This Constitution; No. 5; The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

<v Narrator 1>[intro theme] This Constitution, funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment <v Narrator 1>for the Humanities, is a presentation of the International University Consortium <v Narrator 1>and project 87. [music plays] <v Woman 1>If the republic is to be saved, the liquor traffic must be destroyed. <v Man 1>America must open its eyes and recognize that human conduct <v Man 1>cannot be changed by a legal enactment. <v Man 2>Prohibition is a business.

<v Man 2>All I do is supply public demand. <v Man 2>[gun shots] <v Narrator 2>This is the story of the Prohibition Amendment; the only amendment to our Constitution <v Narrator 2>ever to have been repealed. Prohibition only lasted 13 years, <v Narrator 2>but its story began 200 years ago. <v Narrator 2>After the revolution, America went on a drinking spree. <v Narrator 2>The per capita consumption of absolute alcohol went from two gallons a year to 5 <v Narrator 2>or even 10. <v Narrator 2>By 1820, a very healthy temperance movement had been born. <v Narrator 2>After the Civil War, it moved into the national political arena. <v Narrator 2>The Prohibition Party not only fought for a constitutional <v Narrator 2>amendment to control liquor, it also endorsed amendments to give women's suffrage <v Narrator 2>and elect senators by popular vote.

<v Narrator 2>Women were recruited into politics for the first time. <v Narrator 2>They marched on the polls and then with axes in hand on the saloons. <v Narrator 2>Which, according to Carrie Nation, had no rights anyone was bound to respect. <v Narrator 2>The women's crusade became the Women's Christian Temperance Union and initiated <v Narrator 2>a powerful educational campaign in the schools. <v Narrator 2>They saw to it that every child learn the new scientific evidence that alcohol, far <v Narrator 2>from being medicinal, was a deadly physical and moral poison. <v Narrator 2>By the time the Prohibition Amendment came before Congress in 1917, <v Narrator 2>a whole generation of Americans had been taught the evils of alcohol. <v Woman 2>It has been proven that the habitual use of alcohol disintegrates moral character.

<v Woman 2>It clouds the reason and enfeebles, the will. <v Woman 2>It arouses the appetites and inflames the passions. <v Narrator 2>In the end, the Prohibition Party alone could not pass their amendments, but <v Narrator 2>they brought temperance and suffrage into the mainstream of American politics. <v Narrator 2>All three of the party's amendments would be added to the Constitution as America endured <v Narrator 2>the social upheaval of the early 20th century. <v Narrator 2>The framers of our Constitution knew that the document they were creating would need to <v Narrator 2>be changed in order to endure. <v Narrator 2>So they created an amending power to correct potential structural flaws and <v Narrator 2>to settle issues that they could not settle in 1787. <v Narrator 2>They wanted an amending power which could operate both as a pressure valve for dissidents

<v Narrator 2>and as a way to legitimize the changes being made, both in the eyes of the law <v Narrator 2>and in the eyes of the people. <v Narrator 2>So the framers created a cooperative system of the federal and state governments <v Narrator 2>in which amendments are easy to initiate but hard to pass. <v Narrator 2>Since 1789, out of 5000 resolutions, 32 <v Narrator 2>have been sent to the states and only 26 have been ratified. <v Narrator 2>The process is inherently political, with Congress controlling the initiative. <v Narrator 2>An amendment must be passed by a two thirds majority in both houses and then <v Narrator 2>be ratified by three quarters of the states, either through the legislatures or by state <v Narrator 2>conventions. The states can petition Congress to call a general convention <v Narrator 2>to propose amendments. But a petition of this sort has always resulted in Congress <v Narrator 2>taking action rather than allowing the states this as yet undefined power. <v Narrator 2>As the framers anticipated, after the Bill of Rights, most of the changes in the <v Narrator 2>Constitution have been procedural.

<v Narrator 2>However, two sets of amendments, those after the Civil War and those called <v Narrator 2>the progressive amendments, were clearly responding to great social change. <v Narrator 2>Prohibition was one of these. <v Narrator 2>[music plays] The story of how it passed and why it failed can tell us much about the <v Narrator 2>enduring values embedded in our Constitution. <v Narrator 2>Prohibition is unique among the amendments in that it was a sumptuary law, <v Narrator 2>an attempt to regulate individual behavior for moral reasons. <v Narrator 2>Sumptuary laws were common in the colonial period and later in the states, but <v Narrator 2>had never been tried as a constitutional amendment. <v Narrator 2>But prohibition was going to change society. <v Narrator 2>It was a great experiment in centralized moral reform, which had begun in the States <v Narrator 2>and pulled the national government along with it. <v Narrator 2>But in order to master the political process and pass the amendment, what began <v Narrator 2>as a moral crusade of fervent women and preachers, ended as a disciplined <v Narrator 2>and pragmatic political pressure group.

