S1E21 Prohibition - Transcript
 
It was midnight. Little white scraps of snow had settled down noiselessly into street car tracks and window sills. Raising one's eyes and ears from the midst of a surging throng that laughed and screamed and drank within a hundred gilt and mirrored restaurants, cafes, and hotels along Broadway, one beheld a form on the ragged bluffs of the Jersey shore of the Hudson.
 
I don't usually begin my episodes by quoting from other authors. But this, my friends, is too good not to share. The story from which I'm reading ran in the New York Herald on Saturday, January 17, 1920, the day the 18th Amendment took effect and the sale and transport of alcohol became illegal across the United States. 
 
I've been a writer long enough to recognize with another writer is having a really good time, and this writer is having a blast. Let's keep going:
 
"There, outlined against, the snowy landscape, it stood. One beheld a tired old sorrel nag. A remnant of a mighty steed of yesterday. . . .
 
"Looking more closely, one beheld the rider. A tin individual, with a face that smiled still through many wrinkles and gaunt jaw bones. He was lank and apparently famished. His lips were dry. His eyes stared across the river and toward us with an appeal that could not be mistaken."
 
The horse and rider cross the Hudson--that bit goes a long time, so we'll skip ahead:
 
"Once fairly on solid ground, he--the rider--elevated himself, black silk hat, long coat, tails and all, his boots in his saddle, standing high over the head of his tired mount, raised the cry of his identification and of his mission, so that everyone might hear --
 
"I am the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse!"
 
I am Prohibition!
 
I shall stay with you always. Regardless of whether you wish me or not, I come to stay and you must welcome me!"
 
But, oh, how New York City's Great Glittering Way did drink and feast before he came! And even after he had arrived and kicked the sides of his nag and made his way over the city, there was mirth enough and song enough and mockery enough to make him tremble in his dull, black boots."
 
 
 
This is The Year That Was: 1919.
 
 
 
I'm your host, Elizabeth Lunday. Thanks so much for joining me in the podcast where we tell the story of history one year at a time. 
 
I mentioned in our last episode that we would be looking this week at something called the American Plan to stamp out sexually transmitted infections. Well, that's not what we're discussing this week.
 
The American Plan is a fascinating story. But I had to walk away for a while because it was a subject that just got uglier and more upsetting the more I researched. Because the American Plan's goal of eliminating STIs was really aimed controlling the sexuality of women deemed unacceptable. And that goal was wrapped up in the eugenics movement. 
 
The eugenics movement did a huge amount of harm, especially, although not only, to Americans with disabilities and mental illnesses. I'm not going to get personal, but that hit really close to home. 
 
So. While I think it's an incredibly important story, for my own mental well-being I decided to take a step back. 
 
Instead, we're going to talk about Prohibition. 
 
My emphasis today will be on placing Prohibition in the context of the time, which is what we're all about here at The Year That  Was. One thing that I want you keep in mind is that while we know how this story ends--with  the repeal of the 18th Amendment in 1933--the people living through this era did not. As far as they knew, the manufacture and sale of alcohol would be illegal forever in the United States. 
 
 
 
 
So. Let's take a look at the long and boozy history of the United States.
 
Humans have been converting fruits and grains into alcohol since the beginning of civilization. Farmers could preserve their harvests by fermenting them, and alcoholic beverages, unlike most water sources, were safe to drink. And of course, alcohol was pleasurable and relaxing. Most people--including young children--drank wine, beer and/or cider all day, every day, well into the 19th century. 
 
It's important to note that most of these beverages had very low alcohol content. More potent distilled spirits have long existed, but they were expensive and rare--or at least they were until about the 17th century, when  rum and whiskey became for the first time cheap and plentiful. 
 
So it was that the soldiers at Valley Forge received half a cup of rum daily. Thomas Jefferson supplemented his collection of imported wines with whiskey made at his own still. James Madison consumed a pint of whiskey daily. By 1830, the average American drank the equivalent of 88 bottles of whiskey every year.
 
By the early 1840s, Americans had become painfully aware of the cost of so much serious liquor. Public intoxication was widespread, men and women struggled with alcoholism, and deaths from accidents and alcohol-related diseases became common.
 
This rise in alcohol consumption caught the attention social reformers in the 1830s and 1840s, and calls for temperance went out across the land.
 
In its earliest form, the Temperance movement advocated, well, temperance--that is, restraint or moderation. Activists didn't argue people should stop drinking altogether; rather, they should drink less. They should also eat less, exercise more, read more books, be better people all around.
 
This did not work. Many Americans found it easy to swear moderation on Monday morning but difficult to recall that oath on Saturday night. 
 
Fine, said the temperance advocates. People should give up alcohol altogether--embrace capital T total temperance. Become teetotallers. Activists dialed up the rhetoric and partnered with churches, especially Methodist and Baptist congregations, to preach fire-and-brimstone sermons about the evils of demon rum. American women took the lead in the crusade, weeping and praying for their wayward menfolk and swearing their own vows not to let the lips that touch liquor ever touch theirs:
 
 
The Lips that Touch Liquor 
 
 
This also it turned out to be not particularly effectively. Menfolk continued to be wayward, no matter what their wives and mothers said. 
 
