Prohibition Is Bad

“There'd never been a more advantageous time to be a criminal in America than during the 13 years of Prohibition. At a stroke, the American government closed down the fifth largest industry in the United States - alcohol production - and just handed it to criminals - a pretty remarkable thing to do.” (Bryson). In 1920 the 66th United States Congress enacted the National Prohibition Act in order to reduce criminal activity, corruption, and social problems that were affecting the society at the time. What hopes they had for cleaning up America and bringing it back to a clean moral standard were destroyed when organized crime and a disregard for law enforcement began to run rampant. The US Government had no way of knowing how much damage it

If a family or a nation, on the other hand, is debauched by liquor, it must decline and ultimately perish.”- Richmond P. Hobson, in the U.S. House of Representatives, December 22, 1914 (Okrent 5). Prohibition was enacted to solve society’s problems by cutting down on criminal activity and promoting a lifestyle that was closer to church standards. This was a time in America’s history where it was socially acceptable for people to drink in the morning, on break, and in the evening to aid in digestion. Children workers were known to drink often, and alcohol was even given to babies to calm them down. In Jon Sealy’s The Whiskey Baron the young Tommy Cope drinks himself drunk in the town’s bar when everyone knows he is too young, but they do not stop him. Everyone’s attitude toward seeing a minor drinking is to not bother with it because he is not perceived to be hurting anyone and was amongst people he knew would keep him out of trouble. This is the attitude many small town American’s had toward drinking because it was engrained deeply into their everyday lives as a social construct and beneficial health aide. Agent Jeffreys’ and Agent O’Connor’s attitude towards alcohol and drinking was severe, and exactly how American government officials would have reacted to alcohol in general during the time of

because of the sudden criminalization of drinking, which was something that was so deeply ingrained in their day-to-day life. Even though there was a ban on alcohol, the demand for distilled spirits and beer was still there. This demand gave way for organized crime to take control of the distribution of illegal alcohol. Law enforcement often looked the other way and took bribes from the mob bosses. “As alcohol was sold all around them, police officers, public officials, judges and politicians took bribes or looked the other way.” (Blumenthal 3) In The Whiskey Baron, Larthan Tull creates his empire in the middle of a small town in South Carolina. He distills liquor and distributes it through Aunt Lou. Sheriff Chambers looks the other way while all the towns’ people sell their corn to Larthan because it was bringing in more money than they would have made off their normal crops. The Sheriff even buys and drinks illegal whiskey himself. This was exactly the way Al Capone rose to infamy during the era of prohibition. He became a co-founder of the Chicago mob which illegally supplied alcohol to the Chicago area. Capone had many cops on his payroll and was able to profit from prohibition making over 60 million dollars a