Page 32 - All About History - Issue 09-14

What if...
PROHIBITION HADN’T BEEN REPEALED?

you know, beer and wine now make up the largest contributor
of per capita alcohol consumption. It is possible to imagine an
amended Prohibition continuing long after 1933.
Would that have been more successful?
Toner: If there had been a more moderate approach towards
scaling back Prohibition, making it less of a burden to the
average American and concentrating resources on cracking
down on the highest levels of organised crime, then we might
have seen a more effective management of that process. If
things like beer and light wine had been legalised during the
course of Prohibition, even if spirits and other high-percentage
alcohol drinks had remained illegal, that really would have
reduced the market that organised crime had to sell to. I
strongly think that had those changes towards the legalisation,
particularly of beer and wine, been taken in the Twenties,
Prohibition would have continued for a very long time.

Was there a turning point where Prohibition might not
have been repealed?
Blocker: The turning point probably came in the late Twenties
after Herbert Hoover’s election [as US president] in 1928. He
created a commission to look at Prohibition, the Wickersham
Commission, and if that had recommended modifying
Prohibition that could well have been a turning point. But
by that point the main Prohibitionist organisation, the Anti-
Saloon League, was in extreme disarray, although there were
a lot of people who continued to support national Prohibition,
so there could have been a political firestorm had they Al Capone (centre) was one of the US government’s biggest enemies
recommended modifying it. during the Prohibition era
Toner: In the mid-to-late Twenties there were continued
attempts to try to persuade the government to introduce Act or to the 18th Amendment. It’s really that intransigence
changes to the Volstead Act so that things like beer and and unwillingness to compromise in any way that pushes the
wine could be legalised. But members of the ‘dry’ lobby, two camps, pro-Prohibition and pro-repeal, into completely
particularly led by the Anti-Saloon League, completely refused opposite positions.
to countenance any changes whatsoever, either to the Volstead
“If anything, continued Prohibition How would the economy have fared if Prohibition had
remainedm unchanged?
would have helped to cement that Toner: It’s possible that there may have been a very
entrenched period of depression in the Thirties that
[economic] depression” Prohibition contributed to. From the Fifties onwards there
might have been a positive effect in terms of greater worker

How would it be different? O Decision on Prohbition
The Wickersham Commission must
make its decision on whether
Prohibition should be modified or
O Enforcement of O Wickersham Commission tackled with more enforcement to
Prohibition begins Hoover establishes the combat crime.
Over 1,500 federal Wickersham Commission 6 January 1931
Prohibition agents are to study the effects of
tasked with enforcing Prohibition and suggest
the strict laws of the changes to lower crime
Real timeline Volstead Act. levels. Real timeline
20 May 1929
17 January 1920

1919
O 18th Amendment
The 18th
Amendment to the O Prohibition struggles
Constitution of the With resources
United States is stretched, the Alternate timeline
ratified, prohibiting government struggles O The Great Depression
the production, to successfully police The Wall Street crash
transport and sale Prohibition laws, of October 1929 sends
of alcohol. The allowing criminal the US economy
country will go dry alcohol gangs to grow plummeting into a
later that year. in wealth and power. downturn.
16 January 1919 1921-1928 October 1929
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