I'm Scared...

December 5, 1933 at 7:00PM: The End!

Finally, all hail the Twenty-First Amendment! This amendment repeals the Eighteenth. After 13 long years, the Noble Experiment has ended. Congress decided to repeal the Eighteenth Amendment because they realized that the crime, suicide, and violence rate has increased, plus the fact that they used up double the amount of the initial money to enforce prohibition. It feels as if the nation has let out a long breath. I'm so glad I can go back to my regular drinking habits. The Twenty-First Amendment not only abolishes prohibition, but it also allows individual states to regulate their own liquor laws. I am grateful to Roosevelt, who declared that tax will be low on liquor and foreign liquor is allowed.I am also grateful to the Woman's Organization for National Prohibition Reform led by Mrs. Charles Sabin, who pushed the repeal movement. They believed that National Prohibition was wrong and interfered with the lives of an American. Praise "Sabin's Women".

National Prohibition... Is Over.

Celebrity: Al Capone

Mobsters! They're so popular. One of the most famous was John Torrio. I heard that he added a  criminal to his gang, Al Capone, who became his right-hand man and later became famous. The bootleggers, selling their illegal alcohol. I wish I had the guts to do that as well, but he was almost killed after he killed the man who cheated him a brewery and money and called the cops on him. I was told that after that, Al Capone became the new leader, and was also named the FBI's Public Enemy Number One. Intelligent, persuasive, sneaky, Capone made as much as more than $60 million in the sale of beer, liquor and home brew. He must have been on the hit list for many gangsters, but he knew how to handle them. He was intelligent because he knew just how to kill off his enemies one by one. In the end, he arranged his own arrest after laying low, and was sent to Alcatraz for 5 years. He retired from the gang life and died at his mansion.

The Women of the 1920's

The women are outrageous. During these times of liquor-less days, the women have been acting up. They have either been out smoking, drinking, and dancing, or smashing bottles and attacking people in bars. Some reported that they believed drinking is worse than slavery! A group was created called the Women's Crusade. What the Women's Crusade would do is to march as a group into any busy place that sold liquor and sing and pray. One even came up to me and begged me to go home to my family, but I got annoyed and threw water all over her. Of course these women would be ridiculed and arrested, but they never gave up. On the other hand, there was the Woman's Christian Temperance Union led by Frances Willard, nicknames Saint Francis. The WCTU's main focus was to stop the liquor trade, officially making the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages illegal. Carry Nation had a big part in the Prohibition movement as well. She would go into bars or any place that sold alcohol, alone, and broke EVERYTHING. With her famous weapon, the hatchet, Nation traveled out of her home state, Kansas, and my bar actually posted guards when she passed my town. I'm glad that I didn't meet her. I'm pretty sure she would not have hesitated to hit me with a rock or crowbar.

April 1926: Temperance? Not really...

General Lincoln B. Andrews’s speech was on the news today. Apparently, he is in charge of supervising the prohibition enforcement, although his speech didn’t really help at all. I found his speech quite funny. His testimony ended up helping those on the anti-prohibition movement. Andrew admitted that his prohibition agents started to engage in bribe-taking, as in, they started to sell and drink alcohol. He even agreed that the modification of the Volstead Act, which allows the sale of light beers, might actually allow temperance.

Characters during the 1920's

-Frances Willlard was inspired by a Father who was a Washingtonian which led her to join a women’s crusade. She was focused on protecting the “home and family”.

-Billy Sunday spent most of his baseball career drinking, but became a sermonizer in the fight against alcohol. He changed when he saw a church and remembered the times when he was young and not drinking. Sunday was the man who held the mock funeral for John Barleycorn.

-Carry Nation was a destroyer. She destroyed many saloons, believing it was her duty. 

-Dr. Ben Rush was a prominent physician who served in the American Revolution. He took a stand against the popular notion that unlimited alcohol use was good for illnesses and necessary for good health.

-James Oglethorpe was intent on creating a community that practiced temperance. His temperance villiage in Georgia ended up smuggling alcohol. His temperance community was forced defeat after ignoring officials and Oglethorpe himself. 

-John Barleycorn symbolized the “evils of alcohol” and “died” on the night that the Eighteenth Amendment was in effect.

-Wayne Wheeler was involved with the Anti-Saloon League. He believed that after a year of the Eighteenth Amendment, the federal funds upholding law will be cut.

-John F. Kramer was the first Prohibition Commissioner.

