individual does to
be free of state regulation.

Buck Duke has
fought the case tooth and nail,

all the way to
the Supreme Court.

Just tell me.

The Supreme Court confirmed
the American Tobacco Company

was in violation of the
Sherman Antitrust Act

and engaging in
restraint of trade

and non-competitive
monopolistic behavior.

And that meant that it
was going to be broken up

into its constituent parts.

That will ultimately result

in the dissolution
of American Tobacco,

incidentally, on
the very same day

that Rockefeller's standard
oil monopoly is also dissolved.

Duke is obviously quite
upset and in response,

he basically turns his back
on the US tobacco industry.

American Tobacco
is split into three companies,

Liggett and Myers, Lorillard,
and R. J. Reynolds,

which will eventually
produce Paul Malls,

Newports and Camels.

Duke devotes the
rest of his life

to other ventures
and to philanthropy.

He buys Trinity College and
endows it as Duke University.

He also starts the
firm, Duke Energy,

which provides
hydroelectric power

to North Carolina and Virginia.

For
better or worse,

Buck Duke is the father
of the modern cigarette,

transforming it from a novelty

into the dominant
form of tobacco.

And by the time of his
death on October 10th, 1925,

he's the third richest
man on the planet.

You can't be too sympathetic,
because when he dies,

he is one of the wealthiest
men in the world.

So if there's compensations
for having been broken,

he can cry all the
way to the bank,

as the expression goes.

Jack Daniel's

is one of the biggest
distilleries in the country

and Lem Motlow's using all
its manufacturing might

to crank out whiskey
while he still can.

Lem Motlow saw the
temperance movement coming,

and he didn't think it was
actually going to stick.

There's no way the United States

was going to cut out
that much of their budget

by eliminating liquor sales.

And so he ramped up production.

He thought, "There's no way we
are going to get shut down."

You wanted to see me.

Days of the five-day
work week are over.

I need you and everyone else
to work around the clock,

at night's, weekends, whatever.

It's a lot of overtime.

I'll pay.

You can take a calculated risk

when you really
know your market.

You need to be decisive.

And I think the
best entrepreneurs

really have a fire
inside of them,

and I think that fire

can get a person through
all the adversities

and all the setbacks
that can happen.

It does take a special
kind of risk taker

because you never know

when the government's gonna
come in to shut you down.

Can I ask what this is about?

Temperance.

Prohibition, going dry,
whatever you wanna call it,

it's coming, and when
it does, no going back.

You need to increase production.

Push the men as
hard as you need to.

If they complain?

Fire 'em.

Even though
Carrie Nation's crusaders

are pushing to ban
alcohol nationwide,

Lem starts pumping out 300
gallons of Jack Daniel's a day

and adds new brands to the line.

Lem was always a strategic
business minded person.

Hey, walk with purpose.

Don't saunter.

It was his idea
to go into brandy.

He did release a kind of
lower tier brand of whiskey.

Lem selling
his own name brand whiskey

and a new peach brandy
to maximize sales

while liquor's still legal.

Then, on June 18th, 1914,

a chain of events in
Europe leads to a conflict

that'll erupt into
the First World War.

Into that!

Move, move.

Go!

Gas!

They
don't know it yet,

but it'll be a turning point

for the battle
for America's soul

and an opportunity for a
whole new empire of vice.

After three years
of fighting in Europe,

on April 4th, 1917,

the United States finally
enters World War I.

Soon, over 4 million
troops are headed overseas,

but they're missing a
key piece of equipment.

The irony of it all is
when you think about war,

we wouldn't send our
troops into battle

without armor, gear,
bulletproof vest.

And the condom was like the
very first bulletproof vest,

if you know what I'm saying.

The truth is people
have always had sex,

people will always have sex.

The goal should have
been to provide these men

with protection, but
there were concerns

about the morality of young men

engaging in sex
outside of wedlock,

especially with women who
engaged in sex for pay,

who might infect them with
syphilis or gonorrhea.

