Malcolm Malachi “Mack” Day, a 53-year-old White man, was a federal Prohibition agent whose long career in law enforcement ended violently in McDowell County, West Virginia, on February 14, 1925. Day was an ordained minister as well as a lawman, and by the time of his death he had become a prominent and controversial figure in the coalfields around Welch.
He had previously worked as a miner, served in local law-enforcement positions including sheriff, and built a reputation for aggressive enforcement of liquor laws. Federal records state that he entered the Prohibition Unit on May 1, 1920, earning an annual salary of $1,800. West Virginia historical accounts describe his campaign against illegal liquor as intensely personal: he reportedly believed enforcing Prohibition was a religious calling and was willing to arrest even members of his own family on liquor charges.
On Valentine’s Day in 1925, Day joined Prohibition Agent Taylor and at least one state officer in an operation targeting Jim Sneed, who authorities regarded as an alleged moonshiner. Federal records place Sneed’s home near Roderfield, not far from Welch, while other historical accounts identify the broader scene as the Pageton, Premier, or Spice Creek area of McDowell County. The officers went to Sneed’s property in connection with illicit liquor and a federal search. When they initially approached, Sneed did not resist. The officers searched his house but found no liquor there. Their investigation did not end with that unsuccessful search, however; they moved toward a nearby house and attempted to continue the search.
It was during this continuing search that the encounter suddenly turned deadly. According to the federal account later entered into the Congressional Record, Sneed broke away from the officers without warning. Other federal summaries explain that he ran into his house, obtained a gun, returned, and opened fire. Day was struck and killed. Sneed then fired at Agent Taylor. Taylor returned fire and wounded him, and state officers joined the gunfight. In the exchange that followed, Sneed was shot and killed at the scene. Contemporary newspaper coverage described the incident dramatically as part of the violent “war on rum” along Spice Creek, reporting that both the preacher-turned-Prohibition officer and the alleged moonshiner were dead by the end of the confrontation.
Jim Sneed was therefore the identified suspect in Day’s killing, and the available records do not indicate that another person was accused of firing the fatal shot. There was no opportunity to arrest Sneed for Day’s death because he was killed during the gun battle immediately after the shooting. As a result, there was no murder prosecution, criminal trial, or conviction of Sneed. Federal officials also reviewed the officers’ fatal use of force against him. The recorded disposition stated that, because the officers had been forced to fire in self-defense after Sneed had already killed an officer, no homicide prosecution was brought against the agents or state officers involved in Sneed’s death. No available online account located for the case identifies an additional suspect who was arrested, charged, tried, or convicted in connection with Day’s killing.
Day’s death brought an abrupt end to a career that had made him one of the better-known Prohibition-era lawmen in southern West Virginia. Historical accounts describe him as both a minister and a feared enforcement officer in a region where illegal liquor production and the efforts to suppress it frequently produced armed confrontations. He left behind his wife, Charlotte, and a large family. After the shooting, he was buried at Belcher Mountain. West Virginia historical accounts say members of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization Day had joined during its early twentieth-century revival, and representatives of other organizations marched through Kimball as part of the funeral procession. His family would later suffer another line-of-duty death when his son, Game Warden Alexander Day, was killed in 1937 while attempting to arrest a drunken driver in a stolen vehicle.
