A few blog posts ago, I wrote about some
of the people involved in the repeal of Prohibition. Today, I’ll give a little
more detail about the historical and societal backdrop that helped lead to
repeal. While there were many dedicated people making arguments against the
continuation of Prohibition, it would be a mistake to believe that it was only
their hard work that brought about repeal in the United States. A confluence of
societal conditions and shifts, along with problems brought on by the initial
passage of Prohibition, came together to create a window of opportunity for
repeal.
The passage of Prohibition and enforcement
of the Volstead Act – or, notably, the lack of enforcement – had created a set
of problems around the nation. The most notable of these was the distinct rise
in organized crime; some argue that Prohibition offered a “graduate course” for
training in the crime industry. Huge amounts of money were to be made, and
mobsters like Alphonse “Al” Capone and others sized the opportunity. Organized
crime flourished in part because of massive, widespread corruption among law
enforcement. Prohibition Agents and local police often drank with the
criminals, and took lucrative payouts in exchange for a blind eye. This
arrangement did nothing for the average citizen’s faith in the importance of
laws or institutions, and thus was one of the issues that caused people to
rally around repeal.
Society changed as well during the years
of Prohibition. The 19th Amendment followed the 18th and
granted universal women’s suffrage, cementing the role of women in political
life. Because of this change, Pauline Sabin would be able to rally women to the
ballot box in support of repeal. Additionally, immigration into the United
States had continued. European immigrant communities had their own
relationships with alcohol and the role it played in their cultures – very
rarely did it play no role at all, so an influx of new Americans who expected
to enjoy beer, wine, or liquor did nothing to help Prohibition stick around far
into the 1930’s.
Perhaps the most important catalyst for
the repeal of Prohibition was economic – the Great Depression began in October
of 1929 as stock prices plummeted and panic consumed many Americans. Within a
few weeks, tens of billions of dollars in value would disappear. The United
States government had the near-impossible jobs of rallying the economy, keeping
morale as high as possible, and helping Americans in dire need. Additionally
the effects of the Depression made Prohibition nearly impossible to enforce as
federal budgets were slashed. The government was in need of an influx of
revenues, and the ability to tax legal alcohol could no doubt provide it. While
Pierre Du Pont and his allies had been arguing for tax revenues from legal
alcohol to alleviate their own tax burdens, the Depression took the need for
additional government revenue and threw it into the forefront of the
discussion. Republican President Herbert Hoover’s tepid response to the Great
Depression cleared the way for a routing out of many dry Republicans in the
1932 election to make way for FDR and pro-repeal Democrats. The Great
Depression’s party politics worked in the favor of the repeal movement.
The combination of Prohibition’s shoddy
enforcement problems, societal shifts in voting rights and immigration, and the
economic panic of the Great Depression created a potent antidote to Prohibition.
These factors opened a window of opportunity much earlier than many wet
advocates thought possible, and ushered in the passage and ratification of the
21st Amendment.
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