And so they emphasized
the idea of abstinence

or continent, as they called it.

Now, Julius
Schmid sees an opportunity

to finally sell
his revolutionary

product above board.

Hi, yes, is this the
office of the quartermaster?

I manufacture a highly
specialized life-saving product

that can protect our
troops in Europe.

Condoms, rubber condoms.

Yes, this is a serious inquiry.

Americans, in the
early 20th century

have their own cultural and
religious and moral frameworks

for thinking about sexuality.

So the idea that they
would supply soldiers

with this device

that would enable
them to have sex

is really out of the question.

The
US isn't willing

to buy Schmid's illicit goods,

but he realizes there are
over 25 other countries

sending troops to
the battlefield.

Want you to find out
which of those countries

are supplying condoms
to their troops.

The British were
engaged in this war

for a much longer period
than the Americans.

And so they actually
saw the impact

that venereal disease
had on their troops,

and the consequences

of not providing your
troops with condoms.

Julius Schmid was
willing to provide condoms

to the other countrymen that
were fighting in World War I,

and he was really able
to grow his business

while he waited for the
United States to catch up

with all these other countries.

Gonorrhea and syphilis

are the most common sexually
transmitted diseases

in World War I.

The first results in
a painful infection,

but the second could be fatal.

And while they're
both treatable,

recovery could take weeks,

keeping soldiers
on the sidelines.

At any given time,

there was about
15% of our soldiers

who had a venereal disease.

That's something like
18,000 men on any given day.

Now, if you consider

that if United States had
just embraced condoms,

perhaps World War I could
have been over sooner

because we would've had
more men on the battlefield.

By 1918, more
and more American troops

are shipping out
to the front lines,

causing a major shift at home.

There are suddenly
work shortages

in major cities across the north

and African Americans
flock to fill the void,

touching off the
Great Migration.

The Great Migration
is a period of time,

really from World War I to 1970,

in which millions
of African Americans

are moving to northern
cities and western cities.

The African Americans
dreams of migrating,

going to new places, are
fueled by economic conditions.

The situation in the south
has really deteriorated

in the first decades
of the 20th century.

You still got the
horrific experience

of African Americans
or sharecropping

and tenant farmers.

You have the reemergence
of the second Ku Klux Klan.

And then you've got
voter restrictions,

which are really
tightening it down

on the ability of African
Americans to vote in the south.

And so African Americans are
just fed up and they leave.

During World War I,
factories need laborers

because during a war,
immigration slows down,

those jobs are available
for African Americans,

really for the first time.

During
World War I alone,

nearly half a million
African Americans move north

and a million more follow
over the next decade.

By 1920, New York's black
population will increase by 66%,

with 200,000 people settling
in the neighborhood of Harlem.

And in one tenement,
a recent immigrant

from the West Indies
named Stephanie St. Clair

is struggling to make ends meet.

Hey, hey.

That's it you're out.

I paid my rent.

Not on time.

Stephanie St. Clair
is born in the 1890s

in the French
Caribbean in Guadeloupe.

She makes her way
to New York City

with dreams of
economic stability.

She's really ambitious.

You can't do this.

Hey, hey, get away from that.

She is working as the domestic
worker or as a seamstress.

And this is not the type of
job that any black woman wants.

This is an occupation that
you can barely make rent.

Where am I supposed to go?

It's not my problem.

Already destitute,

St. Clair is now
homeless as well.

- All right.
- All right.

Next.

Then we get 4-5-6.

4-5-6, uh-huh.

Then you get 6-2-2.

6-2-2, okay.

She
doesn't know it yet,

but a game she discovers
in Central Park

will make her one of the
richest women in America,

and eventually, give
rise to an industry

worth $105 billion,
the state lotto system.

But it'll also put her
on a collision course

with the New York mafia.

It's the 1910s.

