"Tonight a minute after 12, a new nation will be born.The demon of the drink makes a will.An era of clear ideas and clean manners begins.The slums will soon be a thing of the past.jails and correctional facilities will be empty; we will transform them into big factories and granaries.All men will walk upright again, all women will smile, and the children will laugh again.The gates of hell are closed forever.”
These These are the words pronounced by the United States Senator Andrew Volstead, which announced the entry into force of the one named in his honor as Volstead Law , better known as Dry Law , and commonly referred to by those who suffered as "The Prohibition."
The Dry Law, which would turn millions of honest citizens into criminals , was born on January 17, 1920 with the approval of the XVIII Amendment to the Constitution of the United States , whereby the manufacture, sale, transport and export of alcoholic beverages throughout the territory was prohibited national.It would remain in force until 1933, thirteen years that would give veracity to the statement that "Prohibition is the mother of desire."
The Beginnings of the Dry Law
The Volstead Law would raise the limits on the role of the State, and to what extent people can be told how to live their lives.It was a law that would confront the rural world with the urban, Protestants and Catholics, the natives with newcomers.But to understand the Dry Law or “Prohibition Law”, we have to go deeper into the context of the complex historical moment in which it occurred.
The 19th century was the century of the great settlements in the United States.The end of the War of Secession (1861-1865) , meant the occupation of large areas of territory before emptied.The new settlers would base their subsistence essentially on agriculture.os vast cereal fields , mostly corn, and whose surplus would be used in the best possible way, resulting in the birth of a new beverage, corn whiskey or Bourbon , which was so valuable that it came to be considered an authentic currency.Records of the time, speak of large land transactions that were paid for with whiskey.These were times when an average American consumed a equivalent to 88 bottles of whiskey per year.At that time, the country's expenditure on alcohol exceeded the total budget of the Federal Government.Prisons, asylums and charity houses were brimming with alcoholics ; therefore, cases of abandonment, child malnutrition and domestic violence multiplied.A large part of the country began to think with concern that the United States was becoming a country of drunks.
The restlessness increasesThe instantaneous of the time, it is that of a conservative America with an eminently Protestant ideology, which linked alcohol with a climate of decay, associating it with poverty, disease, crime, prostitution and other moral vices.That is why they begin to emerge numerous movements against alcohol.Peculiar was the case of 6 regular Baltimore drinkers, who meet and promise not to drink again, founding what they proudly called the first Reformed Drunk Society , to the one that gave the name of its first president, so that from now on they would be known as The Washitonians .They are followed by numerous organizations emerging in churches with names such as The Sons of Temperance or The Knights of Jericho , and political organizations such as the League Antitabernas , which formed the lobby in favor of the strongest prohibition in the country.
But, because of their importance, perhaps the most important thing was the female involvement in these movements.It was from them that women expressed their opinions for the first time in the United States.His champion was Frances Elisabeth Caroline Willard , pioneer in the defense of women's rights and education.I lead what was known as the Women's Union for Christian Temperance and, in partnership with the Movement for Female Suffrage , forever articulate the movement for temperance with the struggle for women's equality.
Despite the existence of all these concerns, the taverns would remain the escape valve for workers of the early twentieth century.For those who lived in a miserable rental house, the tavern was like the living room of his house, a social club where they could collect the payroll checks, pick up correspondence, find out who hired, or even get a lock Jo in the town hall.On occasion, the owners of the taverns were also politicians who offered jobs with a discretionary character.The bars were places for the union of unions, brotherhoods and immigrant associations.Elections were voted and held vigils.private clubs of the working class.
But the Volstead Law, already present in rural settings and some small cities, was simmering, and no one imagined what it would mean to open the Pandora's box.
The years of the ban
On January 17, 1920 , the disappearance of the legal drink offer alcoholic, but not for that reason, the decrease in demand.After years of struggle and campaign, approving the amendment of the Dry Law had been one thing; enforcing it would be another very different song.Its defenders would soon realize that putting it into practice would be a much more difficult mission.
After the entry into force of the law, some clues are glimpsed of its effectiveness ; reduces alcohol consumption by one third, as well as related murders , and arrests for drunkenness in public places.Most distilleries had to close.huge liquor stores closed down.Some Californian vineyards began replacing the vines with plums and apricots.Many of the most important breweries, were dedicated to the soft drinks manufacturing and non-alcoholic beer substitutes.time when Coca-Cola multiplies its production by two.It was a sweet moment for the defenders of temperance, however, a chimera that very soon would show its true face.
Not all states ratified The Dry Law immediately, but that its establishment was progressive, thus there was a alcohol circulation from s wet to dry states.The price of the bottles multiplied, and with it the profits and the temptation to profit.
Many challenged the ban from the outset, some for not conceiving the power of State to prohibit the drink, others simply because they seem ridiculous.The entry into force of the Dry Law, meant the cessation of what was the fifth productive sector of the country. Thousands of workers would lose their work , like that hundreds of thousands who worked in related sectors; transporters, barrel makers, bottlers, cereal producers and waiters.The refusal to abide by the law soon became omnipresent. Clandestine bars arose everywhere, just as the domestic manufacturing of homemade concoctions.Congressmen and senators, doctors and pharmacists, federal agents and police, priests and rabbis; everyone would find a way to make money by mocking the law.And the situation was only going to get worse.
Many of the criminal organizations who engaged in gambling and prostitution, interpreted that a new product had gone from legality to illegality.A new submerged market was born overnight, which constituted a very complete and lucrative new activity to be dedicated to.
Kings of the smuggling
The demand for alcohol was unlimited in big cities, and the Dry Law was the opportunity for intelligent men, although of questionable moral principles, to make a fortune.
