Originally published in The Vidette-Messenger of Porter County on November 19, 1930.
MAN WHO LOST EYE FOR CAUSE TO VISIT CITY
Porter County Liquor Foes Planning Great Rally as One of Banner Events of Month.
‘PUSSYFOOT’ JOHNSON IS THE HEADLINER
“Pussyfoot” Johnson is coming!
What’s the big news broadcasted to all Porter county foes of liquor and champions of prohibition.
He will be in Valparaiso Wednesday evening, Nov. 26, to speak in the Methodist church auditorium as part of his “invasion” of Indiana in the interest of the dry cause, which will carry him into the principal cities of the state.
With Johnson, whose real name is William E. Johnson, will be Lt. Col F. B. Ebbertーthe man who as a lawyer defeated the efforts of Clarence Darrow and Levy Meyer noted Chicago attorneys, and got the signature of Gov. Frank O. Lowden to Illinois’ prohibition enforcement act, back in 1919ーthe days of the “big battle” for the eighteenth amendment. Col. Ebbert won rank in the Spanish-American and World wars.
But, as for the past twenty-five or more years, it is “Pussyfoot” Johnson who holds the spotlight.
He is rated as the “biggest oratorical gun” in the prohibitionist army.
He comes to Valparaiso under the auspices of the Anti-Saloon League of America in co-operation with the Indiana Anti-Saloon League.
He will be entertained here by the City Ministerial association. Following is a summary of Mr. Johnson’s career was drafted by Rev Carl Stewart, pastor of Valparaiso Baptist church: “No speaker against the liquor traffic has so caught the imagination of the world as has “Pussyfoot” Johnson. This comes partly from his colorful activities of twenty-five years ago when he was commissioned by President Roosevelt to “cleanup” the old Indian territory under the very wild conditions that prevailed in that bad-lands at that time. The territory had become the rendezvous for murderers, robbers, and all sorts of unruly people who fled into the territory for hiding places and, for ready money, were selling liquor to the Indians and committing all sorts of depredations.
“There were only four courts to take care of the civil and criminal business of the territory. Because of the inadequate provision for dealing with the outlaws, more than 6,000 criminal cases had piled up on the dockets which would require ten years to handle, to say nothing of the new cases that might be brought. Because of this condition, the outlaws felt that they could do as they liked and get away with it. Naturally, chaos resulted when Johnson met that situation by dealing with the outlaws without much law and in a rough and tumble fashion.
“The first thing he did was to seize and summarily destroy 76 gambling houses, piling the furniture and fixtures on the streets and setting fire to them, acting under an old Arkansas statute that Congress had enacted to apply to the territory. He cleaned out every gambling house. Plot after plot was made against his life but they all miscarried. One of his friends was not so lucky and was killed by mistake and part of the $3000 reward that the outlaws had posted against Johnson was collected before the brigands found they had the wrong corpse.
“During the six months that this reward was hanging over his head, Johnson conducted his operations almost wholly at night, using stealthy, surprise tactics. It was because of these methods that he acquired the nickname, “Pussyfoot.” eight of his deputies were murdered and many others were shot or stabbed. One of his deputies still carries a bullet in the back of his head which was never extracted; one is speechless because of being stabbed in the throat, cutting the larynx and destroying his vocal cords. At one time Johnson had four sets of orphan children on his hands whose fathers had been murdered by the liquor sellers and gamblers; but these tragic deaths only added to the fury of Johnson in dealing with the offenders. In later years, after his wife had died, he married the widow of a slain deputy. For six years he fought the outlaws on their own grounds and to some extent using their tactics.
“After leaving government service in 1912, he attached himself to the Anti-Saloon League, playing an important part in various statewide campaigns for prohibition, handling the publicity operations in most of the western states that “went dry.”
“His next move, in 1918, was to go to Europe where he opened an office in London, which office he still maintains. In a riot in London one of his eyes was destroyed, and now a glass one takes its place. Contrary to all expectations, he declared it was only a “joke” and took no action whatever for redress. When London admirers collected a fund of nearly two thousand dollars as a tribute to his “sportsmanship,” he immediately turned the money over to a hospital for blind British soldiers, and his fame thereupon soared skyward. Johnson has traveled three times around the globe, speaking in practically every country in the world outside of South America, and is still “going strong.”
