Prohibition: A Cautionary Tale - America's experiment with banning alcohol created problems that persist to this day.
Leroy N. Soetoro
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On Dec. 5, 1933, Americans liberated themselves from a legal nightmare
called Prohibition by repealing the 18th Amendment to the Constitution.
Today most people think Prohibition was fueled by puritanical
Protestants who believed drinking alcohol was a sin. But the vocal
minority who made Prohibition law believed they were marching in the
footsteps of the abolitionists who sponsored a civil war to end another
moral evil�slavery.
At least as important was the belief that Prohibition would produce
health and wealth. Yale economist Irving Fisher, the best-known
economist in the nation in the early 20th century, predicted that a ban
on alcohol would guarantee a 20% rise in industrial productivity. He
cited "scientific" tests that proved alcohol diminished a worker's
efficiency by as much as 30%.
Fisher and many other anti-alcohol proponents were fervent believers in
eugenics, the science that preached humans could and should control the
evolution of the race. His book, "How to Live: Rules for Healthful
Living Based on Modern Science," was a best seller. Removing alcohol
from the national diet was central to many eugenicists' belief that an
invigorated America would eventually create a race of supermen and
women.
The weapon of choice was the local option law by which a majority of
voters could ban alcohol from a town, county or state. By 1900, 37
states had these laws and the machinery of petitions, letters,
telegrams, parades and mass meetings was worked out. More than 20,000
Anti-Saloon League (ASL) speakers were preaching Prohibition in church
halls and other public platforms around the country.
Soon whole states had banned alcohol. In 1907, Oklahoma entered the
Union with a dry Constitution. In 1913, Congress passed a law banning
the shipment of "intoxicating liquor of any kind" into dry states,
making it impossible for individuals to buy a bottle of whiskey without
travelling quite a distance to get it. Angry citizens and liquor
industry spokesman appealed to the courts.
The outbreak of World War I in 1914 enabled the ASL and its ally, the
Woman's Christian Temperance Union, to go national. In 1914 and 1916,
federal elections created Congresses in which "drys" outnumbered "wets"
by 2-1. Many leading Americans such as ex-President Theodore Roosevelt
urged the United States to side with England and France against Germany.
The ASL shrewdly supported preparedness. They argued an alcohol-free
America would be far better able to defend itself against the threat of
German militarism.
In April 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before Congress and called
for a war to make the world safe for democracy. In the same month, the
Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the 1913 law banning the
shipment of alcohol into dry states. The ASL said the two events
constituted a sign from God and used it to turn more states dry.
On May 17, 1917, Congress forbade the sale of liquor to all men in
uniform. The drys promptly launched a new slogan: "Shall the many have
food or the few drink?" Congress, worried about feeding 100 million
Americans and our hungry allies, responded with a ban on the use of
grain to make alcohol.
On Dec. 22, 1917, Congress passed the 18th Amendment, turning the whole
nation dry�if and when two-thirds of the states ratified it. The ASL
unleashed its 20,000 orators on the German Americans, with their
numerous brewers a chief target. The drys repeatedly linked liquor to
disloyalty and even treason. Beer drinking was a sign of sympathy for
the German Kaiser and his army of "Huns."
The ratification process moved slowly at first. By the fall of 1918,
only 14 states had approved the 18th Amendment. To speed things up, the
drys in Congress tacked a rider on a vital agricultural appropriation
bill, establishing national Prohibition as of July 1, 1919.
In the White House, President Wilson's Irish-American adviser, Joseph
Tumulty, urged Wilson to veto the bill. Tumulty warned it would alienate
millions of ethnic Democrats in the big cities in the upcoming midterm
elections. Tumulty called the Dry rider "mob legislation pure and
simple." But Wilson conferred with other members of his cabinet, who
recommended signing it. Wilson had been re-elected in 1916 by a heavy
percentage of dry states. The president signed the bill and, as Tumulty
predicted, outraged Irish and German Americans voted Republican and the
Democrats lost Congress.
The political change was bad news for President Wilson and his dream of
negotiating a "peace without victory." But the drys still had a majority
in Congress. Emboldened, they now passed the Volstead Act, which spelled
out the language of the 18th Amendment in minute detail. The bill banned
all drinks that contained more than 0.5 percent of alcohol, making wine
and beer also illegal, and empowered local police and state and federal
agents to arrest and imprison anyone who broke the law. President Wilson
thought this was much too drastic and vetoed the bill. The House and
Senate easily overrode the veto, without any serious debate. The
Volstead Act destroyed the liquor industry, the seventh-largest business
in the U.S. and tens of thousands of people lost their jobs
For the next 13 years, Prohibition corrupted and tormented Americans
from coast to coast. A disrespect, even contempt for law and due process
infected the American psyche. Rather than discouraging liquor
consumption, Prohibition increased it. Taking a drink became a sign of
defiance against the arrogant minority who had deprived people of their
"right" to enjoy themselves. The 1920s roared with reckless amorality in
all directions, including Wall Street. When everything came crashing
down in 1929 and the long gray years of the Great Depression began,
second thoughts were the order of the day. Large numbers of people
pointed to Prohibition as one of the chief reasons for the disaster.
In 1933, a new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, made the repeal of the
18th Amendment one of his priorities. But the evil effects of this
plunge into national redemption linger to this day, most notably in the
influence of organized crime, better known as the Mafia, in many areas
of American life.
In 2010, with talk of restructuring large swaths of our economy back in
vogue, Prohibition should also remind us that Congress, scientists and
economists seized by the noble desire to achieve some great moral goal
may be abysmally wrong.
Mr. Fleming, a former president of the Society of American Historians,
is the author, most recently, of "The Intimate Lives of the Founding
Fathers" (Smithsonian, 2009).
--
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact, to
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New York's
million dollar tax evasion. Charles B. Rangel is still under
"investigation" by a "closed door" House Ethics Committee.
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