It is obvious that both posters show a hatred of alcohol and that the artists are for prohibition. Source C attempts to show a distressing image of the effects on the wife and child of a man who drinks; source D, the effects on the children. Therefore they both talk about the evils of drinking and the damaging effects on the family, alcohol has.
(c) Sources E and F
All sources have an element of truth in them and they are all useful to a historian studying a particular period in time. But some sources, however, are less reliable than others due to various factors, such as the time in which and by whom they were written.
Source E supports prohibition. It was written by John D. Rockefeller Jr., who was a very wealthy industrialist. However, it was written in 1932, 12 years after prohibition was introduced. This means that it was written with hindsight and shows what the effects and consequences of prohibition were: ‘a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition’. The fact that this source was taken from a letter shows that it was a private opinion. Rockefeller, being an industrialist meant that he employed workers. As he wanted his workers to work to their full potential, he did not want them to turn up to work drunk or hung over, which is why he initially supported prohibition. However, as he has seen the effects of this law, his opinion has changed: ‘I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result’. This change in opinion shows that he is being honest and not bias. He has come to realize that prohibition could not work in an American society.
Source F was written by John F. Kramer, who was the first Prohibition Commissioner. This meant that his job was to enforce Prohibition. He is speaking in 1920 just when prohibition had been introduced. Although in 1920, he says he will do his job properly, this was said before the rise of the gangsters and so he could have become corrupted by bribery as many commissioners and law enforcer were during the 1920s. We know that by the late 1920s, the bribery and terror tactics of gangsters had made the enforcement of Prohibition ineffective. For example, Al Capone, in Chicago, built up a network of corrupt officials including local government workers, judges, lawyers and Prohibition agents and even the mayor, by bribing them to ‘turn a blind eye’. As these Prohibition agents were not paid very well by the government, many were willing to do what the gangsters told them as they paid very well. Capone was supported by a ruthless gang. In 1929, his men murdered seven of, his rival’s, Bugs Moran’s gang. This was known as the St Valentine’s Day Massacre and showed that the gangsters were not afraid to use violence to get their way.
However, not all the prohibition commissioners were corrupt. The prohibition agents did arrest some offenders. The most famous of theses agents were Isadore Einstein and Moe Smith who, together, made 4392 arrests. Therefore, although John F. Kramer said that he would enforce the law: ‘Where it is not obeyed it will be enforced’, we do not know whether he kept his promise as the source was written at the start of the 1920s, when prohibition had just been introduced.
It is fair to say that, to a certain extent, both sources are reliable. However, it is clear that Source E is more reliable than source F as it was written 12 years later, once the effects of prohibition had been seen. It is also backed up by sources A and B which both admit that the outcome of prohibition was lawbreaking and corruption: ‘No earlier law produced such widespread crime’; ‘Gangsters like Dutch Schulz and Al Capone had turned the avoidance of prohibition into big, violent businesses.’ Source F only shows the aim of the law enforcers and what they wanted, and thought they would achieve. It shows a determination to enforce the law, but it was written before the gangsters came on the scene and corrupted many governing officials and so destroyed the credibility of the ban on alcohol.
- Sources G and H
All sources are useful; they portray something, be it an opinion or fact. Sources G and H show statistics relevant to alcohol.
During the 1920s, in America, the government ran information campaigns and prohibition agents were appointed to arrest offenders. The most famous of these agents were Isadore Einstein and Moe Smith who, together, made 4392 arrests. However, as the enforcement was underfinanced, there were not enough agents and millions of Americans (especially in the urban states) who did not want to obey the law. For example, in 1925, there were more speakeasies in American cities than there had been saloons in 1919. Many people made their own whisky, known as moonshine, but the alcohol they produced was often poisonous. Therefore, gangsters imported alcohol from Canada and overseas, they were known as bootleggers. This led to the corruption of many law enforcers. This, in turn, led to many brewies staying in business as the owners would bribe local government officials, prohibition agents and the police to leave them alone.
Source G is a table showing the activities of ‘Federal government agents enforcing Prohibition’, from 1921 to 1929. It records the number of illegal stills seized and the gallons of spirits seized in the years 1921, 1925, and 1929. The statistics given do not give the proportion of the total; that is to say, they only give the number of stills and gallons seized, and give no idea of how many actually existed. However, it can be seen that there was been an increase in the number seized. For example, in 1921, 414,000 gallons of spirits were seized by the enforcing agents. However, by 1929, this had increased to 11,860,000 gallons. Therefore, at face value, source G shows that prohibition failed. This is due to the fact that from 1921 to 1929, there had been an increase in the number of stills and gallons of spirits seized, which meant that there were more and more people breaking the law and so prohibition was not successful. However, it is possible that the percentage seized had actually decreased.