The Yankees have
just moved to town.

Motor cars compete
with horses for space.

It's the industrial
capital of the nation.

But in Harlem, there's
an underground,

hidden in plain sight.

Give me 500, will you?

You want 500?

Harlem becomes a
kind of vice zone,

whether it's alcohol,
prostitution, gambling.

Some of that is the result

of the practices of the
New York Police Department.

Sort of letting the city
know that certain things

will be tolerated in Harlem

that won't be
tolerated elsewhere.

And in fact, in many instances,

local police are
collecting bribes

from illegal activities
that are going in Harlem.

New York City was
overrun with corruption.

For instance, you wanted
to leave your push cart

on the lower east side,

technically only supposed to
keep it there for 15 minutes,

they paid a 25 cent bribe
to keep it there all day.

There was no overnight parking
allowed in New York City

because people would use
the bathroom underneath it.

You bribed a cop to park.

You bribed a cop to keep your
saloon open after midnight.

You bribed a cop to
look the other way

at the door of your brothel.

It's a lawless
world, fraught with danger,

and full of possibilities.

So, because
people don't have access

to opportunities in the
aboveground economy,

a lot of residents of Harlem

seek out economic mobility
in an underground economy,

doing things outside of the law.

How you
doing, brother?

Can I get a 7-1-9?

Okay, 7-1-9.

That's it?
- Yeah, that's it.

Okay, cool.

Appreciate you.

The heartbeat
of Harlem's illicit economy

is an illegal lottery game
known as a numbers racket.

People can play for
as little as a penny,

and almost everyone
in town does.

The game is also known
as the poor man's lottery.

Players selected three
digits between zero and 999.

The winning
three digit number

is selected from
each day's newspaper,

randomly pulled from
published interest rates,

stock market closing numbers,

even the results of horse races.

And the numbers racket
isn't just the lottery,

it's Harlem's defacto
underground bank.

You have it going,
all right, buddy?

Thanks a lot,
appreciate it.

It was difficult
if not impossible

for Black arrivals in New York
to access the banking system.

So if you want to
start a business,

it is going to be
very, very unlikely

that you're gonna
get a bank loan.

So you need to turn
to community sources

in order to gather up the money.

In some ways, this is
both the stock market

and the banking
system of Harlem.

Stephanie St.
Clair has gone from homeless

to a steady job at
a local numbers game

called a policy house.

I was wondering if
you might be hiring?

I'm a quick learner and
good with arithmetic.

$10, non-negotiable
if you can start today.

Now, she doesn't
just help run the game.

She also plays it.

How many today?

I'll take three.

And her
fortunes really change

when her number hits.

And that resulted in $1,000,

which is a lot of money in 1923.

And Stephanie, she is a dreamer,

she's really ambitious and
goes after what she wants.

For those who are
living on the margins,

vices are a big part of
their everyday existence,

and they also offer a
pathway to economic success.

A criminal enterprise is a way

that people can achieve a
part of the American dream.

There you go.

This is only half.

The numbers banker is also
known as the policy banker

or if they're really big time,

meaning they have a large bank,

lots of money,
lots of employees,

they're also known as
the Kings of Harlem.

And the banker is really
the central player

in the operation.

He is the one who
puts up the capital,

to establish the bank.

You're the fourth
one to hit today.

That's as much as
I can give you.

You can't be serious.

It's the best I can do.

They're referred
to by various names.

Sometimes they're
called Policy King.

Sometimes they're
called Numbers Barons.

And when they find themselves
with too large a hit,

they'll end up not honoring
every single winning bet

that has been placed with them.

I'm not leaving
here without my money.

All of it.

What are you gonna do?

Go to the cops?

You bribed a cop to let
your illegal numbers game go.

And that money was then
given to the police captain

who gave it to
the superintendent

who gave it to the
local Tammany politician

and it got kicked all
the way up to Boss Tweed.

