I’ve been watching the 2011 series “Prohibition” by Ken Burns on PBS, and am learning a lot from the first episode (which ends at the 1920 passing of the 18th Amendment).
Did any other (non-Muslim) countries outside North America have (or attempt to have) some form of Prohibition (banning of alcohol)? Canadian provinces had their own laws, since the Feds were reluctant to force through anything nationwide. (Prince Edward Island didn’t repeal Prohibition until 1948).
There is no mention of any President in the episode. Did Wilson (1913-21) or Taft (1909-13) have any opinions or influence on the 18th Amendment?
There was a large movement in the UK against it. I’d be sure Ken Burns would have covered it.
I know more about how parts of Long Island were prime spots for “rum-runners” which again, I’m sure Burns will cover.
It might only be a tale, yet if you’ve heard “The real McCoy” it was about a rum-runner who had the good stuff.
ETA: from wiki
In January of 1920, during the U.S. prohibition of alcohol, famous rum-runner William McCoy became the first to fill a boat with alcohol in the Caribbean, sail it up to New York City, and legally act as a floating liquor store three miles off shore. McCoy was careful to always stay outside the three mile limit, which was international waters in the early days of U.S. Prohibition. McCoy made a name for himself because he never adulterated the alcohol. While copy-cat rum runners would dilute their alcohol with chemicals like turpentine, wood alcohol and prune juice, McCoy never did. The sullied products were nicknamed “Booze,” “Hooch” and “Rot Gut,” while McCoy’s quality spirits became known as “The Real McCoy.”[10]
Russia (Empire)/USSR, Finland, Norway, and Iceland all had prohibition around the same time. Which is interesting since those regions are notorious for modern alcohol consumption.
I so much want to essentially do this with McCaallan Scotch for £350 a bottle to tale advantage of Trump’s 15% tarriffs. Plus “clunk-clunk” “Nothing to declare”
The Volstead Act, which actually enacted the prohibition of alcohol following the passage of the amendment, was passed without Wilson’s signature (sometime reported as a veto, but perhaps not technically so).
His objection concerned a wartime prohibition, so he was no big proponent of alcohol. It was a time when the Temperance movement had obtained great sway as part of a progressive political trend.
Wilson’s wife was essentially making decisions for him at that time. She was no fan of prohibition or women’s sufferage. After his stroke in 1919, she could get away with vetoing a bill in her husband’s name, but more vocal opposition would have had to come from the president’s mouth and that was not physically possible.
One item about Prohibition I read sais that generally politicians were not strongly in favour of it, but it had srong support (the #me-too or #BLM sort of movement of the day) so they said “let’s make a constitutional amendment” instead of a simple law, assuming it would never get enough ratification votes across the country - but it did.
The politicians went along with it because half of their voters were about to all of sudden be women; many of whom were fed up with getting slapped around by their drunk husbands.
She might well have believed that well educated elite women were perfectly capable of being politically aware, good voters, and good politicians & leaders while simultaneously believing that the great unwashed, uneducated, domesticated and downtrodden mass of 1910s US womanhood would be putty in the hands of demagogues. And asshole spouses.
I frankly think the very same thing of most US citizens. Recent events have certainly borne out the fact that more than enough are happily led to support politicians and movements intending to harm them to ensure the election of those harmful movements and pols.
It’s not a matter of color or gender or even SES. It’s a matter of temperament and education.
Anti-suffrage forces, initially called the “remonstrants”, organized as early as 1870 when the Woman’s Anti-Suffrage Association of Washington was formed. Widely known as the “antis”, they eventually created organizations in some twenty states. In 1911, the National Association Opposed to Women’s Suffrage was created. It claimed 350,000 members and opposed women’s suffrage, feminism, and socialism. It argued that woman suffrage “would reduce the special protections and routes of influence available to women, destroy the family, and increase the number of socialist-leaning voters.”
So much has changed, and so little.
I’m not sure this was a concern. One of the major objections to women’s suffrage was that they would just be told how to vote by their husbands. I’ll bet most politicians believed this.
In any case, the percentage of eligible voters casting ballots in presidential elections went down from 61.6% in 1916 to 49.2% in 1920. Didn’t get over 61.6% until 1952. Women definitely played a huge part in both amendments, but it’s hard to pinpoint how voting changed after ratification, especially at lower levels.
IIRC, that was one of the issues with suffrage - like elimination of alcohol, proponents said it would bring about heaven on earth as women, better concerned about family and not drunks who spent all their time in bars like those brutish men, would vote for sensible and beneficial policies. In fact, the result was that the votes did not change significantly.
(It seems that the significant gender gap in voting the last few elections is a matter of some concern because the degree is realtively new).
Also a lot of health tonics at the turn of the century had alcohol and other substances (Coca Cola, anyone?) so plenty of women were working on their health without habituating bars.
Prohibition was one of the driving forces of the Women’s Suffrage movement in Aus and the USA (donno about the UK). There may well have been politicians who went along with prohibition in the expectation that it would defang the suffrage movement.
Regarding the OP: up until recently the “dry” local areas in Melbourne were the historical remains of the Prohibition/Suffrage movement.