Have you ever heard of the Volstead Act? It was written mostly by Wayne Wheeler, but the one who pushed it through Congress was Andrew Volstead, who was Chairman for the House Judiciary Committee from 1919 to 1923. Wheeler was the head lobbyist and lawyer for the National Anti-Saloon League. Figured out what the Volstead Act is yet? Some people call it the greatest failure in American legislation, and some call it the greatest thing ever that has gone away.
The Volstead Act was the informal name for the National Prohibition Act, which became the 18th Amendment to the Constitution in 1919. Originally vetoed by President Woodrow Wilson, the House overturned his veto, followed a day later by the Senate. The federal law would override any state law on prohibition, and would go on to 1.) prohibit the practice of intoxicating any beverages, 2.) regulate the manufacture, sale, and transportation of alcohol, and 3.) promote its use in scientific endeavors such as uses in fuel, dyes, and other similar industries. It also went on to explain that no one could make, sell, transport, trade, export, or import any liquor except those authorized by the federal government. In case you're wondering, the law determined that anything over 0.5% by volume was to be illegal.
What were the flaws in this law? Several.
1.) Organized crime soared. Suddenly small-time criminals became huge gangsters. People with names of Al Capone and the like began to creep up and organized crime became everywhere. Chicago became the most imfamous of American cities for its crime. Some called it the Old West city of the 20th Century. Gang crimes and murders became a normal happening by the late-20's.
2.) Studies done later showed alcohol consumption rose. It's a simple thing to measure; if you make something illegal, then they will want it even more. Not many stopped consuming it, they just hid it better. And instead of stopping, they drank as much as they could because they never knew where their liquor would come from the next week. Like the old saying "drank like it was going out of style".
3.) Prohibition was only enforceable in US waters. Boats would line up just a couple miles off shore in International waters and wait. People would get in their boats and go out to these alcohol boats and shop from one boat to the next to find the best deal. The loaded boats coming to shore could be stopped, but very few were.
4.) There was hypocritical side to the law. Some people have argued that the original intent of the law was meant to keep beer and wine legal and everything else illegal. But when the final draft was made making all liquor illegal, high members of Congress would continue to have their parties with alcohol. Some of the members of Congress who voted for the Volstead Act could be seen having champagne or gin at parties.
5.) Not all states chose to enforce the law equally. The Volstead Act was a federal law, which supersedes all state laws, however the federal government didn't want to give up any of its money or resources to enforce the law. They proposed the states should enforce the law. The states, however, didn't want to give up their money and resources to enforce a federal law. So, in the end, some states were strict about the law, and some were lax. Maryland's governor made a comment that his state wouldn't be a dry state, it would be "as wet as the Atlantic Ocean".
6.) Corruption ran rampant. Bootleggers and speakeasies (the hidden bars that required a password for entry) would pay off the police for non-interference. The cops then could be seen wearing furs and gold becuase of all the money they were pulling out of the hidden bars. Most of these cops could have free alcohol on top the money they were paid. Many of the rural sheriffs and police were sympathetic to the bootleggers, so they would sometimes protect them and let them know if anyone else was coming to town to interfere with the bootlegging.
7.) The illegal bars were like a cancer. If the police would close one urban speakeasy, then five more would pop up. It's hard to close every bar if you can never keep them closed permanently.
8.) The press wasn't behind Prohibition. There were higher class magazines such as The New Yorker that would send their journalists to try out the speakeasies and report on how classy, interesting, and fun the bars were. It's hard for the public to stay behind these illegal places if they sounded so grand.
9.) The health risks involved. When people were making illegal liquor, they would somtimes cut some corners, and when that happened, things that shouldn't be in the alcohol would make it in. Types of poisons and toxins would make their way into the bootlegged liquor, and many people became violently ill and quite a few ended up dying from the bad combinations. There have been stories that members who were enforcing the Volstead Act actually purposefully poisoned the alcohol they found so that the people drinking it would become sick and never have any again.
10.) The Act itself was unenforceable. The original act was created by temperance movements, religious groups, and some special interest organizations (and even the KKK). It was pushed on by the Republicans, and typically by conservatives in general. The combinations of everything said above all combined to create a law that was a moral law, and morality cannot be imposed on a society. By the time the early 30's, many people who believed in the benefits of the law at the beginning of the 20's had changed their minds completely. They learned that all the law had done was create a state of hypocrisy that was much more corrupt and despicable than a land of liquor.
The good thing about Prohibition is that it joined groups of people that hadn't congregated before. Originally, only white males would visit a bar, but all races and genders would join together to enjoy what was now illegal. It allowed women to leave the house and enjoy themselves, and it allowed all races to be equal in a single room. It was snapshot to a very progressive possible future in the US.
The single largest hurdle to repealing Prohibition (and one that the supporters of the law repeatedly mentioned) was that since Prohibition was a Constitutional Amendment, it wouldn't just go away, and no Amendment had ever been repealed before. The stock market crash in 1929 began to push the talks of repealing Prohibition into the consciousness of most of America. In February 1933, Congress passed the Blaine Act which would abolish the 18th Amendment as long as enough states voted for it. In December, Utah became the 36th state to approve the Blaine Act, which became the 21st Amendment, and repealed the 18th Amendment. Control of alcohol went on the the states. In 1935, the Federal Alcohol Administration was created to have limited control over the alcohol industry, but not anything like the way the Volstead Act had intended during the years of 1919 to 1933.
Bet you didn't know that!
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