However, alcohol is one of the main social issues in America, being the cause of accidents, health deterioration, and crimes. There are people who are in favor of liquor, but there are others who are against the idea of alcohol. This brings us to the roaring twenties where the eighteenth amendment was in effect. The eighteenth amendment of the constitution, also known as “The Noble Experiment”, was an establishment of prohibiting the production, sale, and transportation of alcohol in the United States. The purpose of this amendment was to reduce the crimes and violence that involved the consumption of alcohol.
At first, many people supported the idea and felt that prohibition would greatly increase the average American’s quality of life. They also saw an increase in crime and felt that Prohibition would help to make those numbers fall and work out some of the social problems of the 20’s. Although supporters were always around, many American’s were angry and appalled by the law. Saloons and liquor was a big part of many peoples life and only a handful of them were willing to give it up. With this brought many problems that prohibition was thought to fix.
With all these problems, people were still getting drunk, so even with the law drunkenness hardly decreased. This made people begin to realise that by repealing the law alcohol would help get the taxes from it so the USA could stop wastin... ... middle of paper ... ...on prohibition had seen itself into. He helped put America back onto its feet without the need of prohibition. Prohibition ended because of the St Valentines massacre due to the increase of gangsters and violent crimes sweeping the USA It seemed Prohibition had failed. It had made the USA law-less, the police were corrupt and the gangsters were rich and powerful.
Supporters of prohibition tended to live in small towns in the South or West, were Protestant and voted Republican. Some religious groups saw alcohol as 'the work of the devil'. Women's groups like the WCTU felt alcohol oppressed them through men; big businesses saw drunkenness as a reason for inefficiency and danger in the workplace. The prohibitionists were very powerful, and the First World War helped this. During the war grain was needed for food, so people felt it was patriotic to not have a drink.
The law was implemented to prevent excess drinking during the hard economic times. While the law had good intentions, it is known that it conjured up the opposite of what it was intended to do. Prohibition was an extremely controversial time in American history. A quote from Henry H. Curran, an official from the AAPA (Association Against the Prohibition Amendment) states that "Excessive drinking among young people is a natural consequence of our prohibition laws. This is not evidence of depravity on their part, but a youthful reaction against the challenge of restraint.
Past lawsuits were mostly unsuccessful because the juries blamed the smoker even though the definition of criminal negligence fits the industry’s acts perfectly. Some may argue for the industry in the name of free enterprise but since they have had such a clear understanding of the dangers of their product it changes the understanding of their business tactics and motives. The success of the industry has merely been a reflection of its immoral practices. These practices have been observed through its use of the media in regards to children, the tests that used underage smokers, the use of revenue to avoid the law, the use of nicotine manipulation and the suppression of research. Tobacco companies have relied on the media to lure children.
Print. Oligopoly. Amosweb.com. AmosWEB Encyclonomic WEB*pedia. 2012.
Discussion Comparing the United States’ homicidal statistics to England and Wales’, I’ve been moderately persuaded towards the opponent’s side of gun control. It’s difficult to dictate what’s morally acceptable in today’s society with the increasing amounts of controversy, but noticing the dramatic increases in crime rate due to the lack in supply of guns, versus the dramatic decreases in crime rate because of an increase in the supply of guns, definitely proves the consequences of gun control to a certain degree. I would also have to agree that ridding the public from their firearms does take away the privilege of defending ourselves from any sort of crime. With the given results, knowing that our American citizens defend themselves from
In doing this, the advocates of prohibition hoped to also eradicate the social problems associated with alcohol. “It was an attempt to promote Protestant middle-class culture as a means of imposing order on a disorderly world”(Dumenil 226). However, this goal of keeping social order through not consuming alcohol, was not reached during the years of prohibition, or even the years following it. Alcohol use among Americans did decline, but it was not totally eliminated, and some of the social problems were even greater then before prohibition. Therefore prohibition was not successful in its original purpose.
Point-Counterpoint. “One Nation, Indivisible.” New York Times 27 Jan. 2011: n. pag. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 4 Nov. 2011.