Prohibition

[NovaKart]

I caught the first part of the new PBS documentary on prohibition. No, we don't get PBS in Turkey but I found another way of watching it. There are 2 more parts that I haven't seen yet.

The first part is a Nation of Drunkards. It mentions that there were temperance societies since 1826 but they didn't initially seek to force temperance on others. It seems that drinking was really heavy back in the 19th century. One person on the program said that initially people would often drink weak beer since that was considered healthier than plain water. Later people started to drink spirits like rum and whiskey but they continued their previous drinking habits just with much stronger stuff. Some people might take issue with that but it looks like from alcohol sales people did tend to drink more than they do now on average.

Women got into the temperance movement big time. It makes sense because I think it likely wasn't socially acceptable for women to drink, at least in salloons but they had to deal with their husbands going to salloons and spending their paychecks there and coming home drunk so they would only see the negative side of drinking. People saw drinking as a serious social problem that hurt families and they would print up pamphlets with a "please think of the children" kind of message.

There were some states that banned drinking or at least salloons and many counties in other states (many parts of Kentucky still have prohibition, they didn't mention this in the documentary but I'm just bringing it up). However a federal law against alcohol wasn't going to happen because the federal government made too much money taxing it. That was - until income tax started.

The brewing companies, which were mostly German American were very influential. However, when WWI started they were vilified.

Many temperance people also pressured school boards to educate children about drinking which actually included a lot of misinformation exaggerating the health risks of drinking and making it seem like one drink of alcohol could kill you.

So that's my summary from what I remember while watching this documentary. Did anyone else see it? Anything to add or object to?

 

[Cutlass]

I didn't see the show. I did recently read Last Call, which from the previews of the show I saw and review I heard covers probably pretty much the same ground. From the brief preview, it wouldn't shock me if the show was pretty much lifted from the book.

Prohibition was the ultimate in "politics makes strange bedfellows" time in American politics. Some folks wanted prohibition at any cost, no matter who they had to ally with. Some wanted it for religious reasons, some used racism to push it, some used women's suffrage to push it. It was both the Progressives and the reactionaries.

The income tax came into existence to make room for the loss of alcohol tax. Before that the US federal government was very heavily dependent on taxes on alcohol for operations.

But, once it was passed, no one was all that interested in enforcing it. For all the show of enforcement, there really wasn't all that much substance to it. And after a time, the politics of it shifted and people no longer cared to keep the laws.

 

[NickyJ]

For what I have to add:

The series didn't do justice to the amount of crime. They had one "historian" who sounded like he ready to vote Al Capone into the White House if he could. Overall, the series, aside from acknowledging that there were some murders, implied that all the big gangsters were all warm and fuzzy, everybody adored them, etc.

 

[Glassfan]

I haven't seen it yet. But certainly Prohibition contributed to the Great Depression, laying-off hundreds of thousands of workers in distilleries, breweries, transporters, saloons and bars. It also expanded organized crime, violence, corruption of police and government officials and created widespread disregard for the law. It increased prison populations dramatically. There's a long list of unintended consequences, and I believe it has some relevence to the modern War on Drugs.

It's always been my understanding that women got involved with temperance because their husbands got drunk and came home and beat or raped them.

 

[MilesGregarius]

I haven't seen it yet. But certainly Prohibition contributed to the Great Depression, laying-off hundreds of thousands of workers in distilleries, breweries, transporters, saloons and bars. It also expanded organized crime, violence, corruption of police and government officials and created widespread disregard for the law. It increased prison populations dramatically. There's a long list of unintended consequences, and I believe it has some relevence to the modern War on Drugs.

It's always been my understanding that women got involved with temperance because their husbands got drunk and came home and beat or raped them.

While no fan of prohibition, then or now, I think attributing it even the least contribution to the Great Depression is pushing it. The 18th Amendment went into effect in 1920. The Depression followed a generally booming economy in 1929. To claim knock-on effects nine years after the fact seems iffy, to say the least.

As to women supporting temperance, it didn't take domestic or sexual violence to predispose many in that direction. In addition to the violence sometimes facilitated by alchohol, temperance campaigners also pointed to the deleterious affects alcohol often has on husbands and fathers simply fulfilling their familial obligations. Similarly, modern day NGOs have found that letting the man of the house control the purse strings often leads to larger portions of the household income being spent on vices, alcohol and gambling in particular.

 

[Dragonlord]

It also expanded organized crime, violence, corruption of police and government officials and created widespread disregard for the law. It increased prison populations dramatically. There's a long list of unintended consequences, and I believe it has some relevence to the modern War on Drugs.

I agree fully with this part. Prohibition showed very clearly what happens when one tries to abolish drug abuse by repressive laws.