Tammany Hall's like a
synonym for corruption.

And you really think I'm gonna
believe that you can't pay?

You can push around
the other girls here.

Not me.

She is a risk taker
and someone who is tough

and someone who just
won't back down.

I don't think you hearing me.

Take it or leave it.

The
experience lights a fire

in Stephanie St.
Clair and her drive

will someday bring
the numbers racket

out of the underground,

turn it into a
government backed game

that generates over
$100 billion a year.

But first she'll need to
take over Harlem to do it.

For over 18
bloody months,

the US has been
fighting in World War I,

and Julius Schmid is cashing in,

by supplying Allied
troops with condoms.

While the other Allied forces
were being provided condoms

to prevent sexual
transmitted diseases,

Americans were suffering
badly from it.

Then, on
November 11th, 1918,

the war comes to an end

and over 2 million veterans
return home to the US,

bringing new habits
they picked up overseas.

While he was producing those
condoms for other countries,

the other countrymen in that war

were teaching Americans about
the benefits of condoms.

Thanks in
large part of Julius Schmid,

the government is faced
with overwhelming evidence

of condom success,

preventing sexually
transmitted infections,

turning the tide in favor
of birth control advocates

like Margaret Sanger.

Margaret Sanger
was the first person

to open a birth control
clinic in the United States.

She really believed
birth control

should be the first route,

but the anti-vice movement
was afraid of contraception

because they thought
it facilitated vice.

They thought it would allow
more men to go to more brothels

with less fear of VD.

And she and her husband
both got hounded.

She was actually arrested.

The same
year the war ends,

Sanger wins a landmark decision

in the New York State
Court of Appeals.

Her clinic can now legally
distribute condoms.

Condoms finally become
legal with a catch.

Condoms are legal as a
prevention against disease,

but they're not legal
as a contraception.

Of course, that's a
tremendously vague idea.

You can't tell if someone
is buying the condom

to prevent disease

or they're buying the condom
as a form of contraception.

So there tended to be a lot
of moralistic discussions

about how people
use the condoms.

That was really up to them.

Soon, nearly
30 states legalized condoms

and Julius Schmid's
sales skyrocket,

generating $900,000 every year,

the modern day
equivalent of 15 million,

Schmid's decades of work,

bringing condoms out of the
shadows and into the light.

In the 1920s, the US
birth rate drops by half,

preventing countless
unwanted pregnancies,

saving thousands
of lives each year

and earning him the nickname,
the King of Condoms.

♪ It's the time of our life ♪

When you really
think about condoms today,

this man played a huge role

in helping the United States
as a society, as a nation,

understand the importance.

Condoms have created
an opportunity

for people to make choices

about their bodies
and their health.

I think that the condom

is actually a symbol
of freedom in America.

Schmid's
success propels condoms

to full nationwide
legalization in 1965.

His business is eventually
purchased by the Durex company.

And today the products
he helped pioneer,

are part of a $10
billion industry.

While contraception is
becoming more accepted,

the calls to ban alcohol
are reaching a fever pitch.

Now the temperance
movement saw an opportunity

during World War I to
basically make sure

they not only delivered
their message,

but now their message
was wrapped

in a giant American flag.

Anti-German sentiment,
during World War I

is converging with this
prohibition sentiment

because as Germans are
seen as kind of nefarious

and scary and
anti-American, well,

they're connected in the
popular imagination to beer.

That provides this
basis for saying, "Well,

we need dry cities,
this is a German thing,

and we've gotta stamp that out."

You have the push for
constitutional limit

to outlaw alcohol consumption
or out sale of alcohol.

And it's successful.

And then by 1918,

you had the formal
passage of that amendment,

which becomes the Volstead Act.

On January 16th,

alcohol becomes
illegal in the US,

and Lem Motlow's Jack Daniel's
distillery grinds to a halt.

The strategy of
ramping up backfired,

because he had now sunk all
of his money into a product

he could no longer sell.

