WEBVTT - Prohibition: Turns Out That America Loves to Drink 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:02.920 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.160 --> 0:00:07.560 It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you Should Know 0:00:08.160 --> 0:00:17.000 from housetof Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.680 I'm Josh Clark with me as always as Charles W. 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:22.520 Chuck Bryant. And that makes the Stuff you should know 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:27.720 the podcast the sequel, or it makes it a greasy 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:33.040 Wednesday night on top of a rooftop brewery. Yeah, you 0:00:33.040 --> 0:00:36.479 want to do a little recap for everybody? Yeah, let's 0:00:36.520 --> 0:00:38.639 do a very brief recap of our trivia night. Pack 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:40.879 it away. I don't remember it. It was awesome. It 0:00:40.920 --> 0:00:43.440 was a lot of fun. It was jam packed, overflowing 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:45.960 with people, just like New York was. We had John 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.000 and Joe and Dave and everyone had a blast. We 0:00:49.200 --> 0:00:53.000 lost again. We were in the lead until the last question, 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:56.040 and I ruined it for everybody if I remember correctly. Yeah, 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:57.600 but you know what, you did not ruin it because 0:00:57.600 --> 0:00:59.760 no one had the right answer on our team, thankfully. 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:02.480 That would have been crushing. Do you want to you 0:01:02.480 --> 0:01:04.960 want to do this? The question? What was the last question? 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:09.320 The last question was what is the second leading album 0:01:09.360 --> 0:01:12.880 of all times sales? Wise second behind three selling album 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:15.600 of all time. And I believe you said Dark Side 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:18.240 of the Moon, which I thought was a really great guess. Uh, 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.800 someone else, Joe Randaza said the Eagles greatest hits, another 0:01:21.840 --> 0:01:24.520 great guests and both of us were wrong, or both 0:01:24.520 --> 0:01:26.440 of you were wrong. But we went with Dark Side 0:01:26.440 --> 0:01:28.240 of the Moon, didn't we? Wasn't that our team answer? 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.280 I think so? Um, it was a C D C's 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.080 back and black. Yeah, and you know what, I somewhere 0:01:35.080 --> 0:01:36.840 in my brain, I knew that that was really high 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:39.120 up the list. It didn't come to me, but yeah, 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:40.640 we were in second place. We end up losing on 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:45.640 the last question first and going into the last but 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:47.720 no one wants to see his win. It's no fun 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.760 if we're like, yeah, that's what I told Hodgman. He went, no, No, 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:53.000 I want to win and I want to rub it 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.440 there face well, get a better team than Hodsman. What 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:57.440 are you doing hanging out with us? It was a 0:01:57.440 --> 0:01:59.040 lot of fun though, and thanks to everyone who came 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:01.280 out and hopefully will be coming too a city near you. 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:03.960 We're still trying trying to get that together. Okay, so 0:02:04.000 --> 0:02:07.840 while we're doing this, um, I think we need to 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:11.160 let more people know about our Facebook page. I suspect 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:15.040 that there is a small but substantial and by that 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:18.320 I mean really large segment of stuff. You should know. 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:21.320 Listeners who don't necessarily go all the way to listener mail, 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.880 don't listen to the whole podcast. That's where the gold is. 0:02:24.960 --> 0:02:29.360 We call them s y S listeners. That's right. Um, 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.480 so we always talk about our Facebook page there, So 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:34.640 there's it's possible if people out there who don't know 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.320 that this thing exists, right, Chuck, that's right. And it's 0:02:37.360 --> 0:02:39.560 good for us if you go there and click like, 0:02:40.400 --> 0:02:41.880 And it's not only good for us, but it's a 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:44.959 it's a good Facebook page. It is you know, it's 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:48.080 like fun and people contribute and chat back and forth, 0:02:48.160 --> 0:02:50.600 and we talk back and forth with We come down 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.600 from our ivory tire everyone and walk around gland hand 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:56.600 people and then like have some people beat up for 0:02:56.720 --> 0:03:00.079 amazement and then go back up to our ivory tower. Know. 