Volstead Act
From Drug Rehab Wiki
The Volstead Act resulted from the culmination of growing sentiments in favor of national reformation and constituted the enforcement of Prohibition in the United States. Although passed by both houses in 1919 and founded as the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution in 1920, the demand for prohibition had been brewing for many decades in America.
Contents |
American Temperance Society
Founded in 1826, the American Temperance Society recruited members into its organization in an effort to create a national abstinence movement, also known as the temperance movement. By 1836, ATS had more than 1.5 million members. The organization’s goal was in accordance with local and national sentiments that advocated reform such as temperance, abolition of slavery, women’s rights, and improvement of American society. As membership grew and other groups continued to sprout across the nation in favor of abstinence from alcohol, the organization’s promotion of voluntary abstinence morphed into a demand for mandatory prohibition. ATS was the first social movement organization to have marshaled national support for a single reform cause.
Women's Christian Temperance Union
Following ATS, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union was founded in 1873 and became a national organization in 1874. The group pledged to abolish the influence of alcohol and drugs on families and to improve social ethics. WCTU fought to preserve marriages and families and considered alcohol as the main deterrent contributing to the demise of both.
Anti-Saloon Leagure
In 1893, the Anti-Saloon League was founded and became a key element in the Progressive Movement. The ASL aimed to directly confront legislation in order to influence voting in favor of prohibition. The group’s political involvement specifically caused the initiation of the Volstead Act. Due to these three groups’ popularity, as well as the support of industrial companies who favored temperance due to their long work hours in the early and later parts of the day, as well as a lingering anti-German sentimentality after WWI, the Volstead Act was passed.
At the turn of the century, many states were imposing laws that prohibited the sale and manufacturing of alcoholic beverages. In 1917, the Volstead Act was drafted by the Anti-Saloon League’s legislative lawyer, Wayne Wheeler. The task of presenting the bill before Congress became the responsibility of U.S. Representative Andrew J. Volstead of Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District, from whom the Act got its name.
Approval of the Volstead Act: Prohibition
On December 18, 1917, a joint resolution was adopted by both houses, having the necessary constitutional majority in favor, and the Act was submitted to the states for their approval. Although the process was allotted a 7-year waiting period for the states’ considerations, the bill had already received 3/4 state approval in just 13 months. By January 16, 1919, 36 states had ratified the Act to their state legislature, and the House of Representatives moved to make the Volstead Act the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution. Although President Woodrow Wilson had previously vetoed the bill due to its installation of wartime prohibition, Congress voted in favor of the Act in October 1919, and it became a part of the Constitution on January 29, 1919. Congress enacted the Amendment as the National Prohibition Act of 1920. The Act remained in effect until its repeal in 1933.
The Volstead Act stated that its purpose was “to prohibit intoxicating beverages, and to regulate the manufacture, production, use, and sale of high-proof spirits for other than beverage purposes, and to insure an ample supply of alcohol and promote its use in scientific research and in the development of fuel, dye, and other lawful industries.”
The Act contained three titles: Title I enforced wartime prohibition; Title II prohibited the sale and manufacturing of intoxicating beverages; and Title III monitored industrial usages of alcohol. The Act’s primary motive was to prohibit the sources of alcohol distribution and manufacturing. This prohibited nationwide selling, manufacturing, transportation, importation, and exportation of alcohol, banning beverages containing more than 0.5% of alcohol. Although the Act’s ultimate goal was to mandate abstinence and abolish alcoholic beverages, it resulted in putting legal distributors out of business and influencing an uprising of underground production of alcohol.
Initial Effects of Prohibition
The initial effects of the Act were successful in that the consumption of alcohol dropped 30%, cases of public drunkenness decreased, and the price of illegal alcohol became too exorbitant for the average American. Brewing businesses were shutting their doors and the U.S. Brewer’s Association confirmed a 50% drop in alcohol consumption. However, it was not long before the Act began to produce harmful effects that eventually outweighed its success.
Rise of Organized Crime
Bootlegging, racketeering, organized crime, gambling, and prostitution became rampant as public demand for alcohol grew larger than the number of abolitionist groups. The ban sparked exponentially growing levels of civil disobedience and rebellion that outdid the efforts of both local and national authorities. By 1925, there was an estimated 30,000–100,000 speakeasy clubs in New York City alone, and the government wasn’t willing to invest the resources necessary to uphold the Volstead Act. Bootlegging became king and reached over state lines, rivers, lakes, and organized export stations. The public was becoming more defiant to the law. Those who still fought for sobriety or were willing to aid law enforcement were risking their lives.
Prohibition Overturned: The Blaine Act
By 1933, disapproval of the Act became so overwhelming that the Act proved to be ineffective, creating the exact opposite reaction to its initial purpose. On December 5, 1933, the Blaine Act, which sought to overturn the National Prohibition Act, was passed and became the Twenty-First Amendment of the Constitution, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment.
Control of alcohol distribution was returned to the states until 1935 when the Federal Alcohol Administration was formed. In 1968, the FAA became a division of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms division of the Internal Revenue Service due to the Gun Control Act. In 1972, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms was founded as a new, separate division under the U.S. Treasury Department. As Herbert Hoover famously classified it, the Volstead Act proved to be “the great social and economic experiment, noble in motive and far-reaching in purpose,” which inevitably failed.
