Graft and Grafters: DC Police Crack Down on Illicit Speakeasies

On a chilly Washington, D.C. Sunday evening in 1902, the Metropolitan Police Department launched a coordinated crackdown on the city’s notorious speakeasies. These secretive watering holes, often masquerading as respectable saloons, had become a thorn in the side of authorities. The police had long vowed to suppress the numerous establishments, which catered to the city’s underbelly and operated almost entirely outside the law.