Prohibition (Issue)

PROHIBITION (ISSUE)

During the colonial period in America alcohol consumption was more common than it was at the end of the twentieth century. Some estimate per capita consumption of alcohol during colonial times at double the rate it was in the 1990s. Puritans brewed beer and ordinary citizens consumed prodigious amounts of hard cider. Part of the reason for so much alcohol consumption was the uncertainty of potable water. Cholera epidemics in the 1830s and 1840s resulted in part from drinking unclean water. Although the abuse of alcohol was more common then, there is also considerable evidence that it was frowned upon. For example in Virginia as early as 1629, ministers were prohibited by law from excess in drinking, and in Massachusetts a 1633 law limited the amount of alcohol that could be purchased while another statute in 1637 limited the amount of time anyone could spend in a tavern. Later, many colonies imposed fines for excessive behavior as well as taxes and license fees.

The last half of the eighteenth century witnessed the beginnings of the temperance movement as religious leaders began to denounce not only excessive drinking but all consumption of alcohol. Technically, temperance meant moderation, but in fact people meant abstinence. In 1773 John Wesley, one of the founders of the Methodist Church, declared that drinking was a sin and Anthony Benezet, a leading member of the Society of Friends, the Quakers, wrote a pamphlet in which he argued that drinking tended to make a man behave foolishly and even dangerously.

The medical community was also concerned. In 1785, Dr. Benjamin Rush, the leading physician of the day, published a pamphlet entitled "Inquiry into the Effects of Ardent Spirits Upon the Human Body and Mind," wherein he listed various diseases thought to plague those who consumed alcohol. At about this time temperance organizations began to appear. Among the first were the Organization of Brethren and the Litchfield Connecticut Association.

In the early nineteenth century, those who opposed alcohol became more strident because many people saw drinking as an impediment to the growth of democracy and U.S. nationalism. This period saw the first experiments with statewide prohibition. Maine passed the first prohibition law in 1843. During the next few years Ohio, Illinois, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New York followed suit. But most of these efforts were short-lived. They were vetoed, soon repealed or stricken down by the courts. There was also, of course, considerable opposition from the public. State prohibition laws were widely ignored while they were in effect and in some cases there was violence, as in 1850 when people rioted against Sunday closing laws in Chicago. Still, the advocates of prohibition persisted. The American Temperance Society was founded in 1826, followed by the Washington Movement in 1840 and the Sons of Temperance in 1842. All these organizations advocated total abstinence.

By the late nineteenth century the prohibition movement, like other reform movements, was lobbying Congress. The National Prohibition Party was founded in 1869, and ran its first candidate for president, James Black, in 1872. The Women's' Christian Temperance Union was established in 1874. The organization was led by Frances Willard who was also an advocate of women's rights and suffrage. By 1884 the issue was clearly affecting the national parties. James G. Blaine, the Republican candidate for president in that year, lost to Democrat Grover Cleveland (1885–1889), partly as a result of his ineffective handling of the temperance question. He succeeded only in alienating people on both sides of the debate.

In 1895 the Anti-Saloon League was founded. Over the next decade-and-a-half the Anti-Saloon League was to become the most powerful lobby for prohibition advocates. Supported mostly by rural, middle-class, white Protestants, the League conducted an aggressive campaign. The Anti-Saloon League argued that liquor was destructive to society because it contributed to divorce, poverty, pauperism, crime, child abuse and insanity. During the early twentieth century, the socalled Progressive Era when social and political reforms were in vogue, the League portrayed prohibition as one of the leading reform movements of the day, and the results were impressive. By 1913 nine states had adopted statewide prohibition, and 31 had chosen the "local option" which allowed cities or counties to go dry by referendum. As a result, 75 percent of the population lived under some form of prohibition. While this was regarded as a dangerous trend by wets (people in opposition to prohibition) and their leading organizations such as the National Brewers Association, the prohibitionists would not be satisfied until prohibition covered the entire country.

Between 1913 and 1915 prohibition resolutions were twice introduced in Congress by Congressmen Joseph B. Thompson of Oklahoma and Senator Morris Sheppard of Texas. These both failed, but when the United States entered World War I in 1917, things changed. Prohibitionists could argue that the liquor industry was unpatriotic because it drained resources like grain that should be used for food, that the use of alcohol undermined the effectiveness of soldiers, and that many of the families who owned breweries and distilleries were ethnic Germans.

The resolution to prohibit the manufacture, sale, transportation, and importation of alcoholic beverages passed Congress in early 1918. Just a year later it was ratified as the Eighteenth Amendment when on January 16, 1919, Nebraska became the thirty-sixth state to approve it. The enforcement law, commonly known as the Volstead Act, passed Congress on October 29, 1919, and prohibition officially went into effect on January 17, 1920.

The national prohibition experiment was in effect for 13 years from 1920 to 1933. It was a disastrous failure in most parts of the country although in certain sections like the rural South it more or less worked because it had popular support. Generally however the results were not good. Smuggling increased during the early years followed by a rapid increase in crime as "bootleggers"'—the manufacturers of illegal liquor— sought to meet the overwhelming demand.

It is estimated that by 1930 the illegal manufacturing establishments numbered over 280,000, and illegal saloons—known as Speakeasies—numbered between 200,000 and 500,000. Moreover, people manufactured "home brew" in vast but unknown quantities and doctors issued prescriptions for equally vast quantities of whiskey to be used for "medical purposes." Contemporary estimates believe that doctors earned $40 million in 1928 alone by writing such prescriptions.

Because Congress never appropriated sufficient funds, the Volstead Act could not be effectively enforced and probably would have been repealed eventually under any conditions, but it was the coming of the Great Depression that hastened its demise. This was because the Depression triggered demands for increased employment and tax revenues.

By 1929 it was clear that prohibition was a failure and President Hoover (1929–1933) appointed a special commission to study the issue. Chaired by George W. Wickersham, a former Attorney General, the commission issued its report in 1931. Oddly enough, even though the commission recognized all the problems with prohibition, they nevertheless recommended that it be continued. This however was not to be.

At their 1932 national convention the Democrats advocated for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment and their presidential candidate, Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933–1945) of New York, agreed. Roosevelt was easily elected and the repeal amendment was introduced in Congress on February 14, 1933, before the inauguration. It was approved by both Houses within a few days and submitted to the states for ratification. It was quickly approved and adopted by Congress on December 5, 1933.

Even though the national prohibition experiment failed, there remained millions of people in this country who thought alcohol and its use were sinful, wasteful and dangerous. Thus prohibition in one form or another persisted. The Prohibition Party, though minuscule, continued to campaign, certain churches demanded that their members practice abstinence from alcohol, and 40 states continued to permit the local option.

See also: Black Market, Great Depression, Illegal Drugs

FURTHER READING

Cherrington, E. H. The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America. Westerville, OH: American Issue Press, 1920.

Clark, Norman H. Deliver Us From Evil: An Interpretation of American Prohibition. New York: Norton, 1976.

Dobyns, F. The Amazing Story of Repeal. Chicago: Willett, Clark and Company, 1940.

Furnas, J.C. The Life and Times of the Late Demon Rum. New York: Putnam, 1965.

Krout, J. A. Pressure Politics: The Story of the Anti-Saloon League. New York: Columbia University Press, 1928.

Sinclair, Andrew. The Era of Excess. Boston: Little, Brown, 1962.

Thornton, Mark. The Economics of Prohibition. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1991.