Source D is a simple picture of a boy and girl walking past a saloon door, with the caption ‘Daddy’s in there’. The children are looking upset, and are dressed scruffily. Below it states ‘And our shoes and stockings and food are in the saloon too, and they’ll never come out’. Again is saying that the money spent in a saloon is needed for families and their well being.
Both posters are aimed at family men, in an attempt to guilt them into wanting to ban alcohol, and to make them see the effects of their drinking. The American public could not help but feel sympathy for the children and wives in both these posters, well made propaganda. From this we can prove that both artists of the posters were for prohibition. Although we must also look into the fact that both artists may also just be ‘doing their job’, and may also like a drink or two occasionally.
Question (c)
Source E was written in 1932 in the form of a letter by a wealthy industrialist who lived through prohibition, so immediately this source becomes the most reliable, when compared with source F; a biased source written by a Prohibition Commissioner speaking in 1920, 1 year after the introduction of prohibition. As source F was written by a commissioner there is the fault that this man could be simply speaking out what he was paid to say. This man may not have agreed with prohibition, but it was his job to enforce it. The commissioner, John F. Kramer, spoke in short precise sentences, only to say that prohibition will work and the law will ensure that. However, as prohibition had just started the commissioner would have had no idea if what he was saying was true or not, he was simply being confident that prohibition was going to work. Mr. Kramer was also a commission agent, who of which at that time were being bribed across the country as it shows in the cartoon in Source I, all this makes him and what he is saying less trustworthy.
Source E however is the more reliable out of the two. This source was a private letter written by John D. Rockefeller, a wealthy industrialist, to a friend, on his opinion of prohibition. Due to the fact this letter was never intended for the public to read we are led to believe that we can trust the content of the source, as was intended to be a private letter between two colleagues.
The letter starts out with Rockefeller stating that he had hoped prohibition would work and be supported, and that the evil effects of alcohol would soon be recognised. He then went on to say ‘I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result’. This was an honest opinion, reluctantly admitting that his first thoughts were wrong. Rockefeller states that speakeasies have replaced the American saloons, and a ‘vast army of lawbreakers’ have come about, increasing crime level to what had never been seen in America before, and the American public losing all respect for the law, all due to the banning of alcohol. Rockefeller lived through the whole period of prohibition and would have seen first handed how the American public reacted to this law. We can also trust Rockefeller from reading Source A which backs him up, ‘No earlier law had produced such widespread crime, for no earlier Law had gone against the daily customs, habits and desires of so many Americans’.
Question (D)
Source G shows a table of figures of the amount of alcohol seized over the period of 1921 and 1929. The table shows the figures increasing as the year’s progress into the prohibition period. This table can be looked upon from two different viewpoints, as the figures of alcohol being seized are in fact getting higher, you could say that the police were doing their job well, and that prohibition commissioners were succeeding. Although, you could also look upon these figures and ay the amount of alcohol being seized is increasing due to the fact that more alcohol was being illegally imported into the United States, in which case prohibition was not succeeding.
However, we could question the reliability of the source. The table was produced by the federal government agents enforcing prohibition, but by looking at the cartoon in source I it tells us that during the prohibition period, federal agents and officials along with business men etc were corrupt, that many were being bribed by large illegal business’ run by American gangsters such as Al Capone and Dutch Schulz, in which case we could not trust this table of figures.
Source H is a table showing the number of arrests for drinking related offences, between 1920 and 1925. This table is also not a reliable source. Written by the City of Philadelphia Police Department, these figures only show one states arrest, not a good insight on prohibition across America. Again, we also have queries on whether we can trust the police force, who were also being bribed by gangsters such as Al Capone, in return to keep the amount of arrests lower than they actually were; keeping the heat off the huge money making business’ gangsters had formed. Source I and J both support this showing the cartoon of officials in America being bribed, and Source J stating, ‘It was a conspiracy and my superior officials were involved in it’. So the figures within the source could be lower than the actual amount.