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:03.840 We we put great music videos on there, and by 0:03:03.880 --> 0:03:08.280 music videos I mean music on YouTube. Uh cool, interesting 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.240 links to great articles and studies and stuff like that, 0:03:11.639 --> 0:03:13.600 as do most of the people who are on this page. 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:16.880 So go check it out. Facebook dot com slash stuff 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:19.120 you should know. Yeah, and if you if you click like, 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.320 you can hide us still if you don't want it 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.799 in your news feed, well you are buddy in Afghanistan. 0:03:24.880 --> 0:03:28.800 Lieutenant Rhodes Uh send us an email. You saw this right, 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.040 He's saying you can like us, so we still get 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.840 the like, which again makes us look good. Um, but 0:03:35.000 --> 0:03:38.840 you you you can also select and not receive updates 0:03:38.880 --> 0:03:41.880 from whenever we update if you want to feed, so 0:03:42.080 --> 0:03:45.120 you won't be bothered by us, and you can come 0:03:45.120 --> 0:03:47.080 and check at your leisure, but you could still like 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:50.240 it too. And then Twitter real quick, Chuck, Um, we 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:55.720 are on Twitter and we're at s Y s K podcast. Okay, yes, 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:59.360 all right, so Chuck, this wonderful time that we had 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:05.400 on Wednesday night, Yes, ah, at a brewery. Yeah, there 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:10.040 was one of the darkest periods of American history. There 0:04:10.080 --> 0:04:13.080 was a time not too long ago where that could 0:04:13.080 --> 0:04:15.680 have never happened, or if it had, we would have 0:04:15.720 --> 0:04:19.000 been outlaws. Yeah, it would have been on the We 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:21.280 couldn't have publicized it on a podcast. That would have 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:24.520 been on the down low at a private place. We 0:04:24.520 --> 0:04:27.240 would have to just whisper it on the street or 0:04:27.279 --> 0:04:30.880 we could have drawn in chalk like speak easy this way. 0:04:31.360 --> 0:04:34.520 Sure the s Y s K speak easy trivia night 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:39.799 this way. This dark period in American history is also 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:43.520 referred to as prohibition, also referred to as the Noble 0:04:43.600 --> 0:04:47.080 Experiment by some. It was a noble experiment. The reason 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.400 why is because the whole reason prohibition was ever enacted, 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.800 or largely one of the reasons why, was because we realized, 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.159 remember the addiction podcast. Did that come out yet? I 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:01.120 don't think so? Okay, so look real the addiction podcast. 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:05.560 But consider this. It wasn't until about the nineteenth century 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:10.200 that people started talking about um being addicted to alcohol. 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:13.440 An awareness of that there was such thing as alcoholism 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:16.280 came about. When there was there were some really nice 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:18.800 people in the world who said, you know what, since 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:21.919 you can't give it up, we're gonna all of us 0:05:21.960 --> 0:05:24.400 are going to give it up together, so you won't 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:27.880 be tempted any longer. Because I mean, consider nowadays, being 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:30.320 an alcoholic and trying to give up alcohol and seeing 0:05:30.360 --> 0:05:34.120 it everywhere, it's gotta make it that much harder. So 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:38.480 that the goal of prohibition of this um. The temperance 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:43.800 movement that eventually lead to prohibition was to not tempt 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:46.440 alcoholics any longer. Yeah. You know what's funny too. When 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:48.480 I was reading this, a lot of the reasons, which 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:50.760 we'll get into, they mentioned, are you know that the 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.840 alcohol can lead to, um, domestic violence and child abuse, 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:56.919 and Henry Ford said it leads to a lack of 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.520 productivity at work. And I was reading all this thinking, yeah, 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.279 you know, that a lot of great points, but that 0:06:03.400 --> 0:06:06.480 still didn't mean that you should try and prohibit people 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:08.880 from drinking. It was just a bad idea, even though 0:06:09.680 --> 0:06:11.479 a lot of the points they had were solid. Of course, 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:14.200 it leads and