The main difference to today's War on Drugs was that the use of alcohol was more widely accepted than that of, say, heroin. That meant that far more people were willing to ignore the law against it, and thus the disregard for the law was far more widespread than today. Still, the principle is the same.

 

[NovaKart]

I haven't watched the third part yet. One thing I thought was pretty interesting from the 2nd part is they mentioned that a lot of people who supported prohibition didn't know that it would include wine and beer and some thought it wouldn't apply to home consumption. In fact home conusmption and production of alcohol was not illegal but since under most circumstances the sale of alcohol was illegal (there were some legal loopholes like for medicinal or religious use which people stretched) that would of course interfere with home consumption of alcohol.

Also, it mentioned a lot of local governments had no intention of enforcing the law and the federal government didn't really put all that much effort into it either.

 

[Cutlass]

There wasn't much enforcement most places. No one was willing to spend that kind of money on it. You could legally make your own. And many people did. You just couldn't sell or transport it. So a lot of companies helped you to make it at home. What you did with it after that was no one's business.

Jews and Catholics got an exception for religious reasons. And tended to exceed the line for other purposes. There was a "medicinal" exception. So drug stores sold a lot of booze and doctors wrote a lot of prescriptions.

 

[Ataxerxes]

There wasn't much enforcement most places. No one was willing to spend that kind of money on it. You could legally make your own. And many people did. You just couldn't sell or transport it. So a lot of companies helped you to make it at home. What you did with it after that was no one's business.

Jews and Catholics got an exception for religious reasons. And tended to exceed the line for other purposes. There was a "medicinal" exception. So drug stores sold a lot of booze and doctors wrote a lot of prescriptions.

Correct, except you couldn't "legally" make your own. However, the enforcement was so lax (a lot of police were in on the operations) that you were rarely prosecuted for it. Actually, prohibition did a lot of harm. Alcohol consumption didn't decline much (if at all) and it fostered a lot of corruption and unsafe booze. If you knew where to go you could get alchohol easily. Crime increased because it gave criminals like Capone a lot of money to operate their business.

I don't drink and am a US citizen. It's regarded as a big mistake in the US. I'd agree it has some relevance to the war on drugs. Although alcohol is more widespread, the problem of enforcement and giving lots of money to criminals (bootleggers and drug lords) is there. I don't drink or do drugs but I think most drugs should be legalized and taxed. It's extremely hard to stop people hurting themselves if they really want to. A further problem in the drug trade is the destabilization of some countries heavily involved. When the criminals have more money than local authorities it isn't good.

 

[Wrymouth3]

There was a documentary on television that I saw not too long ago that talked about the people who attempted to repeal prohibition. It mentioned a lot about the Cullen-Harrison Act. If I remember the name, i'll edit it in this post.

 

[ParkCungHee]

I haven't seen the documentary, so I'll ask, did it pull out the old canard that Prohibition lead to the "rise" of organized crime in America?

 

[NickyJ]

I haven't seen the documentary, so I'll ask, did it pull out the old canard that Prohibition lead to the "rise" of organized crime in America?

Considering it's true, yes.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Considering it's true, yes.

Huh...wonder what all that stuff about the Roach Guards and Bowery Boys was about.

 

[NickyJ]

Those were just small-timers. They were pipsqueaks compared to Al Capone, Frank Nitti, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Albert Anastasia, Lucky Luciano, Bill Dwyer, Bugsy Siegel, Frank Costello, Bugs Moran, and Dutch Schultz, to name only a few. Organized crime really got rolling in the Prohibition.

 

[ParkCungHee]

Those were just small-timers. They were pipsqueaks compared to Al Capone, Frank Nitti, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Albert Anastasia, Lucky Luciano, Bill Dwyer, Bugsy Siegel, Frank Costello, Bugs Moran, and Dutch Schultz, to name only a few. Organized crime really got rolling in the Prohibition.

Yeah! Stuff isn't important until it enters popular consciousness!

 

[NickyJ]

Yeah! Stuff isn't important until it enters popular consciousness!

Actually, it isn't important when it hardly exists. (Yeah, only about five small time gangs is tiny.)

 

[ParkCungHee]

Actually, it isn't important when it hardly exists. (Yeah, only about five small time gangs is tiny.)

Please quantify the activities of say, Bugs Moran versus the Bowry Boys.

 

[NickyJ]

Bugs Moran built up a gang that went to war with Al Capone. The Bowery Boys were just a small time gang that ran around New York City. And even if they were of notable size, the Bowery Boys were among just a handful of gangs. However, there were more gangs in just that small list I provided.

 

[LightSpectra]

Can we get some numerical facts rather than using the term "small-time" which is inevitably subjective?

 

[ParkCungHee]

So the qualification for big time successful gangster is...you have a gang, and you engage in violent acts against another gang. Yes, surely no one in American history accomplished this before the 1920s!