So temperance advocates took a new stand. If drinkers couldn't be persuaded to stop, they would be forced to abstain--by the law. And so began the call for Prohibition, the legislated imposition of temperance on every American.
 
The movement had some initial success. Maine, for example, passed a prohibition law in 1851. But the provision was deeply unpopular, prompted a riot in Portland in 1855 and was repealed in 1856.
 
Instead, the manufacture and sale of alcohol grew through the 19th century, with the full support of the U.S. government. The federal government discovered during the Civil War that it was possible to raise absolutely enormous sums of money by taxing alcohol. By the end of the war, it provided fully one third of the federal budget. Naturally, the government was unwilling to cut off this lucrative funding source when the war ended. 
 
Cider and whiskey were the most popular drinks before the Civil War, but in the 1870s and 1880s, the United States became absolutely awash in beer. Annual consumption jumped from 36 million gallons in 1850 to a staggering 855 million gallons in 1890. It's true the American population tripled over this period, but the consumption of beer increased twenty-four-fold.
 
The reason was straightforward: the soaring number of immigrants from beer-loving countries, especially Germany. Among the influx of new arrivals were scores of brewers who found success in America meeting the drinking needs of their countrymen.
 
The most successful of these immigrant brewers was Adolphus Busch. The youngest of 21 children, he arrived in the U.S. in 1857 and married a young lady named Lilly Anheuser, whose father owned a brewery. Busch was soon running the show. He borrowed the strategies of industrial barons such as Andrew Carnegie and created a vast, efficient, vertically integrated corporation. As well as the enormous Anheuser-Busch brewery, he also owned the coal mines that fueled production, the railways that transported supplies, and the refrigerated railway cars that delivered cold beer to saloons across the nation--saloons also owned by Busch. 
 
Busch's hard work paid off. He owned multiple lavish estates, including two in Germany, and the grounds of his Pasadena home were so luxurious they were opened to the public as Busch Gardens. 
 
Anheuser-Busch was so successful that it entered popular culture songs like "Under the Anheuser Bush."
 
 
Billy Murray - Under the Anheuser Bush (1904)
 
 
It was around this time that saloons became the most visible symbol of American alcohol culture. The vast majority of saloons were what were known as "tied houses." That is, they were connected to, if not actually owned by, breweries. Barkeepers agreed to sell only one brand of beer, and in exchange the brewery provided them everything from the cash for local licensing fees to the mirrors on the walls. 
 
Naturally, saloons varied widely, from palaces of mohogany and velvet to dingy dens of iniquity. But they played significant roles in their communities, especially for immigrants. There were Irish saloons, Polish saloons, Bavarian saloons, Jewish saloons. 
 
In a saloon, a man could speak his native language. He could find a job--many saloon owners acted as labor contractors--cash his paycheck, and pawn his watch. He could, in some bars, take a bath and pick up his mail. He could find a free lunch--saloons habitually put out a spread of crackers, cheese, pickles, and sausages, the saltier the better. For many immigrants, the saloon was more of a home than the dank, overcrowded tenements where they sometimes had to sleep in shifts.
 
Middle class, white Americans didn't understand the critical role of saloons. They saw men speaking strange languages crowded into what they could only assume were hives of villainy, emerging only to vomit in the gutter. To Americans worried about the influx of Eastern and Southern Europeans, it appeared that these pernicious institutions were trapping immigrants into booze-drenched lives of poverty and violence. 
 
Clearly, the only way to improve the lives of immigrants was to shut down the saloons. 
 
 
Close Up the Booze Shop
 
 
That's "Close Up the Booze Shop" by Charles H. Gabriel, sung by the incredible Rose Ensemble. I am dipping into their 2014 album "A Toast to Prohibition" in this episode, because it's marvelous. You can find a link to the entire album on YouTube on the podcast website.
 
Now, the song is fantastic, but the idea was nonsense. The problems faced by immigrants were not the fault of saloons. Their burdens had everything to do with a rapidly industrializing economy without adequate government protections or any sort of social safety net combined with deep-seated cultural prejudices and an entrenched caste system--and nothing to do with the local saloon. But, then, it's so much easier to target the small obvious problem than address the big complicated, confusing problem.
 
In any case, this is how Prohibition became a Progressive cause. 
 
Today we tend to use the term Progressive to mean broadly left wing or liberal. But in late 19th century terms, Progressives were dedicated to using the government to reform the ills of society, ills believed to be rooted in unrestrained capitalism. The solution was a benevolent government that would protect workers and consumers. Progressives viewed the alcohol industry through this lens. 
 
Temperance had previously been the domain of the devoutly religious, to the point that temperance activists had reputations as zealots and weirdos. This was unfair, although the core of the temperance movement was terrifically strait-laced. Mostly white, mostly of Anglo-Saxon origins, they were clustered in small towns in the Midwest. Think about the spic-and-span River City in "The Music Man," where the arrival of a pool hall is a considered a moral crisis. It's fiction that reflects reality.
 
