Prohibition
After the prohibition was implemented alcohol continued to be consumed. However, how much compared to pre-Prohibition levels remains unclear. Studies examining the rates of cirrhosis deaths as a proxy for alcohol consumption estimated a decrease in consumption of 10-20%. One study reviewing city-level drunkenness arrests came to a similar result. And, yet another study examining "mortality, mental health and crime statistics" found that alcohol consumption fell, at first, to approximately 30 percent of its pre-Prohibition level; but, over the next several years, increased to about 60-70 percent of its pre-prohibition level.
Within a week after Prohibition went into effect, small portable stills were on sale throughout the country. California's grape growers increased their area about 700% during the first five years of the prohibition. Grapes were commonly compressed into dry blocks and sold as "bricks or blocks of Rhine Wine," "blocks of port," and so on. The mayor of New York City even sent instructions on winemaking to his constituents.
Organized smuggling of alcohol from Canada and elsewhere quickly developed. "Rum rows" existed off the coasts of large cities where ships lined up just beyond the three mile (5 km) limit to off-load their cargoes onto speed boats. Murder and hijacking were common in this dangerous but lucrative business.
There was also the notorious and ever-present organized bootlegging. The country's scourge led to massive and widespread corruption of politicians and law enforcement agencies and helped finance powerful crime organizations. In addition to the murders of law enforcement officers there was an ever more common cause of death and disability caused by the bootleggers' illegal products. Many stills used lead coils or lead soldering, which gave off acetate of lead, a dangerous poison. Some bootleggers used recipes that included iodine, creosote, or even embalming fluid.
The widespread corruption of public officials became a national scandal. In addition, it became very difficult to convict those who violated prohibition because public support for the law and its enforcement eroded dramatically. For example, of prohibition-related 7,000 arrests in New York between 1921 and 1923, only 27 resulted in convictions.
Prohibition proved to be counterproductive in that it promoted the heavy and rapid consumption of alcohol in secretive, nonsocially regulated and controlled ways. "People did not take the trouble to go to a speakeasy, present the password, and pay high prices for very poor quality alcohol simply to have a beer. When people went to speakeasies, they went to get drunk.
As the problems caused by prohibition increased and spread to small towns throughout the country, there developed a movement to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment. Women had been at the forefront of the temperance movement in an effort to protect their families. With the spreading violence, emerging patterns of binge drinking, disrespect for the law, and other serious problems, women led the repeal movement to protect their families.
John D. Rockefeller, Jr., a lifelong abstainer who had contributed $350,000 to the Anti-Saloon League, announced his support for repeal because of the widespread problems caused by prohibition. Many others who had supported prohibition now called for its repeal.
Read more about this topic: Alcohol During And After Prohibition
Famous quotes containing the word prohibition:
“During Prohibition days, when South Carolina was actively advertising the iodine content of its vegetables, the Hell Hole brand of ‘liquid corn’ was notorious with its waggish slogan: ‘Not a Goiter in a Gallon.’”
—Administration in the State of Sout, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“No political party can ever make prohibition effective. A political party implies an adverse, an opposing, political party. To enforce criminal statutes implies substantial unanimity in the community. This is the result of the jury system. Hence the futility of party prohibition.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)