Source H is statistics published by ‘the City of Philadelphia Police Department, showing the number of arrests for drink – related offences’, from 1920 to 1925.
This source shows that in 1920, there were no arrests made for drunk drivers. By 1925, however, this had increased to 820 arrests. This shows a vast increase in the number of people being arrested for drink driving. This source also shows that the total number of arrests made in Philadelphia in 1920 was 20,410, but by 1925, this had increased to 57,703. On the other hand, there was a decrease in the number of those arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct (from 6,097 in 1920, to 5,522 in 1925; although from 1920 to 1923 it had increase from 6,097 to 8,076). However, this source had limitations. It only accounts the arrests made in Philadelphia, not in the whole of America and so does not give much information about the general success or failure of prohibition in the country as a whole. It also only mentions arrests, not convictions. Some of those arrested could have been released without being convicted. It was difficult to get convictions because more senior officers and even judges were in the pay of criminals and so the number of arrests would be a more accurate measure than convictions as the corruption of the law enforcers was not present when the arrests were made. Although source H only included the arrests made in Philadelphia, it does show that the police officers and law enforcers in that state are getting better at their job and are arresting more people for breaking the law.
It can be said that both sources prove, to a certain extent, that prohibition was not successful. An increase in the number of seizures of stills and gallons of liquor and the number of arrests made, are shown in sources G and H respectively. However, these increases are limited in the information given. Source G does not compare the total number of stills or gallons with the number seized, but only shows the latter which could only be only a very small percentage. To add to this, source H only shows statistics from Philadelphia, not from the whole of America nor does it give a comparison with another state.
However, in summary, despite the limitations of both sources, they do tend to prove that during the 1920s, prohibition was not successful. If it had been successful, a decrease would be expected in all the figures. It could even be said that, as alcohol was illegal, any convictions for drunkenness or any seizures of illegal stills prove its failure.
- Sources I and J
Prohibition led to a massive increase in the power, money and criminal activities of gangsters. An organized gang could make around $2 billion out of the sale of illegal alcohol. Gangs fought against each other to control the liquor trade in each state. They used new technology, such as cars and machine guns to suppress their rivals. By the late 1920s, the bribery and terror tactics of gangsters had made the enforcement of Prohibition ineffective. For example, in Chicago, Al Capone even controlled the mayor.
Source I is a cartoon depicting various law enforcement bodies such as ‘clerk’, ‘magistrate’, ‘politician’ and ‘prohibition agents’, all lined up shoulder to shoulder, with their right hand held open, behind their backs. This portrays people who are supposed to enforce the law, secretly and willingly being bribed to ‘turn a blind eye’. This image shows corruption of those law enforcers. The title ‘The National Gesture’ shows that this corruption is happening everywhere in the United States of America.
Source J is ‘a policeman talking about Chicago in the 1920s’. It talks about the bribery of gangsters and the corruption of the law enforcers: ‘I opened it and there was $75 in it’, ’it was a conspiracy and my senior officers were involved in it.’ The fact that this statement was taken from a policeman shows that he was reluctant to take the bribe and wanted to enforce the law: ‘if you tried to enforce the law they’d put you in a post where there was nothing but weeds’ – that is to say a job in back water. Also, the fact that the policeman is talking about Chicago is significant because this city was known for the violence of the gangsters. In Chicago, Al Capone was a famous figure - one of the most famous gangsters of this time. He had a very high profile and was a popular figure in the city. Capone used a mixture of bribery and terror tactics. He was supported by a ruthless gang and once killed two of his own men, suspected of plotting against him, by beating them to death with a baseball bat. By 1929 he had destroyed the power of the other Chicago gangs, committing at least 3000 murders in the process.
However, Source I only shows that the law enforcers where willing to be bribed and that they were corrupt. It does not talk about the saloons or how the gangsters persuaded those officials to accept the bribes they offered. Source J: ‘You couldn’t pay for anything. The bottle was there and you were supposed to drink.’ This was the same with bribes: ‘He handed me the envelop, I took it and he was gone’. The money was there and you were supposed to take it. It could, therefore, be said that people accepted the bribes simply because their colleagues did. It may have even seemed - by many of the law enforcers - dangerous or even just too much effort to be the one to refuse.
In summary, Source I does prove that source J is telling the truth. Although source I does not explain how the gangsters managed to persuade the law enforcers to accept their bribes, it does reinforce the idea that these officials were corrupt and that bribery was used as a way of introducing alcohol into the country.