<v Narrator 2>80 years of temperance work required national political focus with the founding <v Narrator 2>of the Anti Saloon League in 1895. <v Man 3>God has confided to this organization the task of offering a plan <v Man 3>of union for all enemies of the saloon. <v Man 3>He ?has set? his seal of approval on our efforts. <v Narrator 2>Like the abolitionists before them, the prohibitionists organized at the grassroots level <v Narrator 2>through the churches. [singing] Members pledging temperance and 25 cents a month to the <v Narrator 2>cause. <v Narrator 2>But the league organizers were professionals. <v Narrator 2>They also exacted another pledge from the membership: to vote dry, no matter what <v Narrator 2>the affiliation or the qualifications of the candidates. <v Man 4>[singing] On Election Day, women and children were placed along the sidewalks to the

<v Man 4>polling place. When a voter came along, he was immediately surrounded. <v Man 4>They clutched at his coat and they implored him, Mister, for God's sake, <v Man 4>don't vote for whiskey. <v Narrator 2>Politically skilled though they were, the anti saloon league's rapid success was <v Narrator 2>partially good timing. <v Narrator 2>America was changing. [cars honking] Growing <v Narrator 2>industrialization and the great immigration which began in the 1880s, swelled <v Narrator 2>the populations of the cities. <v Narrator 2>The urban immigrant and factory worker became the subject of politics, articles and <v Narrator 2>movies. <v Narrator 2>[music plays] The white protestant middle class of rural America in the small towns felt <v Narrator 2>threatened by this change in world. <v Narrator 2>Temperance became a symbolic way of asserting their dominance over this alien population. <v Man 5>Our nation can be saved only by turning the pure stream

<v Man 5>of country sentiment and township morals to flush out <v Man 5>the putrid cesspool of the cities. <v Narrator 2>It was said that alcohol made thrifty, industrious citizens into ?inaudible?. <v Narrator 2>It diverted money from paying bills and destroyed the family. <v Narrator 2>Scientific studies showed that alcohol was the cause behind misbegotten children, <v Narrator 2>prostitutes and habitual criminals. <v Narrator 2>The league focused all these attitudes on a tangible and easily identified target. <v Narrator 2>The saloon, which not only encouraged drinking, but was used by <v Narrator 2>the urban political boss to control the immigrant vote as well. <v Narrator 2>The blatant political corruption associated with the saloon was legendary, <v Narrator 2>but there was another side to the story.

<v Narrator 2>The boss was often the only access that the immigrant had to the power structure. <v Narrator 2>He was the source of jobs and a sense of belonging. <v Narrator 2>The saloon itself was a haven from the life of the mills and factories, from the squalid, <v Narrator 2>crowded tenements. <v Narrator 2>It was in the saloon that the working men held their christening parties, their weddings. <v Narrator 2>They were the first labor exchanges and union halls. <v Narrator 2>They had names such as Poor Man's Retreat and the Italian Headquarters. <v Narrator 2>Finally, it was the immigrants themselves who resisted reform. <v Narrator 2>They had their own values and cultural traditions and social drinking was one of them. <v Narrator 2>[music changes] But the reformers were undeterred. <v Narrator 2>The belief in the power of redemption permeated novels, plays, and movies. <v Narrator 2>The new social gospel held that the problem drinker, whether native American or

<v Narrator 2>foreigner, was not morally lapsed, merely a victim of his environment. <v Narrator 2>[music plays] Take away the saloon and the victim would see the light. <v Narrator 2>And everywhere that alcohol had been driven out, the news was good. <v Narrator 2>Money was saved. Crime was down. <v Narrator 2>Society was better. <v Narrator 2>Captains of industry and labor unions now joined the crusade, for drinking was <v Narrator 2>too dangerous in modern factories. <v Narrator 2>The notion that the federal government should play a part in this great reform was a <v Narrator 2>progressive one. <v Narrator 2>And the progressives were coming to power. <v Narrator 2>Their belief that the government should actively promote the welfare of the people gained <v Narrator 2>strength with the changing composition of the Congress. <v Narrator 2>Despite the growth of the cities. Several new and sparsely populated Western states

