Alcohol appeared in human culture before the state. However, with the emergence of centralized government, there were also attempts to prohibit alcohol as an antisocial substance. The first documented cases are the Hammurabi Code and the Laws of the Chinese Xia Dynasty. Over the past four thousand years, nothing has changed: all these years there have been prohibitionists and anti-prohibitionists; some want to ban, others want to allow. On the eve of the memorable anniversaries of the ban on alcohol in the USSR (May 16) and the capture of Al Capone (May 17), we decided to tackle the topic in a way that only Disgusting men can do.
Prohibition origins
If in the USSR the ban on alcohol became a decision of the party elite, and it was not subject to discussion or revision at the local level, then in the USA the prohibitionists achieved their goal in a formally democratic way. The ground was prepared in advance by Protestantism, the religion of the majority. And this branch of Christianity is the least tolerant of drunkenness and other vices of the flesh. For example, back in 1846, Maine banned its residents from drinking. This happened with the filing of the Quaker sect and had religious and political reasons. At some point, 11 more states joined Prohibition, but the civil war that broke out soon changed these local rules. Simply put, the Prohibition of the 1920s is not an isolated and not the first case in the United States.
Ku Klux Klan - prohibitionist.
But at some point the situation became more complicated, the initiative from Protestant conservatives passed to active reformers. In 1869, the Grand Knights Templar formed the Prohibition Party to ban alcohol across the country. Seriously, a real Templar order. In general, the desire to ban people from using ethanol became a trademark of all reformers of that time: liberals dreamed of a wonderful future without drunkards, socialists said that alcohol was a capitalist trick for super profits and clouding the consciousness of the working class. The idea was that for the sake of the freedom of the people it was necessary to tighten up and, breaking all resistance, to ban more than anything.
A fashionable suffragette versus a drunkard.
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It is worth mentioning here that the struggle was not only with the blue, but also with the saloon as a social phenomenon. At that time, the saloon was not only a place of revelry, but for the most part a kind of peasant bastion: they hid from their wives, waged an active political struggle and agitation, as well as oratorical speeches and disputes. Sometimes it all ended with stabbing or shooting, which was the norm for those times. Those who did not drink were deprived of the opportunity to join the political game at the most democratic level. It was impossible to become a prominent figure in power without boozing with your constituents in the saloon.
Caricature of the saloon as a political decision-making site.
A strange, crazy and unexpected alliance of religious conservatives, American nationalists, feminists and socialists resulted in a complete ban on alcohol in the United States. Prohibition is an example of how initially warring radicals, having united for some purpose, were able to dictate their will to the majority of the population. By 1917, alcohol was banned in most states in America. Each time the ban passed at the local level and could be canceled by a second vote. In addition, a third of the states ignored the Anti-Saloon League altogether and rejected its initiatives by a large margin. This situation did not suit the prohibitionists, and in 1917, at the height of World War I, the 18th Amendment was adopted, which completely banned alcohol in the United States. It finally entered into force in 1920.
The opponents of the Anti-Saloon League were divided and did not believe in defeat until the last, but he had another reason. People of those years really decided to become more conscious and stop drinking. What a shock they experienced when, with the introduction of the 1920 ban, it turned out that wine and beer were also on the list of prohibited drinks. Back then, beer was considered something like morning coffee before work or a stress reliever before driving. The people suddenly felt deceived. This is where the fun began.
The people and the dry law
Perhaps the main reason the ban experiment lasted so long was its lousy performance. It took the American underground a couple of years to establish an uninterrupted supply of alcohol, and after this abstinence the people began to drink almost the same as before the ban. The sabotage of Prohibition began to take on a national character. Oftentimes, local politicians have deliberately passed regulations designed to put spokes in the wheels of the feds and make bootlegging easier. Suddenly alcohol has become a fashionable new hobby for men: recipes and discussion have replaced sex and sports as topics of conversation.
The statistics of non-compliance with the law by state is striking. How many people in one way or another violated the dry law? If in Kansas and Utah - only 5%, in Tennessee - 10%, and in Ohio - 20%, then in New York - 95%, Massachusetts and Rhode Island - 75% and 80%, respectively. And in the San Francisco region, 85% of the population just didn't give a damn about the ban. In fact, 31 out of 48 states violated Prohibition almost openly.
To smack, people began to come up with trouble-free consumption patterns. Places have come into vogue where you can safely pop out of a flask and quickly throw it off in the event of a police raid. Ballrooms, stadiums and a private car have become steadfastly associated with drinking. Special cafes, “Speakeasies”, appeared, providing coffee, tea and soda. Bourbon was added to the drinks, and visitors were ready to pay a lot of money for such tea parties. Unsurprisingly, after the ban, American students began to drink much more and more often than before. It is noteworthy that the more prestigious the university was, the more they drank there. This also applied to teachers. Elite Harvard and Princeton were famous as places of maximum concentration of drunkards.
Typical * Speakeasy *.
Non-alcoholic beer (from which they "forgot" to remove alcohol) and the so-called moonshine, rural folk distilling, became gold veins. Moonshine stills in the American wilderness were previously well hidden from the government, and with the adoption of the law, they generally became a source of excellent income. The villagers who drove the Munshine formed something like a separate subculture, not devoid of romance. Films like The World's Drunkest District and numerous documentaries give a good idea of the moonshiners. In short, almost everyone in the country drove and drank.
Moonshine still confiscated by the police.
