The State Department had no sooner smoothed over one international liquor problem last week, than it found itself confronted with another, more serious one.
Temporary seizure of diplomatic liquor en route from Baltimore to the Siamese legation had created an Incident that put the foreign corps in Washington on edge (TIME, March 25). Anxious to quiet ambassadorial nerves, the State Department obtained from the Treasury Department a red-taped but definite ruling that embassy liquor could be transported by private U.S. trucks and drivers without Federal molestation, provided an accredited diplomat was actually aboard the vehicle.
Then, the U.S. Coast Guard sank the British auxiliary schooner I’m Alone, and killed one of her crew, an indefinite distance off the Louisiana coast near “Sixty Deep.” Sir Esme Howard, British Ambassador, called at the State Department for information, predicted this Incident might become “serious.” Rear Admiral Frederick C. Billard, Coast Guard Commandant, called the I’m Alone a “notorious rumrunner” and explained that the U.S. cutter Walcott had ordered the 150-ton two-master to halt for inspection off Trinity Shoals. The Walcott had fired a three-pounder through the I’m Alone’s rigging but instead of stopping she had turned and fled, her powerful Diesel engines boosting her out of reach.
Cornered by other U.S. craft 24 hours later on the high seas, the I’m Alone was sent down by gunfire from the cutter Dexter. The man killed was a Negro seaman. The rest of the crew, in irons, were carried to New Orleans aboard the Dexter. Admiral Billard was positive the pursuit began within the twelve-mile limit and therefore within the terms of the British Rum Treaty. But the British embassy was not so sure.
The thing remained an Incident, if only because it was the first British vessel ever sunk by U.S. rumchasers.
The British penny press blazed with headlines: BRITISH CREW IN IRONS −BRITISH SKIPPER CHALLENGES U.S. CUTTER!−I’LL NOT SURRENDER!−100 SHOTS SINK BRITISH SHIP.
The I’m Alone’s, skipper, Captain John T. Randell, 49, a Canadian, told his story in New Orleans. Loaded with 2,800 cases of “assorted liquor,” his schooner, he said, was “anchored 14½ to 15 miles offshore” when approached by the Walcott. He did not heave to because he did not think the U.S. had jurisdiction. His ship, he figured, went down 225 miles offshore in a heavy sea under 120 U.S. shots. The drowned negro, one Leon Mainjoy, was a French citizen.
Article 2 of the Anglo-American rum treaty declares that the U.S. rights of search and seizure of British vessels “shall not be exercised at a greater distance from the coast of the U.S. . . . than can be traversed in one hour by the vessel suspected.” Common practice has made this treaty-line twelve miles offshore.
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