"This convention wants repeal; this candidate wants repeal, the people of the United States wants the eighteenth Amendment repealed, from this date on, the Eighteenth Amendment is doomed!"
-Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Bluenthal 117)
Rebellion and Repeal
New York World Writer's Idea of Prohibition
"Prohibition is an awful flop.
We like it. It can't stop what it's meant to stop. We like it. It's left a trail of graft and slime, It don't prohibition worth a dime, It's filled our land with vice and crime, Nevertheless, we're for it." (Blumenthal, 117) "At least $1,000,000,000 a year is lost to the National Government and the several States and counties in excise taxes. The liquor traffic is going on just the same. This amount goes into the pockets of bootleggers and in the pockets of the public officials in the shape of graft." |
Prohibition lead many people to be unhappy and do anything they could to change it. Since many people decided to continue their alcoholic activities, and alcohol was now banned, people needed a new source to obtain their liquor. These new sources were organized crime gangs, which lead to bribed law enforcers and corrupt cities, and inevitably the realization that this amendment wasn't the proper way to solve the problem at hand. Eventually, protests became so great that the government was forced to repeal the 18th amendment by creating a new one, the 21st amendment.
"It is impossible to tell whether prohibition is a good thing or a bad thing. It has never been enforced in this country." "Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth."
-Will Rogers (brainyquotes.com) |