American Alcohol Prohibition & the Political Science behind it
Introduction
The American experience with alcohol prohibition in the early twentieth century, could be termed as a sought of mystery in American history in policy making. This can be attributed to a number of reasons such as the fact that it represented a series of ‘firsts’ in the American law making process. This was the first time that a law that was termed as anti-progressive was passed since it affected a big chunk of the American economy. This legislation was the first of its kind to go against he American citizens individual liberties which was contrary to the eighteenth amendment of the American constitution. The amendment that came thereafter was the first of its kind to nullify another constitutional amendment.
There is need to understand whether the then policy makers made the right decision in coming up with alcohol prohibition policies or whether the American government at the time bowed down to pressure from socialist groups, without considering all facts like many of the western countries had done so during that period. Therefore to get a better understanding of prohibition in American policy making one has to understand why the government opted to enforce prohibition as one of the many policies that were used to curb alcoholism in the United States. Over, the years, different authors have written work that described the great American prohibition, however, the author that clearly captured the prohibition period, what led to it and its aftermath is Daniel Okrent in his book Last Call- The Rise And Fall Of Prohibition.
Last Call –The Rise and fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent
In his book, The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, author Daniel Okrent, gives a brilliant and fascinating history of the most puzzling era in America. In his book, the years between 1920 and 1933, the U.S constitution was amended to limit one of the American’s darling pastimes that entail drinking of alcoholic beverages. At the books beginning, one encounters an American that has been saturated in drink. It was considered by a number of nations as a failed social and political experimental. The amount of alcohol in America was so high that the author reveals that in 1630, John Winthrop was brought by a sailing vessel that had carried more beer than water. In addition, during 1820, the author states that there was flow of liquor that was cheaper than tea. The author believes that at that time the Americans would never relinquish their booze because it was as incredible as it was astounding (Okrent 2010).
The authors’ book is a dazzling explanation of why the Americans relinquished alcohol and the kind of life under prohibition. In addition, how such extraordinary degree of government intrusion in the privates lives of the Americans changed the country forever. He reveals how prohibition can mark a confluence of diversity. These may include the growing political authority of women’s suffrage movement. The author outlines that the era had allied itself with the antiliquor campaign due to fear of the small town and native stock protestants that they were loosing control of their country due to the large number of the immigrants of large cities. They also included the anti German sentiments that were stocked by the First World War. The author also highlights other variety of factors ranging from the invention of automobile to the advent of the income tax that contributed to the great prohibition era.
Why alcohol prohibition
A lot of studies on alcohol prohibition by scholars reveal the specific factors that led to the prohibition incorporated in the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act. However, there have been scant explanations as to what led to the nationwide prohibition in the first place. Over the years, different studies have tried to explain what let up to the alcohol prohibition. Some of the studies concluded that the fact that there were strong leaders in the temperament movements who offered strong activism against alcohol thus leaving the America government with no other reason but to prohibit it. The temperament movements were a force to recon with on their own.
Others have view that prohibition as a result of the reaction of rural native born Protestants to urbanization and immigration which had been on a steady rise during the early twentieth century. What is common is the fact that all these studies depict the fact that the prohibition happened as a result of increased immigration and the rise of urban morality, right to vote, and he increased voices in the country (Asbury 1950 p. 12). However, all this accounts do not show the real reason why there was wide spread political support for a prohibition amendment to the American constitution and why it was speedily ratified.
Prior to the prohibition
Prior to the great American alcohol prohibition, American was a drinking nation. Okrent in his book wrote that “Americans drank 36 million gallons of the stuff; by 1890 annual consumption had exploded to 855 million gallons.” It is estimated that during that period, the vast majority of the nations slightly more than three hundred thousand saloons that were owned by first generation Americans who had settled in the colony. The impact of alcohol and its results was so high that it drifted of into politics with many prominent politicians involved in one way or the other. "When twenty-four year old George Washington first ran for a seat in the Virginia House of Burgesses, he attributed his defeat to his failure to provide enough alcohol for the voters. When he tried again two years later, Washington floated into office partly on the 144 gallons of rum, punch, hard cider, and beer his election agent handed out -- roughly half a gallon for every vote he received." (p. 47). However this period was slowly associated with a dark period that had pulled the American people and the economy through a rough patch. By the early twentieth century alcohol consumption in America was referred to as the ‘liquor problem’. This prompted different groups and associations that stated campaigning against ‘the problem’. In the end, efforts to stop the problem did bear fruit (Billings et.al 1905 p. 3). How did this happen? Or as Okrent wondered, “How did a freedom-loving people decide to give up a private right that had been freely exercised by millions upon millions since the first European colonists arrived in the New World? How did they condemn to what was, at the very moment of its death, the fifth-largest industry in the nation? How did they append to their most sacred document 112 words that knew only one precedent in American history?”
