Prohibition did the Americans make a mistake?

Why was prohibition introduced in 1920? This page gives you a range of reasons why prohibition was introduced in 1920. Source 55 tells one part of this story. Imagine that the examiner for your course is intending to use this source in your exam. Advise the examiner on: what questions to set on this source what to expect students to be able to write about the source. Prohibition did the Americans make a mistake? Why was prohibition introduced? In the nineteenth century, in rural areas of the USA there was a very strong temperance movement. Members of temperance movements agreed not to drink alcohol and also campaigned to get others to give up alcohol. Most members of these movements were devout Christians who saw what damage alcohol did to family life. They wanted to stop that damage. In the nineteenth century the two main movements were the Anti-Saloon League and the Women s Christian Temperance Union (see Sources 55 and 56). 55 56 364 A poster issued by the Anti-Saloon League in 1915. 57 Our nation can only be saved by turning the pure stream of country sentiment and township morals to flush out the cesspools of cities and so save civilisation from pollution. A temperance campaigner speaking in 1917. 1 Look at Sources 55 and 56. What do you think the aim of each one is? 2 What is wrong with alcohol according to these sources? 3 Prohibition did not actually make it illegal to drink alcohol. Why not? 4 List all the reasons why prohibition was introduced. 5 Do you think prohibition sounds like a good idea? A poster issued by the Women s Christian Temperance Union. The temperance movements were so strong in some of the rural areas that they persuaded their state governments to prohibit the sale of alcohol within the state. Through the early twentieth century the campaign gathered pace. It became a national campaign to prohibit (ban) alcohol throughout the country. It acquired some very powerful supporters. Leading industrialists backed the movement, believing that workers would be more reliable if they did not drink. Politicians backed it because it got them votes in rural areas. By 1916, 21 states had banned saloons. Supporters of prohibition became known as dries. The dries brought some powerful arguments to their case. They claimed that 3000 infants are smothered yearly in bed, by drunken parents. The USA s entry into the First World War in 1917 boosted the dries. Drinkers were accused of being unpatriotic cowards. Most of the big breweries were run by German immigrants who were portrayed as the enemy. Drink was linked to other evils as well. After the Russian Revolution, the dries claimed that Bolshevism thrived on drink and that alcohol led to lawlessness in the cities, particularly in immigrant communities. Saloons were seen as dens of vice that destroyed family life. The campaign became one of country values against city values. In 1917 the movement had enough states on its side to propose the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors. It became law in January 1920 and is known as the Volstead Act.

58 35.0 Gallons of alcohol 30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0 0.0 1905 1910 1915 Period of prohibition 1920 1925 Key Beer Spirits 1930 1935 1940 Average alcohol consumption (in US gallons) per year of Americans, 1905 40. How was prohibition enforced? 59 1921 1925 1929 Illegal distilleries seized 9,746 12,023 15,794 Gallons (US) of spirit seized 414,000 11,030,000 11,860,000 Arrests 34,175 62,747 66,878 Activities of federal prohibition agents. Prohibition lasted from 1920 until 1933. It is often said that prohibition was a total failure. This is not entirely correct. Levels of alcohol consumption fell by about 30 per cent in the early 1920s (see Source 58). Prohibition gained widespread approval in some states, particularly the rural areas in the mid-west, although in urban states it was not popular (Maryland never even introduced prohibition). The government ran information campaigns and prohibition agents arrested offenders (see Source 59). Two of the most famous agents were Isadore Einstein and his deputy Moe Smith. They made 4,392 arrests. Their raids were always low key. They would enter speakeasies (illegal bars) and simply order a drink. Einstein had a special flask hidden inside his waistcoat with a funnel attached. He preserved the evidence by pouring his drink down the funnel and the criminals were caught! The USA, 1919 41 60 61 Alcohol being tipped down the drain. Vast quantities of bootleg (illegal) liquor were seized, but were only a fraction of the total. Prohibition agents Isadore Einstein and Moe Smith (usually known as Izzy and Moe). They were so successful that speakeasies actually put up posters warning people to watch out for these men. 6 Which of Sources 58 61 is the most useful to the historian, or are they more useful when taken together? Explain your answer. 7 Is it possible to enforce any law when the population refuses to obey it? Try to think of laws that affect you today. Supply and demand Despite the work of the agents, prohibition proved impossible to enforce effectively in the cities. Enforcement was underfinanced. There were not enough agents each agent was poorly paid and was responsible for a huge area. By far the biggest drawback was that millions of Americans, particularly in urban areas, were simply not prepared to obey this law. So bootleggers (suppliers of illegal alcohol) made vast fortunes. Al Capone (see page 367) made around $60 million a year from his speakeasies. His view was that Prohibition is a business. All I do is supply a public demand. And the demand was huge. By 1925 there were more speakeasies in American cities than there had been saloons in 1919. Izzy Einstein filed a report to his superiors on how easy it was to find alcohol after arriving in a new city. Here are the results: Chicago: 21 minutes Atlanta: 17 minutes Pittsburg: 11 minutes New Orleans: 35 seconds (he was offered a bottle of whisky by his taxi driver when he asked where he could get a drink!) 365

