Following the Prohibition

The year was 1918, the whole world is at war, with the majority of the nation’s men
fighting over seas on the war front. But at home, people are all the craze about the amendment
that’s supposed to be passed. This supposed amendment is supposed to prohibit the
manufacturing, selling, and transportation of intoxicating liquors anywhere in the US. This
nation, is temporarily a nation full of women, who decided to seize an opportunity when one
presented itself, are pushing for their ideas and their opinions to Congress. Mainly, the thought
of prohibiting alcohol in the US, and because many Prohibitionists were most commonly
Progressives and Protestants, they believed that alcoholism, domestic abuse, and family abuse
all stemmed from the overall freedom with the consumption of alcohol, they also believe that
alcohol keeps immigrants in poverty, and that saloons are the source of political corruption in
America. Even though alcohol is one of the things that cause all of these current problems, it’s
not the only cause, and because of that, the amendment might not be the best option to solve
these problems.
There are two main groups that are very outspoken about their support of the
Prohibition, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Anti-Saloon League. These
“dry” crusaders want all aspects of alcohol of to be banned, doesn’t matter the cost, however, to
counter this group are the “wet” supporters, who rose from the beer industry and were mainly
Catholic and German lutheran communities, so they have the means to support their wanting of
a “wet” America.
Jumping forward to the year 1925, the Prohibition is in full effect, the people of America
have not been able to transport, sell, or produce any alcohol for the past five years. Since the
Volstead Act of 1920, which not only enforced the 18th amendment further, but also specified
the conditions of the amendment, Americans have only been fighting about the “wet” vs. “dry”
community. But because the “wet” supporters mostly came from the beer industry, and
consumption had been down ever since the start of WWI (because the government limited
breweries’ and distilleries’ use of barley, wheat, and other grains used in the production of
alcohol) the “wet’’ supporters no longer had the funds to keep their campaigns going. However,
many American immigrants started to view the Prohibition as an attack on the working class
saloon and attempted to restrict the ban. In addition, many people in small southern towns did
not take the Prohibition seriously, and started to organize in groups and pressed for the ban to
be repealed. Even with all of these different groups stepping up to fight for the repeal of the ban,
throughout the Prohibition Era, the cost of alcohol on the illegal market skyrocketed and made it
to where most people couldn’t buy any alcohol anyway.
It is now 1934, and the prohibition was repealed on December 5, 1933 by the 21st
Amendment. The FBI, under the direction of J. Edgar Hoover, and used the prohibition to
increase its resources, enlarge its investigative domain, and became a fixture of a federal police
power, was tasked with enforcing the Volstead Act of 1920. It was extremely difficult to enforce
because while the 18th amendment banned the sale of alcohol, it did not ban the possession of
alcohol, so it was harder to distinguish the two apart. Eventually, people became fed up with the
prohibition, and the movement would lead to a fair amount of organized crime where criminal
gangs would gain control of many different cities’ supply of alcohol, and because of the conflict
between “wet” supporters and prohibitionists, they lowered revenues locally and imposed
religious Protestant values and practices to urban America. The Prohibition was relatively short
lived, and was the root cause of a lot of harm done to the country as a whole. Let’s hope that the
country can recover from both the Prohibition and WWI.