Sources C and D are both pictures that were both made before Prohibition started. The artists of these pictures are trying to exemplify some of the evils that alcohol was causing. These pictures were aimed to promote Prohibition towards the public. This caused a lot of the public to campaign for Prohibition so a lot of pressure was put on Congress. These sources are trying to gain public support for Prohibition. This is showing that Prohibition was not a definite failure when it began because these sorts of posters gained a lot of public support meaning that when it began a lot of people were willing to encourage the ban of alcohol.
Source C shows a person paying his weekly wages to “The poor man’s club”. The title mentions that this club was the most expensive club to be a member of. In the mini clip at the bottom of the poster it shows the rest of the family of the man who is at the saloon. They are illustrated to be poor and the reason for that is that the man is using all his earnings on alcohol. This poster is propaganda that urges the public to believe that Prohibition should be introduced. This illustrates a way that the organizations for Prohibition got public people to try and support them.
Source D is also a poster which is related to prohibition. This time the picture shows a girl holding the hand of a toddler outside a saloon door waiting for their father. It presents it in a way that the viewer would have pity on the characters. It says that their father is inside with all their possessions. The father does not physically have their clothing but has cash and is spending it on alcohol. This poster is a further example of how the organizations gained public backing. This is definitely something that shows that Prohibition had a chance for succeeding because of the amount of support it got.
Sources E and F are accounts of two different people on the effectiveness of prohibition. They both say that at the beginning of prohibition all their views of it was positive and they had high hopes for it. In both sources they acknowledge that there will are criminals working around prohibition. These two sources are also given by a person that is named but the receiver was not mentioned. So in both sources we do not know who the information was provided for. These sources are also pointing to that prohibition was not inevitable because they both say that they are in support to have prohibition, adding to the figures that already supported prohibition these two individuals could have had a large influence on the public because they had a high social standing.
In source E, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. who is a wealthy industrialist is writing a letter about prohibition and his view on it, to an unknown person. He is explaining himself in this letter on why his views on prohibition have gradually changed. He says that even though he saw it as a fantasy and should be a thing that is worked on to try and reach. He even admits that the result was not as convincing as he and many others hoped. He says that the respect for the law has been greatly lessened and crime was at a level never seen before. This is a negative view but still shows that he saw a chance at the beginning therefore supporting what he knew could have happened.
Source F is a piece on the Prohibition Commissioner’s mind that has been put across very strongly. Kramer is stating what he hopes to succeed, this could be a totally different view of what he truly thinks but unlikely because he would not have accepted the job if he thoughts were against prohibition unless he was very greedy. He gives a good impression on how well he will do in his job; he seems very positive and thinks that it shall go well. This is a great source that shows that prohibition was not always believed that Prohibition would fail and shows that there were some that believed in what they were doing was going to help the people who thought Prohibition was appropriate.
The next two sources are statistics of Prohibition. Sources G and H gives information backs up prohibition and others parts of the given sources show statistics that illustrates some areas that Prohibition was not working. These statistics are very general and only provides information on very specific categories. In both sources they both show that the numbers of arrests for alcohol was increasing throughout the years.
In source G it shows the statistics given by the Federal government agents that enforced Prohibition. The numbers given are only in the years 1921, 1925 and 1929. The numbers of gallons seized in 1921 and 1925 is a very large difference. The increase is over twenty six times the one in 1921. There is a large boom in the numbers and it is not possible in the information given to say any more detail. The information presented is about the “Illegal stills seized” and the “Gallons of spirits seized”. It does not have any information from 1930 up to the end of Prohibition, which was 1933.
In source H it is information on Philadelphia city made by the Police Department, showing information about the amount of people that were drunk, drunk and disorderly conduct, drunk drivers and the total of all these figures. For the reason that the Police Department gave the statistics could mean that the numbers could be wrong because they would want to please the constitution or a more likely reason is that the police department was regularly bribed and a lot of the criminal act that was going on was going unattended. Same as the results in source G the numbers increase throughout the years of prohibition.
These sources show that prohibition was a failure because all the numbers increase throughout the selected years. Although they do show that prohibition was not working because the amount of alcohol was rising instead of decreasing in Prohibition. This showed that the law needed people to work with it and without it everyone who used alcohol or retailed alcoholic drinks would become a criminal according to the new law for Prohibition.
Source I is a picture of a line of officials or enforcers of the law who were appointed to try and stop Prohibition. They are holding their hands behind there backs and looking back implying that they are open to a bribe. From our own knowledge that the criminals who provide illegal alcohol were giving bribes to the law enforcers so that they would turn a blind eye on the illegal acts. The title of this cartoon is called “The National Gesture”. This is implying that the majority of the country is prepared to take a bribe. This is another Source which shows that Prohibition was a failure. The whole system, including the officials who were trying to uphold the ban of alcohol, was corrupt and a lot of people were breaking laws everyday because of the new laws.
Source J is an account of a policeman talking about Chicago in the 1920’s. He mentions that the police were given free alcohol and nobody expected him to reject the offer because it was such a common feature. In this source the policeman that he was just an “ordinary policemen”, this is making it seem that the policeman thinks that what he is doing was morally right. We can see this was a very regular way of thinking as the policeman says that his “superior officers were involved in it”. Near the end of the source he talks about an incident where he himself was bribed and yet thinking that this was ordinary. This is just another example of how the system was corrupt and also backs up what was said in Source I. This is a more detailed account of what is illustrated in Source I with the picture showing a line of officials willing to take a bribe.
The majority of the sources I have studied have pointed to prohibition was a failure. But because in some sources there are a few points that show that prohibition had a chance of being successful it means that prohibition was not inevitable. For example the reason that prohibition was introduced was because of the massive amount of support it got from the public. Because there were such a large number of people that thought Prohibition was right it would have been pressure on those who wanted to go against it. Therefore Prohibition had a is not inevitable.