And so all of the capital
that they had was in danger

and so Jack Daniel's started
to really teeter on the edge.

Motlow has
spent the last few years,

cranking out whiskey
at a breakneck pace.

And he's sitting on 50,000
gallons of it in his warehouse.

That was kind of the moment

that everything sort of
crashed in around him.

And at that point,
he had no idea

how he was gonna
run his business.

Then,
he gets a visit

from an unscrupulous entrepreneur,

named George Remus.

Mr. Remus.

Come on in.

A pleasure to meet you.

Please.

There were some loopholes
in the Volstead Act

where you can sell whiskey
as long it was medicinal.

George Remus was a
lawyer and a pharmacist,

so he could see both
ends of the spectrum.

Oddly enough,

there were a lot more scripts
being written for whiskey

as medicine, after
prohibition hit.

So, what's your offer?

How much?

250 a gallon.

250?

You're kidding, right.

I can sell for five times that.

Well, technically you can't.

George said,
"Let me buy a stake

in your Jack Daniel's warehouse

and I can deliver
it as medicine."

I mean, the market's
not what it used to be,

not the medicinal market anyway.

And this is all above board?

100%.

The only way
this deal will work

is if you take the whole lot,

50,000 gallons, all of it.

I'll have the
paperwork drawn up

and sent to you in the morning.

Motlow had no choice.

Nobody wanted that whiskey,
going into prohibition.

So he did what he had to do.

Motlow can
legally sell his whiskey

to George Remus, a
licensed pharmacist,

but only at 50% less than
the pre-prohibition price,

but it's better than nothing.

All across the industry, other
companies aren't so lucky.

Clearly prohibition came

and that translated into the
closure of thousands of saloons

and the shutting down

of hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of breweries.

You could look at a graph
of breweries in 1900

and the number just
goes straight down.

August Busch tries
to pivot away from Budweiser

to stay afloat, but so far
he's grasping at straws.

Once prohibition happened,

Anheuser-Busch ended
up making everything

from boats, to ice
cream, to soap.

I mean, anything to stay alive.

Just like Lem
Motlow's got a stockpile

of Jack Daniel's
in his warehouse,

August Busch has a
surplus of hops and barley

gathering dust.

And so I can't manufacture it.

I can't sell it.

So I'm forced to sit on a
stockpile of ingredients

I can't move.

There's gotta be
some work around.

But that's it.

What if we just sold
the ingredients?

It's not illegal.

Technically, no, it's not.

The constitutional amendment
simply forbids the sale

and manufacture of
alcoholic beverages,

but there was nothing
to prevent someone

from going to a store and
buying packets of yeast

or packets of malt and taking
them home and making beer.

What Busch was hoping was

that they would be able
to sell the ingredients

to consumers who were gonna
go home and make beer.

August Busch
may have figured out a way

to sidestep prohibition,

but it's a strategy that
will soon draw the interest

of one of the most notorious
gangsters in American history.

Prohibition's been
in effect for more than a year,

at least according to
the letter of the law.

You had people
drinking in their homes.

You had speakeasies.

And there was also a
lot of corruption there.

Cops were being paid off

to kind of let certain
places operate.

The irony is that President
Harding, who is a dry,

keeps this room in the
White House for his cabinet

that's filled with liquor

that he's purchasing
from a moonshiner,

and that's clearly illegal.

So he's pushing a
national policy,

which is enforcing prohibition,

and yet the reality
is that the moralism

that you hear political
leaders preaching from on high,

in no way resembles
what they were doing

in their private lives.

The government
seizes 140,000 illegal stills

a year, and confiscates over
a million gallons of alcohol.

But by the 1920s,

it's estimated that the
most successful bootleggers

are raking in over
$100 million a year,

the modern equivalent
of half a billion.

Because you've now
pushed it underground,

you have organized crime.

