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Bootlegger: Max Hassel, The Millionaire Newsboy
Bootlegger is about a Jewish immigrant who became a bootlegger at the age of 19 during Prohibition. By the time he was 24, the government claimed he owed $1.2 million in income taxes. He was a rarity in that he never used violence to achieve his wealth. After three of his breweries in Reading, Pennsylvania were closed down in 1928, he became a partner with Waxey Gordon, the foremost beer baron in the country. Their syndicate in North Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania controlled 17 breweries, according to the Prohibition Bureau. When real beer was legalized in 1933, Hassel became a legitimate brewer by placing a tax stamp on every barrel leaving his breweries. This was in direct opposition to the plans of the Luciano/Lansky forces whose plan was to retain control of the beer and liquor industries after Prohibition. Hassel was killed by mob hit men, setting off an investigation that ruined the mob's scheme. The mystery of who killed Hassel was not solved for almost seventy years. Hassel was not just another beer man who gained considerable wealth in the bootleg racket. He gave to numerous charities and financed a free loan society for the poor during Prohibition. The Hassel Foundation today gives grants totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to worthy causes in the Philadelphia and Reading area.
258 pages, Paperback
First published February 10, 2003
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February 14, 2022
Max Hassel was certainly not a household name for bootleggers. A few readers may recognize his philanthropic foundation. Others may recall that he was killed in a hotel room with another lieutenant of Waxey Gordon just before Repeal. Taggert sets out to lionize Hassel, carefully distinguishing between gangster and racketeer. Consequently, there is a definite bias skewing an seemingly neutral biography.
Taggert painfully details Hassel's legal troubles - tax evasion and bribery / attempted bribery. These highly-publicized (and repetitive) trials offered the most detail into Hassel's beer dealings. Taggert makes an excellent case that Hassel was a big fish in a small pond. Hassel started off in Reading, PA and focused on running breweries and exporting high-quality product. Whether ambition, greed, or hubris drove him to flaunt the law, is a decision left to readers. His breweries were repeatedly raided, guarded and padlocked. But they were soon up and running in brazen defiance of authority. Legal battles put him first and foremost among Reading's bootleggers. Only in 1928 when authorities finally appeared to win the war in Reading and dismantled his breweries did Hassel appear to leave his small pond.
Any bootlegger that rises to prominence in a small pond or a big pond is usually considered to be a gangster. The threat of competition and an inability to turn to legal avenues for redress forced even "honest" bootleggers into gangland. Taggert presents an argument that Hassel went out of his way to avoid gangland. The main point of evidence was his dealings with Mickey Duffy, the erratic gang chief in Philadelphia. Hassel rebuffed Duffy's request for partnership in a brewery, so Duffy invaded the brewery like a German Army and seized it for himself. Taggert meekly says that Hassel and Duffy worked out a partnership. The incident obviously made Hassel rethink his position in the underworld. But rather than cultivate a working relationship with Duffy, he chose to partner with Waxey Gordon and Max Greenberg.
Very little is written about either gangster. Gordon entered the 1920s as a minor enforcer for Benny Fein and Arnold Rothstein. The later racketeer collected and mentored the furture leadership of organized crime - Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, and Waxey Gordon. Taggert explains that Lansky developed an intense hatred of Gordon; but the cause of the animosity, or whether reciprocated, is unknown. What little there is published about Greenberg is how he double-crossed his boss in a big liquor deal - and started a bloody gangland war is about all that is known. These were the two people that Max Hassel decided to join. Strange bedfellows, especially if readers consider the ultimate thesis in the book - that Hassel was a racketeer, not a gangster. He relied on Gordon and Greenberg for protection.
Taggert offers a picture of this triumvirate seeking to corner the beer market on the East Coast. Following Rothstein's death in 1928, the apprentices scrambled for bits and pieces of Rothstein's business interests. Gordon may have come up empty. Taggert offers that Gordon and Greenberg were involved in running speedboats from International waters to the East Coast. Their partnership with Hassel seemingly omits foreign liquor in place of beer. Hassel ran the breweries, and the other two....? Well, their contributions are largely unknown. Taggert outlines how the Gordon Gang muscled out smaller mobs while taking over more and more breweries. It is possible, but very speculative. It would place Hassel in the middle of the violence.
Moving further towards Repeal, Taggert argues that Hassel sought to operate legitimate breweries. How Gordon and Greenberg would fit in is unknown. Hassel's dream of being amajor legitimate brewer may have been the motive for his assassination in April 1933. There were other theories. Taggert argues that the Gordon Gang was on the cusp of war with Dutch Schultz. He even found evidence that Gordon may have been behind the assassination. In 2001 a mob hitman told his story to a magazine writer, claiming that he was involved in the Hassel-Greenberg Murders. Taggert sought desperately to either confirm or refute the confession; but merely added it as the most likely explanation. Either way, it was the death of a great dreamer.
