DW: When America bans alcohol

[[MC]Ronin[MC]]

DW: When America bans alcohol

"Dry Mode" becomes a social experiment, which in 1933 ends with failure and complete sobering

 

 

 

Hell will remain forever empty - these are the expectations when on January 17, 1920, the 18th amendment to the Constitution, which bans the production, sale, transportation, import and export of "intoxicating liquids", enters into force in the United States. A few months earlier, in October 1919, Congress passed a law banning all beverages with more than 0.5 percent alcohol content. That is to say, not only concentrates - the production and sale of wine and beer also becomes illegal.

An unprecedented experiment begins - a country with more than 100 million people of many different backgrounds and cultures, decides to turn its citizens into sobriety and virtuous people, Deutsche Welle reports.
Proponents of the new order see it as a successful end to the long-running battle against the demon of alcohol, destroying morality and family: instead of caring for women and children, men spent their wages in pubs - drank so much that they couldn't work the next day . This is not just about Puritan prejudice - in fact, in the early 19th century in America, alcohol poured like a river. According to historians, its consumption reaches 30 liters of pure alcohol on average per adult - about 90 bottles of brandy.

After the initial unsuccessful attempts to voluntarily refuse alcohol - as early as 1826 - powerful women's movements demanded "prohibition" (alcohol prohibition). However, a decisive role, as noted by the German "Zeit", however, played the US entry into World War I. Patriotic appeals are then very po[CENSORED]r that at such a time it is unacceptable to waste grain for brandy and beer. Breweries, which are almost entirely in German hands, are "hit" particularly hard, Deutschefunk recalls, quoting the well-known entrepreneur and lifestyle enthusiast John Harvey Kellogg: "Fighting Three Enemies: Germany, Austria and Drinking" .

But a quick amendment to the Constitution does not mean that there is a national consensus on the matter: only a few days later there is a sharp confrontation between "dry" and "wet", with America's national identity at the center of the dispute . Through the dry regime, the traditionalist camp attempts to cement the supremacy of Protestant, Anglo-Saxon culture in the context of rapid social change caused by mass migration, urbanization and secularization. But many progressive reformers also support pro-life as a factor in the social discipline and transformation of Irish, Slavs, Jews, and Italians into good American citizens.

Most major American cities, in turn, perceive the dry regime as harassment by fanatic Puritans and are not ready to give up their usual drink. Which is unnecessary, as the secret production of alcohol, as well as smuggling across the borders with Canada and Mexico, ensure a real boom in the black market. As Deutschlandfunk points out, in the late 1920s, illegal alcohol provision became the third largest US industry after steel and oil production. Many bars and restaurants have to be closed, but the thirsty are not left without the ability to satisfy their thirst at one of the countless illegal pubs - in New York alone, they are over 5,000. For the rich and the bohemian, prohibition is no problem at all - they enjoy the tumultuous 1920s in sophisticated jazz clubs that feature stars such as Duke Ellington and Cab Kalloway.

Due to the dry regime, organized crime is in its prime, embodied to this day by Al Capone. The life of gangsters is glamorous but also fraught with risks - in Chicago during the probation period, the death rate among them doubles. The police set up a special dry-enforcement unit, which employs more than 4,000 people in the late 1920s.

During the 1928 election campaign, Republican presidential candidate Herbert Hoover emphasized that the "noble experiment" must be continued. But more and more American citizens are beginning to have doubts as the shady sides of the endeavor cannot go unnoticed. Unscrupulous gangsters and "businessmen" make big profits with which police and politicians bribe. Millions of Americans are breaking the conscience law they don't feel bound to every day.

The political upheaval came with the advent of the Great Depression as a consequence of the 1929 global economic crisis, which caused many of the former supporters of pro-hibition to reach