Bootleggers
Illegal business immediately entered the game. Moreover, many manufacturers initially got involved in lobbying for Prohibition - and when it was passed, it was their hour. The idea of depriving the evil capitalists of their profits actually led to their super profits. There were probably only two groups of people who were truly grateful to the prohibitionists: tycoons and gangsters. Being gay guys, they even sent gifts and stinging thank you cards to the Anti-Saloon League.
Al Capone in 1927.
Al Capone became the most famous and controversial mover of the bootlegging business. His empire did not appear from scratch, he inherited it from his predecessors, James Colosimo and Johnny Torrio. Moreover, Torrio was at one time an accomplice to Colosimo, but when he refused to sell alcohol, he quickly got rid of the boss, taking his place. Torrio just appointed young Al Capone as chief of staff.
The profits from alcohol were huge: if at first Capone received 25 thousand a year, then after a couple of years he earned the same in a week. By 1927, his income was about $ 105 million. Super profits made it possible to bribe not only the police, but also politicians, sometimes even at the federal level. There was enough money for weapons, and for "typewriters," that is, the Thompsons, and for "pineapples," that is, bombs. The soldiers who returned from World War I knew how to use all of this perfectly and massively replenished the gangs of gangsters. The war from Europe moved to the streets of large cities: in three years, 500 bombs were detonated in Chicago alone, and ordinary bandits were killed in shootings by the thousands.
Willie * Wild Eye * and his gang.
Most of the profits went precisely to bribes. The approach justified itself, if only because Capone was able to be imprisoned twice and both times - on the left (keeping weapons and hiding taxes). There were many attempts: at some point, the papers of the treasurer Capone with all the data on suppliers, customers and transactions came to the investigation. The proceedings ended with the judge himself returning the papers to the mafia boss with an apology and closing the case for “lack of evidence”.
Capone's business was set extremely competently: the strategy and tactics of the struggle for power and business creation were well thought out. Families of immigrants were used for local production: instead of building a giant factory that was easy to find and liquidate, a network of hundreds of moonshine stills was created, which stood in apartments. After Prohibition was passed, the entire alcohol industry in Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean could not cope with demand. These countries had to import alcohol from all over the world in order to then illegally export it to the United States.
A business that makes big money has created fierce competition. Even at the height of his fame, Al Capone had to solve problems with rivals gaining strength. The latest in the fight for Chicago was Dean O'Banion, the head of the same ethnic, but already Irish mafia. Previously, he himself tried to remove Capone, brazenly attacking his fiefdom and a real fortress, the Hawthorne Hotel in Cicero. The revenge of the Italian mafia confirms the stereotypes about its insidiousness: for the murder of O'Banion, his hobby, floriculture, was used, and his closest accomplices were physically eliminated, disguised as police officers.
Why were there so many power battles in Chicago? The fact is that from there it was possible to get to Canada by crossing the Great Lakes, and the northeastern United States was originally the center of the fight against the ban, so building relationships with politicians and the police was easier than anywhere else. As a result, it was Chicago that became the center of influence of the mafia in a powerful syndicate of several states.
The statistics show how cleverly and sophisticated the network of bootlegging supplies was built: only 5% of all alcohol was found and confiscated by the police and customs. Many hiding places were made with high quality and talent - the business began to attract craftsmen from almost all possible crafts. All of them, as well as the mafia, were genuinely upset when in 1933 the failed experiment with the ban on alcohol was canceled. The era of Prohibition is over, and completely different times have come.
Alcohol truck disguised as a car with planks.
Why did it all fail miserably
The law turned out to be in the worst sense undemocratic: by the end of the prohibition era, only one in seven citizens supported it. The law was initially promoted by the lobby and ignored the decisions of almost half of the states, where no one ever wanted to vote for this ban.
From a social point of view, the law was an attempt by the Protestant south to use the principles of rural democracy to impose its own moral principles on the townspeople and the inhabitants of industrial areas. A significant part of the townspeople before the very adoption did not really understand what was going on in the legislation.
Individual states are accustomed to local decisions on their own. The actions of the federal government were taken with hostility: they wanted to put everything on the opinion of the metropolitan dudes. As a result - total disregard of all citizens for the law and sympathy for bootleggers.
Demonstration of workers who are tired of the dry law.
In the end, even the teetotal farmers of the south changed their minds: they were ready to sell grain and sugar even to Satan himself. In addition, as a result of the economic shock, a series of personal troubles for millions of Americans began. Most of the population already wanted to pour grief with alcohol, everyone was suddenly not up to moral precepts. The emptied treasury also demanded quick decisions, and the government itself decided to receive money from the sale of alcohol, and there were really a lot of them.
Prohibition did not live up to expectations: instead of reducing crime, it itself caused the development of an underground business; alcohol consumption declined overall, but increased among young people and women, most of the population violated the law, and corruption became commonplace. Permanent poisoning by surrogates has generally become an epidemic in large cities.
Perhaps the most eloquent and fact about the times of Prohibition: even fears about the growth of the drug market did not come true. There was no need for them: any citizen could find a drink without any problems. Plus, blue has become a kind of prestigious product; with the rise in price, the most seedy moonshine began to be perceived as an excellent swill. Drugs in those days were cheap and considered entertainment for the poor. It was impossible to impress a lady with a rebellious character with a sack of cocaine, but even a Harvard student would have taken the dumbest and warmest beer.
Sometimes the best experiment is a failed experiment.
Vladimir Brovin