<v Narrator 2>enabled the rural interests to dominate Congress and the state legislatures. <v Narrator 2>One of these interests was temperance. <v Narrator 2>The Anti Saloon League used this rural block to great advantage as their policy <v Narrator 2>of nonpartisan voting, judging a candidate only on his wet or dry vote, began <v Narrator 2>to be felt at the polls. <v Man 6>It is better to have a drunkard who will vote right than a saint who will vote wrong. <v Man 7>The graves of many state legislators and members of Congress <v Man 7>can be seen along the line of our march. <v Man 7>And there are other graves waiting. <v Narrator 2>In 1907, Oklahoma joined Maine, Kansas, and North Dakota <v Narrator 2>and wrote prohibition into its constitution. <v Narrator 2>The same year, Georgia outlawed the sale and manufacture of liquor. <v Narrator 2>Mississippi and Tennessee soon followed. By <v Narrator 2>1913, 31 states had some kind of liquor legislation. <v Narrator 2>That same year, 10 years of lobbying paid off in the Webb-Kenyon Act, a federal

<v Narrator 2>law which prohibited bringing liquor into a dry state for commercial purposes. <v Narrator 2>Given their remarkable success in the states, why did the league push for a <v Narrator 2>constitutional amendment? <v Narrator 2>Pragmatically, they wanted a national measure to make enforcement among the states <v Narrator 2>effective. But changing the Constitution had also become symbolic. <v Narrator 2>Prohibitionists wanted the imprimatur of the Constitution on their moral code. <v Narrator 2>They wanted their ideals endorsed nationally and their opponents were so confident that <v Narrator 2>the Constitution could not be amended in such a way that they didn't organize until it <v Narrator 2>was too late. <v Narrator 2>The first attempt to pass an amendment was the Hobson Resolution in 1914. <v Narrator 2>It passed, but not by a two thirds majority. <v Narrator 2>Encouraged, the league threw itself into the 1916 elections and returned <v Narrator 2>a dry Congress.

<v Narrator 2>President Wilson opposed the amendment and neither party endorsed it. <v Narrator 2>But war hysteria was sweeping the country, and the league made the most of the fear. <v Man 8>We have German enemies across the water. <v Man 8>We have German enemies in this country too. <v Man 8>The most treacherous, the most menacing us are Schlitz, <v Man 8>Blatz's, and Miller. <v Narrator 2>Further, the war provided a rationale for nationwide rationing. <v Narrator 2>The breweries wasted food and fuel for <v Narrator 2>the war effort. <v Narrator 2>When the new Congress reassembled, the Wets tried vainly to forestall a vote, but <v Narrator 2>to no avail. By December 1917, both houses <v Narrator 2>had passed the Prohibition Amendment by the required two thirds majority. <v Narrator 2>The drys in Congress stipulated that the amendment be sent to the state legislatures to <v Narrator 2>be ratified because they were dominated by the rural vote. <v Narrator 2>13 months later, on January 19th, Nebraska became the 36th

<v Narrator 2>state to ratify the 18th Amendment, and it became part of the Constitution. <v Narrator 2>The 18th Amendment made no mention of personal consumption, but it had always <v Narrator 2>been the intention of the league to pass a mild amendment and use Congress's ability <v Narrator 2>to pass appropriate legislation to enforce their goal: that <v Narrator 2>the use of intoxicating liquor as a beverage be prevented. <v Narrator 2>The league's chief lobbyist, Wayne Wheeler, wrote a bill which culled the best <v Narrator 2>enforcement measures from the state constitutions and submitted it through Congressman <v Narrator 2>Andrew Volstead. It was bone dry. <v Narrator 2>Most Americans were surprised. <v Narrator 2>They had assumed that liquor meant distilled spirits. <v Narrator 2>The Volstead Act outlawed beer and wine as well. <v Narrator 2>Some politicians vigorously objected. <v Man 9>We have indolently allowed a well-organized and enormously financed <v Man 9>body, composed of zealots, fanatics and bigots

<v Man 9>to insert a draconian statute in our great charter of liberties. <v Narrator 2>On January 16th, 1920, funerals were held all over the country <v Narrator 2>for John Barleycorn. <v Narrator 2>Billy Sunday preached in Norfolk, Virginia. <v Billy Sunday>Goodbye, John Barleycorn. <v Billy Sunday>You were God's worst enemy. <v Billy Sunday>You were Hell's best friend. <v Billy Sunday>But the rain of tears is over. <v Billy Sunday>The slums will soon be a memory. <v Billy Sunday>We will turn our prisons into factories, our jails <v Billy Sunday>into corn cribs. <v Billy Sunday>Men will walk upright now. <v Billy Sunday>Women will smile and children will laugh. <v Billy Sunday>Hell will be forever for ?rent?. <v Narrator 2>The promise of prohibition was about to be tested.