Factors that contributed to the prohibition
Upper class sponsored policy
During the early twentieth century, a policy organization called the ‘Committee of Fifty to Investigate the Liquor Problem’ sponsored by a group of upper class individuals published books looking at the alcohol problem and recommending that the it was impossible to prohibit alcohol consumption in America. The committee instead recommended flexibly designed and administered governmental programs to reshape and reorganize public drinking and to eliminate the saloon from working-class life. There ideas were totally ignored during that period.
Temperance movements
Temperance movements played a major role in the development of alcohol prohibition in America. This is due to the fact that many middle class Americans had been persuaded that alcohol would eliminate or if not, considerably reduce major social problems in the country. These problems were to be addressed with the solution of eliminating alcohol which would result in protecting the families, increasing personal success and elimination of poverty and crime. The temperance movements also sought to justify prohibition by implying the need for a new, complex, heterogeneous, class-stratified, industrial, efficiency-oriented society. There was also the fact that these movements were diverse but had one common goal, to get rid of the alcohol problem. The most vocal however of these temperament groups was the one led by the protestant Christians who were quite vocal on the problem. With time the reasons given by temperament groups become less religious and more scientific with groups such as women’s Christian temperament union, under the leadership of Frances Willard, advancing the fact that alcohol was a major reason for major disease issues caused in the alcohol takers body (Levine 1984 p. 113).
Organizational and political reasons
It is believed that the twentieth century prohibition was mainly led by an organization that went by the name the Anti-saloon league of America. This organization was a kind of modern day political pressure group. The group is said to have been strong enough to have paid event organizers, back political candidates from any party who voted as the organization wished, and even drafted laws that allowed for legislators sponsored by their organization to pass. The group was also in charge of the mobilization of protestant churches. Most importantly, was the fact that the organization received backing from the business elite, especially those in corporate. It is believed that without the support from the business sector, prohibition would not have amounted to much (Asbury 1950 p.78). This was due to the fact that the business world found it impossible to run business worlds with what they termed as ‘drink-deffudled brains’.
The American Alcohol Prohibition
Due to a lot of pressure mounted on congress by all these groups and many other factors, congress passed the eighteenth amendment to the American constitution and its enabling legislation, the Volstead act which went into effect in 1920. The amendment did not prohibit individual consumption of alcohol; however, it prohibited the manufacture, sale, and transportation of intoxicating beverages (Catlin 1931 p.143). This was the first law of its kind that limited the American citizens’ personal liberty. However even after its passing, there was a lot of skepticism on whether or not the prohibition would last due to the fact that the law was unenforceable. Many people did not respect the new alcohol prohibition law and most just plainly refused to obey it. Historians record that there was nothing effective that the federal or state governments could do that could force this obedience. It is believed that juries could not convict the so called ‘bootleggers’ and despite the effort made by the federal government to hire federal agents, there were never enough. The few federal agents available would often overlook those who flaunted the prohibition if they parted with a small amount of fee. It is reported that all major cities and some smaller ones blatantly violated violation with many establishments in those places that sold alcohol being accessible all day and night. Regardless of the prohibition, drinking was plentiful during that period.
The period after the prohibition
The economy
The prohibition caused a major drain on the economy of the country due to the loss of tax revenue. There were no more trades in alcohol which was the forth most productive income tax producer in America. This meant that the whole trade had to be shut down economically.
