Explain why Prohibition was Repealed in 1933.

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Amy Jenkins 10D                        

Explain why Prohibition was Repealed in 1933

        

On the 16th January 1920 the prohibition law was introduced, yet almost immediately people began to question whether or to this law would work. People were finding it too easy to break these laws as secret saloons called speakeasies opened in cities everywhere. Those who smuggled the alcohol were known as bootleggers. It was easy for people to smuggle the alcohol into America because of the large border. This caused violent crimes to spread throughout the USA.

        There were two main reasons for the failure of prohibition. The first being that there were not enough officials to enforce the law. America has a large border meaning the officials could not main the whole border. Many officials ended up being bribed into not reporting the bootleggers, which did not reduce the crime at all.

        The second reason for the failure of prohibition was that gangs and criminals moved into the bootleg business, and were making so much money that they were feared and would also bribe the authorities, judges and officials to co-operate with them. The gangsters caused massacres and the St Valentines Massacre was a turning point for prohibition. People started to realise the dramatic failure of the law, and so when the Wall Street crash and the depression hit the USA in the early 1930s’ it was obvious that legalising alcohol would create jobs helping people out of the depression.

        With all these problems, people were still getting drunk, so even with the law drunkenness hardly decreased. This made people begin to realise that by repealing the law alcohol would help get the taxes from it so the USA could stop wasting money on enforcement, which was not helping.

        On The 5th December 1933, the 18th Amendment was repealed when the Democrat Roosevelt won the 1932 elections.

        In 1917 at the start of World War 1, many supported the Anti- saloon league; many brewers had been German immigrants so people claimed that by drinking it would make them traitors.

The lack of support for prohibition started to decrease as the violent crimes increased throughout the USA more and more Americans turned against prohibition, the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Society set up campaigns to end prohibition in the same way they had originally campaigned for it to be introduced. The Anti-Saloon League had a lot of support. The Great Depression helped the case for change. Legalising alcohol could help to create jobs and the government could get taxes from alcohol and stop wasting the money on enforcement. This was an economic problem for America making it a long-term cause

Bootleggers smuggled alcohol from Canada, Mexico and the coastlines. Speakeasies were illegal drinking salons where people such as the smugglers would drink. Some smugglers made moonshine, which was an illegally brewed poison. The only problem with the liquor trade was that gangsters found huge fortunes and businesses in selling the illegal liquor

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There were great problems enforcing the law, the prohibition bureau was set up to fight the bootleggers, yet many of the authorities in the bureau were on the payroll with the big gangs. There was a lot working against the enforcers. The USA had 18000miles of coastline and borders with Canada, Mexico and so was hard to prevent all smuggling from abroad. This meant that a lot of liquor could be redirected. Many juries during prohibition were lenient with offenders as they to be part of the illegal trade. Jurors were found threatened by the gangsters. With authorities, being lenient ...

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