During the 1920’s the United States passed an amendment which included a ban on the manufacture, sale, or transportation of alcohol . Many problems occurred as a result of the Great Depression, which also occurred during this time, and alcohol became a scapegoat. Prohibitionists believed that alcohol lowered American morals and was considered a sin; people who sold it were the “Devil’s Servants” . However, alcohol was deeply rooted into the lives of many people. They did not view alcohol as negatively as the prohibitionists.
People that agreed with prohibition didn't realize that even without alcohol this issues would still exist, especially because they couldn't truly enforce the law. All that opposed figured out that it would majorly impact americas revenue and peoples freedoms. Also because peoples freedoms were taken away others would sneak around the law causing crime. Even though it was a failure because of america's lack of profit, rise of crime, and the loopholes within the law; it helped create foundations around the subject of alcohol like how it was harder to receive alcohol so americans would drink less and the regulations of the sale of alcohol. Prohibition, The noble experiment, was a failure but it helped us to regulate the situation and lead us to realize the wrongs and rights of this law.
Assess the view that the policy of National Prohibition (1919-33) created more problems than it solved. Prohibition was intended to reduce the manufacture and distribution of alcohol, and hence reduce the amount of crime, poverty and death rates, as well as improve the economy and the quality of life. Arguably, prohibition solved some of the problems to do with alcohol consumption of those from a low status background, as they could not afford drinks from new illegal establishments such as speakeasies. However, critics argue that the “noble experiment,” failed well before it was repealed in 1933. For example, although prohibition eradicated saloons, they were replaced by illegal bars known as speakeasies.
Overall, the Prohibition was an experimental and learning period of time for the United States of America. The government was convinced that it could possibly solve many of the societal problems in the U.S. This resulted in them passing the 18th Amendment and The Volstead Act, prohibiting the manufacture, sale, and distribution of liquor. Due to this, gangsters and mobsters ruled the Alcohol Industry. When citizens and government realized this Prohibition was not having the positive benefits they expected, the 21st Amendment was passed, repealing the prohibition and returning America’s favorite pass time to them.
Although Prohibition's aim was to decrease drunkenness and crime, it would ultimately cause more harm than good with the emergence of speakeasies which kept people drunk and gangs who increased crime rates. Ultimetley Prohibition, also known as the “Nobel Experiment”, was a law that neither rid the US of crime or liquor; one could even argue it worsened these two factors of American society. As World War I ended people began to bring their attentions back to the domestic issues of the United States, specifically drunkenness. The average person in 1910 was consuming about 1.6 gallons of alcohol, which led to everything from general drunkenness to abuse within families and this was not a new problem either; since the mid 1800s temperance movements had been popping up across the United States. These temperance movements were more within small towns though and had little to no effect on big cities, but were becoming increasingly popular expecially with religious groups, who believed drinking led to sinful behavior and with women, mostly of whom were abused by their drunk husbands (Brown, 704).
By making alcohol illegal nationally, such as it would be with prohibition, the social problems of America would be fixed. On January 16, 1920 alcohol became i... ... middle of paper ... ...ad, it added to the problems it was intended to solve”(Thornton). We can see that prohibition did reduce the amount of alcohol consumed in the United States, but alcohol use was not altogether eliminated. The social problems that were hoped to be addressed were not solved either. The great experiment that was prohibition did not accomplish its goals of solving the social problems of America and eliminating alcohol consumption.
Before this period there was no such thing as organized crime, but ever since then, it has existed. This journey of the country through the ban of alcohol actually led to more people drinking alcohol. Another short-term effect of the revoking of Prohibition was the increased revenue gained as a result of taxation on alcoholic beverages. Although the barring of alcohol was arguably a good idea, failed enforcement and little long-term, after the 18th Amendment’s ratification, support made Prohibition a detriment to the US economy and the country in
All in all prohibition proved out to be a lost cause, it did not work out well for the society or the economy of Canada, it was an effort put forward by people that thought strongly about prohibition in an effort to purify the society as a whole and start a new economy that peoples will put more money into the economy. Prohibition did not work at all. It just made crime rise, like bootlegging and smuggling liquor. But they might as well face it, the people wanted to drink and the government wanted money.
Many officials ended up being bribed into not reporting the bootleggers, which did not reduce the crime at all. The second reason for the failure of prohibition was that gangs and criminals moved into the bootleg business, and were making so much money that they were feared and would also bribe the authorities, judges and officials to co-operate with them. The gangsters caused massacres and the St Valentines Massacre was a turning point for prohibition. People started to realise the dramatic failure of the law, and so when the Wall Street crash and the depression hit the USA in the early 1930s' it was obvious that legalising alcohol would create jobs helping people out of the depression. With all these problems, people were still getting drunk, so even with the law drunkenness hardly decreased.
Prohibition did not achieve its goals. Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve and supplanted other ways of addressing problems. The only successors of Prohibition were bootleggers, crime bosses, and the forces of big government. The Prohibition of alcohol was probably the most senseless Amendment in the history of the United States of America. Everyday people were forced to change their penchants of drinking alcoholic beverages.