Nevertheless, it could be said that the significance of Prohibition was limited by the people who struggled to enforce the law like Mabel Walker Willebrandt, and they successfully achieved some parts of their goals that are not letting the bootleggers make lawless society. Mabel Walker Willebrandt, the “first lady of the law”, was incredibly serious and honest person. She lobbied the expansion of the Coast Guard to intercept rumrunners and brought down two of the most massive bootlegging operations in America. Also, she developed the idea of prosecuting bootleggers and other significant criminals by their income tax evasion which empowered the prosecution of Al Capone in 1931. However, it failed to cripple the bootlegging industry. The demand …show more content…
In the 1820s and ‘30s, religious revivalism arose with temperance and abolitionism. The influence of the churches widely spread the movement, and they introduced abstinence pledge. The rise of evangelical Protestantism viewed the saloon culture as depraved and is against God’s will. Women inculpated alcohol as it was ‘destructive force in families and marriages’. Some societies who were the supporters of Prohibition, the “dries”, led campaigns on the abolition of alcohol at the local, state, and national levels. They asserted that alcohol was causing poverty, crime, and illness. By 1846, the first state Prohibition law passed in Maine which lead to the wave of state legislation. In 1906, the Anti-Saloon League had a sole goal: a constitutional amendment of Prohibition. Politicians, Protestants, women, and industrialists have supported. Accordingly, as the various people supported the Prohibition, it was valuable and …show more content…
Alcohol was one of the prominent industry in the United States. In 1914, the alcohol tax revenue reached 226,000,000. Prohibition’s supporters expected the rise in the sales of other products like clothing, household goods, and other beverages. Instead, it deteriorated other industries. Breweries, distilleries and saloons closed their doors. Not only alcohol-related sectors, but restaurants were also not making a profit without legal liquor sales, and theatre revenues declined. Additionally, government lose out the vast amount of taxes on liquor as they were no longer able to collect. According to the Michael Lerner, a historian, claimed that “New York lost almost 75% of the state’s revenue derived from liquor taxes”. At the national level, the federal government lost $11 billion on tax revenue, while $300 million was used to enforce