they remain. If you look at the 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.880 Old House Stuff Works employee handbook, one of the things 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:21.440 that says specifically is don't drink at work. I know, 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.279 I almost didn't take the job for that reason, but 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:26.280 I did. But no, there were a lot of very 0:06:26.320 --> 0:06:30.920 solid points that everybody's kind of realized about alcohol. That, yeah, 0:06:31.000 --> 0:06:34.640 it's it's directly connected to physical violence in the home 0:06:34.720 --> 0:06:40.000 and outside arrests. Um. Also you know moonings then all 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:44.120 goes up when alcohol is around, right. Um. But as 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:47.800 you were saying, it was a failed noble experiment, It 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:49.599 was a bad idea, but it was one that we 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:51.480 had to learn the hard way, and we've learned much 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.919 from it. Right. Sure, Even people that I thought it 0:06:54.960 --> 0:06:57.320 was a great idea at the end of the Noble 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.000 Experiment said that wasn't such a good idea. I guess 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.320 still hate alcohol, but that you just can't do this. Um, 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:08.039 So let's talk about this. From nineteen thirty three, the 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.520 United States had on the books an amendment, an amendment 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.640 to the Constitution that's huge, and plus it makes this 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:19.880 Congress look ridiculous that they did this. Um. The Eighteenth 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:23.880 Amendment went on the books, was enacted in ninety and 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:30.480 it forbade the sale, manufacturer, and transport of alcohol and importation. Okay, 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:35.640 which transport, Well, no, you can still transport within Like 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:39.840 you couldn't carry it from Kentucky to Georgia, right, nor 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:42.920 imported from Canada to the US. You see what I'm saying. 0:07:43.040 --> 0:07:45.800 But you could keep it in your home and you 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:49.080 could drink your face off. Well. The cool thing is too, 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:52.640 is they I believe it was passed and then a 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.160 year later is when it went into effect. So they 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.240 basically were like, you got a year, right, you can 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.200 fill your basement full of booze. Yeah, And we don't know. 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:03.679 I'm not be breaking the law. That's I didn't actually 0:08:03.720 --> 0:08:06.560 realize this that it wasn't that you were allowed to 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:10.040 drink at yourself. And did you you didn't get the pictures? 0:08:10.080 --> 0:08:13.680 Did you know? There is a haunting photograph on page 0:08:13.760 --> 0:08:16.920 zero of this article, the first page. It was taken 0:08:16.920 --> 0:08:19.960 in ne and to speakeasy and like the people are 0:08:20.000 --> 0:08:23.760 all wearing it looks like the photo and the shining 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.600 and there's this one gentleman who's not even necessarily the 0:08:27.640 --> 0:08:31.120 focus of the photo and he is just staring out 0:08:31.320 --> 0:08:34.880 from nineteen thirty one into your soul. That's a very 0:08:34.880 --> 0:08:37.160 creepy pick. That alone is reason enough to go check 0:08:37.160 --> 0:08:41.880 out this this photo because he's on the stunt gravy, 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:47.560 the jazz juice, the giggle juice, giggle water. So Josh started. 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:49.520 But we have to go back in time just a 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.240 little bit um when it really started century pretty much, 0:08:52.440 --> 0:08:55.120 yeah and eight in the eighteen thirties. The idea of 0:08:55.160 --> 0:08:57.440 getting rid of alcohol is is when it first started 0:08:57.440 --> 0:09:01.240 to pick up from Steam and the temperance movement got going. 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:05.120 Society started springing up, and by the time they actually 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:09.040 had the Federal the Amendment to the Constitution. I believed 0:09:09.080 --> 0:09:13.000 there were, um, how many states had already h sixteen 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.920 sixteen states had already banned alcohol in some way, so 0:09:16.920 --> 0:09:23.040 it was already going on, Chuck this nineteen states of 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:26.360 the towns in America had some sort of ban already 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:30.480 going on. It was a very popular movement, UM And 0:09:30.520 --> 0:09:33.800 there are a lot of reasons, but one one reason 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:35.520 is that these people have been doing this for a 0:09:35.640 --> 0:09:40.079 century before it finally took place. UM And as early 0:09:40.120 --> 0:09:44.200 as eighteen thirty eight, Massachusetts UM created i think the 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:48.800 country's first law against alcohol, where basically they said, you 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:50.719 can buy all the alcohol you want, but it has 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.439 to be in no less than this quantity, and that 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:55.560 quantity just so happens to be more than any of 0:09:55.600 --> 0:10:00.760 you drunks can afford. So we're de fact though banning 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.200 alcohol because we're putting it out of your price range. 