How far do these accounts agree about prohibition?

They also both agree however that prohibition in fact failed because although alcohol was banned, people were still buying and selling even more than they used to when it was legal, also prohibition led to widespread crime and violence. Source A says that “whatever the causes of prohibition, there can be little disagreement about its consequences. It created the greatest criminal boom in American history; perhaps in all modern history… no earlier law had gone against the daily customs, habits and desires of so many Americans.” This is saying that the illegalisation of alcohol caused a huge increase in crime and violence and the people that drank before wouldn’t stop drinking because prohibition was against society and because of the customs, habits and desires of the American citizens, they would continue to drink whether it was illegal or not. They would also have to continue to drink because of the addiction that they now had to the alcohol, and would get alcohol anyway they could. Source B says that “by 1928 there were more than 30,000 speakeasies in New York. Gangsters like Schulz and Al Capone turned the avoidance of Prohibition into big, violent business” This shows that although alcohol was illegal criminal gangsters were still getting alcohol and making huge amounts of money from it proving that the introduction of alcohol led to an increase in crime and violence.

        Before I can answer the question of how far do these accounts agree about prohibition I need to explore the differences between the two sources.

        Source B goes into a more detail than source A does, where source A says that “prohibition created the greatest criminal boom in history”; Source B extends on that to talk about different gangsters and states facts like “there were more than 30,000 speakeasies in New York alone.” Source B also talks about what happened at the beginning of Prohibition saying that “the first Prohibition Commissioner had no doubts that he would stamp out the evils of drink.” where source A only talks about the consequences of Prohibition and doesn’t mention anything else about what happened during the time of prohibition.

        The other difference between the two sources is the types of language used; source B uses more subjective language using words like “crusade” and “evils” to show their viewpoint whereas source A doesn’t use subjective language. Source A uses objective language; it uses a ‘matter of fact’ tone, doesn’t use any strong words and simply states facts whereas source B shows the opinion of the person writing it.

To conclude, both sources agree about the facts on prohibition, although source B does go into more detail and gives more of an opinion than source A does. When looking at how far these sources agree about prohibition; both sources agree about the influence of the anti saloon league and about the need to preserve grain. They also agree that crime was a consequence of prohibition. Both sources agree about the facts and about the consequences of prohibition.