Prohibition

Bootleg and hijack, speakeasies and flappers, stills and moonshine, gangsters and corrupt politicians – these are for many the images and associations of Prohibition in the United States. Yet the effort to halt drinking came largely from people who saw it as a threat to social stability. Attempts to control alcohol consumption had been made since colonial times in America, and as early as 1808 formal temperance organizations were active. The effort ebbed and flowed through the 19^th century, with some states trying outright prohibition and other allowing local option laws.

An actual Prohibition Act was organized in 1869, and although it attained little success at the polls, this party – along with the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the Anti-Saloon League and allies in other movements such as that for women’s suffrage – made progress in popularizing the idea.

Bu the early 20^th century, the ingredients necessary for passage of the national prohibition law were coming together. More than half the states, led by the South and West, were “dry”. Congress outlawed the sale of liquor in the two areas it controlled – Indian reservations and the District of Columbia. The outbreak of the World War I allowed for the cork to be pushed still farther: sales to soldiers and sailors were forbidden and other restrictions were placed on the making of alcohol (under the claim that it diverted resources from the war effort).

Finally, in December 1917, Congress passed the 18^th Amendment, allowing Prohibition. It was soon adopted by large majorities in all but two states, and in January 1920, when the enforcement began under the Volstead Act, the United States found itself officially “dry”. In fact, the law proved to be largely unenforcible. Bootleggers crossed the Mexican and Canadian borders with near impunity. Ocean-going ships waited outside the three-mile limit for high-speed “rum-runners” to carry the contraband liquors through the hopelessly inadequate blockade by U.S. government agencies. Most cities had speakeasies with virtually open hospitality for imbibers.

Ironically, the effect of Prohibition on society at large seemed to be the opposite of what had been intended. Drinking, alcohol abuse and lawlessness all increased during the 1920s. The great profits made available to illicit businessmen led to the organization of crime and its links with law enforcement agents, politicians and legal businesses that continue to plague American society. Even women, recently granted the right to elect by the 19^th Amendment, cast their vote by violating the 18^th. By the time the 21^st Amendment repealed the 18^th in December 1933, a social revolution had occurred, engendered by widespread violation of and disrespect for Prohibition; as a social experiment Prohibition had provided Americans with many provocative lessons.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt

(1882-1945)

FDR changed the thrust of his county’s life and government, creating a partial welfare and promoting government as an agent of social and economic reform.

FDR was born into an old, aristocratic family at Hyde Park, New York, on January 30, 1882. After an idyllic childhood he attended the upper-class Groton School in Massachusetts and then Harvard. During college he fell in love with Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, a fifth cousin, and were married in 1905; their mutual relation, President Theodore Roosevelt, gave the bride away. After college, Roosevelt studied law at Columbia and entered the bar in 1907. In 1910 he ran successfully as a Democrat for the New York state senate. His liberal efforts there brought him much attention and led to an appointment as an assistant navy secretary in 1913. In that post he gained valuable political contacts and experience, which resulted in his being on the 1920 national ticket as the vice-presidential nominee.

After the Republican victory by Warren G. Harding, FDR returned to law practice. In 1921 came a personal tragedy in the form of polio, which left him crippled for life. Eleanor became his eyes and ears, and in 1928 he ran successfully for governor of New York. During two terms he pushed through programs for unemployment insurance, child labor laws and old age pensions, among others. As the Depression deepened, he set up a “Brain Trust” of advisors, who all came with him when he was elected President. That took place in 1932, when FDR defeated Herbert Hoover, whom the nation blamed for the Depression. In his first term he announced a New Deal, creating the “alphabet soup” of government agencies to fight the desperate situation. These programs provided much relief and several, such as the Social Security Act and the Tennessee Valley Authority, remained through the century as vital social and economic measures.

But there was increasing resistance to his methods in his second term. The Depression had been assuaged but not ended. Tragically, it took war to do that. As the conflict engulfed Europe, Roosevelt, by then in his third term, moved cautiously; but after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he declared war on Japan, Germany and Italy. His sometimes disorganized but still charismatic leadership helped create miracles of production that turned the tide of the war; but the costs to his health mounted. As the election of 1944 approached, his advisers suspected he might not survive another term, and persuaded him to take on Harry Truman as a strong vice-president. The fears were justified: FDR won an unprecedented fourth term in 1944, but died at his retreat in Warm Springs, Georgia in April 1945, shortly before the armistice. He had been a leader of great strengths and great weaknesses, but his heritage to the nation was largely one of crucial and beneficial activism.