TIME: Almanac 1995

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<text id=93HT0049> <link 93XV0011> <link 93XP0112> <link 93XP0110> <link 93XP0091> <link 93HT0052> <title> 1920s: Prohibition </title> <history> TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1920s Highlights </history> <article> <source>Time Magazine</source> <hdr> Prohibition </hdr> <body> [The single greatest consequence of American exposure to foreign ways and subsequent retreat into isolationism was the "noble experiment" of Prohibition. The Volstead Act of 1918 which became the XVIIIth Amendment to the Constitution, made it illegal to manufacture, transport or sell alcoholic beverages anywhere in the U.S. Intended by its backers to underline American virtue in contrast to European vice and weld Americans together in greater productivity and increased prosperity, the law suffered from the fatal "law of unintended effects." Like the peace pacts of the decade, Prohibition was systematically deprived of any reasonable means of enforcement--i.e., men, money and guns. Far from welding Americans together, it divided them further between "wets" and "dry," the latter mainly from the Midwestern and rural areas and the former mainly in large cities and along the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. It also underlined their ethnic separateness, as diverse groups and clans took to the business of supplying illegal liquor to their fellow countrymen. Finally, Prohibition probably made more hard liquor (as opposed to beer, the tipple of most working men) available to more people during the 1920s than ever before, thus helping to spread the revolution in morals and mores, from free sex to flapper skirts, that marked the popular culture of the decade.] March 3, 1923 Enforcement of the Volstead Act cost the nation $15,450,400 in the past fiscal year. <table> <row><cell type=a>Appropriations<cell type=i>$9,500,000 <row><cell>Department of Justice<cell>$5,950,400 </table> Estimates show that 44% of the work of United District Attorneys is confined to prohibition cases. At an exhibit of the Society of Independent Artists in Manhattan, appeared a canvas entitled, "The Marriage at Cana of Galilee." It represented the biblical incident of the changing of water into wine, but with the introduction of unmistakable likenesses of Mr. Volstead, Mr. Bryan and Mr. Anderson. Mr. Bryan poured the miraculously made wine onto the floor, and under the painting was the inscription: "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do." March 24, 1923 Rum fleets are beginning to be a regular feature of those harbors in the United States which have a dense enough hinterland to make boot-legging and liquor running highly lucrative. Scranton, Philadelphia, and Trenton are supplied by the fleet which lies off Highland, New Jersey. New York is fed from the sea by a fleet anchored off Sandy Hook and in the neighboring waters. San Francisco gets its Mexican, Canadian and Japanese liquors from the armada plying outside the Golden Gate. Boston and the lesser New England ports are infested with smugglers from the Bahamas and the West Indies. The latest fleet to arrive is composed of 16 vessels and lies between Block Island, off the Rhode Island coast, and No Man's Land. It supplies New York via Long Island with about 20,000 cases weekly. More than half of these vessels are said to be part of the international system of two rival New York syndicates. Both of these organizations ship their liquor directly from England and Scotland in tramp steamers to St. Pierre, Miquelon. Here it is trans-shipped to three-masted Gloucester fishing smacks, carrying 2,000 cases each, which make up the Block Island squadron. June 18, 1923 The United States "prohibition navy" is rapidly undergoing evolution to fit it for the task of catching rum runners on the Atlantic. It is soon to consist of twelve vessels; four revenue cutters, the Seneca, Seminole, Grehsam and Manhattan, and eight speed boats now on the ways which will act as scouts. The revenue cutters are capable of about 15 knots, which is insufficient to catch the speedier rum runners in a tail chase, but the sapped boats, capable of 30 knots, will be more than a match for the outlaws. In addition all the ships are being armed with cannon varying from one-pounders to four-inch guns. Sanction has at last been given to fire directly on the rum runners, with solid shot, and not merely across their bows. March 29, 1926 The greater part of a decade has elapsed since prohibition became national and the word Volstead was minted for household use. The largest newspaper polls conducted by 375 members of the Newspaper Enterprise Association, (and by the New York World) polled some 1,700,000 votes. The voter was given three choices, prohibition as it is, light wines and beers, or repeal of prohibition. Forty-seven states (all except North Dakota) engaged in the poll. In only two states, Kansas and South Carolina, was there a majority for prohibition. And the total vote was about five to one against prohibition. The noise made by the Wets was probably all out of proportion to the political success which they may achieve in the country at large in the immediate future. But their enthusiasm was undamped. "Down with Volstead!" was their cry. "Hurrah for Volstead!" answered the Drys enthusiastically if somewhat feebly. Each side with derision or with exulation waved in the face of the other that name, like a banner, like a symbol of its fierce spirit, like a strange mythological device. </body> </article> </text>