One of the Most important gangsters during the Dry Law period was Angelo Genna , nicknamed the Bloody .He was a Sicilian who paid his countrymen the trip from Sicily.Upon arriving in New York He gave them a 20-liter still.The instructions were simple: fill half of water, add a couple of kilos of sugar, fill the rest with corn kernels and bring it to a boil.At the end of the day a person produced about 7 liters of distilled pure alcohol.It is believed that I have up to 3000 workers at the same time.
But not only the manufacturers won di nero, also the intermediaries, and more if they were ready. Dominic Sarno was the example.When the illegal alcohol business was running smoothly, it occurred to him that with a small investment he could increase revenues considerably.Dominic and his partners made friends with some label recorders.After “kidnapping them” to provide them with a cover before the police and do their job, they were fired in any corner of the city.With the proper label, any concoction would turn bad in a branded liquor that multiplied its price in the market.
George Remus and «The Circle»Many got rich and became powerful thanks to the illegal liquor traffic but, as much as they wanted to, they would always be in the shadow of the man who raised the greatest smuggling empire in history. George Remus, despite being abstemious, it was smuggling what Rockefeller to oil, besides most famous criminal lawyer in the United States.
The story of Remus begins defending gangsters and gangsters.His work was a sure way to make a living, but something he would tire of very soon.One of the things that fascinated him was the ease with which his clients, usually very basic people and of questionable intelligence, took out generous pockets of bills with which they paid at the moment, and without hardly being disturbed, the high fines that the judges imposed on them.Tired of advocating small-scale gangsters, Remus would soon take advantage of the situation and the position he was in.Study the Volstead Law , determined to take advantage of it to his weak points , and so he discovered that breaking the law was much more lucrative than defending it.distilleries with the cover of selling alcohol for medicinal purposes.By setting up your own pharmaceutical company and manipulating the accounting to add shipments that would never reach your destination, I create my own method that you would call "The Circle" .maintain an empire that produced millions of dollars a year and extended from New York to California, bribery to an entire army of police, federal agents and public officials.Please fall into the hands of justice accused of committing all kinds of crimes, his passing through prison was only testimonial.
Scofflaws, the Law-Takers
The year is 1924 and the Dry Law is in full swing.newspaper Boston Herald, in a challenge to its readers, offered 200 dollars to anyone who invented a term to designate those who skipped the ban 25,000 were the suggestions, but the prize was divided between two participants that coincided in his answer this one. "Scofflaw" was the word chosen by the newspaper; literally means Mocker of the Law.
These were times when alcohol was not difficult to get out of it.Still, many opted for ingenuity to get some drink inside of the legal margins.Under medical prescription, every 10 days it was possible to obtain a maximum of half a liter of rum, whiskey or bourbon per patient.There were many cases in which suspicious diseases affected entire families.
Out of respect for religious beliefs, the wine for masses Christian and Jewish also had a legal exception .Once a priest came to declare that a quarter of what the church bought was mass, and that the rest was sacrilegious.Yes, from 1920 the religious congregations multiplied by 10 their parishioners .
Similarly, Jewish families were allowed an amount of wine per year, but they had to have the certification of a rabbi.Unlike being ordained a priest, to be a rabbi, membership of an ecclesiastical order, or the approval of a religious institution, was not necessary.This resulted in the proliferation of the number of men who declared themselves rabbis .This is how clergymen with Irish surnames like O'Kelly or O'Callahan and in even black rabbis, a fraud motivated to get some alcohol, good to drink or earn extra income in such difficult times.
The last dry years
The Dry Law will they called the noble experiment .However, I create more problems than it solved.It remained stubbornly for 13 years leading to almost a whole country to crime and contempt for the law.At the end of the years 20, more and more people would consider it a mistake.Some suggested that just repealing Amendment XVIII would end the escalation of crime, anarchy, corruption and hypocrisy that it had generated.It had been spared in the past by its approval.
Sectors of society before in favor of the prohibition began to position themselves against the prospect of new jobs and the reopening of the alcohol market, guided more and more public opinion to want to legalize the drink.That is when groups like the Association against the Prohibition Amendment emerge. The daring in the cities was growing and the clandestine bars prospered despite the continuous closures and raids.Each bar that closed closed two more, and the country that had banned alcohol would become the largest importer of cocktail shakers.
The attitude towards the law began to change, and it is women again, who so much had been done to approve, those who would lead the crusade against.It is in this way that, in the decade of the 30s, women totally change the way they behave and their attitude towards considered politically correct.They begin to frequent taverns and pubs , which until now had been places reserved for men.This release seemed to be associated with alcohol consumption.It was the beginning of the time when boys and girls lay down together, the origins of Jazz, the beginning of a new sexual revolution.
The final blow to the ban is in the year 1932 .They run the years after the Great Depression and a lot of money it is dedicated to a meaningless law and from which no results were obtained.It is the year in which Franklin Delano Roosevelt is presented to the elections, positioning himself in favor of the repeal of the Volstead law, and sweeping in 42 of the 48 States.Less than a month after the inauguration of the new president, amendment XXI, which would repeal the XVIII, would be presented and approved without any difficulty.
After 13 years, on April 7, 1933 , the Americans could com Pray legally for the first time a bottle of beer.Less than a year after the ban was abolished in all the States of America.The noble experiment had come to an end.After the devastating consequences it had for morals, politics, government and the economy, after seeing that it was a real failure, the most surprising legacy of the prohibition, is that today it is much harder to drink in the United States than when it was prohibited by law.
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Images: FishInWater, elycefeliz, Tony Fischer
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