News Stories 100 Years Ago in LB

The “Roaring” twenties begin! Prohibition, scandal and growth all marked the beginning of this decade. Read all about it here.

Prohibition

On Jan. 17, 1920, America went dry. Alcohol could no longer be consumed for pleasure in the United States. Andrew J. Volstead, a Republican congressman from Minnesota had introduced the bill to ban alcohol throughout the United States on May 27, 1919.

An already desperately ill President Wilson, further weakened by his losing fight to keep America within the League of Nations, vetoed it, on both constitutional and ethical grounds. But that same day, the veto was overridden in Congress, and the act became law.

Many Americans were shocked in October 1919 when the Volstead Act, passed after the ratification of the 18th Amendment, established a law making it illegal to possess or make any beverage containing more than one-half of one percent of alcohol. The original amendment had not been explicit in defining what the alcohol level of “intoxicating” beverages consisted of.

Acting in defiance of the Volstead Act, the legislatures of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts passed laws in 1920 allowing the production and sale of low-alcohol beer or light wines. Later that year the Supreme Court crushed these local attempts to set alcohol limits higher than those imposed by the Volstead Act. The touchy matter of religious freedom was avoided by exempting sacramental wines from the ban on beverage alcohol, although permits were required in order to obtain communion wine. Permits were also granted for the medicinal use of alcohol and for its use in the commercial manufacture of cider and vinegar.

Congress offered protection for the possession and use of alcohol in private residences if used only for the personal consumption of the owner, his family and bona fide guests. Moreover, Congress blocked searches of private dwellings unless illegal liquor had been sold inside them.

The ratification of the 18th Amendment gave no assurance that the cooperation required for the “concurrent” enforcement of prohibition by states as well as the federal government would be forthcoming. As a result, all states enacted “baby Volstead” laws in the early 1920s to accompany the national prohibition statute. Some state laws were even harsher than the Volstead Act, outlawing the personal possession of liquor and giving local authorities greater power to search out and seize illegal alcohol. On May 7, 1921, California passed the Wright Act which mandated that all state, city and county officials enforced the national Volstead Act.

But the Wright Act was put on hold when the “wets” obtained enough signatures to put it on a referendum ballot in 1922 – a clever way to delay the bill for almost two years. On Nov. 7, 1922, the Wright Act passed by a majority of 29,621 votes. At midnight Dec. 22, 1922, it went into effect.

Why had Prohibition, a cause that had been fought for nearly 100 years, become so popular? The Women’s Christian Temperance League and the Anti-Saloon League had been leading a crusade against alcohol for years, but it was the war that brought things to a head. According to Edward Behr in his book Prohibition, the German influx into America after the 1830s made America beer conscious. The result was that many German-American communities established breweries.

Before World War I the German-Americans supported Germany in their war against Britain, sending money and even urging a German invasion of Canada. “Older” Americans, of British root stock, were aghast. When America entered the war against Germany there was a wave of anti-German hysteria which resulted in ill feelings toward the German-American operated breweries.

This was a major reason for prohibition, according to Behr – to get rid of the German-American breweries. The delay between the passing of the act and its implementation was no humane measure to let Americans enjoy one last year of legal drinking. The intervening year was spent setting up new law enforcement machinery. From the first, when the Prohibition Bureau was put under the jurisdiction of the Treasury, instead of the Justice Department, problems arose.

Another disastrous decision was making the new prohibition agents exempt from Civil Service rules. In every state, their recruitment was political. All that was required on the part of an aspiring prohibition agent was the endorsement of a politician. No other qualifications or character references were needed; some of the new recruits even had criminal records. The job paid a maximum salary of $2,300 a year, barely enough to live on, almost inviting corruption. However, the nation’s legislators professed to be completely taken aback by the extent of prohibition-related lawbreaking.

The futility of enforcing prohibition laws became apparent in 1928 when a San Francisco jury in a liquor case came under indictment for drinking the evidence. Everywhere overburdened courts collapsed under the weight of cases generated by prohibition.

Claudine Burnett is a retired Long Beach Public Library librarian who compiled the library’s Long Beach History Index (available on the library’s website). In her research, she found many forgotten, interesting stories about Long Beach and Southern California, which she has published in 11 books as well as in monthly blogs. You can access information about her books and read her blogs by going to her website www.claudineburnettbooks.com.