18th Amendment...why did it pass?

Great Debates
1

Temperance was largely considered a women’s movement. The 18th Amendment was, of course, passed before women’s suffrage came into effect with the 19th Amendment. So where the heck did all the votes come from? Was there a sudden upsurge of Protestant “I know better than you” meddling? Was it a Lysistrata play on the ladies’ part (you know, the one by Aristophanes where the women withold sex to end war)?

How could something that runs so opposite to American notions of liberty get the requisite votes for ratification?

2

State legislatures. And women did have the right to vote in more than a few of those states, btw.

3

The explanation I heard was the rural Protestant v. urban Catholic class warfare bit - remember, Catholics use wine in their Communion, Protestants do not.

Easy, cheap shot for the recurring anti-Catholic movements of the times.

And temperance was not exclusively a female movement - largely, but not exclusively.

And, according to an old poli-sci prof, the backing of 1/3 of the population is enough to pull off a revolution - the remaining population will either oppose or be neutral, and the opposition is usually less active than the proponents - a loudest-voice-wins proposition.

4

While we tend to link the notions of the Temperance movement and the Suffrage movement (partly because several prominent supporters were active in both and because they often linked the causes), the Temperance movement was actually much broader and had a great deal of support from a number of civil leaders.

There were several strong (for the time) arguments for Temperance. Two linked phenomema, low wages and high costs for alcoholic drinks, created a situation in which a man stopping off at a bar on pay day could spend half his wages even without getting roaring drunk. A lot of people felt that eliminating “demon rum” (rather than lowering the price for drinks) would allow more people to survive (not escape) poverty.

5

a hijack, but gotta:

The infamous “If By Whiskey” speech:

"My friends,

"I had not intended to discuss this controversial subject at this particular time. However, I want you to know that I do not shun controversy. On the contrary, I will take a stand on any issue at any time, regardless of how fraught with controversy it might be. You have asked me how I feel about whiskey. All right, here is how I feel about whiskey.

"If when you say whiskey you mean the devil’s brew, the poison scourge, the bloody monster, that defiles innocence, dethrones reason, destroys the home, creates misery and poverty, yea, literally takes the bread from the mouths of little children; if you mean the evil drink that topples the Christian man and woman from the pinnacle of righteous, gracious living into the bottomless pit of degradation, and despair, and shame and helplessness, and hopelessness, then certainly I am against it.

"But;

"If when you say whiskey you mean the oil of conversation, the philosophic wine, the ale that is consumed when good fellows get together, that puts a song in their hearts and laughter on their lips, and the warm glow of contentment in their eyes; if you mean Christmas cheer; if you mean the stimulating drink that puts the spring in the old gentleman’s step on a frosty, crispy morning; if you mean the drink which enables a man to magnify his joy, and his happiness, and to forget, if only for a little while, life’s great tragedies, and heartaches, and sorrows; if you mean that drink, the sale of which pours into our treasuries untold millions of dollars, which are used to provide tender care for our little crippled children, our blind, our deaf, our dumb, our pitiful aged and infirm; to build highways and hospitals and schools, then certainly I am for it.

“This is my stand. I will not retreat from it. I will not compromise.”

  • Noah S. “Soggy” Sweat, Jr. 1952
6

A&E had a rather intresting special on how prohibition got passed It started as a grass roots temperance movement thta had been going for about 20-30 years

But A few politicial people got in involved and basically hijacked the movement and and started using slick ad campaings for the time and slogans creating a national movement where there wasnt one and made the temperance movement the cuase of the week
of course most of this is from memory but if ya can get the special on tape its a eye opener on how people suberverted a cuase for their own means which didnt match a lot of the countrys
Of course to this day there are die hard people that were in the temperance movement that still think it was a good law

7

Waaaaaaaait a minute … last I heard, communion wine was exempt from being banned during Prohibition!

8

I think Prohibition was a triumph of the simplistic assumption that one can cause great numbers of people to make basic changes in their way of life simply by passing a law. The utter failure of Prohibition did not make a dent in this mindset, as witness the current, equally failed, “war on drugs”.

