BLOODBATH
(’47 Magazine, 1947)
Written some eighteen years after the event, here is a reminiscence of the worst day in Prohibition history: the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.
Prohibition History
Learn about 1920s Prohibition with these old magazine articles. Find information on Prohibition in the 1920s.
The Mobsters
(New Outlook Magazine, 1933)
This is an informative read that was written during the closing months of the Noble Experiment by one of New York’s most admired crime reporters, Joseph Driscoll. The article is composed of numerous profiles of mob bosses both famous and forgotten from numerous cities throughout the nation.
[These] personality sketches constitute a roll-call, a memorial service for the men of direct action, the gentleman of the rackets, who prospered under prohibition and who (we hope) may not be with us much longer, certainly not in the same old style and the same old stand…
An Al Capone article can be read here…
Prohibition Remembered
(Rob Wagner’s Script Magazine, 1945)
A reminiscence by screen writer, artist and all-around literary misfit Rob Wagner (1872 – 1942) as he recalled the bad old days of 1918, when he was hoodwinked into believing that the widespread prohibition of alcohol would help achieve an Allied victory in World War I. When the war ended and time passed, he noticed how the Noble Experiment was evolving into something quite different, and how it was altering not only his friends and neighbors, but American culture as a whole.
Before Prohibition, the average business or professional man, never dreamed of drinking spirits during the working day…Now, however, a full grown man with the sparkle in his eye of a naughty sophomore, will meet you on Spring Street at eleven in the morning, slap you on the back, and ask you to duck up to his office where he will uncork his forbidden treasure…
The Spirit of Disobedience
(Reader’s Digest, 1923)
During the Jazz Age, there were a number of opinion pieces published concerning the general feeling of malaise and disillusionment that was experienced throughout most of the Western nations. In this article, written by a well known Protestant theologian of the time, it is stated that a new day has come to America – one that shows itself with a blatant disrespect for law and order.
Our most obvious lawlessness is the breaking of the prohibition laws… The shame of the present situation is that the law is not being chiefly outraged by poor people; it is mainly the men of means, prestige and influence, who ought to know better. Obviously there has been a breakdown of authority in the state and the rise of a rampant and selfish individualism.
The Anti-Saloon League Convenes
(Time Magazine, 1923)
During the summer of 1923, 40 state superintendents of the Anti-Saloon League convened in Westerville, Ohio in order that they might assess the changes wrought by Prohibition and draw-up plans for the coming year.
On comparing notes, they agreed that the Atlantic states are not more than 50% dry and the country as a whole not more than 70% dry…
The ”Popularity” of Prohibition
(Reader’s Digest, 1923)
It is said that the Eighteenth Amendment would never have come into being without the efforts of one Wayne Bidwel Wheeler (1869 – 1927), and who are we to doubt it. In this column, the father of Prohibition recalls the numerous times throughout American history in which those who held minority opinions bit the bullet and acquiesced to will of the majority – all but one faction, the liquor interests. Time and again, he points out, this was the one tribe that wouldn’t budge.
The Resistance
(Time Magazine, 1923)
The opposite number of the Anti-Saloon League (established 1893) was The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (1918 – 1933). As the name implied, it was organized for the purpose of repealing Prohibition in the United States and sought to achieve this end by printing pamphlets and articles and engaging lecturers. This short notice announced that the Association was setting up the Face the Facts conference in the Nation’s Capital – to be convened immediately after the League had closed their own conference. Many elected officials would be in attendance.
– from Amazon:
The Anti-prohibition Manual: A Summary of Facts and Figures Dealing With Prohibition
Upper-Class Bootleggers Arrested
(Literary Digest, 1923)
When the four brothers La Montagne were arrested for violating the Volstead Act in 1922, the social butterflies of New York society were shocked; not simply because some of their own had been roughed-up by the police, but shocked because they had no idea as to where they were to acquire their illegal hooch in the future.
The plea for leniency made by several well-known lawyers, on the grounds of social prominence of the accused, was ‘pitiable and foolish’, in the opinion of the New York Globe.
In summing up his case…the United States District Attorney said:
‘To allow these defendants to escape with a fine, it seems to me, would…justify the belief that men of great wealth or influence or power are above the law.’
