nly 1,550 federal agents and over 18,700 miles of extensive coastline, it was quite impossible to prevent large quantities of liquor from entering the country. Bowen estimated that barely five percent of smuggled liquor was hindered from coming into the country through the 1920s.
             Perhaps the most important cause of its success was that the illegal liquor industry was under the control of organized gangs, which "subdued" most authorities. Many bootleggers shielded their business by bribing the authorities, namely federal agents and persons of high political status. As a result of the lack of enforcement of the Prohibition Act and the creation of
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