Before Prohibition was introduced a vast majority of Americas population enjoyed drinking. So naturally when prohibition was introduced there were a lot of unhappy people in America.
Some of the public refused to conform to the new ways of prohibition so ex-saloon owners created places called speakeasies. This was the common name for a saloon or bar for the duration of prohibition. The owners of the speakeasies would either import alcohol or they would create their own alcohol called moonshine. This alcohol was a lot cheaper to make and cheaper to buy so therefore was a very popular drink. Plus bootleg alcoholic beverages like beer and whisky were created, the whole drinking scene was slowly starting to look like its former self. The most confusing statistic is that before prohibition there were less speakeasies then there were during prohibition. So therefore the introduction of prohibition had actually increased America’s alcohol intake rate.
When Prohibition started it opened up an opportunity for local gangsters to make some money and then expand their business and many of them took this opportunity. Probably the most famous of all the gangsters was called Al Capone. He was the leader of a huge organisation and he saw the business opportunities for himself to restore alcohol in America.
The first thing that Capone did was to start importing alcohol from Canada. He would then sell it on to some dealers for a fee.
When Al Capone started to help supply these speakeasies with alcohol the police started to investigate his transactions to try and catch him. He then proceeded to discover that many policemen who investigated him drank in speakeasies and so he offered them small lump sums to continually report back with nothing, this is how his business thrived.
Another way that Capone and his goons made money was to go through a process of ‘racketeering.’ This was a process where people who represented Capone asked shop owners for money, which would ensure that their establishment, would not be damaged in any way. This was a form of black mail because all it meant was that if the shop owners didn’t pay, Capone would simply have their shop smashed up, or in some cases blown up. This was a problem because the shopkeepers couldn’t go to the police and get Capone arrested because the police where indirectly working for Capone.
Capone will be long remembered for his actions with which he continually broke the law. But the one thing that will stand out the most is the case of the St. Valentines Day massacre.
On Valentines Day, 14th of February 1929, Al Capone’s men went too far. One of Capone’s rival gangs, The Bugs Moran Gang, had 7 of their members lured to a warehouse by Capone and his men. Capone’s men put Moran’s men up against a wall and proceeded to shoot them all. This event shocked America unlike any other scene of gang-related violence that they had seen before.
Capone was starting to make a name for himself and so was therefore becoming increasingly more cautious with his actions. The police tried to catch him many times when he was making the jump from Canada to America with fresh alcohol in motor cars such as these:
These hollowed out vans where used to smuggle alcohol across the border.
The police did catch Capone sometimes but could never pin down evidence on him because of the bribed policemen that they worked with, keeping some information hidden. Eventually some police officers caught and convicted Capone for tax evasion, thus ending the chapter.
Al Capone was one of the main characters who influenced the way America changed during prohibition, because of him and others changes that were supposed to be a positive change were tuned into negative ones.
For example, prohibition was designed to stop drunkenness and crime but instead of it decreasing they both rose. Prohibition was designed to stop bars from selling alcohol but instead more bars continued selling more alcohol.
The idea of this noble experiment was ultimately to stop the men drinking away their lives and money and to spend more time with their families. But as this was the time of the boom and people where doing away with all the old ways of life more women became drinkers and so now it wasn’t just the men in speakeasies, it was the women as well.
When the county hit economic depression it looked to be in trouble but then the newly elected president in 1932 called Franklin D. Roosevelt promised to do away with prohibition and so he did.
Prohibition, described as the noble experiment, was a failure. It made a growing and booming economy turn into a corrupt and dangerous one, which eventually led to the countries demise.
If it were not for Roosevelt, then who knows what kind of state America would be in today.
