—46— O’Shaughnessy’s • Summer 2009 FDR’s Defining Moment: Ending Alcohol Prohibition THE DEFINING MOMENT: FDR’S 100 Roosevelt had long hedged on this is- DAYS AND THE TRIUMPH OF H OPE By sue. He had expressed the fervent hope The quick amendment of Jonathan Alter. Simon & Schuster, New that it would disappear from politics. It the Volstead Act is one of the York, 2009, 415 pages, $29.95 did not, but it changed in a direction fa- Reviewed by Fred Gardner vorable to the Democrats. By the end of least appreciated elements of Jonathan Alter writes for Newsweek the 1920s —a decade of speakeasies, how FDR changed the and is a frequent guest of Keith Olber- raids by Treasury men, gang wars, and country’s psyche during the mann’s. He’s one of those liberals we intemperance— New York Republicans appreciate when the rightwingers are in were finding prohibition to be a politi- Hundred Days charge but who lose their critical edge cal liability. Roosevelt had no intention when their crowd gets in. of running as a wet. But when he heard Fireside Chat on March 12, he reviewed It’s easy to imagine Alter pitching the that the probable Republican nominee the 1932 Democratic Party platform, idea for this book to a publisher as the was about to come out for repeal, the which called for amending the Volstead prospect of a liberal Democrat in the governor moved fast to outflank him on Act to legalize 3.2 beer.* The 18th White House became a likelihood, and the wet side. In a letter to Senator Wagner Amendment, which launched Prohibi- easy to picture the president-elect read- in September 1930 he favored outright tion in 1918, was aimed at hard liquor ing it as he prepared to take office. repeal [of the 18th Amendment] and the and permitted the legalization of bever- What would “The Defining Moment” Franklin Delano Roosevelt restoring of liquor control to the states. ages with less alcohol. So FDR issued a have taught or reminded Barack Obama It was a potent move. The Republicans three-sentence message to Congress on about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s de- by a slim margin while Smith lost to failed to pick up much wet support, yet legalizing beer. The next day, March 13, cision to end alcohol Prohibition? What Herbert Hoover and failed to carry New they outraged the drys upstate... the House was preparing to recess when lessons might Obama apply in dealing York. There was a heavy overlap be- “Time for Beer” it received FDR’s message. It stayed in with marijuana Prohibition? (And why tween Smith’s “dry” adversaries and Roosevelt was sworn in on March 4. session, immediately passed the bill on does the word require a capital P?) anti-Catholic voters. On election night On Sunday evening March 12 he ad- beer, and sent it to the Senate. As FDR Like millions of other Americans, Smith reportedly said, “Well, the time dressed the nation on the radio. The knew, under Senate rules, senators could FDR, personally, never abided by the ban just hasn’t come yet when a man can say memorable intro was drafted by a CBS not consider modifying the Volstead Act on alcohol. It had taken effect in Janu- his beads in the White House.” station manager: “The president wants until they voted on the Economy Bill, ary, 1920 after Congress passed and 45 By 1932, when Roosevelt was run- to come into your home and sit at your which was on the floor first. So they states ratified a Constitutional Amend- ning for President, a pledge to repeal the fireside for a little fireside chat.” swallowed the bitter budget pill that af- ment (the 18th) banning “the manufac- Volstead Act and legalize 3.2 beer was FDR had written his speech with a ternoon and chased it down with a beer ture, sale, or transportation of intoxicat- the key distinction between his platform worker in mind —a man he had been vote the next day, effective immediately. ing liquors.” Congress also passed the and Herbert Hoover’s. Their stated plans watching take down the inaugural scaf- “The quick amendment of the Volstead Act, which defined “intoxicat- to revive the economy were not that dif- folding. Roosevelt’s voice had a calm Volstead Act is one of the least appreci- ing liquors” as any drink more than 0.5% ferent. After two years of relying on the tone, which Alter describes lyrically: ated elements of how FDR changed the alcohol by weight. private sector to voluntarily respond to “The voice conjured memories of a lost country’s psyche during the Hundred Alter first mentions Prohibition in the depression, Hoover had launched world, before the bitterness of economic Days. Although formal repeal of Prohi- describing a period in the mid-1920s versions of many reforms we associate ruin, a world where the well-liked scion bition would not come until the