While increased levels bootlegging and Moonshining could be directly attributed to
Prohibition, increases in prosperity are not so easy to credit to Prohibition.
The price of alcohol skyrocketed virtually overnight. Per capita consumption of alcohol
rose dramatically. Excise tax losses on alcohol was estimated at 500 million dollars
per year. The cost of enforcing prohibition was more than 13 million dollars annually.
(these estimates were made in 1920 dollars)
After the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing "Great Depression" the
prosperity argument, was obviously dropped.
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A depiction of the complications in trying to deal
with the issues, that for propaganda purposes,
were associated with alcohol use.
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Narrowing the issue to a choice between a
mother or a saloon is a very effective way to
sway public opinion and avoid real debate.
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The caption under the
photograph is: "removing
one temptation before it is
too late"
New York City was often
used as an example of
Prohibition's success.
The suggestion was that
the banning of alcohol was
an evolutionary change that
would lead to a New Order
in society.
Of course, New York had
many speakeasys, like the
famous 21 Club.
We see this same theme
New York City's "success
with the smoking ban" and
the "reduction in the
number of smokers."
Of course more than a
million New York City
residents still regularly
smoke cigarettes, many
still smoke cigars.
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Notice the "Careful Scientists" Tag. Today
the buzz phrase is "Reputable Studies".
Excerpt from Richard Hofstadter's book The
Age of Reform (1955)
When the crusading debauch was over, the
country's chief inheritance from the Yankee-
Protestant drive for morality and from the
tensions of the war period was Prohibition.
To the historian who likes to trace the
development of the great economic issues
and to follow the main trend of class politics,
the story of Prohibition will seem like a
historical detour, a meaningless nuisance,
an extraneous imposition upon the main
course of history. The truth is that Prohibition
appeared to the men of the twenties as a
major issue because it was a major issue,
and one of the most symptomatic for those
who would follow the trend of rural-urban
conflicts and the ethnic tensions in American
politics. It is also one of the leading clues to
the reaction against the Progressive temper.
For Prohibition, in the twenties, was the
skeleton at the feast, a grim reminder of the
moral frenzy that so many wished to forget, a
ludicrous caricature of the reforming
impulse, of the Yankee-Protestant notion
that it is both possible and desirable to
moralize private life through public action.
Statistics were manipulated then as much as
they are now. "One in every three husbands
divorced of cruelty was a drinker." Obviously,
most divorces were not drinking related.
The doctrine of "personal liberty" as
applied to the use of liquor has been
over-worked by the liquor men. As a
matter of fact, there is no such thing as
an absolute individual right to do any
particular thing, or to eat or drink any
particular thing, or to enjoy the
association of one's own family, or
even to live, if that thing is in conflict
with "the law of public necessity.". . .
From Why Prohibition! By dry activist
Charles Stelzle (1918)
This same argument is also used by
Anti Tobacco Extremists: "...there is
no legal right to smoke, regardless of
the location," says public interest law
professor John Banzhaf, Executive
Director of ASH. February 2006
According to Banzaff's statement one
does not even have the right to smoke
at home.
Excerpted from Richmond P. Hobson, "The Prohibition Amendment," in The Politics of
Moral Behavior: Prohibition and Drug Abuse
What is the object of this resolution? It is to destroy the agency that debauches the
youth of the land and thereby perpetuates its hold upon the Nation. How does the
resolution propose to destroy this agent? In the simplest manner…. It does not coerce
any drinker. It simply says that barter and sale, matters that have been a public function
from the semicivilized days of society, shall not continue the debauching of the youth.
Now, the Liquor Trust are wise enough to know that they can not perpetuate their sway
by depending on debauching grown people, so they go to an organic method of
teaching the young to drink. Now we apply exactly the same method to destroy them.
We do not try to force old drinkers to stop drinking, but we do effectively put an end to
the systematic, organized debauching of our youth through thousands and tens of
thousands of agencies throughout the land. Men here may try to escape the simplicity
of this problem. They can not. Some are trying to defend alcohol by saying that its
abuse only is bad and that its temperance use is all right. Science absolutely denies it,
and proclaims that drunkenness does not produce one-tenth part of the harm to
society that the widespread, temperate, moderate drinking does. Some say it is
adulteration that harms. Some are trying to say that it is only distilled liquors that do
harm. Science comes in now and says that all alcohol does harm; that the malt and
fermented liquors produce vastly more harm than distilled liquors, and that it is the
general public use of such drinks that has entailed the gradual decline and degeneracy
of the nations of the past.
This excerpt illustrates the progression, from some types alcohol being harmful, to
any and all alcohol being harmful. It further seeks to blame the gradual decline of
society solely on alcohol use.