But the Progressives weren't small town nativists. They were urban, forward-thinking, cool. Teddy Roosevelt was a Progressive. The arrival of the Progressives was a shot in the arm to the stodgy temperance movement.
 
It was also the start of a new Dry alliance, an alliance made up of some very uncomfortable bedfellows. 
 
True, many Drys were allies of the Progressives. Suffragists, for example, had almost always supported Prohibition. In fact, one of the biggest arguments against woman suffrage was that if women got the vote, they would ban alcohol. 
 
Women right's activists argued that prohibition was necessary to protect the family and the home. They believed that most domestic violence was the result of drink, and that men frequently brought economic ruin to their families by drinking their salaries away. 
 
Their attitude was captured in a popular hit from 1916 called "Molly and the Baby, Don't You Know."
 
 
Molly and the Baby
 
 
Other Drys had little in common with the Progressives or the temperance die-hards. For example, many business owners came to believe Prohibition was necessary for the success of their enterprises. A drunk employee is not a productive employee. 
 
At the same time, some union organizers also supported Prohibition. The IWW as a national body certainly did not embrace Prohibition--Big Bill Haywood, for example, was a legendary drinker. Nevertheless, some Wobbly pamphlets described alcohol as a tool by used by bosses to enslave the working man. 
 
Another branch of the Dry Movement was made up of Southern whites. As we've discussed, Southern whites lived in permanent terror that African-American men would slaughter every white male and rape every white woman in reach. In their minds, the only thing scarier than a Black man was a drunk Black man. One U.S. Representative from Alabama actually warned Congress that liquor could turn Black men into cannibals. The only solution: ban the sale of alcohol. The KKK was a huge supporter of Prohibition.
 
Meanwhile, many African-American leaders also backed prohibition as a way to improve the lives of African-Americans. This was actually one of the few points on which Booker T. Washington and William Monroe Trotter agreed. Trotter was a life-long teetotaler and organizer of the Total Abstinence League at Harvard.
 
 
 
By about 1914, all of these disparate groups had come together in an awkward partnership to outlaw alcohol. 
 
They were led by a lobbying group that managed to harness their power by focusing exclusively on the goal of nationwide prohibition and ignoring absolutely every other issue. The Anti-Saloon League amassed extraordinary political power, making and breaking politicians across the nation. The League was led by a force of nature named Wayne Wheeler. Wheeler gave an impression of bland complaisance--writer Daniel Okrent said he looked like Ned Flanders. But he had as much focus and zeal as Alice Paul and William Monroe Trotter.
 
By 1914, Wheeler's coalition had achieved significant victories. Nine states had outlawed alcohol and thirty-one others had local-option laws that allowed communities to vote themselves dry. Nearly 50 percent of the population lived under some kind of prohibition.
 
Furthermore, the Progressive had made nationwide Prohibition financially feasible. In 1913, the 16th Amendment allowing the income tax became law. This was a huge victory for the Progressive cause. Progressives promoted a graduated income tax as a way to spread the tax burden equitably across the entire population. It also freed the federal government from its dependence on alcohol. 
 
But was it enough? In December 1914, the Drys got a proposed constitutional amendment all of the way to the floor of the House of Representatives. In the end the measure received 197 yea votes and 190 no votes. Prohibition had won, but not the two-thirds majority needed to pass a constitutional amendment. 
 
Drys feared they wouldn't get such a chance again. And the clock was ticking. In 1920, the country would hold a census, and with immigrants continuing to pour into the United States, redistricting would shift power from Dry rural areas to the immigrant-filled Wet cities. Many believed all hope for an amendment would be lost after 1920. 
 
 
 
 
Now, it would wrong to think temperance opponents had done nothing all these years to oppose Prohibition. Millions of Americans wanted to drink, but the Wets weren't an organized force. It's easy to joke they were too drunk to get out and protest--but not really fair. In the words of author Daniel Okrent, "the party of change will always be more motivated than the party of the status quo."
 
The most determined Wets were businesses who produced alcohol, with brewers and distillers leading the charge. But rather than combine forces, the two groups spent their time squabbling. Brewers tried to separate themselves from distillers, arguing that distillers were the real problem while they were honorable producers of nourishing beverages. This bickering distracted them from what should have been their primary focus.
 
Among the brewers, Adolphus Busch was the driving force in fight against Prohibition. And Busch didn't content himself with arguments about the nourishing qualities of beer. He played dirty. Under his direction, the U.S. Brewers' Association bribed politicians and bought elections. They paid off newspaper editors and funded anti-woman-suffrage organizations. In Texas, the brewers paid the poll taxes of Mexican-American and African-American men who were expected to vote against local Dry laws.
 
Busch also harnessed the force of the National German American Alliance. This was an organization founded in 1901 with the goal of preserving German heritage among immigrants. It promoted German-language newspapers, ran German-language schools and held dances in German-American communities. At its height in 1916, it had something like 2.5 million members. 
 