Prohibition: A Product of American Idealism
(Literary Digest, 1922)
Some ninety-eight years ago, as it is also true this day, many people living outside the borders of the United States had a laugh, from time-to-time, concerning America’s commonly held belief that they are an idealistic people whose motives are not always driven by self-interest; this is a broad topic and sound arguments can be made on both sides as to whether it is true or not. The British thinker Bertrand Russel (1872 – 1970; Nobel Prize for Literature, 1950) had some thoughts on the matter and in an address made to a number of assembled Americans he submitted that, in his view, Prohibition was not a ‘noble experiment’ which sought to inspire all Americans to lead a righteous life, but rather a gross perversion of Christian doctrine.
Congress Adresses the Problem of the Hip-Flask
(Literary Digest, 1927)
Seven years after wine and spirits were banished from the land, the government in Washington felt pressured to discipline all those restaurateurs who failed to defenestrate their patrons who brought illicit drink into their establishments. This is an article about how an attempt was made to get restaurant owners to police their customers.
A Look at at What the Prohibition Amendment Might Look Like
(The Outlook, 1916)
Two years before the Prohibition Amendment would be passed, the New York State Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League, William H. Anderson (1874 – 1959), wrote this piece defending a draft of the amendment that was, at that time, sitting before Congress.
Farewell, Champagne!
(Vanity Fair, 1919)
A chic (if anonymous) poet printed in a fashionable society magazine sings farewellto champagne and pities the poor man-about-town who must now stroll the boulevards with only lemonade on his breath.
A Brief History of Drinking in America
(The Nation, 1918)
When only a few wet months were left before all alcohol was banned from the United States, THE NATION reviewed the 1918 Anti-Prohibition Manual and the Year Book of the United States Brewers Association (1917) and came away with this brief, but amusing and informative history of drinking.
Prohibition Killings
(Pathfinder Magazine, 1929)
Two sources have been combined on one printable page in order to assess the body count that was created as a result of the murders that the prohibition laws had wrought. The complete number is not here – just the last four years:
1933, the year Prohibition was rescinded, seemed to have been the bloodiest year in this study – with 12,123 people murdered (being 9.6 per 1000,000 souls). The numbers began to drop from there: 1934 through 1936 saw a steady decline in urban homicide.
A Briton on American Prohibition
(Current Opinion, 1921)
Alfred Charles William Harmsworth, 1st Viscount Northcliffe (1865 – 1922) was an influential soul back in the day who owned a string of widely-read newspapers. Just months prior to his death, he spent some time stateside and drew some conclusions regarding American Prohibition which were noteworthy:
While in our midst he made up his mind about Prohibition. In his opinion it is a failure… His reasons seem to be that he saw plenty of liquor everywhere he was entertained; that Prohibition encourages hypocrisy in the vision of the law, and that he did not like it anyhow… But America has taken it’s stand and will stick to it.
Theater Intermissions and Prohibition
(Vanity Fair, 1919)
Prohibition has been pretty rough on everybody, but there is no class of people which it has hit so hard as the theater-goers. The Federal Amendment has completely wrecked their evenings. It isn’t so bad while the show is going on; the blow falls between the acts. In happier times the intermissions were the high spots of the evening…
With pin-point accuracy, Vanity Fair was able to identify the new minority-victim class that emerged from America’s unfortunate experiment with Prohibition: Broadway theater enthusiasts (It might be argued that the real victims were American bar tenders, many of whom high-tailed it over to Europe where they established a number of American-style bars).
The attached page from the magazine can be classified as humor and is illustrated with six great sketches by Edith Plummer.
Read other articles from 1919.
Wet vs. Dry
(Vanity Fair, 1918)
If you are looking for a serious report concerning the political battles fought in Congress regarding Prohibition (1919 – 1933), you can keep looking. The attached essay is a humorous parody of that dispute between the Drys and Wets as it existed just months before the ‘Noble Experiment’ began in earnest. By November of 1918, the American newspaper readers had simply overdosed on the redundant writings of assorted war correspondents – and so, with a bit of whimsy, the VANITY FAIR writer George S. Chappell sat down to write about the political war between these two groups using the same journalistic affectations everyone was so heartily sick of. You will also find a mock military map depicting the faux topography in dispute.
A Civil Libertarian Rants About Prohibition
(Judge Magazine, 1920)
An outraged editorial writer opines that the prohibition of alcohol will serve to corrupt the morality of more Americans than it could possibly save. Additionally, the writer alludes to the fact that, at the time, the U.S. Congress was discussing the prohibition of tobacco, as well:
It is coming time to write the obituary of Joy. Less than a year ago
the Cheering Cup was removed from American life. Now we are told that just as soon as enough Congressmen can be intimidated, not a difficult job, the Soothing Weed is also to be extinguished.
The writer places blame more upon the apathetic American voter rather than the grafters in Congress.