<v Narrator 2>Would it reform society? <v Narrator 2>Would regulating one aspect of individual behavior give rise to all the benefits its <v Narrator 2>advocates claimed? The drys assumed that victory was theirs, for it had been written <v Narrator 2>into the supreme law of the land. <v Narrator 2>3 months after prohibition took effect, half a million dollars in government confiscated <v Narrator 2>liquor was stolen from its warehouses. <v Narrator 2>Within 6 months, two prohibition agents had been indicted for corruption. <v Narrator 2>And the federal courts in Chicago alone had 600 liquor cases pending. <v Narrator 2>The problem was, it was not illegal to drink liquor just to sell it. <v Narrator 2>And what had been effective on a local level proved unenforceable on a national one. <v Narrator 2>The drys had counted on a respect for the Constitution to enforce the law. <v Narrator 2>In small towns where social pressure had an effect, prohibition seemed to work. <v Narrator 2>But in the socially diverse cities, it simply fell apart.

<v Narrator 2>Arthur Hadley wrote- <v Arthur Hadley>[bar sounds] [drinks being filled] Conscience and public opinion enforce laws. <v Arthur Hadley>The police suppress the exemptions. <v Arthur Hadley>?If? any considerable number of citizens who are habitually law abiding think that a <v Arthur Hadley>particular statute is bad enough to make it worth their while to block its enforcement, <v Arthur Hadley>they can do so. <v Narrator 2>Prohibition had been made law by legitimate procedure, but it did not have legitimacy <v Narrator 2>in the eyes of the people. And the disobedience it engendered stirred its opponents <v Narrator 2>almost more than the restriction of personal liberty. <v Narrator 2>The wets went to court. <v Narrator 2>In 1920, Elihu Root argued before the Supreme Court that the 18th <v Narrator 2>Amendment not only usurped the police powers of the states, it was inappropriate in <v Narrator 2>the Constitution, being a piece of sumptuary legislation rather than a procedural <v Narrator 2>measure or a delegation of powers. <v Narrator 2>It's an arguable point. <v Narrator 2>The Constitution is an expression of our fundamental values, our objectives and purposes <v Narrator 2>as a nation. But for the most part, these values are expressed implicitly

<v Narrator 2>through procedures rather than stated explicitly. <v Narrator 2>At least four other amendments have had implied social agendas. <v Narrator 2>The post civil war wins for blacks. <v Narrator 2>The 19th for women. <v Narrator 2>But they operate through the granting of a right or the limiting of government power. <v Narrator 2>The 18th Amendment attempted to achieve its goal by regulating individual behavior. <v Narrator 2>[machine whirring] Root argued that giving Congress the right to regulate liquor was <v Narrator 2>constitutional, directly prohibiting its sale was not. <v Narrator 2>The court would not put itself above the amending power, however, and upheld the <v Narrator 2>amendment. But it became increasingly split when enforcement led to search <v Narrator 2>and seizure without a warrant. Wiretapping and double jeopardy. <v Narrator 2>In one case, Justice Brandeis wrote in dissent- <v Louis Brandeis>If a government becomes a law breaker, <v Louis Brandeis>it breeds contempt for the law. <v Louis Brandeis>It invites every man to become a law unto himself. <v Louis Brandeis>It invites anarchy.

<v Narrator 2>[music plays] It did indeed seem that the world was turned upside down. <v Narrator 2>World War One and the automobile had swept away the remains of Victorian society. <v Narrator 2>In the world portrayed by Hollywood, heroes and heroines had hip flasks and went to <v Narrator 2>the speakeasies. The news was full of organized crime and futile attempts <v Narrator 2>of federal agents to patrol 12,000 miles of American borders. <v Narrator 2>Even respectable people had bootleggers. <v Narrator 2>Americans began to turn against prohibition. <v Narrator 2>[bands playing] [people yelling] Ordinary citizens marched. <v Narrator 2>Wealthy businessmen organized. <v Narrator 2>The voluntary committee of lawyers became an effective lobbying group. <v Narrator 2>By the end of the decade, even women had organized for repeal. <v Woman 3>Our children are growing up with a lack of respect for the Constitution. <v Woman 4>Prohibition has made us a nation of hypocrites. <v Woman 5>The enforcement system is demoralized. <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>When the 18th Amendment was passed, I ernestly hoped with

