The Rise and Fall of Prohibition: The Human Side of What the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act Have Done to the United StatesTowne, Charles Hanson
History
The Rise and Fall of Prohibition: The Human Side of What the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act Have Done to the United States
Towne, Charles Hanson
Prohibition -- United States; United States. Constitution. 18th Amendment
Light wines and beer will return--there is little doubt of that; but
many people hold that we should adopt the Swedish and Canadian methods
of Government Control. We have seen that, with the federal authorities
managing the liquor traffic, a decent business is done, bootlegging is
practically stopped, and revenue pours into the governmental coffers.
Contentment takes the place of discontent, and those who drink pay the
price--which they are more than willing to do. It is so obvious that
this is the right method to pursue that it seems strange there should
be any argument, that there should be any line-up of opposition.
Yet the Prohibitionists, in the light of their failure in the United
States, continue to make prophecies of a “bone dry” world in the years
to be. With amazing clairvoyance a member of the World’s Women’s
Christian Temperance Union has predicted that in 1924. Uruguay will
go dry, and likewise Argentine; Austria and Denmark in 1925; Chili in
1927; Great Britain in 1928; Germany in 1929; France in 1933; Japan in
1936; Italy in 1938; Spain and China in 1939; and Cuba in 1940.
Foreigners have frequently been heard to say that they cannot
understand why Americans have not protested with a louder voice against
the legislation which concerns Prohibition. They forget--or they do not
realize--that the United States is a vast melting-pot, and that there
are, alas! too few Americans left to make much of an impression. The
links that draw together the individual nations of European countries
are lacking in our own land. We have absorbed every race on earth; and
these aliens do not know how to band together. They are not really part
of us, and they are naturally confused at our methods of government.
Many of them are strangers in a strange land, and perhaps they do not
feel justified in protesting, even though they are citizens now, saying
to themselves that if the Americans tolerate such rigid reforms, who
are they to utter words of rebellion?
Is it not self-evident that Prohibition has miserably failed when the
President finds it necessary to call a solemn conclave of Governors
to see what can be done, after three years, to force the people to
obey the law in the various States? The Federal authorities, by that
gesture, admit their inability to cope with the situation, which has
now become intolerable. Scandal after scandal is being unearthed in
sanctimonious Washington, the seat of the Government, and the home of
Prohibition. It is being revealed that many Congressmen and Senators
preach one thing and practise another. Is it not high time that
their dishonesty is shown up? They should be made as ridiculous as
possible. They should be made to see that they are the worst Americans
in existence, pretending to be virtuous, invoking the law for their
constituents, and bootlegging in secret. For at least the rest of
the people who conscientiously break the law, are not on record as
approving it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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