NewspaperArticleExcerpt: Alcohol

I have just read an amazing article by an anti-prohibitionist about the facts of alcohol. Voila:

Did You Know?: Alcohol by C. Chen
Alcohol! Alcohol! It is the water for the people everywhere, and will always be, especially during the "dry" times. Alcohol was always the best and was the most popular because it was the easiest to get.  Water is not always safe and sometimes unavailable, plus milk spoiles easily in the heat. Coffee and tea are especially hard to obtain due to the fact that they must to be imported.
Many people believe that alcohol (in moderate amounts) is a "safeguard against illnesses and a cure for others." Although, one of the consequences of being a drinker for such a popular and delicious drink is that one will get drunk. If one gets caught drinking nowadays, during the Prohibition Era, one will get punished. If one is found guilty of drunkenness, one will either get a lecture from a minister, a fine, a whipping, or be put in the stocks for the afternoon.
During this "dry" time, one would presume that it is impossible to obtain the illegal alcohol, although there has been rumors of contraband and mobs all over the place. Did you know that there are actually many ways to get alcohol? One way to obtain alcohol for "medicinal" uses is to have a doctor prescribe a prescription. Although alcohol in general is banned, medicinal alcohol is not. There are also the popular speakeasies. These are places where illegal alcohol is consumed, bought, and sold. If you happen to enter one of these places, you should be careful since some intentionally poison customers. If these poisoners are found, it is encouraged NOT to go to the police, as it is very difficult to give them a story. How would you tell them that you found a dead man in a speakeasy if you yourself were engaging in these illegal activities?
Other than just obtaining the illegal alcohol, it is possible to make it from home. There are step-by-step instructions on grape juice concentrate bottles, but technically they're about how to avoid turning the grape juice concentrate into wine. Farmers have also found a way to make whiskey and hard liquor by using their corn. The government will not interfere with our lives any longer!

Speakeasy: "Tell them Joe sent you"

March 1920

1:34 AM

It’s true. I’ve run out of liquor. I’m so depressed. I don’t know what to do. Life without alcohol is no life at all. Maybe I’ll commit suicide. I feel like killing someone, too. Time to sleep. Think about it later. 

11:36 PM

I’m so happy. SO HAPPY. My neighbor brought me to a “Speakeasy”. The speakeasy is this private alcohol-serving club that’s right around the block in the basement of some person’s house. It was odd at first. I was so depressed, I didn’t even notice Benny knock on the door and talk to the eye that appeared behind the hole on the door. He said a password, I heard, “Joe sent me,” and we entered. I caught the whiff of Russian vodka. It smelled delicious. I passed over one or two guys on the floor, dead or drunk, I couldn’t tell, and went straight to the bartender. It was the best night of my life.There was loud music playing, and I met a woman who smoked! That's right, SMOKED. She was also drinking. Quite the beauty, she was. Her name was Louise, and she had bright red lips. She taught me how to dance the Charleston. It was an amazing night. I'm going to go back tomorrow, for sure.

January 16, 1920

12:01AM
Long live John Barleycorn, a worthy man who signified the evils of alcohol. Today is the day that hell starts, when the Eighteenth Amendment comes to effect, all thanks to those stupid prohibitionists and women. Think they're going to get away with this, eh? They think they're all "saintly" and all hail "temperance". This amendment will be the death of me, I’m sure. A mere three paragraphs long, it ensures that the sale, manufacture, transportation, and the buying of alcoholic beverages are now illegal. I’m glad I stocked up on those extra bottles of vodka last week. The news didn’t say anything about drinking any leftovers!

12:37AM

I just went outside and met my neighbor. I asked him what was wrong seeing him out of breath and flushed. He told me he had to run out with his kid's carriage to hide all the rum that he stored in the storage house. He told me that all liquor would be confiscated if not on one's private property. I'm glad my bottles are safe in my closets~.

Prohibition Works Cited

Cohen, Daniel. Prohibition: America Makes Alcohol Illegal. Brookfield, CT: Millbrook,           1995. Print.

Henderson, Paula. "1920s' Prohibition: Moonshine, Bootleggers, and Speakeasies."           Roaring Twenties: Modernism, Consumerism, Hedonism, and Individualism. N.p.,          n.d. Web. 03 Nov. 2010. <http:// www.vintageperiods. com/prohibition.php>. 

Lucas, Eileen. The Eighteenth and Twenty-first Amendments: Alcohol, Prohibition, and           Repeal. Springfield, NJ: Enslow, 1998. Print.

Rebman, Renée C. Prohibition. San Diego: Lucent, 1999. Print.

The Ohio State University. "Why Prohibition?" Temperance & Prohibition. The College           of Arts and Sciences, 2010. Web. 28 Nov. 2010. <http://prohibition.osu.edu                  /content/why_prohibition.cfm>.