Ken Burns’ most recent film, in three parts, is titled, simply, “PROHIBITION.” Of all the dumb laws and even an amendment to the Constitution, the 18th is not only the most absurd, but the only one that was nullified by another Amendment, the 21st. Burns’ film, which, if you didn’t see it, can be ordered from PBS at ’shoppbs.org.’ and I highly recommend it. Burns has done some great stuff, including the Civil War, Baseball, etc.
What prohibition gave us, was the Mafia, speakeasies, huge amounts of crime, and the FBI, neither of which we need or want. The Prohibition Amendment didn’t forbid drinking the stuff; only making and transporting it. Alcohol essentially went underground, thereby depriving the government of enormous tax revenues. Tens of thousands of waiters, bartenders, restaurants, distributorships, breweries, distillers, bottle makers, and all that goes with alcohol consumption, including advertising, all went out of business. Empty stores and restaurants galore, and the unemployment lines proliferated.
Morality simply cannot be legislated, and Prohibition proved it. People wanted to drink alcohol, and they did. One of the funniest movies ever, with Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtiss and Jack Lemon, dealt with Prohibition, and I am certain I don’t have to tell you the name of it! (Some Like It Hot). Hilarious! Speakeasies came into operation, and Burns’ film says that there were so many, that in New York alone, there was a ’speak’ for every 275 inhabitants. Gang warfare, and rum runners, as portrayed in another black and white film, “Thunder Road,” with Robert Mitchum, which is a really good watch if you haven’t seen it.
Of all the dumb things the Congress and state legislatures did, Prohibition was the most costly. People who drank little, became alcoholics, and it was a thrill to disobey the law. As I said in my book I Hold These Truths, (90 chapters and long out of print): “There was no Mafia in America until we had prohibition. America had been drinking since its founding, and even the Apostle Paul said, “Do not drink water any longer, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent cases of sickness.” 1st Timothy 5:23. Prohibition made Canada very rich. Before prohibition, there were no major Canadian whiskey brands sold in America. It make the Kennedys rich. Old Joe had a shipload of scotch waiting offshore for the moment prohibition was eliminated.
And from my book “Consequences,” (also long out of print): “Samuel Eliot Morrison wrote in his Oxford History of the American People, “No sooner had national prohibition become law, than the country seemed to regret it, and a new occupation, bootlegging, sprang up to quench the public thirst. The Federal Government, in ten years, made over half million arrests for breaking the Volstead Act, and secured over 300,000 convictions, but smuggling increased.” The consequences of the Volstead Act’s passage was increased consumption, proven in another book, “The Economic Results of Prohibition,” by Clark Warburton, a most respected analyst, who showed that alcoholic beverage consumption went from .3 to 1.86 gallons of wine, from .44 to .87 gallons of whiskey, and from 1.26 to 6.9 gallons of beer per year, per person, per year, during prohibition.” As each year passes, more and more dumb laws emit from that capital of absurdity, Washington D.C.
P.S. If the masses of protesters want to picket, forget Wall Street and go to Fanny, Freddie, and the Federal Reserve, from whom all the problems have arisen, or the White House, whose occupant has been the source of unrest.