And you have a new
group of leaders,

Lucky Luciano, New York,

Joe Bonanno, New York,

Al Capone in Chicago.

The suspicions are that almost
half of the cops in Chicago

were dirty, 'cause
you have so much money

involved in alcohol.

They're involved in the
transport and the sale of,

and turning their blind eye to
all of this stuff happening.

So it's creating criminal
activity by the people

that are supposed to protect
us from criminal activity.

August Busch is
skirting the law,

selling brewing ingredients
instead of beer,

but he's barely scraping by.

Can I bother you for a second?

We had a big order come in
this morning, and I mean big,

That's the kind of
order we want, isn't it?

The order's from an
Al C. out of Chicago.

You follow me?

Al C.?

There are so many
stories floating around

about breweries who were
dealing with criminals

like Al Capone.

For me as someone who has
spend a lot of time

thinking about the Busch family.

It's hard to imagine

that he would've risked the
reputation of the company,

but it's entirely possible.

Some of the greatest
mobster we've ever seen

had brilliant
entrepreneurial minds.

Legal or not, when you're able
to create that much wealth

and make that much money,
you have to be smart.

Jeff Bezos found out
what people needed

and what they wanted,
and he came to them

with a solution that was
very profitable to him.

Al Capone was no different,
you know.

I mean, he was operating
illegally and breaking the law,

but he was seeing the world

through the eyes
of his customers.

And he was able to give them
something that they all wanted.

I pretend like I never
saw the order come in?

Fill the order.

Just don't mention
this to anyone.

You can have Al Capone
tell the American people,

"I'm just a businessman.

I give the public what
the public wants."

But when that comes
with corruption,

at it's core is this
fundamental fear

about the very soul of America.

While August
pushes the limits of the law,

George Remus has a deal
to sell Jack Daniel's

as medicinal whiskey.

Now, that whiskey
was being guarded

because you weren't allowed
to just take barrels out

and sell it.

Hurry up, keep it quiet.

George Remus, he was going
in and doing a strategy

that most teenagers
do when they're kids,

which is take some of the
whiskey, replace it with water

and then sell the whiskey
that he was taking out.

Come on, let's go, let's go.

Remus drains
50,000 gallons of whiskey,

worth the modern equivalent
of nearly 60 million bucks,

then fills the
barrels with water

so authorities won't notice.

Then he doubles down, stealing
his own dummy barrels,

and putting in insurance
claims for the losses

and nobody's any the wiser.

His illegal hooch is part of
a burgeoning prohibition era,

underground economy.

There's not just the
consumption of alcohol

to profit from.

There's like this whole
underworld of vices.

And so you see
connected to drinking,

gambling rings and different
kind of gaming houses,

prostitution, all
of these vices.

And in Harlem,

Stephanie St. Clair wants
her piece of the pie

and she's willing to make a
huge bet on herself to get it.

There are a lot of
women betting in the game.

Many, many women are working

as a kind of middle
management in the game,

but it is very rare to see a
woman who is banking the game,

who really rises to the top
of a numbers organization.

St. Clair
pours everything she earned

working for the policy kings
into opening her own game.

And she incorporates modern
technology, like phones

and adding machines,

making hers the most
efficient place in town.

Stephanie St. Clair,

who was one of the first ones
to embrace the telephone,

to collect customers
bets for the numbers.

Instead of having
a series of runners

go around to people's homes

to actually collect
their bet for the day,

this was much quicker.

And plus it had saved
her a lot of money

in having to employ runners.

The one thing that's clear
is that she is innovative.

She really proves herself
to be just relentless.

In some ways, her
numbers operations

reflect accounting firm.

There's a lot of people
tallying things up.

Within a year,
St. Clair's policy house

is raking in the
modern equivalent of

$4 million annually,

making her the first
and only,

policy queen, in New York.

She is the numbers
queen in Harlem.

You have a Black immigrant woman

who dominates a
male dominated game.

