The Story Of Prohibition
In the late 19th century, many separate, unorganized groups sought prohibition. On major group was the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Founded in 1874, it had about 300,000 people by 1900. It was effectively led by Frances Williard from 1879 to her death in 1898. She had 1/4 of the states with restrictions on purchase and consumption of alcohol by 1900. By 1918, 3/4 of the U.S. was dry, and in 1919 Prohibition became the 18th Amendment. The Anti-Saloon League, formed in 1843, was another major movement. They started it off, and then helped the WCTU while preaching against other ills.
Opposition to the prohibition movement appeared from mostly the youth and the legitimate businessmen. The youth would go to speakeasies, run by mobsters, and supported by bootleggers. Speakeasies were secret bars where you could get alcohol (home-brewed in the dumpier ones). The mobsters set up the bars and funded them, and bootleggers smuggled in liquor. Sometimes mobsters would randomly kill innocent people to protest prohibition or mark their selling territory. Eventually Prohibition was repealed in 1933 by the 21st Amendment.Prohibition didn't work because the government wasn't willing to follow through. The amendment was effective - most people stopped drinking - but the killings were too much to endure. I think they should have kept up prohibition because the number of alcohol-related deaths is much greater than any amount of people the mob could even think to kill. The problem is that deaths by alcohol don't affect people as much as humans killing each other. Until alcohol-related deaths start to affect us, alcohol will be a continuing dilemma.
