American Prohibition

The Volstead Act and the 18th amendment proved to transform almost all upstanding Victorian Era American citizens—regardless of gender, race, or age—into criminals, and created a new liquid gold rush for the intelligent gangsters of the era to hit rich. Although these laws sought to give the government more judicial power, it turned hoodlums into politicians and politicians into hoodlums and replaced Capitol Hill with the racketed streets of America's cities. Prohibition in America heavily increased the amount of alcohol consumption and brought new participants into the drinking circle. Just as drinking increased, so too did crime; the saboteurs of the Volstead Act found ways to game the system and overfill their pocketbooks, which allowed gangsters to rule the streets with an iron fist and economic leverage.
Throughout history, Americans have been heavy drinkers, it’s in our blood and in the nature of our country as a melting pot for different cultures that bring their different drinking interests. Alcohol was built into our ancestors’ lifestyles, with laws like “grog time,” a specifically marked drinking time during work, and the four-ounce-a-day whiskey ration to American soldiers. In 1830 the average adult American was consuming seven gallons of pure alcohol per year—three times as much as today—on their own, which would equate to about two and a half shots of 190 proof Everclear, a day.1 However, this classically American drinking habit was strengthened when the immigration boom of the mid 1800s hit. Quickly, from 1850 to 1890, American alcohol consumption went from 36 Million gallons a year to 855 Million gallons a year, because of the beer drinking Germans and the whiskey drinking Irish that landed on our shores.2 Neverthe...

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...t turned lawyer, returned pharmacist, Remus knew the legal ins and outs of Prohibition, and he used his title as a pharmacist to buy liquor and sell it to the masses. By far his most profitable project was buying closed distilleries—enough of them that he became the man owning the most distilleries—and preparing to sell their bonded contents for medical purposes, but not before he paid men to steal this liquor from him so that he could sell it tax free on the streets.20 Daniel Okrent explains George Remus' genius:
Remus ran a business so vast that it grossed as much as $25 Million in a single year and so complex that it employed hundreds of drivers, guards, salesmen, office personnel, and warehouse workers. Plus, of course, the lawyers, politicians, Prohibition agents, police officers, and other confederates necessary to any self-respecting criminal operation.21