Prohibition DBQ Essay

Poverty is striking the nation, crime rates are high, grain is scarce. How are these issues solved? According to 1920’s United States prohibition would solves these problems and many others in the U.S. Alcohol caused drunken fights and uncalled for violence, put people in poverty because of the beloved money people spent on it and used precious grain that was needed for World War I at the time. People were unhappy with the way things were and outlawing alcohol was the obvious answer to these complications. Everyone agreed, with 282 of the 410 House Representatives approving the 18th amendment. The next day 47 of 55 Senators agreed on it as well. Things couldn’t have gone better, especially for the progressive movement who had been vouching

for prohibition for a while, until things took a turn for the worse. America changed their mind on the 18th amendment because crime went up, it was impossible to enforce and it withheld money from taxes on it from the U.S. Government that could have payed off the debt of the country and more.
Crime was the most apparent reason for repealing prohibition.

Before prohibition “...a number of states decided that drinking was behind some of America's most serious problems - problems like corruption, child abuse, crime, unemployment and worker safety”(Background Essay). They soon discovered that this was not the case. According to a U.S. Census in 2008 (Document B), the number of homicides rose to their highest in 1933, when it was repealed, with around 11 homicides per 100,000 people in the United States. That was quite a jump from the 6 or 7 only 15 years earlier. Also, in an illustration by Winsor McCay in the 1930’s (Document A), prohibition was the origin of many other problems such as gangsters, racketeers, bootleggers, and dope sellers. While they thrived in this time, selling and producing alcohol illegally, the rest of the country fell into depression as demonstrated by the word ‘depression’ written in the foreground of the illustration .People thought that alcohol was the cause of all of these problems but it only made it worse, not living up to it’s promise at

all.
The second cause of America repealing prohibition was the lack of ability to enforce it.

When the 18th amendment was passed congress was strongly in favor of it. Then, the Volstead Act was passed and they still maintained the attitude that they were in favor of it, overriding the president's veto of the act not wanting to seem soft to their supporters (Background Essay). Soon, though, their actions completely contradicted their words after it had been in place for a while. According to Mabel Walker Willebrandt, Deputy U.S. Attorney General for Prohibition Enforcement, (Document D) “...many Congressmen and Senators...are persistent violators of the Volstead Act. Senators and Congressmen have appeared on the floors in a drunken condition.” This statement clearly shows that the act was being violated inside the government, who was supposed to be enforcing it, so it would be very difficult to keep people outside of it away from it. A story from Frederic J. Haskin in ‘The American Government’ (Document C) told about a house right next door to a police station that was successful for months. Most smugglers in general all took advantage of the 3-mile limit. This stated that all boats three miles off the coast were out of United States territory so the rule did not apply. These criminals were getting very crafty with the way they went about breaking the law. They were hard to catch and there was not much the government could do about enforcing the law and catching the

criminals.
The third and final reason America changed its mind about prohibition was the economic struggles it brought with it. Before the act was passed many big business owners saw alcohol as a drag to the economy. They did not like drunken or absent workers and they believed that prohibition was the answer to solving their issues. They also believed that spending all that money on alcohol and beer during a war, when all resources were needed, was unpatriotic (Background Essay). This turned out to be completely wrong, as all their other reasons for getting rid of it were. In ‘The New Crusade’ by Leslie Gordon she says, “If liquor now sold by bootleggers was legally sold, regulated, and taxed, the income would pay the interest on the entire local and national debts and leave more than $200,000,000.” If alcohol had just remained legal the income from taxes would have been greatly beneficial to the United States. They could have payed off debt and had more to do what they wanted with so this law did more harm than good as far as economic purposes.
In conclusion, the United States thought that prohibition would solve things like poverty, abuse, economic issues, and crime but, instead it magnified all of those issues and caused America to change its mind. Crime rates inflated, they couldn’t enforce it, and it didn’t come close to solving the economic issues. Thinking about it now we can clearly see that prohibition was a bad idea but of course hindsight is always 20/20.