The Eighteenth Amendment - Prohibition <---BAH!!

After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.

Well lets see, prohibition of alcohol in the United States...Good idea or Bad idea.  This is one of those things that the Animaniacs from Warner Brothers got right in their little skits.  The prohibition of alcohol in the United States did increase the morality of the general public and throw it into church more than alcohol did in the first place.  But wait isnt this when we have a huge surge of "gangsters" and the rum runners and moonshiners pop up? It is, this is also the time when the drinking of alcohol was secluded to "speakeasies and other establishments" for the recreational drinker.  Prohibition might have made the country more moral in some regard but the nation would never stop drinking!!

Historical Video from Brittanica

 

 

A historical video from the Encyclopedia Brittanica.  Here we have vintage footage of the "drying out" of the country with hundreds of thousands of gallons of alcohol broken in the streets and disposed of to prevent the public from partaking in the ill effects of the beverage.  Then we see the sanity of the nation come along with FDR and the end to prohibition which we will examine later. Who would have thought that trying to ban a substance that was so prolific in the public would actually help, I guess the general public.  But when the alcohol finally won its battle the public voted again!!

A More Recent Look at History

 

Here we have the perfect example on how America can no reflect on its history.  We see here that the cable channel HBO created a series called Boardwalk Empire entirely about prohibition, the 18th amendment, and the crime that it created, all in the sublime city of Atlantic City, NJ.  The entire series wraps itself around the exploits of the politicians of the city, the governments attempts to eradicate liquor, and the crime syndicates created to bring the liquor to market. So did we really help each other in declaring prohibition or did we create another chapter in history in which government intervention will be needed, crime.