How Alcohol Prohibition Was Ended :: essays research papers

You saved the veryfoundation of our G overnment. No man jackpot tell where wewould have gone, or to what we would have f bothen, had notthis repeal been brought about. -Letter to the VCL, 1933This is a story about a small, remarkable group of lawyerswho took it upon themselves, as a self- appointedcommittee, to propel a revolution in a medicate policy therepeal of the 18th Amendment. In 1927, nine prominent forward-looking York lawyers associated themselves under theintentionally-bland name, "Voluntary Committee ofLawyers," declaring as their purpose " to preserve the feelingof the Constitution of the United States by bringingabout the repeal of the so-called Volstead Act and theeighteenth Ammendment." With the modest platform theythus commanded, reinforced by their significant acme inthe legal community, they undertook first to draft andpromote repeal resolutions for topical anesthetic and state terminateasssociations. Their success culminated with the America nBar Association occupational group for repeal in 1928, after scores ofcity and state bar associations in all regions of the countryhad spoken unambiguously, in words and ideas cultivated,shaped, and alter by the VCL. As it turned out, thissuccesswas but prelude to their stunnung achievementseveral(prenominal) years later. Due in large to the VCL"s extraordinarywork, the 18tg Amendment was, in less than a year,surgically struck from the Constitution. Repeal was areality. The affected role was well. People could drink. Here ishow it happened. Climaxing decades of gathering hostilitytowards salloons and moral outrage over the generaldegeneracy said to be flowing from bottles and kegs, theCocstitution of the United States had been amended, in effect(p) 1920, to progibit the manufacture and sale of"intoxicating liquors." the Volstead Act, the federal statuteimplementing the prohibitionamindmint, progibitedcommerce in beer as well. At first prohibition was popularamong thos e who had suppored it, and tolerated by theothers. only if before long, unmistakable grumbling was heardin the cities. To meet the constant demand for alcohol,there sprang up bathtub ginworks and basement stills, tightand discrete illegal supply networks, and speakeasiessecret, illegal bars remembered chiefly today as where, forthe first time, women were seen smoking in public.Commerse in alcohol plunged underground, and soon put downunder the control of thugs and gangsters, whoseorganizations often acquired their merchandise legally inCanada. force-out aften settled commercial differences-necessarily, it might be said, as suppliers and distributorswere denied the services of lawyers, insurance policy companies,and the civil courts. On the local level, widesspreaddisobedience of the progibition laws by otherwiseobservant citizens produced numerous arrests. Courtswere badly clogged, in large part because nearly alldefendents demanded jury trials, confident that a jury of