Close ties bound the German American Alliance and the Brewers, most of whom were German immigrants. Busch was passionate about his German origins. He spent months of every year in Germany, two of his daughters were married to German military officers, and Kaiser Wilhelm was a personal friend. 
 
But Busch also saw in the German-American Alliance a potential army of Wet activists. Under the Brewers' direction and with the Brewers' dollars, the Alliance ran anti-prohibition editorials and held anti-prohibition rallies. It built a massive lobbying presence in Washington, an operation bankrolled by Busch and the Brewers' Association.
 
The Brewers' kept their backing of the Alliance quiet, realizing that many Americans would find it problematic. The German-American Alliance itself was perfectly acceptable to the general population, no more suspicious than the Sons of Norway, the Ancient Order of Hibernians, or the Lithuanian Alliance of America. 
 
And then the war broke out.  
 
 
 
 
You'll remember we talked back in episode 13 about the absurd lengths that anti-German sentiment reached during the war. German-language schools were shut down; music conservatories banned the performance Wagner and Bach; it was illegal to speak German on the telephone in South Dakota. And yes, sauerkraut was renamed Liberty cabbage. 
 
The German-dominated brewing industry couldn't escape, nor could the German-American Alliance. The Busch family was eyed with deep suspicion. 
 
Wayne Wheeler sensed blood in the water. He ordered staff at the Anti-Saloon League to begin digging into the activities of the German American Alliance.
 
Even without Wheeler's efforts, the situation for brewers and distillers got a whole lot worse when the United States joined the war. The message from the president down was that everyone in America needed to pull to beat the Germans. You couldn't do that in a whiskey-addled stupor. 
 
Then some economists did some back-of-the-envelope calculations on how much American grain was going into beer and spirits. They claimed the amount of grain used in American breweries could instead yield five million loaves of bread a day. Or maybe it was eleven million loaves. Their math sometimes didn't add up--the point was that it was a lot of bread, enough to feed the American army, the island of Britain, and the starving Belgians, with some left over.
 
Furthermore, massive quantities of coal, fuel oil, and railroad stock were devoted to the liquor industry. Wayne Wheeler declared, "The people have been requested to have heatless days, meatless days, wheatless days. But the breweries and saloons of the country continue to waste foodstuffs, fuel and manpower and to impair the efficiency of labor in the mines, factories, and even in munitions plants near which saloons are located."
 
A wave of righteousness swept the land. Laws and executive orders tumbled out of Washington banning the sale of alcohol to soldiers, outlawing the importation of spirits and establishing dry zones around military bases, coal mines, shipyards and munitions plants. 
 
The Anti-Saloon League and its Dry legislators saw opportunity in this atmosphere of high moral rectitude. In the August 1917, they re-introduced a national prohibition amendment to Congress. 
 
The amendment made its way briskly through the legislative process. So rapid was its progress that it leapfrogged over the fight for woman suffrage. This was a surprise--activists had always assumed that a suffrage amendment would need to pass before prohibition. 
 
Neither legislative body bothered to hold hearings on the subject, and floor debate in the House wrapped up in an afternoon. The amendment passed with votes to spare and was sent to the states for ratification on December 18th, 1917. Prohibition had passed the first barrier to becoming the law of the land.
 
It was enough to give many Americans a case of the blues.
 
Alcoholic Blues
 
 
 
 
Now the fight went to the states, and Wayne Wheeler was ready. He timed the state campaigns to coincide with a carefully planned attack on the German American Alliance. 
 
Wheeler convinced key members of the Senate that something fishy was going on with the Alliance and the U.S. Brewers' Association. Senators organized a subcommittee to investigate, although, really, all they had to do was show up and look stern. Wheeler had already done all of the investigating. He also recruited all the witnesses and paid all of their expenses. 
 
The findings of Wheeler's pet subcommittee shocked Americans. Screaming headlines revealed that the Brewers' Association had funded the Washington office of the German-American Alliance. Money from the Brewers' had gone to influence elections at every level of government. The Brewers' had financed sympathetic newspapers and tried to purchase the Washington Times outright. 
 
Mitchell A. Palmer played a large role in investigation. You remember Palmer--he became the Attorney General in March 1919 and his house was blown up by anarchists. At this point in 1918, Palmer held the position of Alien Property Custodian and was in charge of the seizure, administration and sale of German property in the United States. Palmer claimed that the Brewers' Association had attempted to, quote, "control the government of State and Nation" and had generally shown, quote, "pro-German sympathies."  This was inflammatory stuff, and it helped raise Palmer's profile nationwide.
 
The evidence seemed to prove that the German American Alliance wasn't just in the pocket of the Brewers, it was in the pocket of the Kaiser. One outraged Wisconsin politician declared in February 1918, "We have German enemies across the water. We have German enemies in this country, too. And the worst of all our German enemies, the most treacherous, the most menacing, are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, and Miller."
 
As winter 1918 turned to spring, the headlines coming out of the Senate reached a hysterical pitch. "Liquor's hand exposed; huge plot shown to rule country," declared the Bimidji Daily Pioneer. "Brewers aided Hun Alliance?" asked the Watertown News, answering itself in the next line, "Documents prove charges."  
 