9

Great numbers of people did make basic changes in their lives as a result of Prohibition. Per capita alcohol consumption in America was drastically reduced, by somewhere around 50%.

10

Guys, it’s easy for us to look back smugly from the comfortable 21st century and chortle at the nasty people who tried to take away other’s God-given right to drink anytime they wanted, but it wasn’t that simple. It’s a shame that we’re so hedonistic we can’t imagine why restricting drinking was ever thought to be a good thing.

Ohio State University did a big project on Prohibition a few years back:

http://prohibition.history.ohio-state.edu/Contents.htm

The women who spearheaded the movement, whatever now-laughable language they may have used, were genuinely concerned about domestic violence and about men who drank themselves into an early grave, leaving women who, remember, were going to find it extremely hard to support themselves and their children at a time when most women could only find the most menial of work. And some of the people who supported the bars weren’t necessarily fearless freedom fighters but the ruthless, cunning, rich liquor manufacturers. There were no age restrictions and teens could become alcoholics too. OTOH, some of the ‘dry’ propaganda was not only too purple but sometimes racist, although you can’t argue that alcohol doesn’t remain a major problem for Native Americans to this day.

Don’t get me wrong–I still think that it was a well-meaning but stupid law, which engendered a lot of contempt for the law that we’re still seeing. I would have been against it, especially since in my culture alcohol if used in moderation is a fun part of life. But I also live in a neighborhood that is heavily Irish and has an average of three-four bars per block. The noise, public urination, drunk driving, and muggings are increasing, although most of the people do police themselves decently. A century ago, in a densely crowded tenement district, with full-blown gangs fortified by grog everywhere–it’s not right to dismiss the Drys as simple killjoys.

11

Guys, it’s easy for us to look back smugly from the comfortable 21st century and chortle at the nasty people who tried to take away other’s God-given right to drink anytime they wanted, but it wasn’t that simple. It’s a shame that we’re so hedonistic we can’t imagine why restricting drinking was ever thought to be a good thing.

Ohio State University did a big project on Prohibition a few years back:

http://prohibition.history.ohio-state.edu/Contents.htm

The women who spearheaded the movement, whatever now-laughable language they may have used, were genuinely concerned about domestic violence and about men who drank themselves into an early grave, leaving women who, remember, were going to find it extremely hard to support themselves and their children at a time when most women could only find the most menial of work. And some of the people who supported the bars weren’t necessarily fearless freedom fighters but the ruthless, cunning, rich liquor manufacturers. There were no age restrictions and teens could become alcoholics too. OTOH, some of the ‘dry’ propaganda was not only too purple but sometimes racist, although you can’t argue that alcohol doesn’t remain a major problem for Native Americans to this day.

Don’t get me wrong–I still think that it was a well-meaning but stupid law, which engendered a lot of contempt for the law that we’re still seeing. I would have been against it, especially since in my culture alcohol if used in moderation is a fun part of life. But I also live in a neighborhood that is heavily Irish and has an average of three-four bars per block. The noise, public urination, drunk driving, and muggings are increasing, although most of the people do police themselves decently. A century ago, in a densely crowded tenement district, with full-blown gangs fortified by grog everywhere–it’s not right to dismiss the Drys as simple killjoys.

12

Sorry for the double post, hamsters must be drunk.

>I think Prohibition was a triumph of the simplistic assumption that one can cause great numbers of people to make basic changes in their way of life simply by passing a law.

I dunno, Hazel, I think the Jim Crow laws forced a lot of changes in people’s lives.

13

The Master speaks on the Catholic Church and Prohibition.

14

SDStaff Songbird, actually, “so accuracywise you’d better keep your fingers crossed.” :slight_smile:

15

It has always been my understanding that there was more than a tad on nativism involved in the passage of the 18th Amend and that Prohibition combined the fervor of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union with anti-foreign sentiments which had been legitimized by the First World War. Remember that during this period in several Midwestern States there were laws that prohibited public meetings from being conducted in any language but English. The consequence of that was the official and unofficial harassment of churches in Iowa that conducted services in German, Danish and Norwegian. Prohibition was seen, as I understand it, by some prohibition backers as a device to discourage immigration by beer drinking Germans, whiskey drinking Irish and wine drinking Italians.