Like this is someone

who is stepping outside
of her place, right?

So in many ways she becomes
this local celebrity.

Her
fame is spreading.

Soon, the whole underworld
will know her name

for better or worse.

A few hundred miles away,

Lem Motlow has agreed to
a perfectly legal deal

with George Remus.

Exactly, that's
what I told him.

Let me call you back.

Can I help you, gentlemen?

We're gonna
need you to come with us.

What is all this about?

You are under arrest

for violating Section 37,
Article 2 of the penal code.

What?

What are you talking about?

The federal agents guarding
the Jack Daniel's warehouse

recently made a
startling discovery.

All the barrels are
filled with dirty water,

but the feds have no idea
that George Remus is to blame.

Shut up and walk.

And on June 7th, 1926,

Lem Motlow is charged with
violating the Volstead Act,

putting his legendary
uncle's legacy in jeopardy.

In a time when
women aren't welcome in

boardrooms and many
minorities are shunned,

thanks to her wildly
successful numbers racket,

Stephanie St. Clair
is one of the richest,

most powerful people in Harlem.

Let's see what you
have for me today.

She lived at 409
Edgecombe in Sugar Hill,

and this is a building
where doctors, lawyers,

prominent race reform leaders
like W. E. B. Du Bois lived.

So she definitely rubbed
shoulders with those folks.

Stephanie St. Clair is someone

who is always
dressed to the nine.

Fur coats, cars, property,
the latest cloche hats,

all of that denotes a
sign or symbol of wealth.

Don't tell me what they cost.

The really interesting
thing about St. Clair

is that she crafted a narrative

that showed her as
this kind of wealthy,

kind of badass business woman.

St.
Clair isn't just rich,

she's also one of the biggest
employers in the borough.

St. Clair's operations
are very, very large,

hundreds and hundreds of people.

People working in
the counting rooms

and those people are
making a decent living.

And there has to be
a degree of security

because you're handling
large amounts of cash.

Some people need to coordinate
political relations,

relations with the police.

You're light.

Excuse me.

Prices went up last month.

I didn't agree to that.

Greed and corruption
is everywhere.

It's the local government.

It's judges.

It's the police.

You think you can come
in here and intimidate me?

Here's my counter offer.

You can either take the money

I've been gracious enough
to give you every week,

or I could contact my
friend down at the Times

and tell him about your
little extortion ring.

Wonder if he might be
interested in a story like that?

Are you threatening us?

Don't tempt me.

St.
Clair hatches a plan

to expose police corruption

by naming names to the press.

It'll make her a hero to
the Harlem underground,

but put a target
squarely on her back.

August Busch can't make
his signature Budweiser

in the face of prohibition,

and he's barely keeping
Anheuser-Busch above water.

Then, on October 24th, 1929,

after years of unchecked growth,

the stock market crashes,
shedding 30 billion of value,

and throwing the United
States economy into chaos.

In the 1920s crash of
the stock market.

People are buying stocks

because they believe there's
a way to make money, stocks.

You don't have to work, make
your money work for you.

Americans have always
been interested in this.

And I think in the kind
of thrill of gambling,

the idea of quick money,

that there is a possibility
that you can walk out of a room

in a much better economic
state than you walked in.

Now that is not the truth
for most gamblers.

Within a year,

12 million people
are out of work

and 12,000 more are losing
their jobs every day,

20,000 companies go bankrupt,

but where most
entrepreneurs see disaster,

August Busch sees opportunity.

The Great Depression is
compounding the pain

of prohibition and
1,200 of the 1,300

major American breweries
have shut down.

But with 25% of the
workforce unemployed,

income tax revenue
is plummeting,

and August Busch sees a new
angle to save his business.

Anheuser-Busch is an
American institution.

And we pay more than $3
million in taxes every year.

Prohibition didn't stop
people from drinking.

It made them just
figure out other ways

to get their alcohol.