This was pure propaganda. There's no proof that the German-American Alliance was involved in anything nefarious. Many German-born brewers had demonstrated their loyalty to their adopted nation by purchasing Liberty Bonds. The sons of many leading brewers enlisted in the U.S. military. But none of that mattered. They had been convicted of treason in the court of public opinion.
 
As anti-brewer hysteria peaked, Dry forces in Congress reached new levels of power. Even though the 18th amendment was zipping through the ratification process, lawmakers decided to take advantage of the powers granted them during wartime to pass a temporary prohibition law. The Wartime Prohibition Act passed on November 18th, 1918. The law barred the manufacture of beer and wine in the United States after May 1919, and prohibited the sale of beverages containing more than 2.75 percent alcohol starting in July 1919.
 
Now, you might have missed a key point in that paragraph. The Wartime Prohibition Act passed on November 18th. So this wartime act became law after the armistice was signed on November 11th. 
 
No matter, said the Drys. Until the United States signed a peace treaty with Germany, the country was still technically at war. 
 
Ratification continued apace. On January 16th, 1919 the amendment received the 36 votes needed for it to become law. Ultimately only two states, Connecticut and Rhode Island, rejected it. 
 
Americans woke up on the morning of January 17, 1919 to the news that in one year, the sale and distribution of intoxicating beverages would be illegal in every state and territory of the Union. Permanently.
 
How Are You Going to Wet Your Whistle
 
 
 
1919 would be a year of preparation. 
 
Congress in particular had a huge task on its hand: drafting the legislation that would define the terms of the 18th Amendment and provide for enforcement.
 
The man called upon by Congress to write the new the law was Andrew John Volstead, a Republican state representative from Minnesota. The son of Norwegian immigrants, Volstead was that rare creature, a shy and self-effacing politician. He despised press attention and was so strait-laced that he was never seen without a tie, even while doing yard work at home. 
 
Volstead was determined to craft a law that would be impervious to court challenges. The final bill was as painstaking as its creator. It addressed everything from the legality of hair tonics to the transport of alcohol through the Panama Canal. 
 
The most critical element of the act was nailing down the terms used in the amendment. The key statement in the 18th amendment was the prohibition of, quote, "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors." 
 
What constitutes "intoxicating liquors"? This wishy-washy language had been used deliberately to confuse the situation. Many state legislators ratified the 18th amendment under the assumption that it only outlawed distilled spirits. They fully believed low-alcohol beer and wine would be exempt.
 
Volstead wasn't having it. His law defined "intoxicating beverages" as anything ingestible that contained more than 0.5 percent alcohol. 
 
However, if Volstead taketh away, Volstead also giveth. Multiple exceptions and exemptions were included in the law. Sacramental wine would be available for use in Catholic and Jewish religious ceremonies. Physicians would be allowed to prescribe alcohol to sick patients, which is weird, but OK. Farmers would be allowed to preserve apples as cider.
 
When the provisions of the bill were introduced, many lawmakers, as well as the citizens they represented, were horrified. Many protested they had been tricked. The New York Sun trumpeted, "House members try to find escape from provisions of Volstead bill." and "Dry bill so dry it shocks Dry Leader." This series of headlines went on, "Calls Volstead Measure Most Oppressive in History of U.S." and "Ban on Beer Assaulted." 
 
It suddenly dawned on many Americans that Prohibition would apply to everyone. Southern whites, for example, had wanted a law to stop Black men from drinking. Now the government was coming from their bourbon, beer and mint juleps and they were outraged.
 
It was too late. Volstead only needed a simple majority to pass his bill. It became law on October 10, 1919.
 
But then, in a gotcha moment out of a bad horror movie, the hand of Woodrow Wilson emerged out of the shadows. That hand took up a pen and vetoed the law.
 
Dun-dun-DUN
 
I'm exaggerating, but the sudden injection of Wilson into the debate shocked everyone.
 
Wilson had made no contribution to the prohibition debate. He had been resolutely neutral on the issue since taking office, determined not to offend either Drys or Wets. In the previous year, his attention had been focused on the League of Nations and those damn Fourteen Points. But then he up and vetoed the bill..
 
Wilson issued a statement explaining his reasoning, and it wasn't so much about the 18th Amendment as about the Wartime Prohibition Act. Remember this law used the expanded powers of Congress during wartime to limit alcohol production and distribution. Volstead's bill mandated that this law would remain in effect until the amendment took effect in January 1920. Volstead's goal was to eliminate any gap during which alcohol would be legal.
 
Wilson argued that Congress was trying to use its wartime powers during peacetime. It was a power grab, and inappropriate.
 
This raised an interesting question: when is a war over? The fighting had stopped, the soldiers were coming home. Wilson had signed the Treaty of Versailles. For all practical purposes, the United States was at peace. 
 
But Congress had not ratified the treaty. And it was clear in late October 1919 that it never would. So Congress could claim with a straight face that the United States was still at war.
 
