PROHIBITION

Chapter 1

Since the founding of the republic, some Americans

advocated temperance- limits on the consumption of

alcohol. Temperance organizations formed and then

unified into the American Temperance Union in 1833. In

the early 20th Century, the cause morphed into the

Prohibition movement, which had the support of diverse

constituencies including Progressives, many southerners,

women, and the Klu Klux Klan. The 18th Amendment

to the Constitution passed in 1919. This Amendment

prohibited the manufacturing, sale, and transport of

alcohol. The primary documents in this book include, the

18th Amendment, an article from the New York Times,

and several prohibitionist posters. Read the documents to

find out what problems some people saw in society and

why they favored prohibition.

PROHIBITION

Source: The United States Constitution.

The US Senate passed the 18th Amendment on Decem-ber 18th, 1917. It was ratified on January 16, 1919, after 36 states approved it. The 18th Amendment, and the enforce-ment laws accompanying it, established prohibition of alco-hol in the United States. Several states already had Prohibi-tion laws before this amendment. It was eventually repealed by the 21st Amendment on December 5th 1933. It is the only amendment that has ever been completely repealed.

Section 1

After one year from the ratification of this article the manu-facture, sale, transportation, importation or exportation of in-toxicating liquors in the United States territory is hereby pro-hibited

article: a section or item in a written document. Un-til enough states ratified this amendment, it was known as an article.

Section 2

The Congress and several States shall both have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Section 3

This article shall have no power unless it shall have been rati-fied as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission to the States by the Congress.

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SECTION 1

18th Amendment

Source: Read at the Eight Annual Meeting of the National Temperance Council, Washington D.C. September 20, 1920. The National Temper-ance Council was created in 1913 to work for Prohibition.

Prohibition and HealthAlcohol poisons and kills; Abstinence and Prohibition save lives and safeguard health.

Dr. S.S. Goldwater, formerly Health Commissioner of New York City, stated the decision is based on science, the final opinion of our nation after 100 years of education upon the subject of alcohol.

“It is believed that the less consumption of alcohol by the community would mean less tuberculosis, less poverty, less de-pendency, less pressure on hospitals, asylums and jails.”

“Alcohol hurts the tone of the muscles and lessens the prod-uct of laborers; it worsens the skill and endurance of artists; it hurts memory, increases industrial accidents, causes dis-eases of the heart, liver, stomach, and kidneys, increases the death rate from pneumonia and lessons the body’s natural im-munity to disease.”

Justice Harlan speaking for the United States Supreme Court said:

“We cannot shut out of view the fact that the public health and public safety may be harmed by the general use of alco-hol.

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SECTION 2

Prohibition and Health

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Information read at the Temperance

Council Meeting

Source: The New York Times, November 14, 1922

‘HOOCH MURDER’ BILL DRAFTED BY ANDERSON

Anti- Saloon Head Aims to Reach Those Whose Drinks Cause Death.

William H. Anderson, State Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, announced in a statement yesterday that the organization would sponsor a measure at the upcoming State Legislature. The measure would be known as the “Hooch Mur-der” Bill. It says a person can be tried for murder, and pun-ished accordingly if they are suspected of selling alcohol that resulted in the death of the person drinking it. Commenting on the measure Anderson said:

“This bill is intended for whoever it may hit, but it is especially

directed at the immoral foreigner, usually an alien, who had largely stopped killing with a knife form hate or with a gun for hire, and has gone into the preparation and thoughtless selling of poison for profit.”

* Hooch: slang term for alcohol, commonly used in the 1920’s to refer to illegal whisky.

