History
Detroit was a predecessor to Prohibition, because Michigan adopted a state law, the Damon Act of 1916, which prohibited liquor effective in 1917. Henry Ford, who owned the River Rouge plant, was a proponent in advocating a sober workforce. Due to Detroit's convenient proximity to Canada and Ohio, several bootleggers and individuals traveled toward Toledo to obtain booze; judges took a lenient view of offenders, and in 1919 the Damon Act was declared unconstitutional. However, in 1920 the Eighteenth Amendment was adopted, and prohibition took effect throughout the United States. Canada became a major port for running alcohol products because the Canadian federal government approved and licensed distilleries and breweries to manufacture, distribute, and export.
Read more about this topic: The Purple Gang
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“One classic American landscape haunts all of American literature. It is a picture of Eden, perceived at the instant of history when corruption has just begun to set in. The serpent has shown his scaly head in the undergrowth. The apple gleams on the tree. The old drama of the Fall is ready to start all over again.”
—Jonathan Raban (b. 1942)
“A poet’s object is not to tell what actually happened but what could or would happen either probably or inevitably.... For this reason poetry is something more scientific and serious than history, because poetry tends to give general truths while history gives particular facts.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)
“There is no example in history of a revolutionary movement involving such gigantic masses being so bloodless.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)