The Failed Experiment that Was Prohibition

686 Words2 Pages

Prohibition

In the 1920s, the 18th Amendment banned a persons right to manufacture and purchase liquor. Banning the transportation, manufacture,and sale of “intoxicating” beverages was known as prohibition, the most controversial law of that century. Prohibition was strongly supported by the government and women in America that were being abused. Important groups of that time being the “Dry’s” and the “Wet’s”. Opponents of prohibition consisted of men who felt that they deserved the right to drink liquor. Owners of saloons, breweries.etc…, these people were called the “Wet’s”. Prohibition lasted for nearly 14 years ending on December 5th, 1933; Prohibition didn’t stop drinking: it just pushed it secretly underground. It created ignorance and disrespect towards the law, so many people would ignore the law by drinking alcohol, making those citizens criminals. Prohibition was an extremely controversial topic and was very difficult to enforce. Taking someone’s right to drink liquor is wrong, Especially when it had been legal long before prohibition had started. Taking the liquor from everyone puts people in a desperate position and provokes people to commit criminal acts.

Other forms of alcohol were easily available across america and became a way of life for many men in the times during prohibition. Prohibition created many problems including the increase in the crime rate throughout the U.S. and gang violence. Abraham Lincoln once said “Prohibition...goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes”. Mobsters gained their wealth through the illegal sale of alcohol. The average american man made 1,000 dollars annually during th...

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... in the 1920s said “There are two kinds of men in this town, the kind selling alcohol and the kind buying alcohol.”

Americas foundation is based on the right to choose and the freedom of everyone. In the early 1900s it was very common for a man to come home and have a couple of drinks after a hard days work. Drinking was primarily a man’s thing with very few women partaking. It was not until the speakeasies that women began to drink like men. The biggest problem with prohibition was that it took away the rights that americans took for granted everyday. Prohibition would seem more normal for a dictatorship run country, such as North and South Korea and Russia. Prohibition was a failed experiment at the cost of americans and brought fortune to gangsters selling alcohol illegally to the men who could buy it at the local establishment before prohibition legally.

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