The Nightmare of Prohibition Essay - 1690 Words

On midnight of January 16, 1920, American went dry. One of the personal habits and everyday practices of most Americans suddenly diminished. The Eighteenth Amendment was passed, and all importing, exporting, transporting, selling, and manufacturing of intoxicating liquor was put to an end. The Congress passed the Amendment on January 16,1919, but it only went into effect a year later. The Volstead Act was passed with the Eighteenth Amendment on October 23, 1919. The Act was named after Andrew Volstead, a Republican representative from Minnesota. The Volstead Act, also known as the National Prohibition Act, determined intoxicating liquor as anything having an alcoholic content of more than 0.5 percent, excluding alcohol used†¦show more content†¦The speak-easy era was pretty outrageous, according to 20s jazz singer Hoagy Carmicheal. A bang of bad booze, flappers with bare legs, jangled morals and wild weekends is what how he described it (Pick, 1:4). By 1925, there were over 100,000 speak-easies in New York City alone (Thornton, 5). Furthermore, the illegal liquor business fell under the control of organized gangs, which overpowered most of the authorities. Many bootleggers secured their business by bribing the authorities, namely federal agents and persons of high political status. Mob bosses opened plush nightclubs with exotic floor shows and the hottest bands. It was as if Prohibition was a joke in the United States. People were drinking more than ever, and more people were dying from alcohol-related diseases (Pick, 5). Resulting from the lack of enforcement of the Prohibition Act and the creation of an illegal industry, there was an increase in crime. Prohibitionists expected the Volstead Act to decrease intoxication in America, and then the crime rate would decrease. At the start of Prohibition this purpose seemed to be fulfilled, but the crime rate soon skyrocketed to nearly twice that of the pre-prohibition period. In large cities the homicide went from 5.6 (per 100,000 population) in the pre-prohibition period, to nearly 10 (per 100,000 population) during prohibition, nearly a 78 percent increase (Stack, 2). Serious crimes, such as homicides, assault, and battery, increased nearlyShow MoreRelatedâ€Å"The American Dream has become a death sentence of drudgery, consumerism, and fatalism: a garage800 Words   |  4 PagesIn both This Side of Paradise and This Beautiful and Damned, F. Scott Fitzgerald comments on the corruption of the American Dream. Throughout the beautiful text and prose of his first and second novels, respectively, Fitzgerald mocks the ghastly nightmare the American ‘Dream’ has become. 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