Junto Boys

THIS DAY IN 1919

The Volstead Act is passed


WHAT DID IT DO?

The Volstead Act allowed the treasury department to set up a special unit to enforce the 18th Amendment (Prohibition of Alcohol) that was ratified earlier in the year.

WHY DID AMERICA OUTLAW LIQUOR?

In keeping with America’s Puritanism, temperance societies became such an important political force that Congress simply gave in to their wishes.

WHAT WAS THE OUTCOME?

After Americans had finished drinking all of the store liquor they could stockpile, they began making home recipes. Others were drinking cough syrup or rubbing alcohol or even aftershave lotion to get the fix. Eventually the entrepreneur criminal element saw an opportunity for a big revenue stream and an organized crime syndicate was born. The biggest result was that once law-abiding citizens were driven into criminal activity and public health improved not.

THE CULTURE OF PROHIBITION

Speakeasies became so common that politicians frequented them without worry. The cops could easily be paid off to keep the places running. McSorley’s Old Ale House in the East Village was so politically connected that they operated through the 1920s as if prohibition didn’t even exist. Prohibition was such a failure that in 1933 it became the only constitutional Amendment to be fully repealed.
In the film Key Largo (1947), Rocco (Edward G. Robinson) schemes with rival crime bosses to work together to try and get prohibition re-instated. W.C. Fields was so worried that prohibition would return that he built a cellar in his basement that he stocked with enough alcohol to last more than a lifetime.

WHAT DID WE LEARN?

Apparently nothing. The leaders of today still react to public outcry citing the children to prohibit more and more personal activity. Public opinion isn’t even a motivator anymore witnessed by the outlawing of things like online gambling.