end of when FDR, stricken with polio, was with the New Deal. “Public works, agri- of the well-to-do family on the hill went the year, beer parties were held all over spending a lot of time aboard a yacht cultural price stabilization, bank restruc- off to college, then returned to preside the country starting in March. At 12:01 with his secretary, Missy LeHand: turing, and even a bit of federally sup- over the community with an easy be- a.m. on the first day of legal beer, Ha- “Missy and Franklin entertained a stream ported relief were begun under Hoover,” nevolence.” Will Rogers —the Stephen waiian guitarists drew a crowd as a truck of visitors with plenty of drinking (dur- according to Alter. Colbert of his day— said of the speech, from Washington’s Abner Drury Brew- ing Prohibition)...” Alter doesn’t tell us why FDR’s line “He made everyone understand it, even ery pulled up at the White House with a Running for the governorship of New on Prohibition shifted between 1928 and the bankers.” sign: PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, THE York in 1928 Roosevelt distanced him- ’32, but James MacGregor Burns did in “After the first Fireside Chat,” writes FIRST BEER IS FOR YOU. In Times self from then-governor Al Smith, the a biography called “Roosevelt: the Lion Alter, “Roosevelt relaxed in his office Square, bands played ‘Happy Days Are Democratic candidate for President, a and the Fox.” In those days the New York with Howe and Rosenman [two top Here Again.” H.L. Mencken, tipping a “wet” who forthrightly opposed Prohi- governor’s term was two years, so aides]. About 11:30 p.m. he said: ‘I think few in Baltimore, decided that maybe bition. FDR didn’t want to risk alienat- Roosevelt had to run for re-election in it’s time for beer.’ Preparations for a bill Roosevelt wasn’t so bad after all. ‘Some- ing “dry” voters in upstate New York, 1930. “Two possible danger areas to speed the end of Prohibition began that thing was happening immediately! Bars so he took the “damp” middle position loomed for the Democrats,” Burns night.” were opening overnight, with every other —leave it up to the states. Roosevelt won recounts.“One of these was prohibition. The Myth of the First 100 Days beer on the house!” recalled author Studs Alter’s book could have been struc- Terkel, explaining how the news played tured as a debunking of the First-Hun- for a young man growing up in Chicago. “Old Dr. Roosevelt” dred-Days myth. “The hundred days ‘In the midst of the Depression it was a In 1926 Roosevelt spent most of his inheritance from his father on a ram- themselves have been so mythologized note of hope that something would be shackle old resort near Bullochville, Georgia, soon renamed Warm Springs. that the real ones are barely recogniz- better.” “From the start, Roosevelt found that the steaming mineral water allowed able,” he observes. “Most of the land- Whether or not Barack Obama has him to swim for longer and even eventually stand unaided in the pool. It re- mark New Deal accomplishments that read, “The Defining Moment,” he is kindled the risk taker and optimist within,” according to Alter. endure to this day —the Securities and ceretainly aware of the analogies to FDR A syndicated story about FDR in the Atlanta Journal drew hundreds of people Exchange Commission (1934), Social ending alcohol prohibition as he consid- crippled by polio to Warm Springs. “Roosevelt often administered the muscle Security (1935) and the pro-union leg- ers how to deal with marijuana. Evi- strength tests personally. He pioneered not just a makeshift type of hydrotherapy islation like the Wagner Act (1935)— dently —and to our disappointment and but an early form of mind-body treatment, with great emphasis on helping pa- date from later in the decade. The open- shame— the new president is not going tients build confidence in muscle recovery and in themselves. Most of them ing act of the Roosevelt administration to bring the troops home swiftly or en- were well-to-do or middle class polio victims who had been locked away in brought fewer structural changes than is act single-payer healthcare or push bedrooms and hospitals and arrived in Georgia suffering great guilt that they assumed... Some of the new laws sim- through pro-union legislation. And yet were not contributing to their families, the same sense of useless and hopeless- ply extended Hoover’s efforts... he could win the enduring respect and ness later experienced during the depression by the unemployed.” “For all of the liberal reveries of later affection of the masses, and there’ll be FDR was “completely in his element,” writes Alter, “in ways he may never years, the first thrust of the Hundred dancing in the streets, if only he would have been before.