Stanley K. Schultz, Professor of History
William P. Tishler, Producer
 

Lecture 17
 

The Politics of Prohibition: The 1920s

Historians often describe the 1920s as a decade of contrasts and conflicts. Freedoms in dress, behavior, and sexual attitudes clashed with a new Puritanism. The automobile was replacing the old horse and buggy. There were conflicts between the traditional small-town way of life and a new urbanism and cosmopolitanism. In the 1920s, some Americans saw life as a glorious orgy, with the popularization of Freud, songs such as "Hot Lips" and "I Need Lovin,'" and movies called "Up in Mabel's Room" and "Her Purchase Price." On the other hand, religious fundamentalism underwent a rebirth, as people tried to latch onto the traditional moral standards--either real or imagined--of bygone years. Overall, the decline of the Anglo-Saxon class as the most influential group in American society characterized this time period. Even as the power of the Anglo-Saxon establishment was on the wane, one of its final attempts at holding onto control was the passage of national Prohibition.

Some questions to keep in mind:

1. Was there a dominant culture in 1920s American society? Give specific examples to prove your point.
2. Compare and contrast the techniques and goals of the temperance movement with those of suffragists and other Progressive feminists.
3. What were the fundamental differences between the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union? What did these two groups share in common?
4. The prohibition movement was about more than getting Americans to stop drinking. What other social issues were linked to this movement? What socio-economic group had the most interest in seeing Prohibition succeed? Why?

Prohibition in a Nutshell

The 18th Amendment to the Constitution--passed by Congress in 1917, and ratified by 3/4 of states by 1919--prohibited the manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages within the boundaries of the United States.

The Volstead Act of 1919, also known as the National Prohibition Enforcement Act, gave the 18th Amendment some teeth. It clearly defined an alcoholic beverage as one with an alcoholic content greater than 0.5 percent.

The 21st Amendment, which was ratified in 1933, repealed the 18th Amendment. In order to get around the traditional process of ratification by the state legislatures--many of which were expected to vote "dry"--Congress instead called for ratifying conventions in each state. At the completion of delegates' voting, the national count in favor of repeal of the 18th Amendment was 73%.

The Decline of the Anglo-Saxon Class

Before we discuss the decline of the Anglo-Saxon class as the most influential group in American society, we need to define exactly who was an "Anglo-Saxon."

1. Americans descended from the early European settlers. This included the English (as the name Anglo-Saxon would imply), as well as long-settled families of Irish and German stock
2. People who held positions of respectability and responsibility in their communities
3. Small-town dwellers
4. Educated people
5. Protestants
6. Republicans
7. As a group, they wanted less government involvement in the economy.

The Anglo-Saxon class tried to maintain its grip on American society in the following ways:

1. Immigration restriction. In a surge of nativism, Congress passed legislation during the administrations of Presidents Harding (1921) and Coolidge (1924) that severely restricted immigration to the United States.
2. Anti-Semitism. Some of the most virulent anti-Semitic attacks came from car maker Henry Ford in his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. Ford once stated:

   "I know who makes wars. The international Jewish bankers arrange them so they can make money out of them."

    

3. Joining the Ku Klux Klan. An organization of members who felt threatened not only by Blacks, but also by Jews and Catholics.
4. Maintaining economic control. According to the book, The Modern Corporation and Private Property by Adolph Burley and Gardner Means, by 1930, 200 of the nation's largest non-financial corporations controlled between 45-53% of the nation's wealth. The Anglo-Saxon Protestant establishment controlled manufacturing, railroads, and public utilities. This managerial class also tried to reinforce their power and status by joining exclusive social clubs and colleges, and by living in wealthy neighborhoods.

The Melting Pot Bubbles

Under the thin veneer of control maintained by the Anglo-Saxon class, however, great demographic shifts soon remade American society and culture. Perhaps most important, a population explosion, first described in the Dillingham Commission Report in 1910 and 1911, transformed the nation.

1. The birth rates of immigrants and poor native-born Americans exceeded those of the "old stock."
2. By 1911, two out of every three American schoolchildren had parents who were immigrants.
3. Most of these new Americans settled in states with the most electoral votes and, for this reason, became an ever-more significant force in American politics.
4. Republicans were not attentive to the needs of this growing group of working-class, urban, first-generation Americans. Traditionally, the Republican Party had found its political base among Protestants in rural areas and small towns. But American cities were growing rapidly, with the most significant gains among the Catholic and Jewish populations from Southern and Eastern Europe.

So the Republican Party found itself on the wrong side of the birth rate and of religious and social differences.

The Election of 1928

The presidential election of 1928 was one of the most significant in American history. It brought to light the political consequences of the nation's great demographic transformation.

1. Although the federal government had restricted foreign immigration, the internal migration of native-born Americans was unbounded. Between 1920 and 1930, 6.5 million Americans moved from rural to urban areas, and cities became increasingly powerful politically.
2. The Democratic party finally broke the Republican stranglehold on national politics.
3. The Presidential candidates in the election of 1928 represented the transformation underway in American politics.