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SECTION 3

“Hoocher Murder” Bill- New York Times

Alcoholism and Degeneracy

Source: Poster published 1913 by the Scientific Temperance and Ameri-can Issue Publishing Company

Children in Misery

Source: Poster published in 1913 by the Scientific Temperance Federation and

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SECTION 4

Scientific Prohibition Posters

Both federal and local government struggled to enforce Prohi-bition over the course of the 1920s. Enforcement was initially assigned to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and was later transferred to the Justice Department. In general, Prohibition was enforced much more strongly in areas where the popula-tion was sympathetic to the legislation--mainly rural areas and small towns--and much more loosely in urban areas. De-spite very early signs of success, including a decline in arrests for drunkenness and a reported 30 percent drop in alcohol consumption, those who wanted to keep drinking found ever-more inventive ways to do it. The illegal manufacturing and sale of liquor (known as "bootlegging") went on throughout the decade, along with the operation of "speakeasies" (stores or nightclubs selling alcohol), the smuggling of alcohol across state lines and the informal production of liquor ("moon-shine" or "bathtub gin") in private homes.

In addition, the Prohibition era encouraged the rise of crimi-nal activity associated with bootlegging. The most notorious example was the Chicago gangster Al Capone, who earned a staggering $60 million annually from bootleg operations and speakeasies. Such illegal operations fueled a corresponding rise in gang violence, including the St. Valentine's Day Massa-

cre in Chicago in 1929, in which several men dressed as po-licemen (and believed to be have associated with Capone) shot and killed a group of men in an enemy gang.

The high price of bootleg liquor meant that the nation's working class and poor were far more restricted during Prohi-bition than middle or upper class Americans. Even as costs for law enforcement, jails and prisons spiraled upward, sup-port for Prohibition was waning by the end of the 1920s. In addition, fundamentalist and nativist forces had gained more control over the temperance movement, alienating its more moderate members.

With the country mired in the Great Depression by 1932, cre-ating jobs and revenue by legalizing the liquor industry had an undeniable appeal. Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for president that year on a platform calling for Prohibition's appeal, and easily won victory over the incumbent President Herbert Hoover. FDR's victory meant the end for Prohibi-tion, and in February 1933 Congress adopted a resolution proposing a 21st Amendment to the Constitution that would repeal the 18th. The amendment was submitted to the states,

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SECTION 5

End of Prohibition

and in December 1933 Utah provided the 36th and final nec-essary vote for ratification. Though a few states continued to prohibit alcohol after Prohibition's end, all had abandoned the ban by 1966.

Negative Aspects of Prohibition

Prohibition created disrespect for the law.

Pullquote: “Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it at-tempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes.” Abraham Lincoln

If everyone breaks the law, it is disrespected. Practically every-one broke the law of Prohibition — making everyone criminals.  Prohibition encouraged people to see the law as whimsical and unimportant, instead of something good and protecting. It did nothing to encourage the respect and obedi-ence the law deserves.

Prohibition created organized crime. “Prohibition made the gangster not just well paid, but well liked,” McWilliams said. It took significant organization to bootleg the quantities of alcohol people desired. The result was organized crime, which didn’t differentiate between petty crimes like transporting liquor and real crimes like violence,

murder, and theft.Organized crime was huge, and it had a lot of money and influence. Policeman and politicians were bribed and blackmailed:

If mobsters couldn’t buy or successfully threaten someone in a powerful position, they either “wiped them out” or, follow-ing more democratic principles, ran a candidate against the incumbent in the next election. They put money behind their candidate, stuffed the ballot box, or leaked some scandal about the incumbent just before the election (or all three). The important thing was winning, and more often than not, someone beholden to organized crime rose to the position of power.

It created a new class of candidates that were open to the highest bidder. Many court cases required payoffs to get a “fair” hearing. In other words, corruption abounded and the people began distrusting the government.

Prohibition caused physical harm

Because alcohol was illegal, its purity was not regulated. While fruit, vegetable, and grain alcohol is usually safe, alco-hol made from wood is not — but it is difficult to tell the dif-ference until too late. Over 10,000 people died during Prohi-bition from drinking wood alcohol. Others who were not killed went permanently blind or had severe organ damage.

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Prohibition