1
00:00:00,600 --> 00:00:03,800
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how

2
00:00:03,840 --> 00:00:13,720
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

3
00:00:13,760 --> 00:00:17,960
Speaker 1: I'm editor Candy Skipson, joined by staff writer Jane mcgrandy. Jane,

4
00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:20,239
Speaker 1: It's funny when someone tells you that you can't do

5
00:00:20,360 --> 00:00:22,960
Speaker 1: something and makes you want to do it even more. Totally.

6
00:00:23,520 --> 00:00:26,240
Speaker 1: One of my favorite movies maybe not currently, but when

7
00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:29,120
Speaker 1: I was a kid was Pollyanna. Have you ever seen Pollyanna?

8
00:00:29,200 --> 00:00:31,800
Speaker 1: I have. It was Haley Mills, right, yeah, yeah, I know.

9
00:00:31,840 --> 00:00:33,280
Speaker 1: It's toward the end of the movie. She wants to

10
00:00:33,320 --> 00:00:35,800
Speaker 1: go to the carnival, and her aunt says that she

11
00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:38,199
Speaker 1: can't go, so she climbs out the window and she

12
00:00:38,280 --> 00:00:41,520
Speaker 1: makes just the carnival just fine. You know, she's virtually unscathed.

13
00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:44,159
Speaker 1: But it's the coming home when she gets in trouble

14
00:00:44,479 --> 00:00:48,320
Speaker 1: and she ends up plummeting to the ground and becoming paralyzed.

15
00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:51,239
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, yeah, that's just too bad, because if

16
00:00:51,240 --> 00:00:53,040
Speaker 1: her AUNTI let her go in the first place, that

17
00:00:53,080 --> 00:00:56,600
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened. It's an interesting argument. Yeah, that's true,

18
00:00:56,600 --> 00:00:58,600
Speaker 1: and that's sort of what happened with the prohibition. I

19
00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:02,000
Speaker 1: guess you could say. Indeed, and uh, we're talking about

20
00:01:02,080 --> 00:01:05,280
Speaker 1: is the alcohol prohibition of the nine twenties in the US,

21
00:01:05,440 --> 00:01:09,240
Speaker 1: and it was called at the time the Noble Experiment,

22
00:01:09,280 --> 00:01:10,960
Speaker 1: which I find really interesting that it was called that

23
00:01:11,080 --> 00:01:14,360
Speaker 1: because it sort of had the idea that, um, well,

24
00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:17,880
Speaker 1: obviously it's noble. It's like it's an important thing of

25
00:01:18,120 --> 00:01:21,039
Speaker 1: morality wise, but also that it might not work. It's

26
00:01:21,040 --> 00:01:23,960
Speaker 1: just an experiment and we're not sure what's going to happen,

27
00:01:24,040 --> 00:01:26,960
Speaker 1: and it actually it kind of failed. It did, And

28
00:01:27,040 --> 00:01:29,440
Speaker 1: it's so funny that term noble. I think that that

29
00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:34,000
Speaker 1: really brings up the question of morality and ethics in

30
00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:37,960
Speaker 1: terms of alcohol. And even today I may be out

31
00:01:37,959 --> 00:01:39,640
Speaker 1: of line saying us, but I feel like in America

32
00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:41,840
Speaker 1: it's it's a really hot debate about whether or not

33
00:01:41,959 --> 00:01:44,280
Speaker 1: drinking is wrong or right, or how old should you

34
00:01:44,280 --> 00:01:46,160
Speaker 1: be when you drink, how much should you drink? Should

35
00:01:46,160 --> 00:01:49,120
Speaker 1: families introduce their children to alcohol at a younger age.

36
00:01:49,120 --> 00:01:51,880
Speaker 1: I feel like in other countries or other places where

37
00:01:52,040 --> 00:01:55,480
Speaker 1: there isn't a drinking age or it's you know particular

38
00:01:55,560 --> 00:01:58,560
Speaker 1: where they let them drink it. Yeah, it's like, you know,

39
00:01:58,680 --> 00:02:01,320
Speaker 1: it gradually is inter used into your life, and that's

40
00:02:01,360 --> 00:02:05,200
Speaker 1: as part of the culture and it's not this taboo issue. Yeah,

41
00:02:05,240 --> 00:02:07,760
Speaker 1: it's interesting difference. And even today in America we have