   Herbert Hoover (1874-1964) was a representative of the Anglo-Saxon class, born into an Iowa Quaker family. Supporting business and Prohibition, Hoover was the Republican candidate for President in 1928. His campaign slogan promised

   "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage."

   Alfred E. Smith (1873-1944) was Hoover's Democratic opponent. His background and character were worlds away from that of the genteel Hoover. Born into a lower-class, Catholic family, Smith grew up in the New York City tenements known as Hell's Kitchen. He was a self-made man whose success came from the so-called "dirty profession" of politics. Voters identified Smith with big-city political machines. He was also an avowed "wet" who called for the repeal of Prohibition.

   Al Smith and his National Chairman, John J. Raskob on the porch of the Raskob home at Claymount, Delaware Copyright 1997 State Historical Society of Wisconsin

   Prohibition and religion--namely, Smith's Catholicism--dominated the campaign. In the end, Hoover won by a large margin, although Democrats carried the nation's twelve largest cities. Before Al Smith ran for president, even East Coast cities had been largely Republican. Smith's base of support in urban America suggested that the nation was on the verge of a major political transformation.

   Political cartoon depicting bigotry displayed against Al Smith (a Catholic Prohibition opponent) Copyright 1997 State Historical Society of Wisconsin

Prohibition

Prohibition was not a new phenomenon in the 1920s. There had been various anti-alcohol campaigns since the colonial period. The Maine Law of 1851, for example, prohibited the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors within the state of Maine. By 1855, thirteen of the thirty-one states had adopted similar prohibition legislation. During the Civil War, moreover, the federal government prohibited alcoholic beverages in the Union Army as a way to ration grain for hungry soldiers.

As so often happens in the United States, leaders of this social movement tried to justify their views with scientific evidence. Temperance advocates, for example, founded the Scientific Temperance Journal after the Civil War. Schoolchildren's textbooks depicted human organs degenerating from an overabundance of drink. In the 1870s, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) promoted the use of public education for the cause of temperance. They succeeded in getting their propaganda in textbooks and, by 1902, every state and territory except Arizona had a law requiring temperance instruction in the schools. The prohibitionists also used eugenics--the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding--to bolster their cause. They argued that immigrants were inferior due to the fact that their children had been drinking since a young age.

In contrast to the WCTU, the Anti-Saloon League, founded in 1896, focused only on the legal prohibition of alcoholic beverages. The Anti-Saloon League developed modern lobbying techniques that were hugely successful. The League, for example, printed and disseminated anti-drinking brochures, appealed to church members for support, and lobbied both lawmakers and businessmen. The Anti-Saloon League was so persuasive in its lobbying efforts that 28 states had adopted prohibition laws by 1918, before national prohibition went into effect.

By and large, Prohibition represented the desires of the Anglo-Saxon establishment. The typical prohibitionist was:

• A rural or small-town inhabitant
• Middle class
• Anglo-Saxon
• Evangelical Protestant
• Fearful of African-Americans, immigrants, Jews, and Catholics

Prohibitionists had various motivations for campaigning against alcohol. Most believed that drinking liquor was immoral. Others wanted to take away the power of the urban political machines. Still others used the movement as a springboard for their personal political ambitions.

World War I and Prohibition

The entry of America into World War I aided greatly the cause of prohibition.

• War time hysteria against all things foreign linked prohibition to patriotism. Prohibitionist propaganda characterized the liquor industry as foreign-controlled and pointed out that German-Americans owned and managed many of the nation's breweries.
• Centralization of government power. During WWI, the federal government took over railroads and factories, passed a conscription act, and curtailed liberty and free speech. As an outgrowth of this centralization of power in Washington, D. C., many Americans increasingly viewed the federal government as the upholder of American morality, temperance, and sobriety. In their minds, the federal government should limit individual freedoms for the sake of higher social responsibilities.

Results of Prohibition

For the most part, enforcement of the Volstead Act was extraordinarily difficult. Many Americans, for example, enjoyed liquor and were more than willing to break the law to acquire alcoholic beverages. As a result, organized crime and smuggling rings mushroomed and home-brewing of alcohol became increasingly popular. In the end, Anglo-Saxons' efforts to impose its own moral codes on the rest of the nation through Prohibition was a failure and their power continued to decline throughout the 1930s.

The repeal of the 18th Amendment in 1933 marked the end of an experiment in social engineering. By the end of the 1920s, another grand experiment--this one promising wealth for all--had also failed. The story of the growing economic prosperity of the 1920s that ended with the infamous stock market crash of 1929 is a fascinating and extraordinarily important part of our story. So important, in fact, that after we down a couple of cool, frosty ones, we'll take it up in Lecture 18: "The Crash and the Great Depression."

Lecture 17	Related Web Links
Content	Presentation	Audience	Link	Info
		College	Temperance and Prohibition
		College	The Ohio Dry Campaign of 1918
		College	Cocktail - Speakeasy
		High School	Al Capone

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