THE ROARIN' 20's
PROHIBITION
prohibition [proh-uh-bish-uh n]
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the legal prohibiting of the manufacture and sale of alcoholic drinks for common consumption
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when the Eighteenth Amendment was in force and alcoholic beverages could not legally bemanufactured, transported, or sold in the U.S.
The 18th Amendment in the Constitution, ratified in 1919, banned the productionand sale of alcohol. On January 16, 1920, the federal Volstead Act closed every tavern, bar and saloon in the United States. This drove the liquor trade through the ground forcing the public to attend illegal speakeasies instead of ordinary bars where they would be controlled by bootleggers, racketeers and other organized-crime figures such as Chicago gangster Al Capone. Capone reportedly had 1,000 gunmen and half of Chicago’s police force on his payroll.
Prohibition was intended to improve, the lives of all Americans, to protect individuals, families, and society at large from the devastating effects of alcohol abuse. Irnoically, this amendment caused millions of Americans to rethink their definition of morality and break laws they never did before.
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Many groups were for supporting Prohibiton including the Anti-Saloon League and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
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Much of the country disliked the idea of Prohibition, but small groups who worked countless hours to have the amendment known were succeful in the end.
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Police officers and those trusted to enforce the law did not fully carry out thier jobs due to the fact that they, too, were furious with the new law.
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Organized crime skyrocketed and this opened up a new illegal market for the gangster to develop and monopolize.
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Upon the beginnings of Prohibition, Alphonse Capone essentially took over the business of the nation's thousands of breweries and distilleries.
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He was more than willing to disobey the law and had control over hundreds of professional criminals,
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He was basically handed a monopoly on alcohol production by the ratification of Prohibition.
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He earned a staggering $60 million annually from bootleg operations and speakeasies.
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Upon Al Capone's death, The New York Times said that he was "the symbol of a shameful era, the monstrous symptom of a disease which was eating into the conscience of America. Looking back on it now, this period of Prohibition in full, ugly flower seems fantastically incredible. Capone himself was incredible, the creation of an ugly dream" (Bergreen, 19).