But, and this was more to the point, the president had managed to offend almost every sitting Senator and Representative. Especially angry at Wilson were the anti-League of Nations bloc led by Senator Majority Leader Henry Cabot Lodge. 
 
There wasn't much overlap between anti-League lawmakers and Dry lawmakers. Lodge, for example, had voted against the 18th Amendment. But the two factions were happy to unite to override Wilson's veto just to demonstrate their disdain for the president. The House passed its override only two hours after receiving it. The Volstead Act became law on October 28th, 1919.
 
 
 
 
Now, let's go back and look at those dates again. Woodrow Wilson vetoed the Volstead Act on October 27th. 
 
Woodrow Wilson had his devastating stroke on October 2nd. 
 
Was Woodrow Wilson even conscious on October 27th? The public didn't know it. Congress didn't know it. But Wilson was bedridden and under round-the-clock medical care. 
 
So, who vetoed the Volstead Act? 
 
Most likely Wilson's secretary Joe Tumulty and First Lady Edith Wilson were responsible. Tumulty probably drafted the statement and handled the paperwork with Edith's consent. They believed they were acting out the president's wishes. But the president was unable to express any wishes, pro or con.
 
This whole episode receives little attention in most accounts of Prohibition, and that's fair. You need to work through a lot of backstory, and ultimately the veto only slowed down the Volstead Act for a day. 
 
But isn't it fascinating how the League of Nations battle came out of nowhere to intrude on Prohibition? How Wilson's dismissive treatment of Congress meant his veto would be overwhelmingly, even humiliatingly, overturned? How different lines of history come together in weird and wonderful ways?
 
Well. I think it's fascinating. And if you're listening, I have to assume you do, too.
 
 
 
 
Moving on. With the Volstead Act in place, Prohibition became much more real. 
 
The government began hiring officers to enforce the law. Volstead had decided these agents would not be civil servants. Civil servants were selected through a competitive process and could not be fired without cause. Volstead feared that if a Wet-leaning agent was ensconced in the Unit, he or she--there were female agents--would be impossible to dislodge. But instead, Volstead made the hiring process too easy. Just about anyone in government could get a buddy or a campaign donor or an unsatisfactory in-law a job as a Prohibition Agent. 
 
Consequently, most agents had no experience in law enforcement. Screening was minimal, and one agent in New York turned out to be a convicted murdered operating under an assumed name. Trained, committed law-enforcement professionals they weren't.
 
The agents were paid an annual salary of $18 hundred dollars, roughly $26 thousand dollars in 2020 money. This was more than many factory workers earned, but barely a living wage and definitely not enough to buy the integrity of agents once bootleggers started waving around wads of cash. Volstead basically assured that the agency would be corrupt.
 
It would also be spread incredibly thin. The law created a new Prohibition Unit under the Internal Revenue Service, and it was allocated $2.1 million dollars. This is roughly the equivalent of $31 million today. That is not a lot of money.  I mean, it would be a lot of money for me, but to stamp out alcohol manufacture, sale and distribution across the entire United States? It was woefully inadequate. 
 
States were supposed to fill the gaps by simultaneously enforcing Prohibition on their own dime. The amendment had included a provision for "concurrent enforcement" as a sop to Southerners who never ceased fretting over state's rights. But in mid-1919 the economy went into a recession. By winter, state revenues were plummeting. Only 18 states ended up appropriating funds dedicated to prohibition enforcement. Police departments and sheriff's offices would have to make do with the budgets they already had. 
 
 
 
 
Meanwhile, brewers and distillers spent 1919 confronting the reality that the nation had just outlawed their industry. Companies who could afford to do so diversified. Anheuser-Busch began selling brewer's yeast, malt extract, and Bevo, a nonalcoholic beer. Coors invested in its glass-manufacturing operation and became known for its laboratory glassware, which it still sells today. Pabst began producing that Wisconsin favorite, cheese; they eventually sold the operation to Kraft.  
 
But many businesses simply went bankrupt, and no one survived unscathed. Anheuser-Busch recorded four straight years of losses totaling $5.6 million dollars starting in 1919. 
 
Breweries and distilleries weren't the only businesses to shut their doors. Saloons were shuttered. Hotels closed down. In New York, the glamorous Hotel Knickerbocker, birthplace of the dry martini, went dark, as did the Manhattan Hotel, home to the Manhattan cocktail. 
 
Nightclubs, cabarets and restaurants all struggled as their revenues were cut by a third, half, three-quarters. Irving Berlin wrote a song in 1919 as he watched club after club shut down.
 
 
You Cannot Make Your Shimmy Shake on Tea
 
 
It is, my friends, a truth universally acknowledged that you cannot make your shimmy shake on tea. I fear that our young dancer was forced spent her evenings at home reading a book and sipping lemonade, her shimmying days in the past.
 
Actually, no. Thanks to the overnight explosion in speakeasies, I suspect she was able to continue her shimmy career without missing so much as a jiggle. For if Prohibition taketh away, Prohibition also giveth. While the legal alcohol industry wound down in 1919, the illegal industry geared up.
 