62 63 A visit to a speakeasy. 64 Statistics in the Detroit police court of 1924 show 7391 arrests for violations of the prohibition law, but only 458 convictions. Ten years ago a dishonest policeman was a rarity... Now the honest ones are pointed out as rarities... Their relationship with the bootleggers is perfectly friendly. They have to pinch two out of five once in a while, but they choose the ones who are least willing to pay bribes. E Mandeville, in Outlook magazine, 1925. 1 Read Source 64. How has prohibition affected the police in Detroit? 65 An illegal still. Illegal stills (short for distilleries) sprang up all over the USA as people made their own illegal whisky moonshine. The stills were a major fire hazard and the alcohol they produced was frequently poisonous. Agents seized over 280,000 of these stills, but we have no clear way of knowing how many were not seized. Most Americans had no need for their own still. They simply went to their favourite speakeasy. The speakeasies were well supplied by bootleggers. About two-thirds of the illegal alcohol came from Canada. The vast border between the USA and Canada was virtually impossible to patrol. Other bootleggers brought in alcohol by sea. They would simply wait in the waters outside US control until an opportunity to land their cargo presented itself. One of the most famous was Captain McCoy, who specialised in the finest Scotch whisky. This is where the phrase the real McCoy comes from. Corruption Prohibition led to massive corruption. Many of the law enforcement officers were themselves involved with the liquor trade. Big breweries stayed in business throughout the prohibition era. This is not an easy business to hide! But the breweries stayed in operation by bribing local government officials, prohibition agents and the police to leave them alone. In some cities, police officers were quite prepared to direct people to speakeasies. Even when arrests were made, it was difficult to get convictions because more senior officers or even judges were in the pay of the criminals. One in twelve prohibition agents was dismissed for corruption. The New York FBI boss, Don Chaplin, once ordered his 200 agents: Put your hands on the table, both of them. Every son of a bitch wearing a diamond is fired. 366 The National Gesture : a cartoon from the prohibition era.

