Post on 18-Dec-2015
Support for Prohibition
Support for the amendment came from the rural South and West
Largely native-born protestant areas
Anti-Saloon LeagueChurch-affiliated, led the way for the amendment
Woman’s Christian Temperance
Considered drinking a sin
18th Amendment18th Amendment: (January 1920) legally prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcoholic beverages
Reformers considered alcohol the main cause for:
Corruption crime wife and child abuseaccidents on the job other serious social problems
At first….
Saloons closed their doors
Arrests for drunkenness declined
Most immigrant groups did not consider drinking as a sin but a natural part of socializing (they resented the gov’t for meddling)
Many Americans were tired of sacrifices after W.W.I. and wanted to enjoy life
It’s fate was sealed…
The government failed to budget enough money to enforce the law
Volstead ActEstablished a Prohibition Bureau in the Treasury department in 1919 (agency was underfunded)
Enforcement• Enforcement involved:
• patrolling 18,700 miles of coastline and inland borders
• Tracking down illegal stills • Monitoring highways for
truckloads of alcohol • To be sure none was taken
for illegal use
• Monitor all industries that legally used alcohol
• Task fell to 1,500 poorly paid federal agents and local police
Speakeasies
To obtain liquor illegally, drinkers went underground to hidden saloons and nightclubs called speakeasies
Called speakeasies because inside, one spoke quietly or “easily” to avoid detection
Found everywherePenthousesCellarsOffice buildingsRooming housesTenementsHardware storestearooms
Speakeasies
To be admitted into the speakeasy, one had to present a card or use a password
Inside: there were a mix of fashionable middle-class and upper-class men and women
Speakeasies would change locations
People got bolder in getting around the law
BootleggersPeople would:
Learn to distill their own alcohol and built their own distills
Prescription orders for alcohol skyrocketed
Sales of sacramental wine increased dramatically
Buy alcohol from bootleggers
Bootleggers: named for a smuggler’s practice of carrying liquor in the legs of boots, smuggled alcohol in from Canada, Cuba and the West Indies
Evading the Law
“The Business of evading [the law] and making a mock of it has ceased to wear any aspects of crime and has become a sort of national sport”
~Journalist, H.L. Mencken
o Not only did Prohibition generate disrespect for the law, but contributed to organized crime in almost every major city
Organized Crime
Chicago became notorious during this period as the home of Al Capone
A gangster whose bootlegging empire netted over $60 million a year
He took over the liquor business by killing off his competition