- All sources
It is fair to say that the view of most of the sources A to J is that the failure of Prohibition was inevitable. Prohibition was introduced at a time when there was a lot of pressure not to drink; this was especially seen in the rural states where the Christian faith was especially strong. This led to the Temperance Movement being created. The success of these Temperance movements was evident, as by 1916, 21 states had banned saloons. However, in the urban areas of the country, it proved impossible to do the same. The supporters of prohibition were known as ‘dries’. These dries increased the pressure not to drink by making claims about the effects of drinking. For example, they claimed that ‘3000 infants were smothered yearly in bed, by drunken parents’. In 1917, the USA entered the war against the Central Powers – in World War I - and this boosted the support for the ‘dries’. A large amount of the beer in America was produced by German immigrants and drinking their beer would be seen as not being patriotic. To add to this, the dries also claimed, after the Bolshevik Revolution in November 1917, that Bolshevism thrived on drink and that alcohol led to lawlessness in the city. It was now a case of country values versus city values. Due to the initial support for Prohibition, its failure did not initially seem inevitable. Sources A, B, C and D support this view.
Source A is an extract from a history book, published in 1973, depicting why Prohibition was introduced and the effects it had. It states that Prohibition could have been introduced for many reasons, which include: the need for grain to make food instead of alcohol, the bad influence of saloons and the influence of the ‘Anti-Saloon League’. It also shows that the effect of Prohibition was a massive increase in organised crime.
Source B was taken from a book about American history, published in 1979. It supports Source A concerning the effects of Prohibition but only discusses the work of the ‘Anti-Saloon League’ and their successes in putting pressure on Congress to introduce Prohibition. It also mentions the rise of the Gangsters due to this ban on the sale, manufacture and transportation of alcohol. This source is limited in that it only talks about the work of the Anti-Saloon League and does not give other reasons as to why Prohibition was introduced in America in 1920.
Sources C and D are posters created in 1910 and 1915 respectively. They both show the effects of alcohol on family life. Source C portrays a man who is spending all his money on alcohol in a saloon. It also portrays this man’s wife and child at home but with no food. The caption is ‘The saloon is well named “the poor man’s club” – it keeps its members and their families always poor. It sends out the message that alcohol damages family life and that once a man starts drinking, there is no way of stopping him, and that alcohol is a social drug.
Source D portrays two children, standing outside a saloon, waiting for their father to come out. It shows these children as being poor as they are wearing ragged clothes. The caption ‘Daddy’s in there’ shows the innocence of the children and is designed to attract sympathy towards them and hatred for the father who is spending all his money on drink.
It is true to say that Prohibition did have some early successes: The levels of alcohol consumption fell by around 30% in the early 1920s as people were initially prepared to obey the law. Prohibition did gain widespread approval in the rural, mid-western states. Also, the government ran information campaigns and prohibition agents were appointed to enforce the new law. The most famous of these were Isadore Einstein and Moe Smith who, between them, made 4392 arrests; their tactics included taking samples from speakeasies, testing them for alcohol later and then arresting the bar tenders or owners who had sold them the alcohol.
Source F is taken from a speech made by John F. Kramer, who was the First Prohibition Commissioner, speaking in 1920. This source shows that prohibition was expected to be a success but it was written before or just after the new law had been passed. It does not show the effects of Prohibition, only what was hoped would happen. Also, it does not show the corruption of many of the law enforcers which would occur as a result of the rise of gangsters. Sources G and H give figures concerning the work of the law enforcers.
Source G shows that between 1921 and 1929, the number of illegal stills seized and the number of gallons of spirits seized had both increased, from 9,746 to 15,794 and from 414,000 to 11,860,000 respectively. Source H shows the number of arrests for drink –related offences made in the city of Philadelphia between 1920 and 1925. These figures shows that the number of arrests made concerning those who were: drunk, drunk and disorderly conduct, drunk drivers, had all increased in the five year period. The total numbers of all these drink-related offences emphasis this, with an increase from 20,410 to 57,703 from 1920 to 1925. However, both these sources are limited in that they do not show the total number of stills and gallons, nor do they show the number of convictions - many of those arrested may have been released without any charges being made against them.
It is therefore fair to say that overall, Prohibition proved impossible to enforce and its failure was largely inevitable. It was clear that after some limited success when the law was first passed, in the long run, the American people did not want to obey this particular law. Unknowingly, the government had turned a regular business into thriving crime. This led to the rise of gangsters who got rich as a result of Prohibition. This meant that they could bribe the law enforcers to ‘turn a blind eye’, and the cycle would start again. The corruption was so high in Chicago that as Al Capone said: “I could count the honest lawmakers in Chicago on one hand”. Although there were some law enforcers who were not corrupt, there were far too few agents to enforce the law even if none of them accepted bribes. To add to this, as the Prohibition agents were not well paid, many would have been more than pleased to gain more money and so would not mind being corrupted by the gangsters. Sources I supports this point, that even magistrates and politicians were prepared to accept bribes, and that it was happening all over the country (‘The National Gesture’). Source J was written by a policeman in Chicago in the 1920s. It supports source I and shows that it was almost impossible to refuse a bribe. The fact that this policeman worked in Chicago depicts how hard it was to refuse a bribe. By 1929, Al Capone (also known as ‘Scareface’) was in charge of the South Side of the city, George Moran (Bugs Moran) was in charge of the North Side and both sides were not afraid to use violence to get their way. Both these leaders had their loyal followers; however, the difference between Moran and Capone was that Moran was not a clever man and only reached the top as each and every one of his superiors was killed. Capone on the other hand was clever and was relied on by his superiors. But they did have a few things in common: they both had a taste for killing, the ’Chicago typewriter’ (a machine gun) and they both came from poor neighbourhoods.
