How Successful Was Prohibition Dbq

Stop doing what you have always done! That is how the Americans felt until they changed their mind about prohibition. During the 1920s, the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate voted to prohibit the manufacture, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages. A copious amount of Americans already wanted this because of a multitude of reasons. Alcohol was said to have caused family neglect, spouse abuse, and workers to show up to work intoxicated or hungover. This led doctors to realize the negative health effects of alcohol. Americans fought for a repeal and changed their minds once they realized that Prohibition was unenforceable, caused violence and crime, and did not efficiently work.

Prohibition turned out to be unenforceable, which

In Document C, it says that the force of the Prohibition Unit of the Bureau of Internal Revenue was about 3,000 to 3,500. This was too meager to control the American population and make sure they obeyed the Volstead Act, which eliminated the consumption of drinks with over 1% alcohol in the United States, and the 18th Amendment. In 1923, approximately 111.9 million people lived in America, which is about one person to enforce Prohibition for 37 thousand people! There was a lack of authorities enforcing Prohibition, therefore, many citizens figured out how to trick the system. According to Document D, Congressmen and Senators continued violating the Volstead Act. Even the country’s “role models” didn’t follow Prohibition, meaning it didn’t work. It was so difficult to enforce that America was unable to persuade its government officials, congressmen, and other leaders to follow the laws of Prohibition. In Document F, it states that many Prohibition agents were fired due to the

America was trying to rid itself of violence and crime when the Volstead Act was passed. The country suffered when alcohol caused spousal abuse and America wanted to rid themselves of that crime. Instead, Prohibition enlarged violence and crime in other ways. In Document F, it shows that there was an elevated number of illegal saloons, breweries, and industrial alcohol production after years of Prohibition. America changed its mind because many criminals were not following the rules of Prohibition and it was ineffective. All it did was encourage American citizens to participate in illegal behavior. Citizens decided to get alcohol through crime instead of normally purchasing it. Also, the amount of liquor that was seized increased. That meant that alcohol was still being produced. According to Document C, it was easy for smugglers to get alcohol from the borders. That meant that people were committing crimes just to get alcohol. If Prohibition made citizens do illegal things, than that is not something that America wanted. Another instance where Prohibition caused violence was with death. In Document B, the graph shows how deaths during Prohibition were very high. This can show that many of the murders were caused by those under the influence of alcohol. In the statistics of Document F, it can also be seen that the rate of deaths of people from alcohol increased