Overall the sources agree on that prohibition tried to stop the production and consumption of alcohol but they disagree on whether prohibition was a ban of alcoholism and crime or whether prohibition was a ban on a every day activity and american custom.
- Study Sources C and D. Were the artists of these two posters for or against Prohibition?’
Both Sources C and D are for prohibition. This is apparent because in source C by the way the picture shows a picture of a man handing over his weekly wages for alcohol while his wife and children sit at home with no money. This shows that alcohol kept the poor, poor and was a reason for prohibition it also seems to be a comment on the social cost of prohibition by the heading “the poor mans club, the most expensive in the world to belong to” this seems to comment on how the cost of the saloon is more than economical i.e the mans wages, but also social and emotionally on his family , his wife is shown as distressed and breaking down. This was one of the main reasons the Anti saloon league crusaded for prohibition.
Source D shows its support for prohibition. We can tell this because of the way the picture shows two children in tattered clothes, looking sad and longingly towards the saloon door. The caption underneath the picture is the most important thing, because it underlines the economical effect of the saloon. It says that their ‘shoes and stockings and food are in the saloon too, and they’ll never come out’. This is suggesting that the father of the children is in the bar and is spending all the money that should be used on the children’s shoes, stockings and food. This poster is definitely for prohibition because it is trying to make people feel for the children in a family and blame alcohol for the poverty and pain it causes. Women were not allowed to enter saloons so they would send the children to fetch the fathers from a saloon in the hope that it would make the father feel guilty. This picture seems to show the children failing in the attempt to retrieve there farther
It is important to remember that both these posters are examples of propaganda designed to encourage prohibition there for the images they portray are biased.
- Study Sources E and F. Which of these two sources is the more reliable as evidence about Prohibition?
Source E is more reliable as evidence about prohibition for many different reasons. One reason is that Source E is written in 1932 just as prohibition was ending and Source F is written in 1920 just as prohibition was starting. This means that the person writing Source E had seen personally the effects of prohibition thought the period it was in force. Source F is less reliable because the person speaking only knew about the very beginning of prohibition they wouldn’t have seen the increase in organised crime during the prohibition years this would mean that he wouldn’t have foreseen the difficulties in enforcing a law which very few people really wanted.
Another reason why Source E is more reliable than Source F is because source E is just a general person who apart from not being allowed to drink alcohol is not really linked to prohibition or enforcing it. Source F is by a person who was ‘the first Prohibition Commissioner’. This means that it is his job to enforce prohibition. This makes him biased because he will want to encourage people to not break the law also obviously he would want people to think they would be punished if they broke the law.
The only thing that makes Source E slightly unreliable is that the mans own opinion is coming through slightly in the language he uses. For example, ‘the evil effects of alcohol’ and he uses the word ‘reluctantly’ when saying how he had to come to terms with the fact that prohibition had failed. But I think that Source E is the most reliable source because from my own knowledge all the things stated in this source are true because prohibition did increase drinking, lawbreaking was more frequent and crime increased. Source E is also correct because it fits in with Source G and Source H. Source G and H show that more alcohol was produced, more drunk people were arrested and there were more drunk drivers. This shows that Sources G and H back up most of the things that were stated in Source E.
Where as source F is not supported by any figures if anything it is disproved by the increase in alcohol related incidents post 1920 this shows that prohibition failed because alcohol was still available and if anything drunk in greater quantities during the prohibition years.
(d) Study sources G and H. Do these two sources prove that prohibition was successful?
Both these sources, when looking at the figures, show that prohibition was a failure but when looking at source G writer, it was written by a government agency connected with enforcing prohibition, this means that obviously the agency would be wanting to portray a successful image and therefore might ‘edit’ figures
When looking at the figures in source G it shows that prohibition was a failure because towards 1929, more illegal stills were seized and more gallons of spirits were seized. This suggests that more alcohol was being produced showing that prohibition was failing. On the other hand, it could suggest that the police were getting more efficient at doing their job and seized more gallons of spirits because they were getting better at doing so.
When looking at the figures in source H it shows the prohibition was definitely a failure. This is especially apparent in the ‘drunk’ column. It shows that although more people were getting arrested for being drunk (suggesting that the police were doing a better job) but it shows that more alcohol must have been getting produced for more people to drink and for more people to break the law.