As I have mention above, it was impossible to enforce Prohibition because nobody was prepared to obey the law. Although it did gain some success, especially in the rural states, overall it was clear that it would not be upheld by the majority of the country. The 1920s were known as the ‘boom’. This ‘boom’ was characterized by America’s increase in prosperity, in all sectors of the economy such as industry, transport, cities and home life. In the industrial sector, there was a massive growth in the consumer goods industry; the motor and aircraft industries also growing rapidly with new roads being built and more airlines, aircrafts and cars being built (1/5 Americans owned a car in 1920, compared with 1/43 Britons and 1/7000 Russians). This led to the construction industry flourishing. In the transport industry, there was also a large increase in the number of cars, trucks and airplanes being produced. The home life was becoming a lot simpler and easier with the introduction of a mail order catalogue, electricity and an increase in consumer goods. Also, luxuries – such as silk stockings - were more easily obtained. In cities, with the increase in the construction industry, skyscrapers were built, suburbs came into existence, new roads were being built which eased transport throughout cities and electricity pylons meant a greater electricity supply to homes. For example, in 1918, only a few homes had electricity, but by 1929, almost all urban homes had electricity. This economic boom was due to the country’s natural resources – such as steel, coal and oil as well as fertile lands, and the exports and lent money to the European countries fighting a war between 1914 and 1918. Luckily, this war was not long enough to drain America’s, as it had Europe’s, but helped it gain industrial strength. All the presidents between 1920 and 1932 were Republicans and pursued a policy of “laissez-faire”, that is to say, the government would not intervene in everyday life or in business. The Republican policies included tariffs, low taxation and trusts. The government used propaganda and advertising to sell American goods and encouraged a new attitude, ‘spend rather than save’. Those who could not afford to buy goods could still purchase them on credit, that is to say, borrow money from the banks (‘buy now, pay later’). During the 1920s, most Americans believed they had a right to ‘Prosperity’ and consuming more and more was seen as part of being American. In earlier decades saving for ‘a rainy day’ had been seen as a good quality, but this was replaced by the belief that spending money was a better quality. In summary, the 1920s was a period in which Americans become more relaxed and made the most of life. This is why Prohibition had no chance of succeeding. The Americans wanted to enjoy themselves. 1929 saw the end of the gangster era. They had made millions during the 1920s through the sale of illegal alcohol. The end of this era came as a result of the population’s awareness of the extent of violence these gangsters were willing to use to get what they wanted. This awareness was increased by the horrors of the ‘St Valentines Day Massacre’- in Chicago in 1929. On this day, two men dressed as police officers and two ordinary dressed men, walked into a warehouse were seven of Bugs Moran’s men were waiting for an alleged order of cheap alcohol; Moran’s seven men were shot down, killed and blood poured everywhere.
However, the actions of the Chicago gangsters had not been extremely violent until the death of Mike Merlo. Mike Merlo died on the 8th November 1924. His death marked the end of the peace in Chicago. This led to a stream of revenge killings between the North Side and South Side Gangs. The ultimate revenge killing was performed by Al Capone’s men on 14th February 1929. On Friday 7th 1928, Tony Lombardo, current head of the Sicilian Union and friend of Al Capone was ambushed and killed. The plan for revenge for Lombardo’s death - on St Valentines Day 1929 - did not go completely to plan. One of Moran’s men was mistaken for Moran himself and after the shooting the latter, when asked who he thought had carried out the atrocities, said: “Only Capone kills like that”. When questioned about the incident Capone said: “The only man who kills like that is Bugs Moran”. This incident shocked and sickened the population, it was said that this was when the gangsters had turned murder into massacre and that some line had been crossed as seven people had been killed all at the same time. The St Valentine’s Day Massacre marked the end of an era for gangsters in America.
All the sources show that, although there was some initial support for Prohibition, ultimately, with the rise of the gangsters and the corruption of the law enforcers as well as the reluctance of ordinary Americans to follow a law the despised, prohibition was doomed to fail and in December 1933, once the Depression was in full swing, President Franklin D Roosevelt repealed Prohibition and Americans were once again, allowed to manufacture, sell and transport intoxicating liquors.
