◆ THE JAZZ AGE BULLETIN ◆

IT WAS THE BEE’S KNEES.
THEN THEY FIXED IT.

A jazz-age bulletin of swell ideas gone flat — on the level, sourced and cited, see?

◆ The Bunk on File

Prohibition · Public Health by Other Means

Uncle Sam Poisons the Nation's Hooch to Teach Drinkers a Lesson; Drinkers Keep Drinking

The fix: Bootleggers were stealing industrial alcohol and 'renaturing' it back into something a fellow could drink. So beginning in 1926 the federal government ordered industrial alcohol made more poisonous — wood alcohol, benzene, kerosene, mercury salts — on the theory that a few corpses would scare the country dry.

★★★★★ CatastrophicRead the case →

Speculation · Paradise, Underwater

Sunshine State Sells Same Swamp Forty Times; Hurricane Arrives to Demand a Refund

The fix: Then the dream discovered leverage. Lots were sold on 'binders' — a small deposit — and flipped before the balance came due, the same parcel trading hands a dozen times a season, every buyer sure of a greater fool behind him. Price came loose from anything a person might actually do with the land, such as stand on it.

★★★★★ NotableRead the case → The Schools · Improving the Curriculum

State Bans Evolution to Protect Children; Treats Children to Front-Row Seat at Circus Instead

The fix: In March 1925 the legislature passed the Butler Act, making it unlawful for any public-school teacher to teach 'any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible.' The remedy for godless biology was to make a particular chapter of it a misdemeanor.

★★★★★ NotableRead the case →

What Wasn’t Broken

We start with the thing that was working fine — boring, dependable, doing its job.

The "Fix"

Then the improvement: bold, expensive, announced with confidence. Usually unrequested.

The Result

And the receipts — what it cost, what broke, and the citations to prove it.

IT WAS THE BEE’S KNEES.THEN THEY FIXED IT.