Al Capone

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Recommended: National Prohibition and American Society in the 20th Century

In the United States the consumption of alcohol is accepted as a common part of American life. Alcohol is consumed at sporting events, restaurants, and even church gatherings. However, less than a hundred years ago the prohibition movement was one of the greatest conflicts in the early century. The demand for liquor was in high demand and Alphonse Capone was the man with the solution. In the early twentieth century, many states started making the consumption of alcohol illegal, and by January 6, 1919, the United States government added the eighteenth amendment to our Constitution prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol. The amendment formally called “The Prohibition”, reads the following: Section 1 After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture , sale , or transportation of intoxicating liquors within , the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes in hereby prohibited. Section 2 The Congress and the several states shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. (The Eighteenth Amendment) Section 3 This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the constitution by the legislatures of the several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of hereof to the states by the congress. The prohibition officially banned liquor in America. The reasoning for the prohibition amendment was to decrease illegal and criminal activity, and to make the country more ethical. When the states, Congress and the President approved the amendment, they had the same point of view as The Anti-Saloon League, whi... ... middle of paper ... ...s. On October 18, 1931, Capone was found guilt of tax evasion. ( King 65-66) Capone was sent to federal prison in Atlanta, the toughest in the nation. In 1934, Al became one of the first prisoners to enter Alcatraz, a rocky island in San Francisco Bay. Capone had enjoyed being a star prisoner but at Alcatraz things were different. You had no privileges of any sort, and only family members were allowed to visit. (King 66) About halfway through Al’s sentence, doctors discovered that he suffered from advanced stages of syphilis, a serious and destructive disease. After spending 6 months in the prison hospital, Capone was released on November 16, 1939. (King 67-69) On January 21, 1947, Alphonse Capone suffered from a stroke ( a break or clot in an artery in the brain). Capone gasped his last breaths a couple days later, just after his forty-eight birthday.(King 68)

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