Yes, Lilo, that is the key point about Prohibition and politics:

Before Prohibition, organized crime was small-time and local. Every burg had a "red light district" or a "levee" where drugs, gambling, prostitution and booze (many cities and counties were officially "dry" before the Volstead Act) flourished. "Ward heelers"--minor elected officials and party hacks--took payoff money from the racketeers, gave some to police captains, judges, etc., and kept the rest for themselves.

But bootlegging and rum-running generated so much money that the racketeers were able to organize the payoffs directly--and not just judges and cops, but entire city councils, state legislatures, mayors, governors, senators and (in the Harding Administration) the US Attorney General. That legacy of high-level corruption continued to this day, putting the Mafia and other organized crime on the map permanently.