Instead he goes on to talk about the fact that drinking has generally increased. He uses many catchphrases such as ‘the speakeasy has replaced the saloon’, ‘a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared’.
Source E was written 1 year before Prohibition was stopped so, Rockefeller had hindsight on the situation. Therefore, he knows what Prohibition caused and how ‘successful’ it was.
Another point which we should take into consideration is the fact that he was an industrialist. He would’ve agreed with Prohibition because he would’ve thought that drinking is the cause of the workers lack of work. This point may lead us to believe that this letter is bias because it is opinionated. It affects the reliability of the source.
Source F is a speech by the first Prohibition commissioner, John F. Kramer. It is a primary source because it is taken before Prohibition came into place. In this source, Kramer talks about what the commissioners hope to achieve, how it ‘will’ be obeyed and that it will be ‘enforced’ if it is not obeyed. The source is more opinion and hope and not fact so it cannot be that reliable.
Under the source, it states his name, the date and his rank. It is a speech which was held in public so therefore it cannot be that accurate and there may be traces of propaganda because they will want everyone to follow it. Also, we cannot be sure that the speech wasn’t changed to encourage people to follow the points of Prohibition.
Another thought which we need to take into consideration is that talking about what ‘is’ going to happen and not what ‘has’ happened. It is really important because it reminds us of the fact that he is talking of the future and NOT the present or the past.
In conclusion, I believe that both of the sources give us an idea of prohibition, but, I believe that the one which is more reliable of the two, is Source E.I believe this because Rockefeller had more experience of Prohibition than Kramer did. This is because his speech was given before Prohibition came into place.
I believe that, Rockefeller had more of a chance to put things into perspective and think of why Prohibition was a bad idea, rather than what Kramer did and give a speech addressing the main points of Prohibition and I also believe was that his speech was biased because they wanted it to be a success, so they may’ve done anything in their power to make people agree with their terms.