<v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>a host of advocates of temperature, that it would be generally supported by <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>public opinion. That this has not been the result, <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>but rather that drinking generally has increased. <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>That the speakeasy has replaced the saloon not only unit <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>for unit, but probably two fold, if not three fold. <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>That a vast army of lawbreakers has been <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>recruited and financed on a colossal scale, that <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>many of our best citizens peaked at what they regarded as an infringement <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>of their private right have openly and unabashed disregarded <v John D. Rockefeller, Jr.>the 18th Amendment. <v Narrator 2>[music plays] But prohibition was now part of the Constitution, and it was generally <v Narrator 2>assumed that repeal was impossible. <v Narrator 2>The rural vote still dominated both the statehouses and Congress. <v Narrator 2>The urban labor vote, however, was increasing in political importance.

<v Narrator 2>The 1928 presidential race between Al Smith and Herbert Hoover pitted <v Narrator 2>a wet candidate against a drive for the first time in major party politics. <v Narrator 2>And the contest between the urban Irish immigrant son and the rural Protestant farm boy <v Narrator 2>revived all the nativism of the temperance campaign 30 years earlier. <v Narrator 2>Al Smith lost, but with more Democratic votes than had ever been cast before. <v Narrator 2>Sons and daughters of the immigrants had joined forces with the conservative upper class. <v Narrator 2>By the time FDR arrived four years later with the nomination nearly in his pocket, <v Narrator 2>he had to accept a repeal plank in his platform or risk the nomination. <v FDR>[cheering] Your candidate, ?inaudible?. <v FDR>I am confident that the United States of America <v FDR>?inaudible?. <v Narrator 2>By 1931, the responsibility the drys had taken for the boom turned

<v Narrator 2>into blame for the crash. <v Narrator 2>The social coalition which had passed the amendment had long before disintegrated. <v Narrator 2>The day after the Roosevelt landslide, the voluntary committee of lawyers went to work <v Narrator 2>on a plan for submitting repeal to the states by the convention alternative provided in <v Narrator 2>Article Five. <v Narrator 2>In February 1933, a lame duck Congress voted on the 21st <v Narrator 2>Amendment. And within a month, the states had begun to act. <v Narrator 2>On December 5th, 1933, Utah became the 36th state to ratify <v Narrator 2>a repeal and prohibition was no longer the law of the land. <v Narrator 2>[music plays] <v Al Smith>It would be very difficult, if not impossible, to estimate the benefits that will come <v Al Smith>to this country from the lessons thought to the coming generation

<v Al Smith>to make it their business to see that no such matter ?inaudible? <v Al Smith>is ever again made the subject of federal constitutional <v Al Smith>law. <v Narrator 2>[music plays] Prohibition was intended to solve a real social problem. <v Narrator 2>It did curtail our drinking habits. <v Narrator 2>It would be 1970 before we returned to pre prohibition levels again. <v Narrator 2>And many states still use their local option to control liquor. <v Narrator 2>But prohibition never achieved its prime objective of lifting America to a higher <v Narrator 2>and better life. Indeed, the price we paid for its failure in terms of organized <v Narrator 2>crime and respect for the Constitution, was high. <v Narrator 2>Its legacy has been to make us deeply suspicious of amendments with an avowed moral <v Narrator 2>purpose. <v Narrator 2>But it has not made us shy of using the amending power. <v Narrator 2>We've amended the Constitution five times since 1933, and there are more campaigns

<v Narrator 2>to come. <v Narrator 2>For the politics of the amending process is one way we as a people hammer out what <v Narrator 2>values are enduring enough to be made part of our Constitution. <v Narrator 2>In many ways, it's the promise of change in Article Five that gives the Constitution <v Narrator 2>its enduring life. <v Narrator 2>It's important to remember that it took nearly 100 years to pass prohibition, but <v Narrator 2>only 13 to repeal it. <v Narrator 2>In the words of Jefferson- <v Thomas Jefferson>I am certainly not an advocate of frequent or untried <v Thomas Jefferson>changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and <v Thomas Jefferson>institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human <v Thomas Jefferson>mind. We might as well require a man still to wear <v Thomas Jefferson>the coat that fitted him as a boy, as civilized society <v Thomas Jefferson>to remain ever under the regimen of their ancestors. <v Narrator 1>The preceding program was funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment

<v Narrator 1>for the Humanities.