American Prohibition
On midnight of January 16, 1920, one of the started around the turn of the century, when many people got the idea that most of what was wrong with America was caused by boozepersonal habits and customs of most Americans came to a sudden halt. It . They saw prohibition as the silver hammer that would decimate all of their alky-related woes. Instead, it turned out to be the lodestone that lead America into thirteen years of chaos. The eighteenth amendment was ineffective because it was unenforceable, it caused an explosive growth in crime, and it increased the amount of alcohol consumption.
The Eighteenth Amendment was put into effect to prohibit the manufacture, sale and transportation of ...
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quality of life. This, however, was undoubtedly to no avail.
After the Volstead Act was put into place to determine precise laws and methods of enforcement, the Federal Prohibition Bureau was developed in order to see that the Volstead Act was enforced. Nevertheless, these laws were frequently violated by bootleggers and commoners alike. Bootleggers smuggled liquor from overseas and Canada, stole it from government warehouses, and produced their own. Many people hid their liquor in hip flasks, false books, hollow canes, and anything else they could find. (Bowen 159). There were also illegal speakeasies which replaced saloons soon after the start of prohibition. By 1925, there were over 100,000 speakeasies in New York City alone (Bowen 160). As good as the ideal sounded, prohibition was far easier to proclaim than to enforce. With only 1,550 federal agents and over 18,700 miles of extensive coastline, it was quite impossible to prevent large quantities of liquor from entering ...
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period increased 561 percent. “As a result of one bad law, public regard for all laws diminished.” (Barry 77).
The contributing factor to the sudden increase of felonies was the organization of crime, especially in large cities. Because liquor was no longer legally available, the public turned to criminals who readily took on the bootlegging industry and supplied them with liquor. On account of the industry being so profitable, more gangsters became involved in the money-making business. Criminal groups readily organized around the steady source of income provided by laws against victimless crimes such as alcohol consumption. As a result of the money involved in the bootlegging industry, ...
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American Prohibition. (2006, December 30). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/American-Prohibition/57906
"American Prohibition." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 30 Dec. 2006. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/American-Prohibition/57906>
"American Prohibition." Essayworld.com. December 30, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/American-Prohibition/57906.
"American Prohibition." Essayworld.com. December 30, 2006. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/American-Prohibition/57906.
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