L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JANUARY 9, 2020 www.italoamericano.org 22 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE D ear Readers, Janu- ary is named after the Roman two- faced god Janus. New Year, 2020 is a new chance. A chance to try something new. A chance to bring a smile to someone's face. A chance to be part of something wonderful and exciting. A chance to remember old quotes in Italian and English and try to infuse their essence into our daily lives: "Fa male e pensaci, fa bene e scor- dati." "I expect to pass through this world but once, any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." *** And the Italian equivalent my mother often said, "None of us get out of here alive, so just enjoy the good times and enjoy your journey through this life." She had good days and bad days but never lost sight of her journey and of the beauty of liv- ing. *** The Clock of Life is wound but once And no man has the power To tell just when the hands will stop, At late, or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, love and toil with a will. Place no faith in tomorrow, For the clock may then be still. *** The rainbow is more beauti- ful than the pot at the end of it... because the rainbow is now... and the pot never turns out to be quite what you expected... *** Happy days are here again and by January,1 1933 the November voting of various States had insured the repeal of prohibition in the USA… Prohibition, the total sup- pression by legislation of the sale of alcoholic beverages, was implemented with the aim of preventing their consumption. It applied to the national experi- ment of alcohol control in force in the US between 1920 and 1933. In 1918-19, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution, forbidding the manufacture, sale or exchange of intoxicating liquors, was ratifed by 46 States out of 48 on moral and economic grounds, and the Prohibition or "Volstead Act," passed the House of Representatives and the Senate. Both Houses again passed it over President Wilson's veto, each by a 3 to 1 vote. Prohibition produced a tremendous increase in illicit traffic of liquor, known as bootlegging. Decentralized control proved inefficient, and in 1927 a Bureau of Prohibition was formed for combating the law-breakers. Alcohol continued to be used under permit for man- ufacturing and medicinal purpos- es, some of this finding its way into domestic consumption. Illicit distillation from sugar and grain was also practiced, and smuggling across the Canadian border and by fast motor-boats from ships off-shore became common. On moral and economic grounds, Prohibition spawned only hypocrisy, loss of revenue, and made lawbreakers out of nice family people, as the late Jeno Paulucci recalled in his biography by L.E. Leipold. He, Jeno Paulucci, was born in Hibbing, Minnesota, into a poor family on the Minnesota Iron Range. His parents were Italian immigrants who found life hard during the depression years. Jeno, at the early age of six, prowled the railroad yards in search of stray pieces of coal to heat the family dwelling. In the mid 1950s he parlayed a $2,500 loan into a fortune in excess of $100,000,000 selling canned Chow Mein and Bean Sprouts after founding the Chun King Company and building an American Oriental Food Empire. After selling Chun King Foods to R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company because they wanted to diversify, Jeno (Luigino) turned his full focus on Italian products, frozen pizza, pizza rolls and other prod- ucts named after his mother Michelina. "My father worked in the mines for as long as thirteen hours a day, six days a week," Jeno recalls. "His pay was piti- fully small, being about $4.20 a day. When times became worse, he often worked only one week out of every six. The meager income of Ettore Paulucci was stretched as far as it could go, but it was never enough to supply the necessities of life. In desperation, the family turned to a new source. In their native Italy (Marche Region, Belisio Solfare, Province di Pesaro), wine was in ever-con- stant supply. In their adopted land they had continued to make it for their own use. Now they began to make it in large enough quantities to sell it to eager cus- tomers. Prohibition was in effect and laws prohibited the manufac- ture of any alcoholic beverage. The breaking of these laws was punishable by heavy fines or imprisonment. The protection that they sought was never sure, and raids occurred. "We had to move from three different houses because they were closed by the State or feder- al government," he recalls. "A sign would be nailed onto the house which stated that the premises had been used for ille- gal purposes and therefore had been closed by the law. The house would be boarded up and we would move elsewhere. Soon it would be the same thing over again. My home was never a true home. This went on for years. "One way to reduce those risks and was to induce the offi- cials not to raid their home by giving them some of the wine they made. This they called 'insurance' or 'protection.' "Of course there was more than one petty official to be paid off this way, so a goodly share of our wine was never sold. It was given away so that we could stay in business. There were city and county and state and federal offi- cials who came to our door for their pound of flesh — hyp- ocrites and leeches, every one of them." There came a day when the Paulucci family decided that they could no longer continue their illicit wine manufacturing and sale. Several times their home had been raided and their wine confiscated. Fines levied were costly and could make the entire venture an unprofitable one. But what they feared most was the prospect of imprisonment for Ettore. Prison sentences were being meted out to those who had been warned, the unfortunate victims being frequently assigned to a far distant federal place of confine- ment. The name of Leavenworth Kansas, became one to be dreaded by many men who had become involved with the law, and the Paulucci family had not desire to have this hap- pen. How could they live on the few dollars that came from the father's employment in the mines? They did not know, but regardless of the hardships that might result, they gave up the practice of wine making and tightened their belts.

• Cover