Prohibition

3843

Prohibition

committed, who was charged with the duty i
of prosecuting the offenders.

In order to carry out this last provision i
there was created in the Bureau of Internal
Revenue a special organization, known as
the Prohibition Enforcement Unit, under a
Prohibition Commissioner, subordinate to the
Commissioner of Internal Revenue, who in
turn was subject to the Secretary of the
Treasury. On April 30, 1924, the U. S. Su-
preme Court handed down a decision that
the iSth Amendment and the National Pro-
hibition (Volstead) Act applied to all mer-
chant vessels, both domestic and foreign,
when within the territorial waters of the
United States, except in transit through the
Panama Canal, and they did not apply to
domestic vessels when beyond these waters.

The chief obstacle to prohibition in the
past was the widely prevailing idea that it
is hostile to the purpose of the Constitution
and the ethics of personal liberty. Another
argument adopted against its being carried
into effect was that prohibition is the parent
of illicit liquor traffic and enormously aggra-
vates the drink evil. Still another was the
loss of that enormous revenue from the sale
of intoxicants by which many public institu-
tions of social, charitable, and educational
utility are maintained or greatly aided.

Over against these criticisms the advocates
of prohibition asserted that neither the mak-
ers nor sellers of beer and other intoxicants
provide such revenue; that it comes out of
consumers, who by their consumption are
made non-producers to a burdensome extent;
that pauperism, crime, and vice are the di-
rect result of such consumption; and that
these cost the taxpayers many times more
than any sum the liquor traffic ever claims to
pay. Regardless of the controversial theoret-
ical aspects of prohibition, the national gov-
ernment prosecuted its enforcement with a
rigor temporized only by the extent of its
available funds, but a success contingent hi
large measure on a varying local receptivity.

The prohibition years, however, were by
no means arid. Considered as more than a
joke was the common remark that 'Prohibi-
tion is better than no liquor.* The 'better*
was none too good: home brew, flavoring
extracts, bay rum, hair tonics, a variety of
medicinal preparations, and alcohol of ques-
tionable genealogy (as well as industrial al-
cohol rendered, in theory, impotable and
even poisoned by the government) caused)
by their induction, many deaths, and many
cases of blindness. After 1924 the chief sup-

ply came from diverted industrial alcohol. In
1926, it was estimated, 60,000,000 gallons
were so diverted, for the delectation of
speakeasy' patrons or home bibbers, in the
form either of 'cut' or synthetic liquor. The
profits from this eventually highly organ-
ized trade in illegal liquor, and from illicit
brewing and distilling, enabled a large crim-
inal element to extend their operations to
many equally well developed rackets.

A comprehensive survey of the prohibition
situation was contained hi the final report of
the Wickersham Commission, presented to
President Hoover on Jan. 19,1931. The com-
mission, read the report, was opposed to re-
peal of the Eighteenth Amendment, to re-
turn of the saloon, to the Federal or State
governments' going into the liquor business,
to legalization of beer and wines. Some of
the commission favored further trial of the
Eighteenth Amendment in its existent form,
others considered it to have already been
demonstrated as unenforceable; all agreed
that if revised it should permit Congress to
determine national policy with respect to the
liquor traffic (something forbidden by the
Constitution).

Public dissatisfaction became manifest
from the beginning of the vdry* era in 1920,
and the prohibition experience of the United
States ran the same course as it did in all
other countries where a similar attempt was
made. From about 1907 to 1920 the tide of
sentiment seemed to favor, after 1925 it op-
posed, prohibition. Polls of the Literary Di-
gest in 1930 and 1932 further illustrated the
popular desire for repeal or reform. Dwight
Morrow in 1930 joined the repealists, and
many other prominent citizens, notably John
D. Rockefeller Jr., followed suit. (For the
important political aspects of the prohibition
issue see UNITED STATES: History.)

The last 'lame-duck' Congress failed to
pass beer legislation, in spite of Democratic
efforts. It did, however, agree on a resolution
for the repeal of the Eighteenth Amend-
ment, which Secretary Stimson on Feb. 21,
1933, submitted to the States for ratifica-
tion by State conventions to be called for
the purpose. In March the restrictions on
the prescription of medicinal liquor were
withdrawn. On April 7 legalized beer went
on sale in nearly half the States.

On April 10 Michigan became the first
State to ratify the Twenty-first Amendment.
Convention after convention followed this
example in a 'wet* march broken only hy
North and South Carolina; with Utah's