42
00:02:07,800 --> 00:02:10,000
Speaker 1: plenty of towns and counties that are dry, so called

43
00:02:10,080 --> 00:02:12,200
Speaker 1: dry and then and that they they don't sell alcohol

44
00:02:12,240 --> 00:02:16,040
Speaker 1: at all. And I would argue that prohibition forever affected

45
00:02:16,200 --> 00:02:20,160
Speaker 1: the American point of view about alcohol. And even though

46
00:02:20,160 --> 00:02:22,240
Speaker 1: it was repealed, I think we still look on it

47
00:02:22,360 --> 00:02:26,800
Speaker 1: as you know, an object that is taboo. Yeah, and

48
00:02:26,840 --> 00:02:30,080
Speaker 1: it's interesting. I mean, it had its roots before the

49
00:02:30,080 --> 00:02:32,200
Speaker 1: twentieth century. Is interesting to look back as far back

50
00:02:32,200 --> 00:02:35,240
Speaker 1: as eighteen forty six, main actually as a state, uh

51
00:02:35,840 --> 00:02:38,240
Speaker 1: was the first state to pass a statewide prohibition law,

52
00:02:38,400 --> 00:02:40,400
Speaker 1: and so they and they and so they sort of

53
00:02:40,440 --> 00:02:43,680
Speaker 1: set a precedent that that gained some some fever. And

54
00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:46,120
Speaker 1: before that, in thirty eight there was a lawn massa

55
00:02:46,200 --> 00:02:48,959
Speaker 1: chose has passed that only allowed people to buy alcohol

56
00:02:48,960 --> 00:02:51,560
Speaker 1: in really large quantities. And the idea behind that was

57
00:02:51,600 --> 00:02:54,600
Speaker 1: that the poor people couldn't get to it. And that's

58
00:02:54,639 --> 00:02:58,160
Speaker 1: what's so funny about prohibition are these ideas that people

59
00:02:58,200 --> 00:03:02,160
Speaker 1: held about alcohol, the idea that only um Irish and

60
00:03:02,200 --> 00:03:04,680
Speaker 1: German immigrants were the ones who abused it, or the

61
00:03:04,720 --> 00:03:08,040
Speaker 1: idea that it was evil or that if you drink

62
00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:11,399
Speaker 1: it would lead to insanity or abuse or poverty. And

63
00:03:11,840 --> 00:03:15,320
Speaker 1: even Henry Ford was one of the more famous advocates

64
00:03:15,400 --> 00:03:18,240
Speaker 1: of prohibition, and he had the idea that it decreased

65
00:03:18,280 --> 00:03:21,320
Speaker 1: worker productivity. And I know, even today there are people

66
00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:25,160
Speaker 1: who suggests that when you're buying a car, you should

67
00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 1: ask to see the manufacturing report and if that particular

68
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:30,840
Speaker 1: car was manufactured on Monday or Friday. Don't get it

69
00:03:30,880 --> 00:03:32,680
Speaker 1: because people are either you know, getting drunk for the

70
00:03:32,680 --> 00:03:35,640
Speaker 1: weekend or they're hungover from the weekend for the Yeah.

71
00:03:35,720 --> 00:03:37,400
Speaker 1: Or even people who say that they won't eat out

72
00:03:37,400 --> 00:03:40,360
Speaker 1: in restaurants the day after holiday because the people are hungover.

73
00:03:40,400 --> 00:03:42,960
Speaker 1: It's just so funny to me. But anyway, back to

74
00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,160
Speaker 1: the point, Um, so we have this idea that alcohol

75
00:03:46,680 --> 00:03:49,560
Speaker 1: is bad, and we're coming off of World War One

76
00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:52,480
Speaker 1: and we're seeing, you know, a larger influx of immigrants

77
00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:55,080
Speaker 1: to the United States. Yeah, And to your point, of

78
00:03:55,320 --> 00:03:57,240
Speaker 1: World War One is where we get a lot of

79
00:03:57,240 --> 00:04:00,440
Speaker 1: the anti German sentiment. At least it came to boiling

80
00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:02,840
Speaker 1: point at that point. Obviously the United States was fighting

81
00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:07,200
Speaker 1: against Germany and the war and so um uh. Non

82
00:04:07,320 --> 00:04:09,800
Speaker 1: Germans in the United States would look on Germans as

83
00:04:09,880 --> 00:04:12,840
Speaker 1: sort of like are you they're suspicious, like are you

84
00:04:12,960 --> 00:04:16,000
Speaker 1: favoring German in this Germany and this war and etcetera.

