Books: Izzy the Agent

PROHIBITION AGENT No. 1—Izzy Einstein— Stokes ($2). One of the rummiest blossoms of Prohibition was a fat little Austrian Jew with a knowing, good-humored face, who still rejoices in the name of Izzy Einstein. No figment of newshawks’ fancy (though some people thought he was). Izzy was a most determined and efficient Prohibition sleuth. In this book, dedicated “to the 4,932 persons I arrested, hoping they bear me no grudge for having done my duty.” Izzy chucklingly describes his dizzy career. Stanley Walker, the New York Herald Tribune’s able city editor, enthusiastically introduces him, calls him “most engaging snooper inhistory. … If every agent had been as industrious, as capable and as intelligent as Izzy, this country would be Dry today, if the courts could have handled the cases, God forbid.”

Izzy got his job in the first place because he did not look like a detective. He kept it because he was neither venal nor lazy. When his fellow agents were reporting for work. Izzy would appear with a dozen prisoners. His industry, affability and ingenious disguises made and kept him headline news. Some of his makeups: Negro, Italian fruit-vendor, iceman, longshoreman, gasfitter, judge. Cornell undergraduate, streetcar conductor, carpenter, trombone-player (when demonstrating his ability he played ”How Dry I Am”). Once he was admitted to a speakeasy on the strength of being a Prohibition agent; the barkeeper thought it was a good joke till Izzy arrested him. When he had become a household word, a suspicious doorkeeper let him in immediately with ribald laughter when he announced who he was. The potency of his name swelled to such proportions that twice in one day barkeepers fainted (he says) when he introduced himself.

Izzy operated mostly in New York, but he was sent as far afield as Mobile,Detroit, Los Angeles. He never carried a gun, reports having been shot at only once, and that time the gun jammed. He had lots of fun with his job. At one German beer-garden, masquerading as a reveler, he made so much noise he was asked to sing a solo, which he did with great gusto. Then he announced: “This concludes the evening’s entertainment, ladies & gentlemen. The place is pinched. For I am Izzy Einstein, the Prohibition Agent.”

When Izzy in 1927 was “offered” a transfer to Chicago, he quit. (He did not ”want to get mixed up with Capone,” said he wanted to die in New York.) He likes Manhattan, wants to go on living where he has always lived, on the Lower East Side. Estimating Manhattan’s speakeasies at 100,000 and their employes at half a million, Izzy thinks Prohibition is here to stay—at least for a long time. Now that he is no longer a sleuth, he is making more money, he says, and getting more sleep. He has a job with the New York Life Insurance Co. “Yes, sir! What was good enough for ex-President Coolidge is good enough for ex-Agent Izzy Einstein.”