Prohibition

A short introduction

A lot of things happened in 1920 - USA was one of the victors in the first World War,

and had a good period. Soon that was changed and USA suffered from many things, the

great crash, prohibition and gang wars. But not only bad things happened - there was

also the new deal, new cultures, new poets and writers.

The thing i want to write about is prohibition, that was a really big deal - lots of books

have been written about this subject, why it happened, which consequences it had and

so on. And that is the same thing that i want to write about.

So the question is, why did it happen, and which consequences did it have, and did it

have any effect?

Prohibition parties

The prohibition was really started in the 16th century by religious people that believed

that alcohol was a gift from god, but its abuse came from the devil. And at that time you

would get punished for the abuse. The abuse of the holy gift from god kept on, and soon

the general population drank three and a half gallon alcohol a year, and that was much

higher that in the past years. After the revolution the societies became more urban, the

economy changed and there was an increase in crime, poverty and unemployment, the

blame was put on drunkenness.

In this environment physicians tried to find out an explanation and a solution for

drinking problems. Dr. Benjamin Rush, found out that it was injurious for your physical

and psychological health. Dr. Benjamin Rush himself believed in moderation of the

alcohol rather than prohibition. Even though he did that, within the next decade

temperance organisations were formed in eight states.The temperance organisations had their up and downs, and in 1820 they had expanded

their activities too much, and was involved in a political arguing - the movement

stalled.

After the civil war (1861-1865) the Woman's Christian Temperance Union was

founded. They did not promote moderation or temperance but rather prohibition.

Later the Prohibition party was founded in 1867, and as the name indicates it was for

prohibition. The party succeeded in getting many communities and states to outlaw

producing intoxicating beverages and their greatest success was in 1919.

Why did it happen?

As i told the prohibition party had their greatest success in 1919, where they succeeded

in passing the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution. This Amendment

actually outlawed production, sale, transportation, import and export of alcohol. It was

only legal when used for religious purposes.

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or

transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the

exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the

jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

And that was what established prohibition in United States.

The consequences of prohibition

The prohibition really did not solve any problems, but just added problems to what it

intended to solve. Prohibition was meant to reduce consumption of alcohol and therebyreduce crime, poverty, death rates and improve economy and quality of life. But the

prohibition was ineffective because it was unenforceable - it caused the increase in

crime and consumption of alcohol. After the Volstead act, as it also was called because

of the authors name, was put into place the Federal Prohibition Bureau was founded to

enforce the Volstead act. Nevertheless these laws were violated by bootleggers and

commoners. People hid their liquor everywhere - in hip flasks, false books, hollow

canes, and anything else they could find. There were also speak-easies which replaced

saloons. Speak-easies were saloons hidden somewhere in the street, you could not

recognise them because they were hidden very well. So you had to know exactly where

they were placed. Alone in New York there was about 100000 of them.

Only 5 percent of the alcohol that was smuggled into United States was prevented from

coming into the country, that was because there was only 1500 federal agents to guard

18000 miles of coastline. Illegal businesses were many times controlled by organised

gangs, and to keep the authorities away they bribed important persons, politicians like

the mayor or the head of the police departments.

The lack of the enforcement of the Volstead act created an illegal industry and an

increase in crime. Even though it looked like the purpose of the act was fulfilled to start

with, the crime rate sky-rocketed to nearly twice that of the pre-prohibition period. In

large cities the homicide rate raised from 5.6 per 100,000 to 10 an increase of more than

70 percent. Serious crimes, such as homicides, assault and battery,