Before the 1920s, drinking was an extreme problem in the United States. Drinking was a major problem due to all the crime and corruption it brought about.  This is why in 1919, the eighteenth amendment that supported prohibition was ratified. Prohibition is a ban on the production, importation, transportation and sale of alcohol. This amendment was supposed to help reduce the crime and corruption and improve health among the people who consumed alcohol in our country. However, this amendment did the complete opposite of what it was supposed to. It worsened all it was trying to fix because of all the new illegal ways people made drinking possible. For example, in places that were bordering other countries smuggling became a problem. At the New York a Vermont border to Quebec, smuggling alcohol became a big issue. While it was not illegal to consume the alcohol, it was illegal to possess it whether it be buying or selling it. This is why people would choose to smuggle it, because it was getting difficult to buy it in America. Canadian liquor imports were more than happy to supply liquor to people in America and this became possible through corruption within the border patrol. [1]

While most people were willing to keep quiet and drink secretly, others took it upon themselves to fight to have the eighteenth amendment repealed, which did end up happening through the twenty-first amendment. In the featured picture at the top of the page it shows a group of people who were called anti-prohibitionists. In this specific picture they are shown holding signs that say “We want beer” in a mob like orientation. There is a more to that picture than just men holding signs. They were doing it for more than just the beer. They wanted to end the corruption that came from having to bootleg liquor. They also needed the tax revenue that came from selling the selling of alcohol. There was even corruption that could be found within the people group of people who were meant to enforce prohibition. They would often partner up with the people bootlegging the alcohol, mostly because they were not supporters of prohibition and also because they were untrained and had no prior screening to being hired. [2]

These groups of anti-prohibitionists were made up of many different people, but a large amount of these people were male and also part of the working-class. A famous artist John Sloan painted a beautiful portrait of men sitting around a bar during prohibition, bonding and drinking off a long day at work. This picture shows that there is more to a saloon than just drinking. That it is a place where people come together to socialize and catchup with friends. I believe one of the reasons that some people were so against prohibition was due to all benefits that they saw outweighed the bad once the eighteenth amendment went into place. Yes, there was corruption and crime brought upon by alcohol,

but it only got worse once prohibition was outlawed. Saloons were a place for people to social and get away from problems they were having in their life. Saloons could only be possible if alcohol is sold. The working and middle class who were often the ones going to the saloons became unable to during prohibition. [3] Speakeasies opened and only the wealthy could afford to buy liquor. People were so against prohibition for a multitude of reasons. This could be because it was not what it promised to be. It brought more crime and corruption, more people became unhealthy during it and it also forced many businesses to close. It also made it harder for working and middle class people to socialize after a long day at work because they could no longer afford to buy alcohol. It was brave of the anti-prohibitionists to fight for what they believed in during a time where they could have easily been prosecuted for supporting the cause.

 

References 

Dennison, Mariea Caudill. “McSorley’s: John Sloan’s Visual Commentary on Male Bonding, Prohibition, and the Working Class.” American                Studies 47, no. 2 (2006): 23-38. Accessed December 9, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40643910.

Ley, Aaron J., and Cornell W. Clayton. “Constitutional Choices: Political Parties, Groups, and Prohibition Politics in the United States.”                      Journal of Policy History 30, no. 4 (October 2018): 609–34. doi:10.1017/S0898030618000234.

Willis, John. 2018. “Tango along the Canadian-American Border in the 1920s.” American Review of Canadian Studies 48 (2): 163–90.                       doi:10.1080/02722011.2018.1483001.