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.120 The m surprise Massachusetts was one of the early states 0:10:06.240 --> 0:10:09.080 because really come around lately. Yeah, because most of the 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:12.880 temperance movement had a lot of support obviously in the 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.640 Bible Belt in places like New York and Boston. In 0:10:15.640 --> 0:10:18.280 these larger cities, they were kind of like, I'm not 0:10:18.360 --> 0:10:21.280 so behind this, right, well, don't forget Massachusetts not too 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:23.360 far before this was burning, which is at the state 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:25.760 as guess it's a good point, right. So that was 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:29.000 eighteen forty six, Maine became the first state to pass 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:32.960 a statewide prohibition law. That makes more sense sure being 0:10:33.040 --> 0:10:39.199 Maine teetotal Maine. Yeah. Um. And so this temperance movement's 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.679 going on. And remember this is the women were at 0:10:42.679 --> 0:10:45.520 the forefront of this movement. In large part. They weren't 0:10:45.559 --> 0:10:49.080 they certainly weren't the only ones, but they were, um 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.040 at the forefront, not just because that they were, you know, 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:56.840 nagging people. Um, they they actually this is before they 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.320 had the right to vote, and prior to having the 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:01.880 right to vote, women figured out, you're not gonna give 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:03.760 us the right to vote. Well, we're gonna learn. We're 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:05.600 gonna be one of the first groups to learn to 0:11:05.800 --> 0:11:10.199 organize effectively. Um. And it wasn't just with the temperance movement. Um. 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:15.240 The women women uh basically created this movement alongside the 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.719 labor movement in the early twentieth century or nineteenth century, 0:11:19.720 --> 0:11:23.520 that was the consumer movement, and they were extremely effective 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:28.480 in promoting consumer rights and they were also really big 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:33.040 into rabble Rousing like Them Committee against the High Cost 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.520 of Living in Detroit. That was the name of the committee. 0:11:36.200 --> 0:11:39.920 It was a woman's organization UM and they would they 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:42.840 would do basically, they would do everything from consumer education 0:11:42.880 --> 0:11:48.559 on the street like you deserve government protection of milk standards, 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:54.640 to um boycotts of local grocers, to actually storming meat 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.880 packing plants and pouring kerosene on thousands of pounds of 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:00.600 meat so nobody could buy it. And they had these 0:12:00.640 --> 0:12:05.559 really effective campaigns. And the Temperance Movement came about at 0:12:05.600 --> 0:12:08.040 the same time at this where women like had to 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:10.319 organize they have their voice her because they didn't have 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.360 the right to vote yet they didn't have suffrage. That's right, Josh. 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:18.280 And specifically, the Women's Christian Temperance Union was formed in 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:22.560 eighteen seventy three in Ohio. Uh years before that, eighteen 0:12:22.600 --> 0:12:26.199 sixty nine, the Official Prohibition Party was formed because there 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:28.280 are people are like Democrats and Republicans are kind of 0:12:28.360 --> 0:12:30.400 dragging their feet on this, so let's actually form a party. 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.600 Right in Holland, the the Women's Christian Temperance Movement right union, 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.199 Yes union that that woman who led that Carrie Nation 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.720 is an excellent example like the kind of boisterous nature 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:45.680 of this, this kind of organization and protest. She was 0:12:45.760 --> 0:12:50.600 known um for hanging out around saloons, praying on the 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:53.559 front steps save these people's souls, and the people who 0:12:53.640 --> 0:12:55.439 tried to come in, she would ward them off with 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:59.560 the hatchet and she was arrested, um a couple of hundred. 