The figures themselves increase tremendously over the years they were recorded. From 1920 to 1925 figures increased by 37,307 drinking-related offences. This alone tells us that illegal importing of alcohol was increasing, therefore showing us prohibition was failing. Also telling us that the American people did not want to stop drinking, as shown in Source E, ‘A vast army of law breakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored prohibition’.
With both sources being corrupt, we cannot rely on either sources to tell us if prohibition was successful.
Question (e)
By looking at Source I, it would appear that the policeman in Source J was telling the truth. To a certain extent he was. Both sources show that America was corrupt, telling us that even the policeman and officials were being bribed into drinking. This is also backed up by source E, ‘Vast army of law breakers’.
The cartoon in Source I, drawn during the time of prohibition, was titled ‘The National gesture’ suggesting that the entire nation was corrupt. The gesture in the cartoon being a long line of shifty looking officials, politicians, judges, policeman and business men, facing away from us, with one hand behind their backs in a position to take what they shouldn’t take; alcohol. The gesture, the title and the time the poster was drawn are all telling us that the policeman in source J was telling the truth that prohibition was not working, and the nation was corrupt. In source J the policeman states, ‘It was a conspiracy and my superior officers were involved in it’ this being a strong, powerful statement, proving prohibition wasn’t working as even the officials were corrupt. The policemen were meant to be enforcing the rules, but instead, were giving into bribery and alcohol. However, source I is a cartoon and cartoons are often exaggerated to make their message more powerful, just like in sources C and D. Therefore, we cannot use source I alone to prove source J, different types of evidence would be needed to prove the corruption in the Chicago police force.
Also, looking into more detail of Source J, we can see that this was a statement made by only one policeman about only one state of America and so we cannot believe from just one source on its own, that source J was the truth about the whole of America and that prohibition was failing across the entire United States of America, more evidence from across American is needed to prove the failure.
Question (f)
To a certain extent every source indicates some part of failure of prohibition. For instance, source G and H were a table of what appeared to be honest figures from the police department, however when I looked closer into the source I found that the information given could have been false and given by corrupt officials being bribed by the gangsters such as Al Capone. This is only one example of many.
Sources A and B both differ at the reasons of why prohibition was introduced, but both share the same views of the consequences of the new law. It brought the biggest crime boom America had ever seen, ‘No earlier law had produced such widespread crime, for no earlier law had gone against the daily customs, habits and desires of so many Americans’. When most of the country rebelled against a law the congress had introduced, it was doubtful it would survive for long, as the American government could only go against its people for so long before America’s whole law system would be put to jeopardy. Alongside the American public law breakers, gangs of gangsters across America, especially based in New York were founded. Introducing large, dangerous business’ importing and selling illegal alcohol to Americans, including officials, commissioners, the police and judges who were all being bribed in order for them to keep the heat off this vast money making scheme. ‘Prohibition is a business, all I do is supply public demand’ quoted by Al Capone, one imparticularly well known gangster during prohibition. As we know now, Capone was right in saying he was supplying public demand, the whole country was corrupt.
Sources C and D were posters published in form of propaganda For prohibition. They both show valid reasons for the introduction of prohibition; fathers spending the families money in saloons late into the night, children standing outside looking sad, dressed in old torn clothes, it shows gambling in the saloons, another money wasting habit due to alcohol. The posters were mainly aimed at family men trying to guilt them into wanting to ban alcohol, trying to show them the evils of the habit. The posters may have worked to a certain extent at the time, however both posters were printed before prohibition was introduced, 1910 and 1915, so neither poster had anything to do with the actual prohibition period, just the lead up to it, giving us no information on the failure of prohibition. However this does tell us that there were people who supported prohibition and wanted it to work, telling us that not the whole of America was corrupt, and prohibition did have supporters in the united states.
