Wife and I have been binge-watching Boardwalk Empire, which among other things depicts widespread, often flagrant disregard for laws against alcohol sales/consumption during Prohibition in the 1920s. No doubt some dramatic license is in effect there, but the history books do indeed report that Prohibition gave a major boost to organized crime - something that wouldn’t have happened without strong public demand for alcohol.
Given the apparent popularity of alcohol at the time, how was it that a constitutional amendment was able to be passed proscribing it?
Like many issues today, both the majority and minority felt very strongly. The result was a law that had so many loopholes that it was almost unenforceable. That made it very easy for the criminals. And that’s why Boardwalk Empire had so much “medicinal” alcohol.
Part of it was good intentions going horribly wrong. The supporters of the 18th Amendment had no idea that the outcome would be organized crime. There was a large decrease in alcohol consumption during that time.
Part of it was a form of racism. There was an element of hindering ‘drunken Irishmen’ and other ‘lower’ ethic groups that were perceived to drink.
Because, who will dare speak in opposition, lest he be seen as in favor of drunkenness and all the ills it brings?
Also, many members of the public and policymakers assuming that prohibition and/or enforcement thereof would be applied against “those other” people or against “those other, really bad, uses” of alcohol.
The U.S. has always been a funny country, combining a very strong desire for personal freedom with a very strong desire to enforce Christian morality. The Temperance Movement got its start way back in the 1800s, but never had enough votes to force any kind of Prohibition then. You also had various Christian groups who preached that drinking alcohol was for those of loose morals. As with many conflicts, you had people in favor of Prohibition, people against Prohibition, and a lot of folks who didn’t give two hoots either way. And the way they resolved this was pretty much the same as the U.S. has always done (and continues to do). Basically, instead of trying to work together to reach solutions that everyone is reasonably happy with, whoever gets the most votes in Washington crams their agenda down the other guy’s throats.
And that’s basically what happened here. The various temperance groups had a large number of votes in both the Democratic and Republican parties. Also, in the years leading up to Prohibition, a lot of young males (who represented a lot of the voting public against Prohibition) were overseas in WWI. Two large ethnic groups that were against Prohibition were the Germans and the Irish. We were at war with Germany at the time, so German immigrants were pretty much almost the enemy, so they had no political power. Irish folks weren’t thought of too highly either, so they didn’t have much political power either.
All of this allowed those in favor of Prohibition to build their political strength. The Democratic and Republican parties both saw Prohibition as a dangerous political issue, since their own parties were strongly divided on it, so they both tended to steer away from it during political debates.
In the end, it call came down to votes, and the folks in favor of Prohibition won.
People expected the crime rate to drop. After all, the evil influence of alcohol would be removed, people would act better, and the country would be a better place. They would soon find out exactly how wrong those predictions would be.
Eggs-zactly. The people who were in favor of prohibition had no idea to what lengths moonshiners, consumers, and organized crime would go to provide alcohol. The violent crimes committed before prohibition paled in comparison to the violent crimes during prohibition.
Is this an accurate statement? I thought the law was pretty straightforward. I thought the issue was there were just too many people who wanted to drink and it was too easy to supply them.
There was a thread here about this topic a few months ago. I’ll try to find it in a moment.
Ken Burns did a documentary on Prohibition a few years back. It’s very well-done, and gives a fascinating look at what led to it happening, and all of the effects that happened during Prohibition:
As noted above, there were some very sound reasons behind the temperance movement (alcoholism, and drinking away one’s salary, was a not-insubstantial issue among working men), but they lacked the foresight to see what making alcohol illegal would do.
There were loopholes – alcohol for “medicinal purposes” was allowed (“I think a quart of home-made wine will help cure my hangnail.”) and you were allowed to possess it if it was bought it before the ban (some men’s clubs stocked up on wines and liquor and drank legally the entire time). People could also make their own – not legally, but no one was going to do a door-to-door search.
But in general the law was clearly enforceable, and was enforced with great rigor by those who took it seriously. However, a lot of cops and federal agents were on the take and would turn a blind eye to it unless someone got too high a profile. There was little enthusiasm for enforcement among most citizens, especially those in cities (rural areas were more strongly in favor of prohibition).
It also made drinking a thrill. People would do it because it was illegal (and their chances of being raided were slim). Women especially started going to speakeasies when they were often banned from the old fashioned tavern.
In fairness, prohibition did ‘work’ in the sense that alcohol consumption went down. Making things illegal tends to reduce the incidence (although it also forces them underground into more unsavoury environments- e.g. our experiences with banning drugs, prostitution, etc.).
I strongly don’t think banning drinking is the legitimate business of government, or that the benefits were worth the costs, but if your did very strongly want to reduce alcohol consumption, a reasonable argument can be made that Prohibition worked.
Documented, legal consumption was reduced. Undocumented, illegal consumption went up. That doesn’t mean there were fewer incidence of alcohol consumption. It would be unusual for the average moonshiner, or bootlegger, to keep records.
Engineer_comp_geek gives a good summary. Although it wasn’t the primary factor, the association of beer to Germany played a part. The large brewers of the day were almost exclusively German, and the anti-German sentiment from WWI was highly leveraged to cast aspersions on them. Politicians were very reluctant to speak against Prohibition because this could be spun as support for the brewers and therefore support for Germans/Germany.
A great source for how and why Prohibition passed is Daniel Orkent’s book Last-Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. This was the source material for Ken Burns’ documentary.
As a side note, the 19th Amendment owes some thanks to the 18th Amendment. As the abolitionists were looking to increase support for prohibition, they figured it would be easier to get votes if women were included in the voting ranks, so many abolitionists became advocates for women’s suffrage. It ended up not being necessary as Prohibition passed before the 19th, but their support helped it on its path.
And the 16th Amendment (income tax) is also somewhat due to Prohibition. In the early 1900s the alcohol tax accounted for a significant portion of federal tax collections (I’ve seen numbers from 30 to 80%), and a different revenue stream was needed to replace it before the government could survive prohibition.
This is not accurate. By 1913 nine states were dry and another 31 had local option laws; over 50% of the population lived under prohibition (see Wiki: “Dry state”).
I doubt there were many who did not care and absent modern polling there is no way of telling.
This is not accurate. Constitutional amendments need the support of a massive three quarters of all the states, meaning that it is impossible for Washington to cram its agenda down anyone’s throat in the process. It also disregards the numerous periods of US history, including the present one, during which power is divided, but the country carries on, and it also overlooks the numerous cases of effective bipartisanship, such as the 1950s-1960s Civil rights era (and such as Prohibition itself!: in the House 140-64D, 138-62R see Mapping Historical Votes: Prohibition Passes The House).
Again, absent modern polling data there is no way to pin down this particular demographic’s views on the subject.
So it was basically the Anglos vs the immigrants? That assertion cries out for a cite.
Well, yes and no. The people did vote for the 18th Amendment. But the amendment itself is very short. The pertinent text is a single sentence: “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.” As noted by others in this thread, people didn’t know what “intoxicating liquors” meant and many thought it would refer to hard liquor only, leaving beer and wine legal. Congress defined it in the Volstead act, which was not put to popular vote. So you can argue an agenda was crammed down throats here by Washington.
This article has a bit about the anti-immigrant tactics used for Germans (look under heading The Lever Bill halfway down the page). And this one discusses the us vs. them view of many prohibitionists:
In the 1916 presidential election, both candidates ignored the issue of prohibition and it was not included in either party’s platform. “Both had strong wet and dry factions and with the election expected to be close, neither candidate wanted to alienate part of their base.” See the article referenced above under heading The 1916 Election.