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:04.840 She was a rested thirty times between basically said busting 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.040 up bars. Yeah, she basically said, I can't vote, so 0:13:07.120 --> 0:13:09.280 I'm going to become a huge thorn in your side 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.319 and you can't stop me. And she had direct experience 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:18.720 from it. They credit her um feracity ferociousness. I think 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:21.960 I just made up a word. Her ferociousness against alcohol 0:13:22.120 --> 0:13:25.440 for um, due to a short lived marriage to an alcoholic, 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.280 left an imprint on her that, you know, being a 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:34.079 motivated individual. Yeah. What what's that bumper sticker about guns 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:39.280 don't kill people? I do know something about well behaved 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.000 women rarely make history something like that. Yeah, yeah, I 0:13:42.120 --> 0:13:45.480 like that. It's good. Um, civil war comes along, Josh 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.440 Jerry laughed at that for some reason because she has that. Okay, 0:13:49.720 --> 0:13:51.960 the Civil War came along and that kind of slowed 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.280 things down a little bit. But it was just temporarily 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.440 because the war ended in people like the liquor industry 0:13:57.480 --> 0:14:00.960 started booming again, which you would think would slow it more. 0:14:01.040 --> 0:14:03.240 But what really happened was it started booming such that 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:06.679 the temperance movement got even more active to try and 0:14:06.800 --> 0:14:08.960 take care of business basically right. And one of the 0:14:09.000 --> 0:14:14.080 things that really as as usual, I'm I'm loath to say, 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:17.079 but one of the things that really drew popular support 0:14:17.120 --> 0:14:23.880 together um was finding the proper scapegoats Germans and Irish immigrants. 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:28.200 This country has a long standing tradition of forgetting that 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:31.800 we're all immigrants and targeting the most recent immigrants to 0:14:31.800 --> 0:14:34.280 the country as the source of all of our worries, 0:14:34.440 --> 0:14:37.040 and then our political parties go, yeah, it's their fault, 0:14:37.840 --> 0:14:39.400 and that it just kind of goes down to hell 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:41.720 from there because Irish like to drink, the Irish like 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.760 to drink, and the Germans love to brew beer, and 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:49.480 that they became the the sources we should we should 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.280 go ahead and correct that. There was a popular perception 0:14:52.320 --> 0:14:55.520 that the Irish likely drink exactly and the Germans really did. 0:14:55.720 --> 0:15:00.840 Um run most of the breweries still reason necessarily, but 0:15:00.880 --> 0:15:03.880 there was a lot of German owned breweries in the US, 0:15:03.960 --> 0:15:07.040 So the popular perception was the Germans are ruined, the 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:10.080 Irish are drinking. We need to target these two groups. Sure, 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:14.040 so everybody hate them. And then that's how prohibition ended 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:17.440 up being passed in large part, right, Uh yeah, I 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:19.920 mean there were some a lot of groups against it 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:21.800 as well as as many as there were for it. 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:23.400 I don't know about as many, but there were also 0:15:23.840 --> 0:15:27.800 groups like the Association Against Prohibition Amendment and the Women's 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:33.200 Organization for National Prohibition Reform exactly. So it wasn't everybody, 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:37.480 but it gathered enough support where eventually Congress, that awful, 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:42.120 awful Congress of nineteen nineteen, basically said, uh, you know, 0:15:42.320 --> 0:15:44.240 we kind of have to do this, and you've got 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.760 a year to get all your booze, and what we're 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:49.760 gonna do to enforce this is past the Volstead Act 0:15:49.800 --> 0:15:52.480 as well. Well. What was what really put it over 0:15:52.480 --> 0:15:55.080 the top, because this is nineteen nineteen and the in 0:15:55.120 --> 0:15:58.040 World War One had just ended. But what really whipped 0:15:58.360 --> 0:16:04.080 up prohibition pro prohibition sentiment up was World War One. 