85
00:04:16,120 --> 00:04:20,680
Speaker 1: And U So in Germans, obviously, we're also associated with beers.

86
00:04:20,720 --> 00:04:22,000
Speaker 1: I mean you look at the names of beers like

87
00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:25,880
Speaker 1: Budweiser and like all different names, it's it's all German basically,

88
00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:28,280
Speaker 1: So many beers are German. And in the United States

89
00:04:28,320 --> 00:04:30,799
Speaker 1: at this time, a lot of the breweries were actually

90
00:04:30,839 --> 00:04:33,960
Speaker 1: owned by Germans. Ais are Bush for instant that was

91
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:36,719
Speaker 1: a German ren brewery. So there's this idea. Some historians

92
00:04:36,760 --> 00:04:39,320
Speaker 1: say that prohibition was a result of this idea of

93
00:04:39,640 --> 00:04:43,839
Speaker 1: of wasss white Anglo Saxon Protestants wanting to suppress people

94
00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:46,440
Speaker 1: who are not like them. So, whatever the cause, if

95
00:04:46,480 --> 00:04:50,000
Speaker 1: we look at a rough timeline of how prohibition came

96
00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:52,520
Speaker 1: into existence, we see that there were a lot of

97
00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:56,600
Speaker 1: local and state level laws passed first outlawing alcohol. Main

98
00:04:56,680 --> 00:04:59,760
Speaker 1: went dry, like Jane said in eighty six, and real

99
00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:02,479
Speaker 1: areas went dry in the West and the South, but

100
00:05:02,640 --> 00:05:05,440
Speaker 1: urban areas were a little bit more resistant. Yeah, it's interesting.

101
00:05:05,440 --> 00:05:08,200
Speaker 1: It's also interesting that this was often associated with women's

102
00:05:08,240 --> 00:05:10,960
Speaker 1: movements throughout the nineteenth century. Women were a strong force

103
00:05:11,279 --> 00:05:14,320
Speaker 1: along with the progressive movement obviously of getting women the

104
00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:17,200
Speaker 1: right of vote. There was also this this corresponding idea

105
00:05:17,279 --> 00:05:21,200
Speaker 1: of prohibition. Right in eighteen seventy three, the Women's Christian

106
00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:24,720
Speaker 1: Temperance Union formed, and they were famous in Ohio, especially

107
00:05:24,760 --> 00:05:27,920
Speaker 1: of going to saloons and and praying on the saloon floor.

108
00:05:27,960 --> 00:05:30,320
Speaker 1: You know, they wanted men to abstain because they were

109
00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:33,120
Speaker 1: the people that that the nation turned to to be

110
00:05:33,200 --> 00:05:35,920
Speaker 1: lawmakers and leaders, and women didn't have a voice at

111
00:05:35,920 --> 00:05:38,200
Speaker 1: this time, like you were saying. And so if men

112
00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:40,279
Speaker 1: were drunk and they were able to carry out those duties,

113
00:05:40,560 --> 00:05:43,839
Speaker 1: who was the nation looked to. And one really famous

114
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:46,960
Speaker 1: female pro temperance figure was Carrie Nation, and she was

115
00:05:47,000 --> 00:05:50,120
Speaker 1: fimous for a hatchet and walking around wielding the hatchet

116
00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:53,200
Speaker 1: to discourage people from going into saloons. And her husband

117
00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:56,480
Speaker 1: was an alcoholic and so she witnessed firsthand the so

118
00:05:56,560 --> 00:06:00,200
Speaker 1: called dangerous of alcohol. And in eighteen sixty and a

119
00:06:00,240 --> 00:06:02,680
Speaker 1: couple of years prior to this union really taking off,

120
00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:07,000
Speaker 1: the Prohibition Party actually formed alongside the Republicans and the

121
00:06:07,040 --> 00:06:10,000
Speaker 1: Democrats because people felt like they weren't getting a voice.

122
00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:12,400
Speaker 1: Their voice wasn't being heard by the Republicans or Democrats.