Bootlegging wasn't new. Prohibition had been in force in large parts of the country for years. But these were generally modest operations. With the passage of the 18th amendment, bootlegging entered the big leagues.
 
Among those preparing for the shadowy side of prohibition was our friend Arnold Rothstein. We encountered Rothstein in episode 18, when he provided the money to throw the 1919 World Series, while also operating the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York. When you read up on Rothstein's other activities that year, you wonder where he found the time. 
 
Rothstein saw Prohibition as a golden business opportunity. The man thought big. He organized a massive smuggling enterprise that coordinated the efforts of European agents to purchase alcohol, transport ships to carry it across the Atlantic, speedboats to meet the vessels in international waters, teamsters to unload it, warehouses to store it, and a fleet of trucks to get it to dealers.
 
Like Adolphus Busch, Rothstein ran a fully integrated operation. He offered a full range of services to bootleggers, including a bail bonds firm, a law office, and a life insurance company. This was particularly important to Rothstein. He required all of his partners to take out the maximum possible life insurance policy from Rothstein's agency with Rothstein as beneficiary. So, if things went sour and the partner didn't survive the experience, Rothstein would still get something out of his investment. 
 
New York was only one of many hubs for illegal liquor. Detroit emerged as a smuggling capital as Canadian businessmen built a hive of distilleries in Windsor, Ontario. The city was flooded with illegal liquor. One newspaperman recalled later, quote, "It was absolutely impossible to get a drink in Detroit unless you told the busy bartender what you wanted in a voice loud enough for him to hear above the uproar."
 
In fact, alcohol was smuggled across every border. The Maine woods were said to be crowded with stashes of whiskey. Mexican cities such as Tijuana and Juarez became boom towns. The entire economy of the Bahamas was transformed by the alcohol trade, as was that of Cuba. American bartenders flocked to the island, American-owned hotels at every price point sprang up, and American airlines offered cheap flights to Havana every day from Manhattan. 
 
Another Irving Berlin hit, this one from 1920, describes the joys of a Cuba trip:
 
 
I'll see you in Cuba
 
 
One little detail in that song: the lyrics go "all since last JULY ever since the USA went dry." July was the date the Wartime Prohibition Act went into effect, not the 18th Amendment. It's little remembered now, but that act had a real effect on alcohol sales across the country. Although we'll see in descriptions of the last few weeks before the amendment took effect in January, people in New York, at least, were still able to find plenty of booze.
 
 
Anyway, this influx of drunken Americans would contribute to lasting resentments in Cuba that would play out later in the 20th century.
 
Meanwhile, if you found imported alcohol too expensive, there was always moonshine. Homesteaders in Eastern Oregon brewed their own liquor, as did miners in Colorado, farmers in Tennessee, and ranchers in Texas. Different regions had their own recipes and became known for their distinct styles. Dr Pepper, first served in Waco, Texas in 1885, was a popular additive to Texas moonshine. As a Texan with a can Diet Dr Pepper usually--including at this very instant--within reach, I appreciate this fact.
 
 
 
 
In 1919, Americans fell into several broad camps. Some had no intention of stopping drinking. If they could afford to plan ahead, there was no reason for them to stop. The consumption of alcohol wasn't illegal, since Congress hesitated to tell people what they could and couldn't do in their own homes. So long as you purchased the alcohol before midnight on January 16, 1920, you could drink all you liked.
 
Department-store owner Baron M. Goldwater, father of the Republican politician Barry Goldwater, secured not only the inventory but also the back bar and brass rail of his favorite saloon and had them installed in his basement. The mother of movie star Mary Pickford purchased an entire liquor store and had every single bottle relocated to her house. 
 
Those determined to drink but with fewer resources found ways to make do. Some purchased homebrew kits, suddenly available across the country. These included helpful information about how not to add yeast to make beer, because buyers definitely needed to know what was illegal, wink wink. Some bought grapes and made wine in their kitchens. Some acquired copper stills, which were on display in every hardware store window. The Drys fumed, but none of this was illegal--it had never occurred to Volstead that the spirit of the law would be so openly flouted.
 
Still others cozied up to accommodating doctors, who would write prescriptions for whiskey or brandy--for a price. Some found within themselves the stirrings of faith and befriended their local rabbi, since rabbis could buy and sell sacramental wine. It was observed that not all of the newly devout seemed to have particularly deep ties with Judaism, and that many of the rabbis ostensibly meeting their spiritual needs had names like Kelly and O'Connor.
 
 
 
At the other end of the spectrum were the Drys. They spent 1919 in a glow of anticipation, eagerly awaiting the day of freedom when America shook off the shackles of alcohol. They hoped that other nations would be inspired by America's example and soon the benefits of Prohibition would spread across the globe.
 
In the middle were the majority of Americans, who enjoyed a drink now and again but were generally law-abiding. They accepted the law because that's what you do in a society. They might not have been happy about it, but they weren't going to flout a constitutional amendment. For a time, alcohol consumption went down. In 1920, alcohol-related deaths declined, as well as arrests for public drunkenness. 
 