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.200 We're fighting the Kaiser and these Germans are sitting here 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:09.200 using all the grain that we could feed our soldiers 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:11.800 with the brew beer and you're not in American if 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:15.040 you're drinking beer, right, right? And Mr Anheiser and Mr 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:19.440 Bush were like no, they were like dis day night. Yeah. 0:16:19.720 --> 0:16:22.680 So that led to, like you said, Chuck, the eighteenth Amendment, 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:25.280 and the eighteenth Amendment and of itself didn't do anything. 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:27.720 It had no teeth. It was a paper tiger. Well, yeah, 0:16:27.760 --> 0:16:30.400 that's why the Volstad Act, right, and what did that do? Well? 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.520 I mean, you can't enforce anything unless you have a 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:34.280 way to do it, and that's what the Volstad A did. 0:16:34.400 --> 0:16:37.680 It um define like the penalties if you were caught 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:42.120 doing this, exceptions which uh they had exceptions for medicinal 0:16:42.200 --> 0:16:45.040 use and religious ceremony use. Yes, and apparently a lot 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:50.200 of doctors prescribed alcohol during the prom how many? How many? Uh? 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:54.240 They estimate that more than one million gallons of liquor 0:16:54.320 --> 0:17:00.640 were consumed a year from prescription whisky. Wait till what 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.400 is it? Prop nineteen passes. Yeah, they got nothing on me. Naffodil, daffanel, 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:09.760 medefanel menaffodil. You're thinking of monodyl and I bet there 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:12.679 were a lot of religious ceremonies going on to you 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:13.879 know what I mean. Well, yeah, you got to think 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:16.920 about the Catholics. I'm sure we're like, whoa, hey, yeah, 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:19.679 blood of Christ and everything over here, right, yeah, we 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:21.919 need to do this like twice a week now. And 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.840 then they went enchanted. Now they did their communion, and um, 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:30.000 that also defined what qualified as an intoxicating limit, which 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:34.080 was anything more than point five percent alcohol. And you 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.000 know what, that's actually still the case. Um. Back when 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.679 I was for near beer. Yes, for back when I 0:17:39.720 --> 0:17:42.800 was a strapping, fat ten year old boy, I used 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:44.880 to cross the road tracks and go to open pantry 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.200 and I would enjoy six packs of Kingsbury non alcoholic beer. 0:17:48.440 --> 0:17:51.399 Who woa, whoa you drink not alcohol beer? Wet age 0:17:51.960 --> 0:17:59.119 ten eleven? Secretly no secret right from your parents? No. No, Sometimes, 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:00.440 like I go back and I look at some of 0:18:00.480 --> 0:18:02.840 the stuff that I did, and I'm like, I had 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.439 a lot of freedom as a child. See, alcohol was 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:08.680 like a big no now in my house hold. On Um, 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:11.840 the reason why is because I knew I was in 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:16.199 the right. Another reason point five right is non alcoholic. 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.680 I can buy any non alcoholic beverage. Why this root 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:21.720 beer is non alcoholic and I can buy that and 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:23.879 I actually had an argument once with a clerk at 0:18:23.920 --> 0:18:26.199 open pantry, and I think just the fact that this 0:18:26.240 --> 0:18:29.359 ten year old was like stating his case. Finally, the 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:32.640 guy was like, I finally care, just get out of here. 0:18:32.920 --> 0:18:35.440 And yeah, no, I don't think my family liked it, 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:37.960 but they just didn't want to get into it with me. 0:18:38.200 --> 0:18:40.000 I would have gotten in big trouble for even that 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:44.320 because alcohol was stun gravy to my household. It was bad, 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:48.080 it was the devil's juice, and it was not allowed 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.280 in the house. It was a really big deal. It's 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.600 amazing that I ever touched the stuff, you know, when 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:54.680 I like, I didn't drink it all in high school. 