Source E is a letter written in 1932, 13 years since prohibition had been introduced, from a wealthy industrialist, John D. Rockefeller, an important businessman in America. He starts his letter by agreeing with prohibition, stating he hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognised. This shows that not all businessmen were corrupt, and honest wealthy Americans did support prohibition. However his letter carries on to say he slowly and reluctantly came to believe that that was not the result. He stated that speakeasies had replaced the saloons, and ‘a vast army of lawbreakers had appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored prohibition’. Again this shows that generally, the American public was willing to go against the law for alcohol. As Rockefeller lived through the prohibition period, and this was a private letter, we are led to believe we can trust the information given, that prohibition had failed and respect for the law had greatly lessened, crime had increased to levels never seen before, and as a good law-abiding American citizen himself, seeing the countries law system fail, may have led him to go against prohibition, wanting what was best for his country.
Source F is a statement by the first prohibition commissioner, in 1920; one year after prohibition had been introduced. He states to the American public, ‘Law will be obeyed in cities, large and small, and villages. Where it is not obeyed it will be enforced’. This was a positive and confident statement. However, it was this mans job to enforce prohibition, it was his job to be tough about the new law, he may only have said this statement to keep his job as this was what he was paid to do, in reality, as a commissioner he may have been being bribed by gangsters such as Al Capone, and not enforcing the law as he should.
Sources G and F, as used for example at the beginning, are tables of figures given by the City of Philadelphia police department. The figures show that there was an increase of 37,307 drinking-related crimes since the introduction of prohibition in 1919, just 3 years into the prohibition period. Amount of drink seized from American citizens were in the tens of thousands, this alone is telling us that prohibition was failing. However these figures could have been even higher. The police department in Philadelphia could have been amongst the officials that were being bribed by gangsters such as Al Capone in order to keep the drink-related crimes down, to keep the heat off them and their huge money making business’. There are two ways of looking at these tables of figures though; the failure of prohibition was inevitable, alcohol was always going to be around America and no police force could change that, or police would eventually win, would eventually arrest the gangsters, refuse bribery, and seize all alcohol left in the united states.
Source I shows a cartoon drawn during the time of prohibition named ‘The National gesture’. The cartoon is of many officials, bank managers, commissioners, police, politicians and many more all having their backs to us with one hand out behind them ready to take drink from gangsters who had bribed them, this being the National Gesture. It being named the national gesture tells us that people believed the nation was corrupt and prohibition was indeed failing, however this statement was a title of a cartoon, which are often exaggerated to get their message across. If this statement was completely true, then prohibition was bound to fail.
Source J carries on from source I telling us of a police department in Chicago during the 1920’s, who were completely corrupt. Any policeman who tried to enforce the law were given a post ‘where there was nothing but weeds, it was a conspiracy and my superior officers were involved in it’. The failure of prohibition was inevitable if the law who were supposed to enforce it were not doing their jobs. Policemen were often randomly given money, $100 at a time, all bribery to keep alcohol around. However looking closely at this source we must take into consideration that this police officer may have been exaggerating to make himself look better at his job. Chicago, the base of Al Capone, was famous for corruption, but we would need more evidence from other policeman to prove this man was right.
From looking at all the sources, whether it started out or appeared to be for prohibition, towards the end, everyone across the country appeared to be corrupt. Officials were corrupt, police were corrupt, and local normally law abiding citizens were corrupt. As hard as the American government and anti-saloon league tried, they could not change the ways and lives of so many Americans who wanted to drink, who had alcohol as part of their lives. As it started the government had the support of half the country and the other half were to have the new law enforced by the police, but when even the police wanted to drink the law would inevitably fail, as sources G and H show us, with corruption amongst the force. More and more people were arrested for drink-related crimes, the small amount of police who weren’t bribed were trying but could not enforce such a widespread unwanted law. The reasons for the start of prohibition had been valid and appeared to be a good idea, particularly for families, but as the years went on into the prohibition era it was to be seen that drink could not be taken out of the lives of so many Americans, and so yes as source A, B and E all clearly show, it was inevitable that eventually the failure of prohibition would come around, and that the American public simply refused to allow it to work.