Boardwalk Empire Montreal -Milk and Water

Crepeaus in Atlantic City 1927 ish.

The other day we went to Hawkesbury to buy wine. This, apparently, isn't strictly legal. So I'm a bit of a bootlegger. I used to think the LCBO's wine was cheaper than the SAQ's wine, but I've done more research and it isn't really. According to wine afficonados who have checked. But they do have Ontario wines, which I like. The SAQ doesn't carry much Ontario wine. Hard liquor is more expensive in Ontario.

That makes the trip to the LCBO worth it. Also, it's easier to drive West these days with all the traffic into Montreal - and BIG BONUS_ the LCBO's beautiful promotion magazine Food and Drink was out. What a gorgeous thing! And free. There isn't a recipe in in I don't want to try.

So, I'm a bit of a bootlegger, but I doubt I would have been as brave as May Wells, in 1927. Defying the American authorities like she did. My story Milk and Water explains.

Here's the beginning of Milk and Water my prohibition era e-play about Montreal City Politics based on TRUE events. Click on the link for the entire eplay on pdf. The play explains the beginning of the roots of the SAQ and LCBO, of government control of alcohol. In 1927, a 17 dollar case of whiskey cost 56 after taxes, according to a source I read.

Milk and Water

1927 was Canada’s Jubilee year, the 60^th anniversary of Confederation. To celebrate, 2 Royal Princes, David (the future Edward VIII) and George (the future Duke of Kent) took a month long tour of Canada. Upon arrival, at the beginning of August, they were feted, along with UK Prime Minister Baldwin, at Montreal City Hall. A public ceremony was held in front on the steps of the recently refurbished Hotel de Ville, with Mayor Mederic Martin standing in state in his long purple robes. My grandfather, Jules Crepeau, Director of Municipal Departments and his eldest daughter, my Aunt Alice, watched from a perch higher up on the steps.

The Royal Princes would stay in Montreal only 36 hours, then travel across Canada, to return to the City on the St. Lawrence at the end of the month for four days of rest and recreation before returning to England.

 This setting of this play, Milk and Water, takes advantage of this fact.

In 1927, the City of Montreal was at the peak of its influence, a bustling industrial and transportation centre, even if  some Torontonians disparaged the city, claiming that, although happily situated for business, it was corrupt to the core, French and “so hopeless.”

In the 1920’s the Americans had Prohibition and reportedly many crime bosses headed up North to control their empires from Montreal.

Montreal had no Prohibition, although the sale of hard liquor was controlled by a Provincial Liquor Commission. Liquor licenses were handed out primarily to taverns, as well as to restaurants and hotels. According to the Coderre Inquiry into Police Corruption, conducted in the city in 1924 and 25, there were about 1,000 establishments in Montreal serving hard liquor without a license, not speakeasies in the traditional sense, but still operating outside the law.

Montreal, Quebec, September 2, 1927.

A warm autumn night.

The Mayor of Montreal from his office at City Hall: Allo. Mr. Crepeau. 

C’est Mayor Martin. Vous etes rentrer chez vous. Bien.

Jules Crepeau (from his home at 72 Sherbrooke West): Comment peux je vous aider, Monsieur le Mayor.

Mayor: Monsieur Crepeau. I will speak in English as I have a representative of the Royal Prince in my office.

Jules: D’accord. Your Worship. So will I answer in English. What is the problem?

Martin. Problem? No problem. I have a personal favour to ask of you, on behalf of our esteemed Royal guests. All in the strictest confidence, of course.

Martin: Do you remember that Westmount bloke with the bottled wat

Jules: Comme Toujours. As alwayser company, the one with the bullshit name?

Jules: Thomas  Wells?  What’s bullshit about the name?

Martin: Not that name, the name of his company. Laurentian..ah

Jules: Spring Water.

Martin: Yes, the company that sells water it pumps from under Craig Street. Near our giant sewage collector. Not from the Laurentian Mountains.  So, bull shit.

Jules: Yes, well, I believe I have met him just recently at the Royal Reception.

Martin: He’s the short older man with the very very tall young wife.

Jules: Oh, yes, the amiable man with the very tall and very thin and very outspoken young wife.

Martin: The same man.

Jules: What about him?

Martin: Well, we need some of his bottled water delivered tonight to a certain dance club in the midtown.

 Jules: Why?

Martin: Because the Royal Prince might turn up there later on.

Jules: I understand.

Martin. The thing is, I would like 3 gallons delivered, merely as a precaution of course, but no one is to know. No one except this Mr. Wells – and you.

Jules: So he is to deliver it himself. Alone? The President of this company?

Martin: Yes. Discretion is of the utmost importance.

Jules; I see. But how am to reach him on such short notice.

Martin: I’ve already taken care of. The thing is, ah, I would like you to meet him at 11.pm in front of the Mermaid Cafe.

Jules: 11. pm. The Mermaid Cafe? But, I just got in, myself.  There was a meeting of the City Improvement League.  And you know how those ferocious Presbyterian ladies never let you go home.