0:18:54.680 --> 0:18:57.440 I was a straight edge. What's more amazing to me 0:18:57.720 --> 0:19:00.920 is that you didn't. You weren't more likely to touch 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.000 this stuff because it was prohibited. That was well. That 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.040 was one of the major effects of prohibition was that 0:19:07.520 --> 0:19:12.919 alcohol use when it did increase, overall, alcohol decreased as 0:19:12.960 --> 0:19:16.439 an effective prohibition, but when it did increase, brother it 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:19.280 increased big time. Right, Yeah, let's talk about some of 0:19:19.320 --> 0:19:22.640 the effects, because it had effects on what you could 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.560 call the good side and the bad side, both medically 0:19:26.800 --> 0:19:31.080 and economically. Actually, most of the economic effects were pretty bad. 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.720 They were bad unless you were al capone. But alcohol 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:39.560 trafficking obviously increased things like speakeasies and this will alcohol rings, 0:19:39.920 --> 0:19:44.440 bootlegger rings are pretty much comparable to today's drug dealers. 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.560 Rum runners. Yeah, there were European rum fleets is what 0:19:48.600 --> 0:19:52.200 they call them, right, because no prohibition in Europe most 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.879 of Europe. UM. So they just sail out into international 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.920 waters and people there at midnight and then they would 0:19:58.960 --> 0:20:03.640 offload their cargo two bootleggers and you know that was that. Um. 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.280 They the one reason they knew that things were really 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.000 getting pretty bad on the bootlegging scene that I didn't realize. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:13.119 This is pretty funny to me. Demand for ten thousand 0:20:13.160 --> 0:20:16.760 dollar bills reached a high in the United States and 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:21.040 nine and basically that was a pretty clear sign that 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:23.760 people wanted very large bills so they didn't have to 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:28.080 have trunks full of money to make their switches in 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.920 international waters. Um. Political corruption was huge. In fact, there's 0:20:31.960 --> 0:20:35.440 a very famous quote from Mayor LaGuardia, who was running 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.560 New York at the time, who said this is a 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.800 great one. He said something along the lines of it 0:20:41.880 --> 0:20:44.040 is impossible to tell whether prohibition is a good thing 0:20:44.119 --> 0:20:46.119 or a bad thing. It has never been enforced in 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:49.840 this country, and they're going to name an airport after 0:20:49.880 --> 0:20:54.000 the guy. Another awesome, awesome fact, Josh, as far as 0:20:54.040 --> 0:20:55.880 when you said it started booming in a big way 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.720 prior to this. Prior to prohibition, there were less than 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:05.399 fifteen thousand bars legal bars in the US. After prohibition 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.399 in I'm sorry, in the midst of it, there were 0:21:08.400 --> 0:21:11.640 more than thirty thousand, more than double the amount of 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:18.080 illegal speakeasies, and there were an estimated hundred thousand people 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:22.439 brewing alcohol of all sorts in their homes illegally. I 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:25.440 can tell you they were probably like ten prior to prohibition, 0:21:25.960 --> 0:21:28.520 people who like went to the trouble making their own right. 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:30.919 But I mean, it's the same thing, like, don't you 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:35.639 think that if California legalizes pot, don't you think that 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:37.800 all those people who have a couple of plants growing 0:21:37.800 --> 0:21:39.960 illegally in their house are gonna stop doing that and 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:42.080 just go buy it at the store like everybody else. 0:21:42.880 --> 0:21:45.480 I don't know. The artisans would probably still grow their own, 0:21:45.520 --> 0:21:49.080 but maybe so, but in much the same way that 0:21:49.119 --> 0:21:54.480 people homebrew beer now like there's a lot of trouble 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:58.000 to go to that not everybody wants to do. You know, well, 0:21:58.080 --> 0:22:02.359 you mentioned the non enforcement, and there's another stat here that, uh, 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:04.439 it's pretty startling. At one point, they said, in New 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.480 York City, New York City, Yes, New York City, seven 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:11.320 thousand arrests were made for alcohol violations and seventeen of 0:22:11.320 --> 0:22:14.439 those ended up in convictions. Even when they tried to 0:22:14.560 --> 0:22:17.160 enforce it, it wouldn't make it all the way through 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.919 the legal system. That was the guardiest town by the way. 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:23.400 Well exactly, and they said in nineteen five, by nine 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:29.679 six states had laws that basically said quit investigating prohibition 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:34.040 cases or we're bust you down to private or whatever 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:38.280