FREE ESSAY ON PROHIBITION

PROHIBITION

Prohibition One of the most controversial, the Eighteenth, and later, its repeal, the
Tweny-First amendment, made a big impact on America, and their ideas are still talked
about today. Prohibition has had many different view points from the beginning.
Prohibition started long before the Eighteenth Amendment. Organizations against alcohol
such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union were succeeding
in enacting local prohibition laws, turning the campaign into a national effort. In the
late 1900s there was an average of one saloon for every 150 to 200 people, including
nondrinkers, due to competition in brewing companies. The major complaint was the sex and
gambling that went along with the saloons. Originally it was started as awartime
austerity measure in 1917, and later Congress proposed the Eighteenth Amendment.
According to Dennis Mahoney, in 1919, it was ratified and went into effect. The Volstead
act was sponsored by Andrew J.Volstead on October 28, 1919. It enforced the new
Amendment. During Prohibition there was a slight drop in homicide rates around the
country. On January 16, 1920, the great law went into effect. The Eighteenth amendment
made it forbidden to manufacture, sell, transport, import or export any intoxicating
liquors. This was controversial because it turned the common hard working man or woman,
who enjoyed a drink after a hard day's work, into a criminal in the law's eyes. In The
History of Prohibiton, a web site by J. McGrew, it states that Prohibiton also gave
criminals, such as Al Capone, the opportunity to feed off the illegal substance. The
organized crime circuit ate up Prohibition and began to boot leg alcohol. Local
pharmacies and basements near the border became hubs for the transactions. The Big Bosses
would purchase it in Canada, where it was legal and import it to the US. A prime example
of the organized crime is in the movie, Legends of the Fall. Both the Volstead Act and
the Eighteenth Amendment are mentioned in the movie, as it portrays a small time boot
legger going up against a big organized crime family, in the end many people lost their
lives over alcohol and money. Speakeasies, illegal bars, sprang up everywhere. They
promoted the worst of immorality, sex and gambling, as well as drinking. And for the
first time women were seen smoking in public. Bathtub gin and other illegal brewing was
everywhere. Not only was the home made booze highly potent it could also be highly fatal.
If you survived, you could very well be blind or disabled from bad rot gut. I recently
spoke to my grandfather on the issue and he was quoted to say Oh sure, we brewed our own
beer and wine, we didn't care. The public was fed up. Well-organized groups like the
Woman's Organization for National Prohibition Reform grew rapidly and after thirteen
years it exploded during the 1932 presidential campaign. The democrats and their
delegate, Senator, Franklin D. Roosevelt, supported the reform. Backed by the Voluntary
Committee of Lawyers, Roosevelt got the repeal. On February 20, 1933, the Twenty-First
Amendment was proposed and on December 5, it was ratified. The newest Amendment to the
Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act. After its repeal it
took a long time for the consumption rate of Alcohol to get back to the pre-Prohibition
level. In closing, the Noble Experiment (a name for Prohibiton, found in many different
sources) failed. The evidence clearly shows that the conditions of the Nation were
clearly better without Prohibition and the Eighteenth Amendment. One of the most
discussed and debated of this century, will this issue be carried into the next on the
back of Marijuana?