One of the other reasons was the moral fervour that was inspired by the ‘war to make the world safe for democracy’.
The points that Source A mentions only are: -
Source A says that one of the worst influences on the people at the time was the saloons, while Source B disagrees with this and says that it was the peoples own fault for the banning of alcohol. Source A says that this was on e of the main reasons for the banning of alcohol were saloons, while Source B says that the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was the main reason why prohibition was brought in to play in 1919 because the men were out at war and the women saw it as an evil.
For preserving food instead of wasting it by making alcohol with it. This was because of the war was going on at the time and the food available was very precious.
They also had very strong negative feelings about the German – Americans who were important in brewing and distilling the alcohol.
Looking at the consequences of prohibition there looks as if there is total agreement between Sources A and B as both make the exact same points: -
They say: -
‘It created the greatest criminal boom in American history’
This is because gangsters turned avoidance of prohibition into a big violent business which was mostly run by Al Capone and
They also say that there were more than 30,000 speakeasies in New York this was because people still wanted to be able to drink. This disagrees with prohibition completely because how is a law going to work if everyone is breaking it. The police who were hired to enforce this law were against it because they themselves were breaking the law of prohibition. When they caught someone for breaking the law they were willing to accept a bribe of the accused because they were on such a low pay. When the pay was eventually increased this meant that many more people were arrested for the breaking of the prohibition law.
The both sources agree that prohibition encouraged gangsters and this is shown by a famous quote by Al Capone on prohibition: -
‘Prohibition is a business’ and ‘all I do is supply a public demand’.
We also know why Al Capone said this because there is a lot of money that could have been made in the drink market. He wanted to establish himself as the number one supplier of drink in New York. When he had competition of another gang he made sure that they would nether bother him again. He killed them on the 14th February 1929; his gang shot dead seven members of their main rival gang.
After looking at the both sources I have noticed that they both look at the negative affects of prohibition more than looking at the positive affects of prohibition. When looking at both sources I noticed that there seemed to be more reasons for prohibition in Source A and there seemed to be more consequences in Source B. Source A says a lot of things that Source B doesn’t but they both agree with each other.
