Prohibition

The era inspired an extensive body of colourful literature, most of it alleging that the period was one of moral decay and social disorder precisely because of “Volsteadism”, which came to mean the intolerable searches, seizures, and shootings by police who, with their token enforcement, seemed to threaten intrusion into the private lives of law-abiding people. It also alleged that Prohibition distorted the role of alcohol in American life, causing people to drink more rather than less; that it promoted disrespect for the law; that it generated a wave of organized criminal activity, during which the bootlegger (one who sold liquor illegally), the “speakeasy” (an illegal saloon), and the gangster became popular institutions; and that the profits available to criminals from illegal alcohol corrupted almost every level of government (specifically, that the Mafia gained its first foothold in the United States through its bootlegging profits). Historians, however, believe that in the beginning of the era, and at least until the middle of the decade, most Americans respected the law, hoped that it would endure, and regarded its passage as directly responsible for the reduced incidence of public drunkenness and of alcohol-related crime, imprisonments, and injuries. Statistics show that Prohibition reduced the annual per capita consumption from 9.8 litres (2.6 gal) of absolute alcohol during the period before state laws were effective (1906-1910) to 3.7 litres (0.97 gal) after Prohibition (1934). Moreover, no striking statistical evidence of a crime wave during the 1920s exists, although the crime rate did rise.

In the late 1920s, however, more and more Americans found the idea of repeal increasingly attractive. The reasons for this were numerous and complex, the government's failure to enforce the law being only one of them. Most Americans were happy that the old-style saloon had been abolished, but they felt that a new society was emerging in the 1920s—a primarily urban and industrial society of great geographic and social mobility and great ethnic and religious diversities, in which the protection of the family from alcohol was perhaps less socially urgent than the expansion and protection of individual freedom.

This disillusionment with Prohibition occurred in every country that had earlier attempted it. In Canada, for instance, the dry laws of 1919 were soon repealed because of economic pressures, not the least of which were the opportunities to sell liquor to citizens of the dry United States. Provincial laws after repeal did, however, provide for government-owned stores and for local option.

In the United States, a major shift in public opinion occurred during the early years of the Great Depression, when opponents could argue persuasively that Prohibition deprived people of jobs and governments of revenue and generally contributed to economic stagnation. The actual political campaign for repeal was largely the work of the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA), a non-partisan organization of wealthy and influential citizens in all states who were “wet” in principle and who feared that through Prohibition the federal government might permanently compromise the tradition of individual freedom. Like the ASL, the AAPA actively endorsed and opposed candidates for state and federal offices. Its goal was that Congress should submit to the states a 21st Amendment to the Constitution, which would repeal the 18th, and submit it in such a way as to circumvent the various state legislatures in which, it feared, dry legislators from rural districts, in opposition to majority sentiment, might present a serious challenge to ratification. To avoid this, Congress—for the first time since the Constitution itself was ratified and for much the same reason—called for ratifying conventions in each of the states: Delegates would be elected by the people for the specific purpose of voting yes or no regarding the question of the 21st Amendment. The elections for convention delegates in 1933 produced a repeal vote of almost 73 per cent. In a remarkably coordinated effort by the states and the Congress, ratification was complete in December of that year.

Following repeal, liquor control again became a state rather than a federal problem. The annual per capita consumption of absolute alcohol in the country rose after the repeal from 4.2 litres (1.1. gal) in 1935 to 7.6 litres (2.0 gal) in 1975, but most states still retain restrictions on the sale and consumption of alcohol. Rates of consumption have never again threatened to approach early 19th-century levels.