Prohibition in the Roaring Twenties
The 18th Amendment was Ill-Conceived and Unenforceable
Prohibition was, according to Herbert Hoover, “a great social and economic experiment…” Preceded by the Wartime Prohibition Law of July 1919, the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution made the “manufacture, sale, or transportation…” of the alcohol prohibition permanent. The amendment did not address consumption. Prohibition came as a result of several war-time factors as well as an extensive propaganda campaign by Progressive groups like the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. But the ill-conceived legislation barely lasted as America’s “return to normalcy” changed public opinion.
History of Prohibition in the United States
The consumption of alcohol had always been an issue even in Colonial times. New England, with its staunch Calvinist roots, led the fight against the devil’s temptations. During the Second Great Awakening, alcohol consumption, a growing social problem, was linked to a sinful lifestyle. As immigrants from Ireland and Germany arrived, beer slowly replaced gin in certain areas of the country.
By the late 19th century, Prohibition was a third-party issue, kept before the American public in every election. Yet it was World War I that convinced most Americans to support Prohibition. The war encouraged a national spirit of “no compromise.” Sobriety was equated with patriotism. Beer, long identified with German breweries, was boycotted.
The largest percentage of Prohibitionist leaders were members of the clergy, almost 40%. Temperance workers only comprised 8.6%. One Chicago minister predicted that “deliverance” would come from the “sober and august Anglo-Saxon south, unspoiled and unpoisoned by the wine-tinted, beer-sodden, whiskey-crazed…minions from over the sea.” (American Issue, June 26, 1903)
Prohibition Enforced and Ignored
The 18th Amendment was enforced by the Volstead Act. This act, however, was never funded with enough revenue to fully police illegal activities related to Prohibition. There were never more than 3,000 federal agents, underpaid and with limited training, to enforce the provisions.
As society entered the “Roaring Twenties,” Americans began to change their opinion regarding Prohibition. Presidential and Congressional reports suggested amending Prohibition. Historian Frederick Allen suggested that Americans had accepted the 18th Amendment “almost absent-mindedly.” There was also the issue of minority rights.
Clarence Darrow, writing in 1924, stated that “If sixty per cent of the people do not believe in something that the other forty per cent believe in, should they send the forty per cent to jail for what they do?” Darrow identified the problem of legislating morality in a Democracy.
At the same time, Americans were still drinking. Some observers suggest that during Prohibition, more Americans were drinking than before the Amendment became law. This was particularly true on college campuses. Alcohol was smuggled into the country by boat and across the Canadian border. In the great cities of the Northeast as well as Chicago and San Francisco, speakeasies operated daily, often with the full knowledge of the local “beat cop” who knew the owners never charged police coming in for a nip.
Prohibition and Organized Crime
Al Capone’s underground alcohol sales in Chicago netted his gang an average of $60 million a year. Competition among the different gangs was bloody, claiming over 500 gang-related murders, the most notorious one being the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Everyday people living in rural areas set up home-made stills. Wealthy Americans still managed to obtain the finest Canadian whiskey or expensive wines and brandies from Europe. By the election of 1928, New York’s Al Smith – a “wet” – politicized the problems of Prohibition during his candidacy as the Democratic Presidential nominee.
Prohibition Repealed
The 21st Amendment repealed the 18th, ending Hoover’s “noble experiment.” The new President in 1933, FDR, celebrated with a beer. Prohibition came out of the post-war Wilsonian idealism, promising Utopian goals that were simply not realistic. As Americans returned to “normalcy,” public support of Prohibition waned.
Sources:
- Frederick Lewis Allen, Only Yesterday: An Informal History of the 1920’s (Harper and Row, 1931)
- Jack S. Blocker, Jr., Retreat From Reform (Greenwood Press, 1976)
Federal Agents Dispose of Alcohol
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