66 Al Capone in 1930. Everyone knew of his activities, but it was impossible to convict him because of his control of the police. 2 Write a definition of the term gangster for an encyclopaedia of American history. In other chapters of this book, you have seen profiles of important historical figures. Use the information and sources to produce two different profiles of Al Capone. The first profile is the kind of profile that might appear in this book. The second profile is one that might have appeared inside Time magazine in 1930 (Source 66). Chicago and the gangsters The most common image people have of the prohibition era is the gangster. Estimates suggest that organised gangs made about $2 billion out of the sale of illegal alcohol. The bootlegger George Remus certainly did well from the trade. He had a huge network of paid officials that allowed him to escape charge after charge against him. At one party he gave a car to each of the women guests, while all the men received diamond cuff links worth $25,000. The rise of the gangsters tells us a lot about American society at this time. The gangsters generally came from immigrant backgrounds. In the early 1920s the main gangs were Jewish, Polish, Irish and Italian. Gangsters generally came from poorer backgrounds within these communities. They were often poorly educated, but they were also clever and ruthless. Dan O Banion (Irish gang leader murdered by Capone), Pete and Vince Guizenberg (hired killers who worked for Bugsy Moran and died in the St Valentine s Day Massacre), and Lucky Luciano (Italian killer who spent ten years in prison) were some of the most powerful gangsters. The gangs fought viciously with each other to control the liquor trade and also the prostitution, gambling and protection rackets that were centred on the speakeasies. They made use of new technology, especially automobiles and the Thompson sub-machine gun, which was devastatingly powerful but could be carried around and hidden under an overcoat. In Chicago alone, there were 130 gangland murders in 1926 and 1927 and not one arrest. By the late 1920s fear and bribery made law enforcement ineffective. The gangsters operated all over the USA, but they were most closely associated with Chicago. Perhaps the best example of the power of the gangsters is Chicago gangster boss Al Capone. He arrived in Chicago in 1919, on the run from a murder investigation in New York. He ran a drinking club for his boss Johnny Torio. In 1925 Torio retired after an assassination attempt by one of his rivals, Bugsy Moran. Capone took over and proved to be a formidable gangland boss. He built up a huge network of corrupt officials among Chicago s police, local government workers, judges, lawyers and prohibition agents. He even controlled Chicago s mayor, William Hale Thompson. Surprisingly, he was a highprofile and even popular figure in the city. He was a regular at baseball and American football games and was cheered by the crowd when he took his seat. He was well known for giving generous tips (over $100) to waiters and shop girls and spent $30,000 on a soup kitchen for the unemployed. Capone was supported by a ruthless gang, hand picked for their loyalty to him. He killed two of his own men whom he suspected of plotting against him by beating their brains out with a baseball bat. By 1929 he had destroyed the power of the other Chicago gangs, committing at least 300 murders in the process. The peak of his violent reign came with the St Valentine s Day Massacre in 1929. Capone s men murdered seven of his rival Bugsy Moran s gang, using a false police car and two gangsters in police uniform to put Moran s men off their guard. 67 The USA, 1919 41 Make sure you can explain to your teacher why the two profiles are different. These points might be useful to you: born in 1889 in New York arrived in Chicago in 1919 took over from Johnny Torio in 1925 jailed in 1931 for not paying taxes released in January 1939 died in 1947 from syphilis. Newspaper headlines reporting the St Valentine s Day Massacre, 1929. 367

1 Why do you think the public were so distressed by the St Valentine s Day Massacre? Why was prohibition ended? The St Valentine s Day Massacre was a turning point. The papers screamed that the gangsters had graduated from murder to massacre. It seemed that prohibition, often called The Noble Experiment, had failed. It had made the USA lawless, the police corrupt and the gangsters rich and powerful. When the Wall Street Crash was followed by the Depression in the early 1930s, there were sound economic arguments for getting rid of it. Legalising alcohol would create jobs, raise tax revenue and free up resources tied up in the impossible task of enforcing prohibition. The Democrat President Franklin D Roosevelt was elected in 1932 and prohibition was repealed in December 1933. Why did prohibition fail? In the end prohibition failed. Here are four groups who could be blamed for the failure of prohibition. a) the American people who carried on going to illegal speakeasies b) the law enforcers who were corrupt and ignored the law breakers c) the bootleggers who continued supplying and selling alcohol d) the gangsters who controlled the trade through violence 1 For each of the above groups find evidence on pages 364 67 to show that it contributed to the failure of prohibition. 2 Say which group you think played the most important role in the failure. Explain your choice. 3 Draw a diagram to show links between the groups. 368 Focus Task A Why was prohibition introduced in 1920 and then abolished in 1933? Many people who were convinced of the case for prohibition before 1920 were equally convinced that it should be abolished in 1933. Write two letters. The first should be from a supporter of prohibition to his or her Congressman in 1919 explaining why the Congressman should vote for prohibition. In your letter, explain how prohibition could help to solve problems in America. The second should be from the same person to the Congressman in 1933 explaining why the Congressman should vote against prohibition. In your letter, explain why prohibition has failed. Focus Task B Review of the 1920s In many democracies today, governments use focus groups to help them work out policies and also to help them keep an eye on how people feel about their policies. The idea of a focus group is that the group represents a broad cross-section of society. It is 1928. President Hoover wants to create a focus group. 1 Your first task is to select for him the members of a focus group to represent American society. The group should contain a minimum of six and a maximum of twelve members. Draw up a list of possible members. They can be actual individuals (e.g. Louis Armstrong) or representative types (e.g. a Detroit car worker). You must be able to explain why you have chosen each member of the group. 2 Your second task is to think of some positive and negative issues for the group to discuss. a) Brainstorm the events in 1920s USA that you think a US President would be proud of. b) Brainstorm anything that a US President in the 1920s would prefer to keep quiet. 3 Turn these issues into a maximum of four questions for the focus group to discuss. 4 Finally, choose two contrasting members of the group and summarise how they might answer some of the questions.