Source D is also Pro-Prohibition like source C. This source has a different approach at showing it was for prohibition. The title “Daddy’s in there” shows how fathers would leave families to get a drink. The child is shown as a small child with tattered cloths. This makes the audience sympathise for them and also agree with prohibition. The child wants to go inside but he is too young and can’t. He mother also does not want the child to go in and see his daddy drunk. The sentence that finishes of the title is using the same method as source C. “And our shoes and stockings and food are in the saloon too, and they’ll never come out” This says that the father will not have any money and will therefore not be able to get the things in the sentence. This agrees that drinking does make families poor. The money is not spent on supporting the family unless the father stops drinking. The poster provokes guilt. The date 1915 was during the war when German beer was being drunk. This was a reason why alcohol was looked down on.
Many historians disagree that prohibition had any good points, however these posters caused families to be reunited. They both were for prohibition and both had similar approaches to show this. Concluding the question. The two sources were both for prohibition and both showed it in guild provoking ways. The had bold titles and pictures to show it.They were good pieces of propaganda.
Sources E and F
John D Rockefeller Jr was a wealth industrialist and lived through prohibition. The source was written in 1931, which was the time of prohibition; just before it ended. This means his source is going to be more reliable as he has seen the effect of prohibition. The letter gives a view of what John D Rockefeller can see and is un biased. He has no reason to be biased.. As he says “I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of "alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result” This shows how he wanted the ban to make America a better place but he has seen that that has not been the result of Prohibition. He does not make his opinion bias as he says what has happened. He has nothing to gain or lose. Drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared” This is what he has seen. This is what was said in sources A and B. John D Rockefeller’s source is primary as he was there to witness the ban.
Source F was written when John F. Kramer, the first prohibition commissioner was speaking in publish in 1920; just after it started. His job was to enforce the law. This immediately suggests the source will be biased as his job is to enforce prohibition so he will express thing in the favour of prohibition. Again the source is primary. The source immediately starts with “The law will be obeyed in cities, large and small, and in villages. Where it is not obeyed it will be enforced” It is almost as if he is threatening America. However I know from my own knowledge that Prohibition was not obeyed, neither enforced much at all. Speakeasies were springing up and gangster like Al Capone made businesses out of the avoidance of prohibition. John F. Kramer was bias to the fact that prohibition would stay, which is what he wanted. Also he was the first commissioner and needed to make a good impression. The date shows that it was the start of prohibition and he has not seen what was to come unlike source F.
From the evidence above, my conclusion is that Source E is more reliable as evidence about prohibition, it is primary evidence, and John D Rockefeller junior had nothing to gain or lose from prohibition and he would therefore be unbiased. He has also written it in the form of what he has seen. Source F is as biased as it can be as it was the commissioner’s job to enforce prohibition. He has almost threatened the USA in his speech.
Do sources G and H prove that prohibition was successful?
Sources G and H show and prove that prohibition was successful and unsuccessful.
Source G shows that the federal government agents were successful to a great extent in seizing thousands of stills and millions of gallons of spirits. In 1921 9,746 illegal stills were seized and by 1929 15,794 were seized. This shows that agents were doing their job. Also in 1921, 414,000 gallons of spirits were seized and by 1929, 11,860,0000 gallons were seized. Source H that drunk and disorderly conduct arrests were successful. The results show this, as there is decrease from 6,097 in 1921 to 5,522 in 1925 in Philadelphia.
However as we have seen from previous sources, there are more unsuccessful consequences of prohibition than successful. Source G though successful in many ways, is also unsuccessful. The fact that the federal government are seizing more and more stills every 4 years and that gallons of spirits seized rised to a whopping 11,860,000 in 8 years shows people weren’t obeying the prohibition law. I also know that one possible cause of the rise is that alcohol was being imported from Canada and Mexico. Prohibition commissioners could not sop this due to lack of commissioners and corruption. In source H for drink related offences it shows that the number of drunks went from 14,313 in 1920 to 51,361 in 1925. This proves that prohibition was not working and that it made people drink more and get drunk. As I mentioned earlier drunk and disorderly conduct did go down, however one reason for this could have been that people knew they would get arrested if seen drunk so they would often drink in a quiet hidden away area to cancel any risk of getting arrested. Drunk drivers were 0 in 1920 but by 1925 there were 820 drunk drivers. This clearly shows that crime was rising. The law could not be enforced. Corruption also had a lot to do with the figures. Many law enforcers would take bribes not to arrest people. They would join in with the drunk. If we link to source I it says how they were almost forced to take bribes and a drink would be waiting for them. This shows how corruption was a very large scaled disrespect for the law. So corruption made many of the figures, if not all unreliable.
There were many successful and unsuccessful points proved by sources G and H, however I have noticed they do not show many other things. One of those things is the results mentioned in the sources before prohibition. This means we cannot compare the results with anything apart from during prohibition. Source H only shows results from one state, Philadelphia. That’s out of a total 50 states at the time.