It wasn't regulated.

So the legal vendors
got penalized, right?

The government
doesn't get to tax it.

People who are drinking it

don't know whether it's
safe to drink or not.

No one's winning, right,
except for the criminals.

I mean, you wanna talk
about finding tax revenue

to pull this country
out of the depression,

legalize beer, regulate it,

tax it.

By 1932, the argument
being made about beer

was that it would be
better for the country

to end prohibition to
bring the tax revenue back.

I'm just asking you
to think about it.

You too.

I cannot stress
how much revenue

alcohol brings to
the Federal Treasury.

It is one of the most taxed
products in the United States.

When you're drinking
a bottle of beer,

you're drinking a lot of taxes.

Busch
publishes a pamphlet

called "An Open Letter
to the American People,"

claiming that repealing
the 18th Amendment

would bring back 1.2
million jobs overnight.

Even people who had originally

funded the prohibition movement,

like the DuPont Brothers

and officials with big
motor companies in Detroit,

were joining organizations

that were lobbying to repeal

because it had just become
clear that it wasn't working.

It's also worth noting

a point that I think most
Americans don't realize,

the prohibition amendment was
never voted on by the voters.

All
Busch could do now,

is hope his tactic works.

The man who runs the
Jack Daniel's distillery,

Lem Motlow, has more to worry
about than just prohibition.

After being arrested for
violating the Volstead Act,

he's beaten the rap.

When George Remus was
taken to federal court

to answer for all the
bootlegging that he did,

he didn't name Lem.

But
soon finds himself

right back in the
middle of a court case.

Lem ended up
getting in trouble

for shooting a
conductor on a train.

So there was a Black conductor

saying, "Where is your tickets?"

Lem didn't feel that he needed
to answer that question,

so another conductor came in
and asked the question again.

This time he was
a White conductor

and Lem pulled a weapon

and ended up shooting
the White conductor.

♪ If you lock, a
dragon in a cage ♪

♪ He'll do anything
he needs to get away ♪

The
fate of Lem Motlow

is now in the courts hands.

Stephanie St. Clair

blasted corrupt New
York cops in the press.

Because St. Clair was really
challenging police power

and authority, the cops
had it out for her.

But despite
her public fight,

she still relies on police
looking the other way

to keep her business going.

Excuse me, ma'am.

I believe you dropped these.

My, my, my, what
do we have here?

What is this?

Stephanie St. Clair,
you're under arrest

for the possession
of number slips.

Are
you kidding me?

Despite having the
cops on their payroll,

Stephanie St. Clair is
arrested in December of 1929.

You'll never get
away with this.

Who do you think a
judge is gonna believe?

Several cops claimed
that she has number slips.

I promise you'll regret this.

There was other people
who saw what happened,

who said that they didn't
see any number slips.

I never break my word.

Let's go.

Stephanie
St. Clair's arrest

is meant to discredit her and
reestablish police authority,

but instead of bringing
the numbers racket in line,

it'll touch off a
violent gang war

with the most dangerous
mobsters in New York.

I can work with that.

Looks like-

They promised more next week.

The battle
for the nation's soul

isn't over yet.

Legalize beer.

And a new era
in American vice begins.

Deal me in.

You're over the limit.

I said, deal me in!

Excuse me.

A new
kind of magazine.

Full nudes.

Have you lost your mind?

Completely
changes the game.

I'll pay cash.

A new battle
for tobacco supremacy.

What the hell
is smoker's cough?

A public relations nightmare.

Gives rise
to an American icon.

We call him the Marlboro man.

You gotta do
what's best for you.

The future
of the state lotto system.

Shot in the head,
left out in the street.

Ends
up in the hands

of a notorious New York mobster.

We're gonna shut 'em down.

And it all
leads to a desert town

in the middle of nowhere.

Las Vegas.

What does that even mean?

No idea.

That
will become known

as Sin City.

It's gonna be spectacular.