Al Capone was the biggest and most famous gang leader in America at the time, he was not only a media star but he also saw himself as embodying the spirit of free enterprise in the USA. He not only involved himself in organised crime but in politics and community affairs as well. In a time when government intervention was a popular policy, Capone couldn’t see that his links to organised crime were wrong, as he didn’t believe that the government should involve themselves directly in the lives of people.
The number of crimes linked to gangs increased drastically, and shootouts were more common especially in the big cities such as Chicago. Between 1927-1930 in Chicago alone there were 227 gangland murders with only two people ever convicted. A prime
example of this was the St Valentine’s Day massacre in 1929. Al Capone’s gang brutally murdered seven gang members of their rival enemy’s.
After the Volstead Act was passed in 1920, the speakeasies sprung up all over big cities and bootlegging became a popular hobby. Speakeasies were filled with not only illegal alcohol, but also prostitution and gambling. Large gangs who made millions of dollars from them funded these ‘illicit houses,’ and gallons of alcohol were drunk within them. In 1926 alone every moth six hundred and sixty thousand gallons of ‘denatured’ alcohol was sold. Speakeasies had sprung up on every street of big cities, but they were not only used by ordinary people who may have opposed Prohibition from the very start, but were largely used by those who created the anti-alcohol laws. In the House of Representatives bootleggers kept huge stocks of liquor to be drunk by politicians in ‘times of need.’
In the run up to Prohibition being passed, many politicians appeared to be ‘dry’ and expressed their opinions to be for thee prohibition of alcohol. However during the period of 1920-1930 the corruption levels of not only politicians but law officers, police and prohibition agents were very high. Many of the Prohibition agents were poorly paid and easy prey for corruption. Commissioners were known to receive $50-75 a month per speakeasy in the town they worked in. Persecution of those who broke the law was very low, as policemen, judges and juries were in the pay of gangs. Only thirty-three out of forty eight states within America were actually dry and big cities such as Chicago and New York were prime examples of ‘wet’ states.
Prime examples of the corruption levels, included Republican Congressman Everett Denison of Ohio, who was one of the politicians most for Prohibition being passed. He was caught smuggling rum into the USA after a West Indies cruise. Big Bill Thompson, the mayor of Chicago was another corrupt official. Al Capone supported him and rigged the election to ensure that he won it. It was profitable for politicians to turn a blind eye to boot-legging, as they not only got paid by gangs, but they also received free alcohol. Many publicly ‘dry’ politicians were privately ‘wet,’ therefore there was no political will to enforce Prohibition causing it to fail.
When the Anti-Saloon league proposed Prohibition, they estimated that it would cost five million dollars to maintain it, however when the law was passed, congress only issued Prohibition agents with two million dollars. There was not enough money within the system to ensure that government officials were properly paid and could put money into crime busting operations.
The coast of the USA stretches for eighteen thousand seven hundred miles, an impossible amount of land to patrol successfully. At the most there were only two thousand eight thousand and thirty-six Prohibition agents; most of who were riddled with corruption, to ensure that alcohol was not smuggled across this vast stretch of land. They were only paid $2,500 per year to ensure that an industry worth two billion dollars did not prosper. People involved in organised crime easily bribed these poorly paid prohibition agents with the amount of money that was made in the industry of selling illegal alcohol. Ten percent of Prohibition agents were fined for corruption between 1920-30, the agents were not being paid enough which allowed them to be bribed by gangs and turn a blind eye to all the illegal activity that was going on.
In 1924 alone forty million dollars worth of alcohol, only five percent of the amount being sold was intercepted. This proved that the volume of the business was immense and the number of Prohibition agents employed was simply not enough.
From 1920 drinking alcohol was prohibited, however the consumption of alcohol for medicinal purposes was still allowed. Chemists could sell customers alcohol on doctor’s prescription and this privilege was abused thoroughly. Industrial alcohol was also easily maintained and just as easily diverted and re-stilled. People concocted exotic cocktails to hide the taste and smell of alcohol that was intended to be used as toilet cleaner and other domestic products. In New York alone, thirty-four people died from alcohol that was manufactured to for industrial use.
