Up until 1929 there is reason to think that Prohibition was working well, as the American public were very much in favour of a “dry” country. Herbert Hoover, a well known ‘dry’ politician, won the election against the ‘wet’ Al Smith, who wanted Prohibition to be repealed. This proves that although Prohibition may not necessarily have been achieving all it was meant to achieve at that time, it was not a complete failure as the majority of the public still backed the law.
However, the Depression struck in 1929 and this is the year that many think Prohibition became redundant and a complete failure. With high levels of unemployment throughout America, it was deemed mad to spend so much Government money on a law that was both unpopular with the people and ineffective. America needed to make money, and as it was, valuable revenue made from the lucrative illegal alcohol business went straight into criminal organisations. This meant that not only was the economy missing out on a lot of money, but crime was gaining profits and expanding at a time when police were already stretched. Many people without jobs began to turn to crime in order to make money. The repeal of Prohibition began to seem very appealing as it would bring alcohol profits into the economy and help American citizens to turn from crime.
The impact of the Depression on the American public is shown through the fact that in 1932 Hoover was beaten in the presidential election by a man who vowed to get rid of Prohibition- Franklin Roosevelt. Public opinion had swung heavily in favour of repeal. Roosevelt lifted Prohibition when the 21st Amendment was approved on 5th December 1933. He saw that by doing this he would be restoring jobs to a large number of the American population whilst gaining money for the country’s economy and reducing crime.
In contrast to the view that Prohibition failed in 1929 through the Depression, many people claim that it was a complete failure from the start, corrupting the police, increasing levels of organised criminal activity, and bringing violence and chaos onto the streets of American cities. This argument states that Prohibition would never have worked because there were too many factors against the idea, as well as the fact that a large percentage of the public disliked the idea.
On the other hand, Prohibition may not have been destined to failure. The very concept of Prohibition would probably have seemed, at the time, a very good idea. There is no way of denying that alcohol does hold the responsibility for a certain amount of crime, immorality and violence and for this reason the enforcement of Prohibition was not pre-destined to fail. However, the Depression may have made it impossible to make Prohibition work any longer, as it piled a lot more pressure onto an economy already lacking the funds gained from the alcohol business.
Furthermore, the fact that that a large proportion of the public were for Prohibition, even up until just before the Depression- as proved by the election of the ‘dry’ Herbert Hoover, meant that Prohibition may not have been bound to fail.
Prohibition was repealed for several reasons. Firstly there are the aforementioned reasons that the law was extremely difficult to enforce, as America was huge, and the police force and courts of justice were corrupt through bribery from the criminals themselves. Also, the Depression meant that public opinion went from being in favour of Prohibition to being firmly against it, eliminating the benefits gained for politicians in the form of popularity and votes. Pressure from the public and a need to boost America’s crushed economy meant that continuing Prohibition was no longer deemed an option.
In my opinion, the failure of Prohibition was inevitable, mainly due to the fact that it was always going to be impossible to enforce because of the sheer size of America and its coastlines. In my eyes, the Depression was the final blow in the struggle to keep Prohibition working, effectively ending any kind of success the law was having. However, this opinion is formed with hindsight and I can easily see how Prohibition was deemed a good idea at first, as it appeared to provide an answer to almost everyone’s problems. But in the end I believe that the factors against the success of Prohibition, such as the problems of corruption, the fact that many rich people were easily able to get hold of alcohol anyway from illegal bars, and that a large amount of people went ahead and manufactured their own alcohol anyway, greatly outweighed the factors for the success of Prohibition.
Sources used:
DeMarco, N –“The USA: A divided nation” (Longman, 1994)
Kelly, N & Lacy, G –“Modern World History” (Heinemann, 2001)
