Abbas Tejani Prohibition part (e)
Study Source I & J
How far does Source I prove the policeman in Source J is telling the truth? (7)
Prohibition was introduced in order to wipe out what was considered to be a great evil at the time – alcohol. This was a controversial issue at the time. There were many areas in society, which supported Prohibition, and some areas that opposed Prohibition. Organisations such as the ‘Anti-saloon league’ and the ‘Women’s Christian Temperance Union’ supported Prohibition. They said that alcohol was destroying family life and men went to saloons and spent all their money, saving none for their children or families. However, the people who opposed Prohibition said that it took away the right of alcohol from the American people. The consequences of Prohibition was that there was a huge rise in organised crime and also many ordinary Americans were resorting to crime as they wanted alcohol. There were ‘speakeasies’, which distributed alcohol illegally and ‘bootleggers’ who supplied it illegally – An example was William McCoy, who was a rumrunner. Prohibition also created a rise in organised crime, and gave way to the rise of gangsters, such as Al Capone, who bribed people to “turn a blind eye” to his work.
Source I is a cartoon which was published during the period of Prohibition. This would have presumably been published in a newspaper of some sort. The artist is trying to show that all the officials in America were corrupt. Source I shows a line of officials who were supposed to be upholding the law. This included all sections of law involving Prohibition - from party officials and judges to the police officers. This shows that people who were supposed to uphold the law weren't doing so. All of them are stood in a line making the ‘national gesture’. This means that it was the same all across the USA – everyone is taking bribes, and therefore, Prohibition is not working. They are all standing in a line with their hands behind their backs. One can assume that they’re queuing in order to receive their handout, or ‘back-hander’. This means that they were receiving bribes. The fact that this was the ‘national gesture’ means that everyone in the country was doing it. Therefore, this questions the integrity of all people in the USA. This was true at the time, as corruption was quite high, especially in Chicago at this time. The Mayor of Chicago, “Big Bill” Thompson, was paid by Al Capone to turn a blind eye to the works of Al Capone, and in effect, let him take charge of the city. This then led onto massacres and gang violence, such as the Valentines Day Massacre. This Source suggests that Prohibition had been around for a long time for corruption to sink in, as it was produced in the mid-20s, between 1920-1925. This cartoon can also be interpreted in different ways, one of them being that everyone in the cartoon is fat – this could suggest that they are all inflated with money, as they are being paid quite a lot. This was a national newspaper and so, reached all over the nation. The author of this Source must have been very brave, as a person who produced an article in derogation of Al Capone got attacked and was beaten up. Therefore, as the cartoon producer knew the consequence of producing such a cartoon, he would have produced the truth, as it was like a suicide mission.