Many historians believe Prohibition was a failure, from the sources above I would agree with them. Prohibition led to an increase in crime, and there was a blatant disrespect for the law. Many commissioners were corrupt and Drinking was never really stopped as the results show. Also source H is only one state and the numbers are massive, there wee 50 states, many would have had higher results, just showing how badly prohibition was ignored. These figures are useless due to the input of corruption.
How far does source I prove that the policeman in source J is
Telling the truth?
Source is a cartoon about corruption by Clive weed. It shows many people with high authority lining up with their hands out behind their backs; the backhand. As this was from around the time of prohibition it suggests that they are open to taking bribes and making illegal deals. The title of the cartoon is “The National Gesture”. This suggests that the backhand is done all over the country and that it is the polite thing to do. If you look closer at the titles of the people in the photo you will come to the conclusion that they are not the kind of people you would expect to do that. You would expect better from a prohibition agent, police officer, politician and the other high authorities.
Source J is an account from a policeman who was sent into Polish a neighbourhood to enforce the law. However it states, “The bottle was there and you were supposed to drink it”. This shows that the policemen were pressurised into drinking. They were encouraged to drink. He even says his superiors were corrupt. “my superior officers were involved in it”. There was of course the risk of getting sacked if you were corrupt and even if you did try to enforce the law. Many of the lawbreakers would have bribed high ranked officers and they would sack you to save themselves. The police officer also says how he got bribed "a man dashed up to me and said, this is for you. He handed me an envelope, I took it and he was gone. I opened it and there was $75 in it." This shows how badly corrupt everyone was and how the law was never going to be obeyed, or a success.
The two sources show that people were always open to bribes of any sort. However source J shows that many police officers were forced into taking bribes, which criminals would use against them.
The sources also disagree on many things. For example Source I says that everyone is corrupt however source J says that Policemen are corrupt. Source J goes into great detail about police officers whereas source I mentioning everyone else with authority in general. This isn’t a disagreement just a lack of detail, it does not mention everyone that was corrupt. A final disagreement is the fact that source J says that you would get sacked if corrupt but source I doesn’t mention anything about that.
There is no way in knowing if the police officer was telling the truth or covering up that he was corrupt. However he admits there was a lot of corruption. He doesn’t tell us why he was given the money and if he gave it back or not. It is only his point of view. Source I is also someone’s opinion of corruption and who he thought was corrupt. Both sources could be bias and unbiased; there is no way of telling. Both sides of the story need to be known to understand everything.
Do All The Sources Support The View That Failure
Of Prohibition Was Inevitable?
Throughout my studies of prohibition I have come across many sources, all with different views and opinions. The sources are all-different and are written by different people. This gives me the opportunity to find out whose sources are showing that the failure of prohibition was inevitable and whose think that its failure wasn’t inevitable.
The first two sources I studied, A and B are historians view. Both source A and B say that Prohibition caused the biggest criminal boom in American history. Source A states “It created the biggest criminal boom in American history.” source B states “Gangsters like Dutch Schulz and Al Capone had turned the avoidance of alcohol into big, violent business.” This immediately suggests prohibition’s failure was inevitable as the law would not be able to control the criminals, the police officers and agents wound not be able to control the huge mass if people and corruption contributed to this. This meant prohibition would not work.
John Rockefeller Wrote source E in 1932, a year before the end of prohibition. Source E talks about how drinking and crime had increased. This shows that inevitably Prohibition was going to fail, as Prohibition was meant to stop people drinking and not increase it.
The statistics formed in sources G and H also show prohibition was inevitably going to fail. Source G shows alcohol seized from 1921 to 1929. There is a huge increase over that period of time. This suggests in the years to come that more and more alcohol will be seized every year. This meant prohibition was going to fail. Source H is a lot like source G in terms of figures, a there is a huge increase in total drunk related offences in Philadelphia. This is in one state and by 1925 there were a whopping 57,703 offences. There are many bigger states, which suggests there will be a huge amount of illegal alcohol in the USA. This agrees with the statement “was prohibitions failure inevitable.
Sources I and J both show that police officers, agents and anyone with high authority took bribes. Source I show 7 government officials doing the backhand. They are willing to take a bribe. Source J was written by a policeman in the 1920’s, during prohibition. He talks about how easy it was to get alcohol and how a bribe would be forced on you before you had even got into the town. This supports the title because it shows that the law could not be enforced if the law enforcers were breaking the law.
Source C, D and F are the only sources that supported prohibition and prove that it was not bound to fail. Both sources C and D are posters that show that families go without food, clothes and shoes because the father spends all the money on alcohol. This proves the failure was not inevitable because it presents a strong reason why people should support prohibition.
The first commissioner of prohibition wrote source F and he says, “The law will be obeyed in cities, large and small. Where it is not obeyed, it will be enforced.” This shows that the law enforcers will work to make the law work. It is a strong reason to support prohibition.
In conclusion to this, most of the sources support the fact the failure of prohibition was inevitable. Those sources present strong information on why prohibitions failure was inevitable.