American Prohibition :: essays research papers fc

Prohibition   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On midnight of January 16, 1920, one of the started around the turn of the century, when many people got the idea that most of what was wrong with America was caused by boozepersonal habits and customs of most Americans came to a sudden halt. It . They saw prohibition as the silver hammer that would decimate all of their alky-related woes. Instead, it turned out to be the lodestone that lead America into thirteen years of chaos. The eighteenth amendment was ineffective because it was unenforceable, it caused an explosive growth in crime, and it increased the amount of alcohol consumption.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Eighteenth Amendment was put into effect to prohibit the manufacture, sale and transportation of all intoxicating liquors. Shortly afterward, the Volstead Act, named for author Andrew J. Volstead, was put into effect. This complimentary law determined intoxicating liquor as anything having an alcohol content of more than 0.5 percent, omitting alcohol used for medicinal and sacramental purposes; this act set up guidelines for enforcement as well (Altman 15). Prohibition was meant to reduce the consumption of alcohol, and thereby reduce crime, poverty, death rates, and improve the economy and general quality of life. This, however, was undoubtedly to no avail.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After the Volstead Act was put into place to determine precise laws and methods of enforcement, the Federal Prohibition Bureau was developed in order to see that the Volstead Act was enforced. Nevertheless, these laws were frequently violated by bootleggers and commoners alike. Bootleggers smuggled liquor from overseas and Canada, stole it from government warehouses, and produced their own. Many people hid their liquor in hip flasks, false books, hollow canes, and anything else they could find. (Bowen 159). There were also illegal speakeasies which replaced saloons soon after the start of prohibition. By 1925, there were over 100,000 speakeasies in New York City alone (Bowen 160). As good as the ideal sounded, prohibition was far easier to proclaim than to enforce. With only 1,550 federal agents and over 18,700 miles of extensive coastline, it was quite impossible to prevent large quantities of liquor from entering the country (Bowen 166). Barely five percent of s muggled liquor was hindered from coming into the country through the 1920s. Additionally, the illegal liquor industry was under the control of organized gangs, which subdued most authorities. Many bootleggers shielded their business by bribing the authorities, namely federal agents and persons of high political status (Bowen 160).