Lawlessness
Historians state that during the twentieth century and more so after the prohibition law obedience, law enforcement and lawlessness were the major pre-occupation of prohibitionists. Major conferences were held to enlist the help of politicians including presidents. There was an argument by the pro-prohibition supporters that because the prohibition was a part of the constitution which was the supreme and sacred law of the land, the country’s survival required that it be obeyed. This period was characterized by a great depression by the whole country. Okrent says “two elements are missing from [the] picture: pain and desperation” (page 221). The disrespect of the alcohol prohibition laws led to the disrespect of all other laws in general by the citizens this would ultimately have led to total anarchy. In fact the state of lawlessness had hit an all-time high that crime was a normal occurrence. In his book, Okrent describes an example of this state of anarchy by saying “the bloated bodies of the hijacked rumrunners washing up on the beach at Martha’s Vineyard, their eyes gouged out and their hands and faces scoured by acid” (page 373) (Okrent 2010) . Therefore while prohibition has been enforced for all the right reasons, Okrent argues that it instead “encouraged criminality and institutionalized hypocrisy . . . deprived the government of revenue, stripped the gears of the political system, and imposed profound limitations on individual rights” (page 373) (Okrent 2010). In 1928, Herbert Hoover made the state of lawlessness his primary campaign object with a promise of composing a commission that would investigate the prohibition. He was subsequently elected president by the American citizens
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The fall of prohibition
Alcohol prohibition did not take a long period in the United States. Just like the rise of its supports, the rise against its support was a very fast one. Like, the saloon league had dominated alcohol prohibition, an organization known as the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (the AAPA), dominated the amendment against prohibition. It is believed that this organization was led, organized and financed by some of the wealthiest and conservative men in America. The organization which was headed by Pierre du Pont of du Pont Chemicals, and John J. Raskob of General Motors, the board of directors of the AAPA included the presidents and chairmen of the boards of many major corporations. The organization was nicknamed the committees of ‘millionaires’. This organization had two main reasons for pushing for the repeal of the prohibition laws (Cherrington 1920 p. 219). The first was for economical reasons. The organization believed that if liquor taxes were to be restored, there would be a significant decrease on the taxes levied on their businesses and personal income taxes. There was a great fear that the disrespect of the prohibition law was leading to widespread disrespect of other laws.
Rockefeller’s announcement
In 1932, John D. Rockefeller Jr. made national headlines by openly supporting the repeal for the eighth amendment. He along with his father had previously supported the anti-saloon league. He believed however that in the years that followed the prohibition, the benefits brought about by the prohibition had been outweighed by the evils that had been brought about and had flourished since the adaptation of the prohibition (The New York Times 1932, pp. 1). In his letter, he concluded that repealing the eighth amendment would not end the state of unlawlessness in the country but it would the first step in the right direction. After this announcement, a new organization dubbed The United Repeal Council, chaired by Pierre du Pont, was formed to lead the fight for repeal.
The repeal
Two weeks after the Rockefellers’ announcement, both congress parties become more lenient towards the idea for reforming the prohibition rules. There was a general agreement that if repealed the retention of liquor control would shift to the states. In December 1932 Congress reconvened and Representatives of the AAPA and its women’s affiliate, the Women’s Organization for National Prohibition Reform (WONPR), visited almost every senator, urging adoption of a repeal resolution. They argued that if congress did not act then, it would take another year before congress would convene again. They argued that if a repeal resolution was to be submitted by the states by February however, there would be time for the legislature to save. In November 1933, the senate voted to submit the twenty-first amendment to the various state amendments for ratification. This was approved much to the relief of many. In March 13th, 1933, nine days after president Roosevelt was sworn in, he asked congress to modify the Volstead Act and legalize 3.2 percent alcohol beer but stressing the need for additional tax revenue on the beverage. The response of congress was quick and on the 7th of April 1933, alcohol was free in most parts of the country. The reaction of the country that had started slowly recovering with the hope that the prohibition would be lifted was a joyful one (Kyvig 1979 p. 210)
Conclusion
Through the work of authors such as Okrent, one is able to see the extent at which a powerful nation such as America could go to benefit its citizen. One is also able to get a glimpse at prohibition and the effects it has in a society if enforced. At the end of the day it can comfortably be said that prohibition has the potential of doing more harm than good. Finally, any prohibition that goes contrary to individual rights of the citizens of a nation, may lead to straight out lawlessness in the country. Finally, as much as prohibition may seem as the only solution to curbing certain social problems, it is wiser for governments to weight all the pros and cons that may emerge from the implementation of the prohibition before acting.
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Work cited
Asbury Herbert. The Great Illusion: An Informal History of Prohibition. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1950.
Billings, John S.; Eliot, Charles W.; Farnam, Henry W.; Greene, Jacob L.; and Peabody, Francis G. The Liquor Problem: A Summary of Investigations Conducted by the Committee of Fifty, 1893-1903. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1905.
Catlin. George E. G. Liquor Control. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1931.
Cherrington, Ernest H. The Evolution of Prohibition in the United States of America. Westerville, Ohio: The American Issue Press, 1920
Kyvig, David E. Repealing National Prohibition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979a.
Levine, Harry G. “The Alcohol Problem in America: From Temperance to Alcoholism.” British Journal of Addiction 79 (1984):109-19.
Okrent, Daniel. Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. New York: Scribner, 2010. Print.
The New York Times. “John D. Rockefeller Jr. out for Repeal; Says Dry Law Evils Outweigh Benefits” (and other articles). June 7, 1932, pp. 1 ff.