Martin : Unfortunate. Do you know the address of the Mermaid?

Jules: How could I not?  It’s got a (clears throat) certain widespread reputation.

Martin: Well, well. You are speaking about the excellent dance music, I presume. But the Prince will not show up until after midnight. He is tied up at some stuffy dinner party at the top of the hill, probably at Ravenscrag.

Jules: May I ask, with all due respect, why can’t His Royal Highness get his own people to bring the water. The Ritz Carleton has hundreds of bottles stored in the basement, I’m sure, what with this latest typhoid scare. The Radnor People of Three Rivers are the Official Suppliers.

Martin: The thing is, this, ah, is not an official kind of outing. The Royal Prince is hoping to slip away from his handlers for a few hours.

In fact, this is a personal favour he is asking me, as a personal friend.  Don’t worry, I will send over one of our more ambitious young police officers, un grand gaillard, to perform the heavy work.

All you and Mr…ah…Wells, is it? have to do is can stand outside with the water and wait. You don’t even have to go in. The Prince and his party will enter by the side door. Only then do you have the jugs delivered.

Jules: If it’s after 12am, everyone enters by the side door, I imagine.

Martin: Well, be that as it may.  Apparently, there’s a very good Jazz band playing tonight, the Harlem Kings or Kings of Harlem.  The Prince is young. He has a keen interest in modern forms of music.

And you recognize all the city reporters.

Jules: But they recognize me, too, as the person who, just a year ago, announced to the entire Montreal Press Corps the firm new closing hour of midnight for dance clubs.

Martin: Jules. It’s the Royal Prince. Que voulez-vous?

Jules: Yes, of course. I understand.

Martin: You will be pleased to know, he specifically asked for you. His people thought you did a wonderful job organizing the official reception at City Hall a month ago.

Jules: You mean where we invited about 1,000 too many guests and where the Prince kept glancing at his watch and yawning between handshakes. I’m still fielding angry letters from society matrons who never made it into the reception line.

Martin: Well, yes, yes, That’s done then, I can count on you.

Jules: Certainement, Your Worship. (He hangs up the phone.)

Toujours quelque chose.

Little Girl: Papa?

Jules: Tu es encore debout, Marthe? Ou est Maman?

Girl: Elle prie dans le salon, avec Florida and Cecile.

Jules: Tu dois prier aussi.

Girl: Je n’aime pas prier. C’est ennuyeux. Peux-tu me raconter un histoire?

Jules: No, Il faut que je sorte.

Girl: Juste une courte. Je pars pour couvent demain, tu sais.

Ah, Je ne peux pas ma chouette.

Mais je veux que tu restes.  S’il tu plait.

Jules: Nous avons eu de bons temps à Atlantic City, il y’a deux semaines.

Marthe:Tu n’étais presque jamais avec nous autres. Toujours des meeting.

Jules: (He kisses his daughter). Les rendezvous. Bonne nuit, ma petite. Je promet de t’ammener au couvent moi même demain.

Slam of door.

Setting: Outside a dance hall, Montreal somewhere South of Ste. Catherine, east of University and West of St. Lawrence Boulevard.

Two men, similar in age and body type, both 60 ish, both about 5 foot 8 inches. Both with trim, athletic builds. Both sporting tall bowler hats.

Under his tall bowler, one man has thin black hair and a deep receding hairline, and under his tall bowler, the other man has a healthy head of curly almost wiry hair that is receding only slightly but greying most noticeably.

Both men are well dressed, in white shirts with high-necked collars and  dark blue flannel business suits.  The balding man’s lapels are notched and thin, to match his tie. The curly hair man’s lapels are peaked and wide-  also to match his cravat.

The balding man’s outfit is a more conservative cut, but the style worn by the anglo businessmen of his circle. The curly man’s suit more a la mode, as they say, although still very appropriate for a man of his age of his stature.

These are men of the Upper Middle Class. One English Canadian originally from  Ontario. One French Canadian born in Laval. Both men live with their bossy wives in three storey townhouses in tony sections of Montreal, one on Chesterfield in lower Westmount, one on Sherbrooke Street just a little West of St. Lawrence Street, or St. Laurent.  

The English man is Tom Wells, a businessman and President of Laurentian Spring Water. The French man is Jules Crepeau, a high-ranking City civil servant, the Director of Municipal Departments.

Crepeau arrives in a taxi. A Black Lasalle. He exits the car quickly without paying. Wells drives up in a Bentley, its back seat holding three giant clear glass bottles, the front passenger seat a stack of yellow boxes.

The two men meet and shake hands on the curb in front of The Mermaid Café and Dance Club.

Tom: I brought the bottles myself, as the Mayor Instructed. But I can’t lift them, you know. Sciatica. Curling injury.

Jules: A constable is to arrive shortly.

The front door of the cafe opens and out pour two dozen or so patrons, mostly young men and women, the women in form-fitting flapper dresses with flying fringes and colourful cloche hats, and young men in shiny high-waisted suits with baggy pant legs.

