The saloon was a source of major controversy during the middle and late 1800's. Those who opposed prohibition found the Saloon, as a source of information, entertainment, and escape, a necessary part of their social lives. However, those who advocated prohibition believed the Saloon to be a direct cause of crime, prostitution, and total economic recession, because men, as the working majority of the nation, spent the time and money that should have been devoted toward family life in the saloons.
After the failure of the Prohibition Party, the people who believed in the Prohibition needed a method to get their voice heard in order combat the effects of alcohol on society. These people went on to found partisan groups in random locations across the nation. By the late 1880's there were over one hundred temperance societies, such as the Nation Temperance Society and Publication House, the Catholic Total Abstinence Union, the Anti-Saloon league of the District of Columbia, and the Congressional Temperance Society, all operating along "denominational, fraternal, associational, and partisan lines.” These societies often worked at cross purposes, devoting more time and effort fighting other societies than pushing toward their common goal of a dry utopia. Unity among these groups was a necessity if they were going to make progress toward the abolishment of alcohol. In June 1890, the need for unity was expressed in New York during a convention held by the National Temperance Congress. One year later, a national temperance convention in Saratoga Springs, New York, "passed a resolution urging the formation of local leagues to unite the various temperance elements.” The decision was debated, but in time local temperance cells began to band together forming much larger temperance groups that, in some instances, "succeeded in banding together in state-wide alliances.” These alliances were taken a step farther in 1895, and the "continual demands by temperance reformers for a union of their divided efforts to stem the growing power of the liquor industry", created the nationally united Anti-Saloon League. As a single, "non-partisan organization that focused on the single issue of prohibition,” the Anti-Saloon League now carried the threat of a major voting alliance that could influence the members of congress. However, despite the leagues united efforts, it lacked the funds to maneuver in efficiently in political environment. “During the first three years, the national league’s receipts barely averaged $1,000 a year, hardly enough to pay the postage, much less the salaries of its officials.” As popularity of the Anti-Saloon league increased, so did its support. By the end of 1899, 21 states and territories had been inaugurated and by 1903, 40 states and territories had combined with the Anti-Saloon league, greatly adding to the leagues funding. These additional funds allowed for the Anti-Saloon league to “launch a propaganda campaign of its own.” The next few years were spent gathering funding, support, and forming the internal structure of an independent organization. By 1913 the Anti-Saloon league had “transformed itself into an independent temperance agency.” Its structure was indeed that of an organization; consisting of its own constituency, leaders, policies, and procedures. After nearly twenty years in the making, the Anti-Saloon league, now an extremely flexible federation of state anti-saloon leagues, had the power to move quickly against saloons by tapping into a large body of voters and enforce political pressure in the favor of prohibition. And it did use that influence;
“In a 20th anniversary convention held in Columbus, Ohio, the League announced its campaign to achieve national prohibition through a constitutional amendment. Allied with other temperance forces, especially the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the League in 1916 oversaw the election of the two-thirds majorities necessary in both houses of Congress to initiate what became the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States”
Eighteenth Amendment
On December 18, 1917, both houses with the required constitutional majority passed the adoption of the joint resolution, and transmitted it to the states for their consideration. The Secretary of State announced on January 29, 1919 that on January 16th thirty-six states had ratified the amendment, therefore it would become part of the Constitution. The Eighteenth Amendment became effective on January 16, 1920. The article stated:
Section I-After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section II-The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section III-This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.
Andrew J. Volstead
Andrew J. Volstead was born to Norwegian immigrants on October 31, 1860 in Kenyon, Minnesota. He was admitted to the bar in 1883 after graduating from the Decorah Institute in Iowa, and opened an office in Grantsburg, Wisconsin.
Volstead moved to Granite Falls, Minnesota in 1886. Here he served as city attorney and may from 1886 to 1902. From 1903 to 1923 he served in the U.S. House of Representatives for Minnesota under the Republican Party.
He strongly supported actions for civil rights movement. Volstead was one of the few politicians in Congress willing to argue for federal legislation against lynching. The growing consumption of alcohol was another concern of his. This concern leads to Volstead authoring the Volstead Act in 1919.
National Prohibition Act (Volstead Act)
Congress passed the National Prohibition Act in October 1919 . The act to be commonly known as the Volstead Act, after its sponsor, U.S. House of Representative Andrew J. Volstead. The act defined intoxicating beverages as those which contained over 0.5 percent alcohol. They assumed this would destroy the liquor industry. It forbade anyone to manufacture, sell, barter, transport, import, export, deliver, furnish or possess any intoxicating liquor. However, the act did allow drinkers to possess and use liquors laid in before the date of the law, and it also allowed anyone to manufacture “non-intoxication” drinks at home. The National Prohibition Act also made concessions for alcohol used for medicinal, sacramental, or industrial purposes.
The Volstead Act also provided for the enforcement of wartime prohibition. Those in Congress called the drys, members who argued that a constitutional amendment was necessary to enforce the law of prohibition, stated that, “the period of demobilization was so difficult that is should be considered as part of the war.” Those in opposition to this thought saw this clause as a dishonest attempt by the drys to renege on their promise to give the liquor trade one year to bring its business to a close. The Volstead Act closed the gap between its passage in 1919 and the start of the Eighteenth Amendment on January 16, 1920.
The duty of enforcement of the act fell upon the Bureau of Internal Revenue of the Treasury Department. The Bureau of Internal Revenue organized departments under supervising Federal prohibition agents for the enforcement work and in each state created an organization under a Federal prohibition director for the regulation and control of the nonbeverage traffic in alcohol by a system of permits.
Ohio lawyer John F. Kramer served as the first Prohibition Commissioner. Kramer promised to see that, “liquor was not manufactured, nor sold, nor given away, nor hauled in anything on the surface of the earth nor under the sea nor in the air.” These promised were not put to the test during his short career as Commissioner. Roy A. Haynes succeeded Kramer a year and a half later. Haynes’ press releases spoke of the imminent collapse of bootlegging, while his political appointees made the Bureau a center for corruption and graft.
The graft and corruption faced by the Prohibition Bureau stemmed from several sources. The methods and organization of the Bureau were hopelessly inadequate. The agency itself was not under Civil Service regulations. Agents were expected to work long hours and put their lives in danger for salaries that compared unfavorable with those of garbage collectors. In 1920 agents made between $1200 and $2000 a year. This fact made them easy victims to corruption. For the whole of the United States the total number of agents and investigators varied between 1500 and 2300 men, and the entire staff of the Prohibition Bureau never exceed 4500 men. Men, money and supplies were continually lacked by the Bureau.
War Prohibition Act-1918
World War II produced and atmosphere of enthusiasm for prohibition. The need to sacrifice individual pleasures for the sake of the war became the underlying theme. When conserving food resources became an apparent need, the drys used this opportunity to emphasize the waste of grain for the production of alcohol.
In April 1917 Congress adopted a temporary wartime prohibition measure as a way to conserve grain for the army, America’s allies, and domestic population. Thus, the production of distilled spirits for the duration of World War II was banned in August 1917 by the Lever Food and Fuel Control Act. Manufacturing and sale of all intoxicating beverages of more than 2.75 percent alcohol content, beer, wine, and hard liquor were forbidden by the War Prohibition Act of November 1918 until demobilization was completed.
