American Prohibition :: essays research papers fc

ProhibitionOn midnight of January 16, 1920, one of the started around the knock over of the century, when many people got the idea that most of what was wrong with America was ca apply 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 otiose because it was unenforceable, it caused an explosive growth in crime, and it increased the amount of alcohol consumption.The ordinal Amendment was put into effect to prohibit the manufacture, sale and transportation of all uplift strong drinks. Shortly afterward, the Volstead run, named for author Andrew J. Volstead, was put into effect. This complimentary law determined shake up spirits as anything having an alcohol content of more than 0.5 percent, omitting alcohol used for medicinal and sacrame ntal purposes this act set up guidelines for enforcement as healthful (Altman 15). Prohibition was meant to reduce the consumption of alcohol, and thitherby reduce crime, poverty, death rates, and remediate the economy and general quality of life. This, however, was undoubtedly to no avail. After the Volstead Act was put into place to determine precise laws and methods of enforcement, the Federal Prohibition delegacy was developed in order to see that the Volstead Act was enforced. Nevertheless, these laws were frequently break by bootleggers and commoners alike. Bootleggers smuggled liquor from overseas and Canada, stole it from government warehouses, and produced their own. many another(prenominal) people hid their liquor in hip flasks, false books, hollow canes, and anything else they could find. (Bowen 159). in that location were also illegal speakeasies which replaced saloons soon after the start of prohibition. By 1925, there were over 100,000 speakeasies in New York Cit y alone (Bowen 160). As just as the ideal sounded, prohibition was far easier to proclaim than to enforce. With only 1,550 federal official 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 smuggled liquor was hindered from coming into the country through the 1920s. Additionally, the illegal liquor industry was on a lower floor the control of organized gangs, which subdued most authorities. Many bootleggers shielded their duty by bribing the authorities, namely federal agents and persons of high political status (Bowen 160).