Bootleggers In The 1900's

At the end of the day, do the needs justify the means? When it came to bootleggers in the early 1900’s, the answer to that question was yes. Rum-running, or bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting of alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law. This was Marion Sylder’s job in The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy. The Orchard Keeper takes place in the early 1900’s and it tells a story about life in the prohibition era. Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the production, importation, transportation, and sale of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. Marion picks up a hitchhiker named Kenneth Ratner and he tries to rob Marion. Marion accidentally kills him while defending

A Saloon was a place where alcoholic drinks may be bought or drunk, and they also employed a decent amount of men. “Saloons provide entertainment and inexpensive meals; banning alcohol and closing saloons, which are regulated, will only lead to the creation of unregulated speakeasies to replace them. Saloons, vineyards and breweries are also an important source of employment”(“Prohibition” 1). Saloons were the last place for husbands and fathers to go to and have a drink and gamble. They were also important because they supplied a lot of people with jobs, so if they got rid of them, then there would be a whole lot of more people without jobs. This may be one of the reasons that Kenneth had to try and rob Marion because he was let go from a job due to the prohibition amendment and he had to find a way to make money for his family. Kenneth planned to rob him while they were fixing the flat tire, but it did not go as intended, (“Kenneth saw his injured shoulder, Marion saw the man looking at it. Marion dug his thumb into the man’s windpipe and felt it collapse like a dried tule”(McCarthy 49). Kenneth was killed trying to rob Marion for his money, and who knows if this would have happened if the prohibition act was never put in