In the rural Midwest and South, areas dominated by abstentionist Methodist and Baptists, drinking was a secret vice any way and public abstinence from alcohol was a social convention among the controlling elite. My Grandfather was on a small town volunteer fire department at the time. It was the firemen’s practice to refuse to hook up the hoses until all the booze in the house had been turned over. Prohibition was the salvation of several local lodges and groups like the American Legion which functioned as small town protected speakeasies where the “right sort of people” could still take a social drink. It came down hard, however on ethnic clubs and lodges. There was, for instance, a minor riot at the Turners Club (Turnverein) in Monroe, Wisconsin, when Federal and State Prohibition Agents tried to clean out the booze at that Swiss social, gymnastics and singing club. My Great-grandfather, a fairly large and imposing cheese merchant, was one of the rioters hauled off in the Paddy Wagon.

16

This isn’t quite correct. This site by the Cato Inst. gives a history ofper capita consumption during prohibition.

The bar chart shows per capita consumption dropping rapidly from 1910 to 1919, then a steep drop after the 18[sup]th[/sup] amendment followed by an almost immediate rise back to the pre-prohibition level.

The cite also seems to make plain that there is a lot to prohibition besides alcohol consumption. The graph on total expenditures for alcohol before, during and after prohibition is interesting.

17

—The bar chart shows per capita consumption dropping rapidly from 1910 to 1919, then a steep drop after the 18th amendment followed by an almost immediate rise back to the pre-prohibition level.—

Don’t have a cite, but I’m a little suspicious of this, largely because I know how much Americans USED to drink: an unbelievable amount. Something strikes me as a little funny about that bar chart… I’m going to have to check into it. I’m actually surprised by how lousy most of that analysis is: I mean, Cato is known for calling OTHER people on simply using correlation to make arguements about social policy.

From what I know of Prohibition, the only real surprise seems to be that it worked as well as it did as far as curbing alcohol intake. It’s implementation was among the sloppiest ever, and the amount of manpower expended on it was laughably small.

18

Well, I don’t necessarily trust Cato’s analysis either, but according to the caption on the bar chart the data for it are from * Clark Warburton, The Economic Results of Prohibition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1932), pp. 23-26, 72.*

I suppose Cato could have misrepresented the data. In order to check that out someone would have to get the original from Columbia and I can’t do that.

How is that you are so sure you know how much Americans used to drink?

19

Well, these figures from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism within the National Institutes of Health tend to show that the level of drinking did drop off from before Prohibition to after. This would seem to be the source of the claim that Prohibition did reduce the amount of drinking in the populace at large. Of course, Prohibition ended amidst the Depression and the figures are based on reported sales. I note that the figures bounce right back up in 1943–about the time that the wartime economy had finally pulled out of the Depression.

20

Not the same thing. I guess I should have spelled out that I’m talking about laws that forbid things that large numbers of people are accustomed to doing, or feel strongly that they have a right to do.

When Prohibition was passed, a lot of people went right on drinking. If some gave it up, others “took it up” – drinking was, IMO, made more trendy for many by Prohibition. Currently, a lot of people are using marijuana and hard drugs. The laws vs. these things are not stopping them. Laws have not managed to stamp out gambling or prostitution, either. People who want to do these things mostly do, regardless of legality. People are accustomed to doing these things, and feel they have a right to do them.

Likewise, people faced with unwanted pregnancies did get abortions prior to Roe vs. Wade, dispite the law. And people who want guns can and do get them, dispite the law. A great many people feel they have a right to decide what children, if any, they will bear, and what weapons, if any, they will own.

Often, these prohibition laws serve mainly to make worse whatever they seek to stamp out. During Prohibition, many people died, went blind, and were otherwise harmed by “bad booze”. These deaths and injuries were caused by Prohibition, just as many of the deaths and injuries from “bad drugs” today are caused by illegality of the drugs. Prostitution could be made much safer for all involved if it were legal. Most of the danger in abortion vanished once it was legal.