Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} America Makes Alcohol Illegal by Daniel Cohen 18 Details in the Daily Life of a Bootlegger During Prohibition. While America went dry and its distilleries were closed, those of Canada continued to produce fine . In America before prohibition the favorite whiskey was rye, followed by Scotch, and bourbon’s appeal was limited to the south for the most part. During Prohibition Americans developed a taste for Canadian whiskey. Bootleggers brought alcohol from Canada to the via the Great Lakes, or moved it to sea via the St. Lawrence River, where the ships carrying it joined the others on Rum Row, which became so crowded off of New Jersey, an important delivery point since it was near New York City and Philadelphia, that as many as 75 ships could be seen from the shore at times. The ships on Rum Row, particularly those from Canada, offered further enticements to bootleggers to whom they wanted to sell their wares, including prostitutes who would provide free services to the bootleggers while their cargo was being transferred. Some ships flew banners advertising the beverages available for sale, and the prices. A Pacific Rum Row developed of the west coast of the United States, fed by ships from the western Canadian ports, and off southern California where South American rum was offered for sale to the bootleggers. The Gulf of Mexico was also crowded with shipping delivering products in demand by thirsty Americans. As on land, where bootleggers were increasingly at war with their competitors by the mid-twenties, their sea based fellows were soon in arms against each other in territorial disputes. Chicago’s operated an important smuggling base on the island of Miquelon, a French possession near Newfoundland, and his ships left the island for rendezvous with the small craft armed with machine guns. Capone was just as determined to protect his water routes as he was his territory on the streets of Chicago, and just as ruthless in doing so. Prohibition : America Makes Alcohol Illegal. Cohen's book on Prohibition does well in summarizing the history of the "noble experiment." The early history of alcohol in America is colorful as it produced a large role in the American Revolution . Читать весь отзыв. LibraryThing Review. Prohibtion, by Daniel Cohen, is a specialized book on the formations, enactment, and legacy of the 18th Amendment. This is a well-balanced book, giving perspectives from a wide range of sources on the . Читать весь отзыв. 10 Things You Should Know About Prohibition. In the early 19th century, religious revivalists and early teetotaler groups like the American Temperance Society campaigned relentlessly against what they viewed as a nationwide scourge of drunkenness. The activists scored a major victory in 1851, when the Maine legislature passed a statewide prohibition on selling alcohol. A dozen other states soon instituted “Maine Laws” of their own, only to repeal them a few years later after widespread opposition and riots from grog-loving citizens (Kansas later instituted a separate ban in 1881). Calls for a “dry” America continued into the 1910s, when deep-pocketed and politically connected groups such as the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union gained widespread support for anti-alcohol legislation on Capitol Hill. 2. World War I helped turn the nation in favor of Prohibition. Prohibition was all but sealed by the time the United States entered World War I in 1917, but the conflict served as one of the last nails in the coffin of legalized alcohol. Dry advocates argued that the barley used in brewing beer could be made into bread to feed American soldiers and war-ravaged Europeans, and they succeeded in winning wartime bans on strong drink. Anti-alcohol crusaders were often fueled by xenophobia, and the war allowed them to paint America’s largely German brewing industry as a threat. “We have German enemies in this country, too,” one temperance politician argued. “And the worst of all our German enemies, the most treacherous, the most menacing, are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz and Miller.” 3. It wasn’t illegal to drink alcohol during Prohibition. The 18th Amendment only forbade the “manufacture, sale and transportation of intoxicating ”—not their consumption. By law, any wine, beer or spirits Americans had stashed away in January 1920 were theirs to keep and enjoy in the privacy of their homes. For most, this amounted to only a few bottles, but some affluent drinkers built cavernous wine cellars and even bought out whole store inventories to ensure they had healthy stockpiles of legal hooch. 4. Some states refused to enforce Prohibition. Along with creating an army of federal agents, the 18th Amendment and the stipulated that individual states should enforce Prohibition within their own borders. Governors resented the added strain on their public coffers, however, and many neglected to appropriate any money toward policing the alcohol ban. Maryland never even enacted an enforcement code, and eventually earned a reputation as one of the most stubbornly anti-Prohibition states in the Union. New York followed suit and repealed its measures in 1923, and other states grew increasingly lackadaisical as the decade wore on. “National prohibition went into legal effect upward of six years ago,” Maryland Senator William Cabell Bruce told Congress in the mid-1920s, “but it can be truly said that, except to a highly