In the background, a song is plays on a Victrola. It is Hello Montreal by Willy Eckstein. A trio sings:

Goodbye Broadway, hello Montreal.

 Yamo, yamo, I think I want a drink; Yamo, yamo, there’s water in the sink.

 The sink, the sink, the sink, the sink, the sink;

 The good old rusty sink;

 But who the heck wants water when you’re dying for a drink?

 Oh, “We Won’t Get Home Till Morning” Is the best song after all,

 Goodbye Broadway, hello Montreal.

 There’ll be no more Orange Phosphates,

 You can bet your Ingersoll,

 Goodbye Broadway, hello Montreal.

The front door closes as the last couple straggles out, just as a tall young policeman in dress blues, broad-shouldered and burly, arrives on foot. He crosses the street and walks toward the older men standing in front of the big black Bentley.

Jules walks up to meet him a few paces from Tom and whispers a few words to the cop.

He returns to stand beside Tom. The cop takes up position beside the front door a few yards away, standing at ease with his arms behind his back and legs slightly apart.

Tom: How long do we wait, then?

Jules (shrugging) As long as is required.

I have some crates, then, in the trunk. For us to sit on.

Jules nods.

He waves the constable over. Instructs the young man as to the matter. Tom gives him some keys. The Cop goes to the car, opens the trunk, grabs a medium-sized brown crate in each hand and carries them past the sidewalk, and places them on either side of the café’s front door.

The cop resumes his position a few yards away. The older men sit on the crates. LAURENTIAN SPRING is written in upside down green lettering on the crates.

The more than middle-aged men squirm and fidget, turning away each other, turning towards each other. Tom examines the streetlights, Jules the road directly in front. Tom adjusts his hat, Jules his tie. Then the two almost identical looking men turn to face each other – but obliquely.

Between them, the café front door opens and two 30ish women, looking the worse for wear, exit on wobbly ankles.

A voice from inside: C’est l’heure de fermeture. Rentrez chez-vous, mes Pitounes.

Another voice, more drunk sounding: Go home flour lovers.

The two men inspect the women as they might a stray cat or dog, without any perceptible change in their expression.

Then a lock on the front door is banged shut and a sign goes up window over Jules’ head: CLOSED! Over Tom’s head: FERME!

There’s a long pause as the men adjust to this slightly uncomfortable situation. Then finally….

Tom: Yanking at his tie knot. Too hot for an autumn night.

Jules: Some like it hot..What does it mean, flower lover?

Tom: Too much make-up. Flour as in face powder. (He makes a motion with his right hand, as if powdering his cheeks and as he does this he purses his lips.)

Jules: Ah.(After another long pause) So, you are the one who put that crazy advertisement in the newspaper?

Tom:  What advertisement. What do you mean?

Jules: The advertisement that said “Don’t drink filthy germ laden city water. Laurentian Spring Water is always the same, pure and wholesome. Do not wait until you are sick to drink it.”

Tom:  My sad Aunt Sally. That particular promotion was placed over 4 years ago.  You can’t possibly remember it word for word.

Jules: I remember it perfectly, believe me. This is my special gift.

Tom: Well, then, you must certainly be aware that we haven’t run anything quite like it since.

Jules: The letter from the City’s Avocat en Chef might have had something to do with your change of heart.

Tom:  No. The fact is, we’ve changed our advertising policy, right about then. We started pushing our new line of soft drinks.  (He pulls out a bottle from each side-pocket and shows them to Jules.)

Jules: (inspecting labels) Soda water and Sweet Ginger Ale.

Tom: No sir, we certainly didn’t cave to the threats from over at City Hall. (He returns the bottles to his pockets.)

You know, we’ve only ever received one lawyer’s letter from you people. Ever. And we’ve run a slew of newspaper ads along the same lives over the years in promotion of our bottled water. No, the most trouble ever we got, before that letter, were a couple of huffy phone calls from Dr. Laberge’s department.

Jules: Of course, The Health Department

Tom:  Your guys couldn’t catch us on anything.

Jules: Yes, all your clever wordplay. “What chances you take if you don’t drink Laurentian water.” “The Safest plan is to drink Laurentian Spring water.” Never quite lying, never quite telling the truth. Not slander, not in the legal sense. But slippery lies are lies just the same.

Jules: Even the name of you company is a sort of lie. Laurentian Spring Water. Your aquifer is under Craig Street. Right downtown in the business district. And there are underground springs all over the city.

Tom: Sure, but our well has the purest water, it’s a proven fact. The scientists at Macdonald College tested back it in 1909, the year of the last typhoid epidemic.

Jules:  Pure, Purer, Purest. Mere words, once again.  What does the word “pure” really mean, exactly?

Tom: Now, what’s wrong with the word Pure?  It’s a great word. A beautiful word. Everyone likes it. Everyone uses it.

Jules: That’s precisely what’s wrong with it. (Pause) A word that everyone uses can’t be a good thing. A word like that means too many different things to different people. And if something is pure, then something has to be impure.