Overall, Taggert goes out of his way to eulogize Hassel. He certainly was not as dark as Duffy, and probably not as bad as Gordon or Greenberg. Taggert found only a brief hint that Hassel may have been involved in one or two deaths of his associates before teaming up with Gordon. Of course, it is possible there was much more evidence implicating Hassel. Taggert's pro-Hassel bias questions the cavalier way Taggert raises and drops the murders. If he was partners with Gordon at the time the gang was taking over the North Jersey breweries, he would have been involved in the violence if only as a consultant and strategist. Taggert's detailed reconstruction of Hassel's labyrinthine business dealings is impressive. It remains partially unclear how breweries could operate when guarded and padlocked as often as Hassel's breweries in Reading. Bribing guards is a flimsy explanation considering the constant raids and court actions. A greater discussion of the beer industry during Prohibition is warranted. In sum, it is a fascinating story of a small-town antihero whose lasting legacy is philanthropy.
Taggert painfully details Hassel's legal troubles - tax evasion and bribery / attempted bribery. These highly-publicized (and repetitive) trials offered the most detail into Hassel's beer dealings. Taggert makes an excellent case that Hassel was a big fish in a small pond. Hassel started off in Reading, PA and focused on running breweries and exporting high-quality product. Whether ambition, greed, or hubris drove him to flaunt the law, is a decision left to readers. His breweries were repeatedly raided, guarded and padlocked. But they were soon up and running in brazen defiance of authority. Legal battles put him first and foremost among Reading's bootleggers. Only in 1928 when authorities finally appeared to win the war in Reading and dismantled his breweries did Hassel appear to leave his small pond.
Any bootlegger that rises to prominence in a small pond or a big pond is usually considered to be a gangster. The threat of competition and an inability to turn to legal avenues for redress forced even "honest" bootleggers into gangland. Taggert presents an argument that Hassel went out of his way to avoid gangland. The main point of evidence was his dealings with Mickey Duffy, the erratic gang chief in Philadelphia. Hassel rebuffed Duffy's request for partnership in a brewery, so Duffy invaded the brewery like a German Army and seized it for himself. Taggert meekly says that Hassel and Duffy worked out a partnership. The incident obviously made Hassel rethink his position in the underworld. But rather than cultivate a working relationship with Duffy, he chose to partner with Waxey Gordon and Max Greenberg.
Very little is written about either gangster. Gordon entered the 1920s as a minor enforcer for Benny Fein and Arnold Rothstein. The later racketeer collected and mentored the furture leadership of organized crime - Lucky Luciano, Frank Costello, Meyer Lansky, and Waxey Gordon. Taggert explains that Lansky developed an intense hatred of Gordon; but the cause of the animosity, or whether reciprocated, is unknown. What little there is published about Greenberg is how he double-crossed his boss in a big liquor deal - and started a bloody gangland war is about all that is known. These were the two people that Max Hassel decided to join. Strange bedfellows, especially if readers consider the ultimate thesis in the book - that Hassel was a racketeer, not a gangster. He relied on Gordon and Greenberg for protection.
Taggert offers a picture of this triumvirate seeking to corner the beer market on the East Coast. Following Rothstein's death in 1928, the apprentices scrambled for bits and pieces of Rothstein's business interests. Gordon may have come up empty. Taggert offers that Gordon and Greenberg were involved in running speedboats from International waters to the East Coast. Their partnership with Hassel seemingly omits foreign liquor in place of beer. Hassel ran the breweries, and the other two....? Well, their contributions are largely unknown. Taggert outlines how the Gordon Gang muscled out smaller mobs while taking over more and more breweries. It is possible, but very speculative. It would place Hassel in the middle of the violence.
Moving further towards Repeal, Taggert argues that Hassel sought to operate legitimate breweries. How Gordon and Greenberg would fit in is unknown. Hassel's dream of being amajor legitimate brewer may have been the motive for his assassination in April 1933. There were other theories. Taggert argues that the Gordon Gang was on the cusp of war with Dutch Schultz. He even found evidence that Gordon may have been behind the assassination. In 2001 a mob hitman told his story to a magazine writer, claiming that he was involved in the Hassel-Greenberg Murders. Taggert sought desperately to either confirm or refute the confession; but merely added it as the most likely explanation. Either way, it was the death of a great dreamer.
Overall, Taggert goes out of his way to eulogize Hassel. He certainly was not as dark as Duffy, and probably not as bad as Gordon or Greenberg. Taggert found only a brief hint that Hassel may have been involved in one or two deaths of his associates before teaming up with Gordon. Of course, it is possible there was much more evidence implicating Hassel. Taggert's pro-Hassel bias questions the cavalier way Taggert raises and drops the murders. If he was partners with Gordon at the time the gang was taking over the North Jersey breweries, he would have been involved in the violence if only as a consultant and strategist. Taggert's detailed reconstruction of Hassel's labyrinthine business dealings is impressive. It remains partially unclear how breweries could operate when guarded and padlocked as often as Hassel's breweries in Reading. Bribing guards is a flimsy explanation considering the constant raids and court actions. A greater discussion of the beer industry during Prohibition is warranted. In sum, it is a fascinating story of a small-town antihero whose lasting legacy is philanthropy.
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