qualified extent, it has never gone into practical effect at all.” 5. Drug stores continued selling alcohol as “medicine.” New York City police officer examines confiscated alcohol. (Credit: Art Edger/NY Daily News/Getty Images) The Volstead Act included a few interesting exceptions to the ban on distributing alcohol. Sacramental wine was still permitted for religious purposes (the number of questionable rabbis and priests soon skyrocketed), and drug stores were allowed to sell “medicinal whiskey” to treat everything from toothaches to the flu. With a physician’s prescription, “patients” could legally buy a pint of hard liquor every ten days. This pharmaceutical booze often came with seemingly laughable doctor’s orders such as “Take three ounces every hour for stimulant until stimulated.” Many eventually operated under the guise of being pharmacies, and legitimate chains flourished. According to Prohibition historian Daniel Okrent, windfalls from legal alcohol sales helped the drug store chain Walgreens grow from around 20 locations to more than 500 during the 1920s. 6. Winemakers and brewers found creative ways to stay afloat. While many small distilleries and breweries continued to operate in secret during Prohibition, the rest had to either shut their doors or find new uses for their factories. Yuengling and Anheuser Busch both refitted their breweries to make ice cream, while Coors doubled down on the production of pottery and ceramics. Others produced “near beer”—legal brew that contained less than 0.5 percent alcohol. The lion’s share of brewers kept the lights on by peddling malt syrup, a legally dubious extract that could be easily made into beer by adding water and yeast and allowing time for fermentation. Winemakers followed a similar route by selling chunks of grape concentrate called “wine bricks.” 7. Thousands died from drinking tainted liquor. Enterprising bootleggers produced millions of gallons of “” and rotgut during Prohibition. This illicit hooch had a famously foul taste, and those desperate enough to drink it also ran the risk of being struck blind or even poisoned. The most deadly tinctures contained industrial alcohol originally made for use in fuels and medical supplies. The federal government had required companies to denature industrial alcohol to make it undrinkable as early as 1906, but during Prohibition it ordered them to add quinine, methyl alcohol and other toxic chemicals as a further deterrent. Coupled with the other low-quality products on offer from bootleggers, this tainted booze may have killed more than 10,000 people before the repeal of the 18th Amendment. 8. The Great Depression helped fuel calls for a repeal. By the late 1920s, Americans were spending more money than ever on black market booze. New York City boasted more than 30,000 speakeasies, and Detroit’s alcohol trade was second only to the auto industry in its contribution to the economy. With the country bogged down by the Great Depression, anti-Prohibition activists argued that potential savings and tax revenue from alcohol were too precious to ignore. The public agreed. After Franklin D. Roosevelt called for a repeal during the 1932 presidential campaign, he won the election in a landslide. Prohibition was dead a year later, when a majority of states ratified the 21st Amendment repealing the 18th. In New Orleans, the decision was honored with 20 minutes of celebratory cannon fire. Roosevelt supposedly marked the occasion by downing a dirty martini. . Prohibition in Canada came about as a result of the . It called for moderation or total abstinence from alcohol, based on the belief that drinking was responsible for many of society’s ills. The Canada Temperance Act ( Scott Act ) of 1878 gave local governments the “” to ban the sale of alcohol. Prohibition was first enacted on a provincial basis in Prince Edward Island in 1901. It became law in the remaining provinces, as well as in Yukon and Newfoundland, during the First World War. Liquor could be legally produced in Canada (but not sold there) and legally exported out of Canadian ports. Most provincial laws were repealed in the 1920s. PEI was the last to give up the “the noble experiment” in 1948. Liquor barrels emptied into the lake at Elk Lake, Ontario, during Prohibition. The Temperance Campaign. Prohibition was the result of generations of effort by temperance workers to close bars and taverns. They were seen as the source of much misery in an age before social welfare existed. Temperance activists and their allies believed that alcohol, especially hard liquor, was an obstacle to economic success; to social cohesion; and to moral and religious purity. The main temperance organizations were the Dominion Alliance for the Total Suppression of the Liquor Traffic and the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. The newsletter of the latter was the Canadian White Ribbon Tidings . The Temperance struggle was connected to other reform efforts of the time, such as the women’s suffrage movement. It was also motivated in part by Social Gospel beliefs. 