Chemistry Steps up as Law Enforcement During Prohibition
Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is a sumptuary law which prohibits alcohol. Typically, the manufacture, transportation, import, export, and sale of alcoholic beverages is restricted or illegal. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the prohibition of alcohol was enforced. Use of the term as applicable to a historical period is typically applied to countries of European culture.
In some countries of the Muslim world, consumption of alcoholic beverages is forbidden according to Islamic Law — though the strictness by which this prohibition was and is enforced varies considerably between various Islamic countries and various periods in their history. In the early twentieth century, much of the impetus for the prohibition movement in the Nordic countries and North America came from Protestant wariness of alcohol.
“Anyone out there know if there’s a good college class on Prohibition? I would sign up for it. There is so much interesting stuff about big-P Prohibition (1919-1933) and various small-P prohibitions that just isn’t part of Americans’ knowledge of history (OK, there’s a lot lacking in Americans’ knowledge of history, but I’ll let another blogger tackle that). I did not know, for instance, until I read The Chemist’s War in Slate that there was a federal program to poison alcohol.
“Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people,” writes Deborah Blum. If it’s even close to being accurate, that number’s astonishing.
Prohibition-era President Calvin Coolidge, who had already, as governor of Massachusetts, made a name for himself by cracking down on striking Boston cops, showed his characteristic zeal for maintaining law and order by turning to “chemistry as an enforcement tool.” Wow, way to go, Silent Cal. Imagine if that sort of zeal was ever applied to enforcing regulations governing high finance… Ah, well. Then as now.
Equally as fascinating as the dark episode above: We think of Massachusetts as a pioneer in everything from establishing the New World to declaring independence from the Old World to letting gay people marry to mandating universal health insurance. But few people know that the Bay State was also a pioneer in prohibition. According to Perry R. Duis’ study The Saloon: Public Drinking in Chicago and Boston, 1880-1920, Massachusetts was the first to enact statewide prohibition, which, except for the years 1868 and 1871-3, lasted from 1852 to 1875. Of course, we had about as much success with our own noble experiment as the entire nation did some decades later. Duis writes:
“The wets claimed that arrests for drunkenness had not really declined as dramatically as citizens had earlier believed. Alcohol was obviously being produced or imported, and a secret distribution system placed it in the hands of thousands of drinkers… Charity workers and city missionaries worried aloud about the social problems that came from… secret consumption. Tenement doors concealed drunkenness, wife beating, and child abuse… Under license, the quality and purity of liquor could be regulated; now, inspection was virtually impossible. And on and on. See you in class.”
Story submitted by Lauren Clark with Drink Boston. [1]
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If I may, I would like to make a few comments expanding upon your essay on the prohibition of liquor. 1) From the beginning, the war on liquor was considered a progressive reform effort. Perhaps it most vocal supporter was William Jennings Bryan, three times Democratic candidates for president.
The opposition came from conservatives with their deep interest in personal freedom and also States’ Rights. 2) Women were the backbone of the prohibition movement, with Frances Willard being the most notable example.
This movement introduced women to politics and also led to the development of modern interest group politics. 3) While the Protestant religion (especially the Methodist church) strongly backed the movement, there were also involved other powerful factors, especially health concerns and workplace safety and efficiency.
The Catholic Church was not a strong supporter of prohibition, but it is worth noting that Archbishop Ireland was a founder and vice president of the powerful Anti-Saloon League. 4) To understand prohibition movement, you must realize what a great social problem it represented to XIXth and early XXth Century Americans.
To them, liquor was a great destroyer of men and women and families. Eleanor Roosevelt, whose father was an alcoholic, when on radio the day Herbert Hoover was inaugurated as presdient asking public support in his effort to enforce Prohibition….There is nothing to indicate that Calvin Coolidge was a fan of National Prohibition. (He enjoyed a drink now and then, and he served as attorney for the Springfield brewery.) Prohibition was an issue that he attempted to avoid as a politician, given its highly divisive nature.
While in Massachusetts politics, he managed to enjoy the support of both pro and anti factions. As president, Coolidge did regularly call for support of law. He also attempted to enforce as best he could the Prohibition laws–but he refused to turn the US into a police state in the process….Alcohol was widely used in industry. To keep it from being used in making illegal alcoholic products, it was denatured. Unfortunately, unscrupulous criminals got hold of it and used it in the manufacturing poisonous boze.
The blame for the resulting suffering and deaths lies with the criminals, and perhaps to a degree, with their unfortunate customers….The American people eventually concluded that they did not want National Prohibition, and so this experiment was ended. But they also did not want a return to the old order represented by the saloon, and as a result, the States placed strict controls over the sale and use of alcohol, which remain in place to this day. The saloon itself, which was seen as he very embodiment of evil, would never reappear.