Drys celebrated this progress, confident it was only the start. They assumed this was the beginning of the end. Drinking would diminish until the bootleggers went out of business. America was entering a new era of sobriety and harmony. A golden age.
 
Right? Right???
 
 
A Toast to Prohibition 
 
 
As the clock wound down to January 17th, 1920, the pace picked up. The serious drinking started on New Year's Eve and continued nonstop until midnight of the 16th. I began this episode reading from a New York Herald article about the arrival of Prohibition as the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. After the lengthy and fanciful introduction, the writer got down to some actual reporting from Manhattan the night before the law went into effect.
 
"Broadway," the writer said, "was agleam with the spirit of the last night of the bubbling glass." (God, I wish I knew who had written this.) At the Vanderbilt Hotel, one hundred cases of champagne had been set aside for the evening, and all were consumed. At the Della Robbin Room, the orchestra played "Goodbye, Forever" at midnight as everyone in attendance took one last, long swig. At Maxim's, at the stroke of midnight, eight waiters emerged from the back carrying a massive black coffin. 
 
The reporter claimed that those who celebrated that last night did so in a spirit of resignation and that, quote, "no harsh feelings appeared." The article wrapped up with a quote from the chief prohibition enforcement officer in New York, who stated he believed New Yorkers would obey the law. Quote, "He expressed the opinion that the penalties for violation of the constitutional prohibition provisions were so drastic that the people of New York will not attempt to violate it."
 
 
 
 
What happened next is outside of the scope of this podcast. You likely know the broad outlines. Bootlegging soared, crime waves swept city after city, and gangsters shot one another on street corners.
 
The pathetic federal Prohibition Unit proved incapable of enforcing the law. Most agents accepted bribes, as did local and state police. Corruption extended from tiny rural sheriff's offices all the way to the Justice Department. 
 
Americans who had been ambivalent about the law saw how blatantly it was flouted. The population lost faith in Prohibition and began ignoring it. 
 
The whole system was a cluster-mess of unintended consequences and perverse outcomes.
 
The 18th amendment was repealed by another constitutional amendment, the 21st, in December 1933. It is to date the only amendment to ever be repealed.
 
 
 
 
When I have talked to people about this episode, many of them have commented that Prohibition was stupid. The dumbest law we ever passed, one said. 
 
But I'm left with a different impression. I come away from Prohibition struck by how simple it was all supposed to be and how complicated it turned out to be.
 
Temperance activists believed alcohol would solve all kinds of problems. The ills of society would be wiped away by this one simple law. Just ban alcohol, they said, and we'll wipe out domestic violence, improve the lives of the poor, integrate immigrants into American society, prevent racial conflict and raise workforce efficiency.
 
Of course, Prohibition did none of those things.
 
Furthermore, when you scratch the surface of what appear to be good intentions, you find some pretty ugly beliefs. Racism and anti-immigrant bias are only the start.
 
That's the thing about simple solutions. They are never as neat and tidy as we wish them to be. I think we are all more aware than ever before that most persistent societal ills are deeply rooted in economic and cultural systems. You can't flip a switch and turn them off. 
 
So, yes, Prohibition was dumb. But it was also a case study in how the easy solutions fail when applied to real, complicated, messy human problems. 
 
 
 
I have to end with one last excerpt from the New York Herald, which I've condensed for length.
 
As one stepped into the artistically appointed Roseland Dancing Palace at Fifty-First Street and Broadway, . . . beautifully gowned young women, clinging to their immaculately garbed escorts, glided about the great dance hall, stopping only occasionally to make their way back to a table where, down beside the chair, sat row upon row of the old brands of champagne. Truly, the Fifth Horseman was unknown to them. Like the ostrich that hides his head and believes himself out of danger, those hundreds hid their fears in the music of a waltz and drowned their vision in $15 a pint champagne. 
 
Tomorrow? What cared they?
 
 
 
Thanks so much for listening to The Year That Was.
 
I want to thank my sponsors: Laura B.  Maggie, and Laura L. Those of you keeping track will see that we're having a strong showing from Lauras right now. Thank you so much, especially as this episode was so ridiculously delayed. 
 
If you are enjoying The Year That Was, please join them. You can find links on the website, www.TheYearThatWasPodcast.com, to both Patreon and PayPal. Any level of donation is welcome and sincerely appreciated. 
 
Thanks also to everyone who has left ratings and reviews on Apple Podcasts. Thanks to EMSWhite for your recent review. You, ma'am, are too kind. 
 
Make sure you check out the website for photos, links to sources, and links to the music used in this episode, especially the Rose Ensembles' album "A Toast to Prohibition." 
 
Next time, we're going to turn to science and one of the single most important innovations in chemistry, a discovery that is possibly the reason you are alive today. I am not exaggerating. It is that important.
 
I'm going to stop giving dates from upcoming episodes as it only seems to make me later. But now that we're back into fall and life is returning to a semi-normal schedule, I hope I can get the podcast back on a normal schedule as well. Fingers crossed.
 
This week, stay safe, enjoy a beer, or a glass of wine, or a cocktail, and thanks so much for listening to The Year That Was.