But because Source H was written by the Police Department of Philadelphia it suggests that the source may have been biased as the department would try to be showing that prohibition was successful so that they didn’t show themselves up as unable to enforce the law.
(e) Study Sources I and J. How far does Source I prove that the policeman in Source J is telling the truth?
Source J says that saloon owners and gangsters involved in bootlegging alcohol often bribed policemen. Source I agrees with this by showing how many of the authorities were willing to except bribes and turn a blind eye to the illegal activities taking place blatantly around them. This is illustrated in the picture in Source I by the way the figures have an open hand behind their backs as if they are trying to keep face well being bribed.
Source J also says that ordinary policemen had no choice snd had to obey their superiors if they didn’t want to be put on a posting with “nothing but weeds”. Source I agrees with this because all the people shown in the picture are people in authority who should normally be upholding the law, all of them are meant to be enforcing prohibition but they seem to have fallen victim to greed or fear of gangs. Source I and J show that most of the superior authorities would let prohibition fail as long as they made money out of it.
Source J says that if a policeman spoke up about the corruption going on and the bribes that were being accepted by their superiors they would be put in a highly unpleasant posting. Source I sort of agrees with this because all the people in the picture are superior and would not want to be embarrassed in front of the whole nation if the nation knew that they were corrupt.
Source I shows that the policeman in Source J is mainly telling the truth because it agrees with most of the factors stated in Source I.
(f) Study all the sources. Do these sources support the view that the failure of Prohibition was inevitable?
I think that nearly all these sources support the view that the failure of prohibition was inevitable.
Source A supports the view that Prohibition was bound to fail because it states that prohibition was passed ‘at a time when large numbers of men were absent in the armed forces’. This suggests that there were not people there to oppose the law and to make sure it was not passed. It also states that Prohibition encouraged gangsters and crime this would be quiet major reasons for the law to fail.
Source B suggests that people were pressurised into supporting prohibition when maybe they didn’t really want it to become a law. With organisations such as the ‘Women’s Christian Temperance Union’ and the ‘Anti-Saloon League’ the idea of prohibition was almost forced onto people. On the other hand, it also says that ‘the first prohibition commissioner had no doubts that he would stamp out the evil of drink’. This suggests that some people didn’t think that the failure of prohibition was inevitable. Although clearly the law must have had support but I think that had a general referendum been held on the law then it would have failed it was the fact that influential people wanted the law passed which made it part of the constitution
Source C and D are fairly similar in the view they show. They are both for the idea of prohibition. Both the posters were published before prohibition became a law and so these sources don’t really say whether the failure of prohibition was inevitable or not.
Source E supports the view that Prohibition was bound to fail because of the way it is worded. It says that although he wanted it to be a success he ‘reluctantly came to believe that this was not the result’. He talked about the way that prohibition encouraged crime, drinking increased and law-abiding citizens were not as law abiding as before. This source suggests that the failure of prohibition was inevitable.
In Sources F, G and H it is hard to tell whether they show that prohibition was bound to fail. In sources G and H it maybe suggests that it was bound to fail because the amounts of alcohol being seized were increasing greatly and there were more drunks and drunk drivers being arrested. In Source F though it is not clear and does not really say anything about it failing, this would be because the commissionaire would need to encourage people to be positive about the law.
Source I and J definitely support the view that prohibition was bound to fail because it shows clearly the corruption that was going on. Source J says that it was all a ‘conspiracy’ and that his ‘superior officers were involved in it’. This shows that prohibition was bound to fail because if the pillars of society weren’t enforcing it properly then no one was going to obey the law. From my own knowledge I know that it is rumoured that even the president had the occasional alcoholic drink.
Generally, over all, the sources support the view that the failure of Prohibition was inevitable. The reason for this failure was that the majority of Americans did not want prohibition which meant that you had people trying to enforce a law which they themselves broke or disagreed with add to this copious amounts of corruption bribery and violent crime it was blatantly going to fail as source A says “..no earlier law had gone against the customs, habits and desires of so many Americans.”
