Prohibition… FAIL!
This last week marked the anniversary of the beginning of the end of Prohibition; an event that is celebrated, nationally, in the form of New Beer’s Eve and National Beer Day. In celebration of this annual event, I think that it is worth a look back at the “whos, whys and wheres” of Prohibition, sometimes called the“Nobel Experiment”, the counterculture that it invoked and why it was such a complete and total failure.
The Preamble
The push toward Prohibition actually began in the nineteenth century, soon after the American Revolution. This period saw the rise of the Temperance movement, which saw the drinking of alcohol as the root of much of society’s evils; particularly various crimes and even murder. These Temperance organizations effectively used the arguments that Prohibition would stop husbands from throwing away the family’s money on alcohol and would reduce the number and severity of industrial accidents caused by hangovers and “2-martini lunches”.
The Act
By the beginning of the 20th century, there were Temperance organizations in nearly every state and by 1916 nearly half of the states had passed laws prohibiting alcohol. In 1919 the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, which prohibited the “manufacture, transport and sale” of alcohol. The new law went into effect on January 16, 1920. Since this new Constitutional Amendment by itself did not have enough “teeth” to actually do what it was intended, the Volstead Act was passed soon after, which granted authority to government agencies to enforce the new law and set forth penalties for its violation.
Let the Good Times Roll
Like most laws, the newly christened 18th Amendment and the Volstead Act had some pretty significant loopholes. For one thing, these new laws did NOT make it illegal to actually drink alcohol and they allowed for alcohol to be prescribed by doctors for “medical purposes”. As you can imagine, being inherently creative, these loopholes allowed your average drinker with some spare change to buy and stockpile quantities of alcoholic beverages before Prohibition went into effect and the number of alcohol prescriptions written by doctors rose dramatically. In spite of the prohibitions of the new laws, nasty characters like Al Capone and other organized crime elements saw an opportunity to turn a tidy profit. Private social/drinking clubs, sometimes called “speakeasys”, sprang up in many areas around the country which served “bootlegged” liquor of various types; rum brought in from the Caribbean (by “rum runners”), whiskey from Canada, “moonshine” and the proverbial “bathtub gin”. As you can see, Prohibition was far from the effective prevention of the consumption of alcohol that had been anticipated by supportive law makers and the Temperance folks and I think that there is a very good reason why that time period is sometimes called “The Roaring 20′s”.
The Repeal
Almost immediately after the 18th Amendment went into effect there were several attempts to repeal it. While these were not successful, the anti-Prohibition movement continued to gain strength during the 1920′s. As the nation moved into the Great Depression and jobs disappeared, the repeal of Prohibition was viewed as a way to create many new jobs across the country and create new tax revenues for the struggling government. On December 5, 1933 the 21st Amendment was passed, repealing the 18th Amendment and effectively ending Prohibition. The 18th Amendment is the only Constitutional Amendment to ever be repealed.
New Beer’s Eve and National Beer Day
Well, I guess that was a good history lesson, but we still have not answered the question of where New Beer’s Eve and National Beer Day came from. Before the 21st Amendment was passed in 1933 and as Prohibition began to lose its support, Congress passed the Cullen-Harrison Act in March of 1933, which allowed the sale of 3.2% (4% ABV) beer in those states that did not have their own laws prohibiting it. This first shot across the Prohibition bow went into effect at midnight on April 7, 1933. On the evening of April 6th that year, people lined up in front of breweries and taverns waiting for midnight, when they would be able to legally purchase beer for the first time in over 13 years. Henceforth, April 6th is traditionally celebrated as “New Beer’s Eve” and April 7th is celebrated as “National Beer Day” in remembrance of this event.
4 Comments to “Prohibition… FAIL!”
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Excellent summary.
Prohibition was one more failed attempt by progressives and religious advocates of social change to “reform” mankind from the outside in. All societies need law and order, but the attempt to create a perfect society through legislation will always fail. It goes against our makeup as human beings. We are rebels by nature and change must come from the inside out.
I blame prohibition for the crappy state of beer and wine making in this nation up until the late 1970′s. I thank God that we can now all enjoy decent, craft brewed beer. Unfortunately the post-prohibition “light lager” still dominates the taste range of most Americans. What a sad waste of taste buds. There are so many delicious beers out there, I think it is a terrible waste to drink nothing but corn based macro swill, yet 90% of American beer drinkers consume nothing else.
I really hope we can see a movement to lower the drinking age to 18. Either you are an adult at 18 or not. If you can’t drink at 18 then you should not be able to vote, serve in the military, or make any other adult choices. Drinking age 21 does nothing but criminalize our young people and encourage binge drinking. I had the “luck” to turn 18 back in 1983 — my state raised the drinking age to 19 one month later and 21 the year after that. I became an adult 3 different times thanks to our change to a national drinking age!
All good points… not being able to make/sell beer caused the downfall of 100′s (1000′s?) of breweries, large and small. We are just in the last couple of years getting back to the same number of breweries as there were pre-WWI.
Have faith though, the mega-brewers are definitely taking notice of the growth of the craft beer movement over the last 5 year. Unfortunately their reaction has been to buy up a bunch of small breweries in a bogus attempt to claim a portion of this market. This will have the consequence of diluting or polluting craft beer as they take breweries focused on high-quality, good-tasting beer and turn what they produce into “meh”.
Any time the gov’mt gets its fingers too far into an industry it f’s it up… that’s just what they do… and we pay for it!
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