The Prohibition of alcohol in the USA was doomed to be a failure, not only because of reasons that were created as a result of the Volstead Act, but because drinking was part of the culture for a large number of the population of America. Drinking was also a form of protest and by 1932; forty-four thousand six hundred and seventy-eight people had been jailed for alcohol related offences. There was simply not enough room in the prisons to accommodate this abundant number of people and many had to be let off with fines as opposed to the sentences that were part of the law. There was finally a large demand for alcohol, people simply did not want to stop drinking and even Al Capone said ‘If people didn’t want beer and wouldn’t drink it, a fellow would be crazy for going around to try to sell it.’
Although Prohibition is generally considered to be a failure, there are those who believe that although it did not succeed in its aim to keep America ‘dry’ it did succeed in raising the morality of the American people.
Generally after the period of Prohibition ended, the amount of alcohol consumed by the American people had decreased. Between the years of 1906-1910 nine point eight litres of alcohol was consumed per person per annum, however by 1934 this figure had dropped to three point seven litres as a result of the Volstead Act.
The amount of crime that was actually committed during the period of Prohibition is rather over rated. Most of the statistics are only for the big cities such as Chicago and New York and not the rural areas, which not only make up the majority of the country, but also where the support for Prohibition lay. The majority of the population was ‘dry,’ with sixty-three percent of the population abiding by the laws and not consuming alcohol, the other thirty-seven percent of the population was made up by the big cities such as Michigan, were drinking alcohol was openly practiced and Prohibition agents were generally corrupt.
In 1920 the number of alcohol-related deaths fell and the number of people in hospital as a result of alcohol-related accidents also decreased drastically. The number of people being diagnosed with illnesses such as delirium tremens, cirrhoses of the liver and other alcohol related illnesses also went down and many hospitals thanked the introduction of Prohibition for this. The death rate also fell from 5.8 per 100,000 people in 1918 to 2.6 in 1923 due to alcohol being prohibited therefore not allowing people to drink it. These statistics were all taken in1920 before all the bootlegging began and organised crime began to run properly, therefore Prohibition was a success until big criminals such as John Torrio began to operate on a large scale.
The Prohibition of alcohol made people turn to something else as a social drink. Although the rise of soft drinks began in the 1880’s, the Prohibition period made the number of people consuming them shoot up. Coca Cola became to be known as ‘The Grand National Temperance Drink,’ and the government encouraged people to drink
it as an alternative to alcohol. By 1930 the American population were drinking one hundred and eighty two million cases of coca cola per year, compared to the seventeen point four million cases in the 1880’s. By the time Prohibition was repealed coca-cola was a well-established household name and even after alcohol was legalised the American people continued to drink it.
By 1933, the Prohibition experiment had come to an end and even famous faces such as J. Rockerfeller who had been a large supporter of Prohibition had admitted it had been a failure. It finally ended because of a collection of reasons, a primary one being the depression and to introduce alcohol back into society would be to open up an entire new industry and created millions of jobs.
The Prohibition experiment of the 1920’s failed because of a number of reasons, the key one being the birth of organised crime and big gang leaders such as Al Capone, who corrupted government officials and bribed them in order to ensure that they didn’t carry out their job properly. Another key reasons was that people simply didn’t want to stop drinking, which created the demand for bootlegged alcohol. However Prohibition did succeed until1921, when the big gangs began to operate on a large scale with huge smuggling operations, we are shown this by the number of drink related deaths going down until then and then shooting back up in 1923, when the death rate became 3.2 per 100,000 people. From the very start of Prohibition, the government didn’t put as much effort into maintaining the Volstead Act as they should have, the low number of officers employed to ensure that the law was maintained were under paid making them easy target for bribery. This is another key reason as to why Prohibition failed. Although the period of Prohibition failed to keep America completely ‘dry,’ the amount of alcohol consumed did fall and by more than half by 1933, many historians argue that this is Prohibition succeeded, as although drinking didn’t cease completely it did decrease.
The Prohibition experiment of the 1920’s was a failure, because of lack of effort the government put into maintaining it. There was not enough money in the system and officers were poorly paid and allowed large gangs to spring up. The demand for it by the societies of American also made it fail. Although the experiment succeeded in brining down the drinking rate in the USA, it did not achieve in stopping it completely, which was its aim, therefore it did not succeed in its aim and consequently failed.