As you celebrate a centennial, sometimes you overlook the bad. The LBI Coast Guard scandal of 1926 was quickly becoming a symbol of the failure of Prohibition and the Volstead Act that enforced it.

As the investigations grew, those opposed to the law argued that, instead of improving the nation’s morality, it was corrupting its most trusted institutions. and the government was trampling on the Constitution in order to enforce it.

The Philadelphia Inquirer of July 23, 1926 ran a special report.

“Disclosures and confessions made during the last twenty-four hours will bring the entire Coast Guard patrolling Jersey…