Time: Wed May 28 17:19:54 1997
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Date: Wed, 28 May 1997 17:07:59 -0700
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: PRO ESSAY #2 (fwd)
<snip>
>
>Alcohol Prohibition; How the Eighteenth Amendment came into being.
>
>Colonial America drank prodigious amounts of alcohol in all forms. There
>was not much notice, however, of social problems related to drinking until
>the early 1830s witnessed the appearance of a temperance movement, rooted
>primarily in rural fundamentalist Christian churches. At some point, the
>goal of that movement shifted from voluntary temperance to enforced
>prohibition and the first of three great waves of state prohibition laws
>were passed starting in 1846. Several of those laws were eventually thrown
>out by state courts, others repealed by newly elected legislators.
>Following the Civil War, a second wave of enthusiasm for prohibition saw
>formation of the Prohibition Party in 1869, the WCTU in 1870 and a spate of
>new state laws. At about the time that this second wave was receding, an
>important event, creation of the Anti Saloon League in Oberlin Ohio in 1893
>gave the sponsoring churches a national political organization with a
>permanent staff to supply profesional direction to the movement. Twenty
>years later, key members of that staff would redirect the efforts of a
>resurgent prohibition movement toward a Constitutional Amendment, and in
>the ensuing six years, aided by a European war, lead it to a stunning
>political victory; passage of the Eighteenth Amendment.
>
>
>In the twenty year interval between its founding and the decision, made at
>its "Jubilee Convention" in Columbus, Ohio in November 1913, the
>professionals of the Anti-Saloon league had learned many valuable lessons.
>Some were negative; as with the difficulties in enforcing prohibition laws
>in a dry state with wet neighbors. Some were positive; as in the effective
>application of pressure to politicians of both parties in the new game of
>single-issue politics (in which they were pioneers). Their decision, made
>on the basis of these lessons, was to strike for national prohibition via
>Constitutional Amendment.
>
>Without going into too much detail, the various state prohibition laws that
>had been passed and repealed over the years had pointed up difficulties
>inherent in state-based prohibition: each state law would vary, some states
>were "bone" dry, others permitted beer and/or wine. Some states allowed
>varying degrees of importation by their citizens for personal use; others
>did not. Then there was always trafficking from bordering wet states.
>Rather than give prohibition advocates pause about the enforcability of
>prohibition laws in general, that phenomenon merely convinced them that a
>uniform national law was the solution to the problem. Thus, this simplistic
>confidence that a properly worded statute can reform human nature was as
>evident then as it is today.
>
>The other experience that convinced leaders of the Anti Saloon League to go
>for an Amendment rather than a law passed by Congress was the fact that
>prohibition laws had been repealed in several states a few years after
>their passage. It was believed that because a Constitutional Amendment was
>so difficult to achieve, it would be impregnable, thereby making
>prohibition of alcohol our permanent national policy.
>
>The role played by the First World War in successful passage of the
>Eighteenth Amendment has been well documented by many historians. The
>Amendment went into effect on January 16, 1920 amid concessions from most
>astute political observers of the time that its repeal was nearly
>unthinkable. The confidence of its sponsors was unbounded; they were sure
>it would profoundly redirect society towards righteousness and productivity
>and that the cost of enforcement would be minimal- Wayne Wheeler, chief
>architect of the political triumph of the Amendment estimated an annual
>enforcement budget at 5 million to begin with, with a subsequent decline as
>the "bad apples" were driven out of business!
>
>We now know, that far from rendering Prohibition invulnerable as policy,
>the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment rendered it uniquely susecptible to
>total repudiation by a single devastating event, passage of Repeal. Not
>only did it happen; it happened swiftly, in a mere thirteen years. Just as
>Prohibition probably required the assistance of the Great War for its
>passage. Repeal probably wouldn't have occurred without the Great
>Depression. So devastating and complete was the repudiation of Prohibition
>that its underlying idea: prohibition of alcohol is reasonable policy; an
>idea which had persisted for well over a century, was completely laid to
>rest, perhaps forever.
>
>That consideration alone renders the ascendancy of drug prohibition in the
>sixty years following Repeal all the more incongruous.
>Tom O'Connell
>
<snip>
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Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S. : Counselor at Law, federal witness
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