19th Century Prohibition. Various pre-Confederation laws against the sale of alcohol had been passed, including the Dunkin Act in the Province of Canada in 1864. It allowed any county or municipality to prohibit the retail sale of liquor by majority vote. In 1878, this “local option” was extended to the whole Dominion under the Canada Temperance Act , or Scott Act . By 1898, the temperance forces were strong enough to force a national plebiscite on the issue. But the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier decided that the majority of 13,687 votes cast in favour of prohibition was not large enough to warrant passing a law; especially since Quebec had voted overwhelmingly against it. Much of the country was already “dry” under local option. Full provincial bans would eventually emerge. Wartime Sacrifice. Prohibition was first enacted on a provincial basis in Prince Edward Island in 1901. It became law in the remaining provinces — as well as in Yukon and in Newfoundland (which did not join Confederation until 1949) — during the First World War. Prohibition was widely seen at the time as a patriotic duty and a social sacrifice, to help win the war. ( See also Wartime Home Front.) Unlike in the United States, banning booze in Canada was complicated by the shared jurisdiction over alcohol-related laws between Ottawa and the provinces. The provinces controlled sales and consumption. The federal government oversaw the making and trading of alcohol. ( See Distribution of Powers.) In March 1918, Ottawa stopped, for the remainder of the First World War, the manufacture and importation of liquor into provinces where purchase was already illegal. Blind Pigs and Rum Running. Provincial temperance laws varied. In general, they closed legal drinking establishments and forbade the sale of alcohol as well as its possession and consumption; except in a private dwelling. In some provinces, domestic wines were exempt. Alcohol could be purchased through government dispensaries for industrial, scientific, mechanical, artistic, sacramental and medicinal uses. Distillers and brewers and others properly licensed could sell outside the province. Although enforcement was difficult, drunkenness and associated crimes declined significantly. However, illicit stills and home-brewed “moonshine” proliferated. Much inferior booze hit the streets. But good liquor was readily available, since its manufacture was permitted after the war. Bootlegging (the illegal sale of alcohol as a beverage) rose dramatically; as did the number of unlawful drinking places known as “speakeasies” or “blind pigs.” One way to drink legally was to be “ill,” since doctors could give prescriptions to be filled at drugstores. Abuse of this system resulted, with veritable epidemics and long queues occurring during the Christmas holiday season. A dramatic aspect of the prohibition era was rum running. By constitutional amendment, the United States was under even stricter prohibition from 1920 to 1933 than was Canada. The manufacture, sale, and transportation of all beer, wines, and spirits were forbidden there. Liquor could, however, be legally produced in Canada (but not sold there) and legally exported out of Canadian ports. This created the odd situation of allowing smugglers to leave Canada with shiploads of alcohol destined for their “dry” neighbour, under the protection of Canadian law. Smuggling, often accompanied by violence, erupted in border areas and along the coasts. Political cartoons in newspapers showed leaky maps of Canada with Uncle Sam attempting to stem the tide of alcohol. Repeal of Prohibition Laws. Prohibition was too short-lived in Canada to engender any real success. Opponents maintained that it violated British traditions of individual liberty; and that settling the matter by referendum or plebiscite was a departure from Canadian parliamentary practice. Quebec rejected it as early as 1919 and became known as the “sinkhole” of North America. Tourists flocked to “historic old Quebec” and the provincial government reaped huge profits from the sale of booze. In 1920, British Columbia voted to go “wet.” By the following year, some alcoholic beverages were legally sold there and in Yukon through government stores. Manitoba inaugurated a system of government sale and control of alcohol in 1923, followed by Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1924; Newfoundland in 1925; Ontario and New Brunswick in 1927; and Nova Scotia in 1930. The last bastion, Prince Edward Island, finally gave up “the noble experiment” in 1948. Pockets of dryness under local option continued for years throughout the country. 18 Details in the Daily Life of a Bootlegger During Prohibition. Women were widely believed to be subject to more lenient treatment in the courts and by the police if arrested, and for this reason many were recruited by bootleggers to serve alcohol at businesses frequented by women. Beauty parlors and tea rooms became places of resort for women who did not want to gain disrepute by entering a unescorted, but nonetheless wanted a glass of wine or an alcoholic concoction. Bridge parties and teas served at home became places where the bootlegger’s services and products were welcome, and with many women aghast at the idea of associating with so seedy a character as a male bootlegger, female bootleggers carved out their own niche, which expanded to diners and other businesses run by women. Of course brothels, which were often frequented by the political powers of the cities and towns in which they were located, were a source of illegal alcohol as well, and nearly all of them were run by madams, who ran them more or less independently of the bootlegging syndicates, though it was from them that they obtained their product. The quality of the liquor served was one factor on which many brothels were rated, and the madams of some served the best liquor in town.