Prohibition
Hoping to promote sobriety, morality, and health, legislators passed a sheaf of laws banning the sale of liquor. The result was nearly 20 years of illicit drinking.
Prohibition is the forbidding by
law of the manufacture, or
transportation of alcoholic beverages.
Such beverages include beer, gin, rum, whisky, and wine. The term Prohibition Era refers to the period of national prohibition that lasted from 1920
to 1933 in the United States and from 1917 to 1919 in Canada.
In the United States, the
Prohibition Era became famous for extreme violence and a wild way of life. Underworld gangs gained weatlth
and power by supplying the public with illegal alcoholic beverages. The gangs battled one another for control of
the liquor market, and bloodshed occurred frequently. Thousands of men and women defied the law and
drank at illegal bars called speakeasys and at
cocktail parties and other private gatherings.
The widespread lawlessness helped give the 1920’s its nickname, the
Roaring Twenties.
It was the morning of January 16, 1920 – only a few hours after the birth of dry America, the nation received its first taste of things to come when officials seized four stills. Within one year, liquor was pouring over the borders from Canada and Mexico. Fleets of rumrunners assembled off the coasts of New York, New Jersey, and Florida, loaded down with liquor from Europe and the Caribbean, where many farsighted American distillers had stockpiled their wares in anticipation of the coming thirst. For every saloon that closed, dozens of speakeasys sprang up in its place. By 1926 officials estimated there were 100,000 speakeasys operatig in New York City alone.
Thousands of Americans began to
disobey the prohibition laws almost as soon as prohibition started. Many defied the new law because they thought
it violated their right to live according to their own standards.
Underground gangs started to
provide huge amounts of alcoholic beverages in many communities. Vilent gang wars
broke out when the mobs battled one another for control of the liquor
trade. Murders, beatings, and bombings
became common. Capone of Chicago was
probably the most famous gang leader of the era. Capone and the leaders of other mobs made
millions of dollars from the sale of beer and liquor. The welth and power
of the underworld enabled many gangsters to avoid arrest.
Enforcing Prohibition proved
hopeless. Though many members of
Congress were willing to vote “dry” in principle, and thus protect themselves
from the wrath of Anti-Saloon Leaguers and other drys,
they were less eager about appropriating funds to police the nation’s drinking
habits. Toward the end of prohibition
Howard Hoover himslef estimated that a police force
of a quarter of a million men would be needed to make it work, further
demonstrating, as he remarked, “the futility of the whole business.”
By the late 1920’s, many Americans
decided that prohibition had brought more harm than good. Crime had increased, and the enforcement of
prohibition had become ineffective. The
Great Depression, a worldwide busifness slump, began in 1929. Many Americans thought prohibition should end
so the government could again collect taxes on alcoholic beverages. They declared that government could use these
tax funds to improve the economy. In
December, 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution repealed the
18th Amendment and ended national prohibition.
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Amendment XVIII
1. After one year
from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation
of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the
exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the
jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
2. The Congress and
the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.