123
00:06:12,560 --> 00:06:13,960
Speaker 1: And we can think about this so like the third

124
00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:16,240
Speaker 1: party system and the idea that it will come up

125
00:06:16,240 --> 00:06:19,840
Speaker 1: over a certain idea in particular, and hopefully one of

126
00:06:19,880 --> 00:06:23,160
Speaker 1: the party's Republican or Democrat will will adopt it. And

127
00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:24,960
Speaker 1: they weren't doing anything at the time. So that's why

128
00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:27,240
Speaker 1: the prohibition movement where got fed up with it and

129
00:06:27,279 --> 00:06:29,240
Speaker 1: formed their own party. And they pointed out that there

130
00:06:29,320 --> 00:06:32,840
Speaker 1: was a link between alcohol abuse and child abuse and

131
00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:36,680
Speaker 1: crime and violence in the cities. And so finally, by

132
00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:40,960
Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, sixty percent of the United States had banned

133
00:06:40,960 --> 00:06:44,039
Speaker 1: alcohol at the local level. Yeah, and by nineteen nineteen,

134
00:06:44,640 --> 00:06:47,800
Speaker 1: the Congress actually passed the eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution,

135
00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:52,600
Speaker 1: which gave the government the power basically to enforce prohibition

136
00:06:53,560 --> 00:06:56,000
Speaker 1: among all the entire country, all of the states. And

137
00:06:56,040 --> 00:06:58,880
Speaker 1: the funny thing about prohibition is this, the eighteen Amendment

138
00:06:58,960 --> 00:07:04,279
Speaker 1: outlawed the sale, all the manufacturer and the importation of alcohol,

139
00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:07,920
Speaker 1: but it never outlawed drinking it or possessing it. And

140
00:07:08,000 --> 00:07:10,840
Speaker 1: so if you already had a lot of alcohol in

141
00:07:10,920 --> 00:07:13,400
Speaker 1: your storehouse. You can keep it. You know, if you

142
00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:15,280
Speaker 1: had a flask and he had somewhere to fill it,

143
00:07:15,320 --> 00:07:17,600
Speaker 1: you could do that. You could bring it around with you.

144
00:07:17,600 --> 00:07:19,480
Speaker 1: You just couldn't import it, and you can sell it.

145
00:07:19,560 --> 00:07:21,160
Speaker 1: And I guess sort of the idea behind that is

146
00:07:21,720 --> 00:07:26,560
Speaker 1: to enforce the drink, like to enforce prohibiting the drinking

147
00:07:26,600 --> 00:07:28,880
Speaker 1: of it would be too difficult. I guess. Obviously, if

148
00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:32,160
Speaker 1: someone's one seller is stocked, you can't go into their

149
00:07:32,280 --> 00:07:34,480
Speaker 1: their house and destroy their property. That would be going

150
00:07:34,520 --> 00:07:37,960
Speaker 1: too far. And there wasn't enough manpower to do that either.

151
00:07:38,120 --> 00:07:40,840
Speaker 1: And that's what was so tricky about prohibition in the

152
00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:42,960
Speaker 1: thirteen years that it lasts, which is that it was

153
00:07:43,080 --> 00:07:46,360
Speaker 1: so hard to enforce. And the Volstead Act followed the

154
00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:50,080
Speaker 1: Eighteenth Amendment, and this is what was outlining the different

155
00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:54,080
Speaker 1: enforcement policies that the government had in terms of prohibition.

156
00:07:54,240 --> 00:07:58,840
Speaker 1: So it discussed the penalties to drinking UM, the exceptions

157
00:07:58,960 --> 00:08:01,040
Speaker 1: like if you were using it for religious purposes that

158
00:08:01,160 --> 00:08:04,120
Speaker 1: was okay, and also to find the legal limits of

159
00:08:04,160 --> 00:08:07,280
Speaker 1: the alcohol content for beverage. Azz yahai I said it

160
00:08:07,280 --> 00:08:10,920
Speaker 1: about zero point five percent alcohol was over the legal

161
00:08:10,920 --> 00:08:13,240
Speaker 1: limit UM and to give you a point of reference,

162
00:08:13,280 --> 00:08:15,280
Speaker 1: I think like an average like a week beer basically

163
00:08:15,320 --> 00:08:20,080
Speaker 1: is four percent. So that's a pretty low limit right there.

164
00:08:20,280 --> 00:08:22,240
Speaker 1: So you could drink. I guess it's just that whatever

165
00:08:22,320 --> 00:08:26,120
Speaker 1: you were drinking wasn't going to get you drunk, especially imagining.

166
00:08:26,320 --> 00:08:28,280
Speaker 1: That's true. And it was interesting about the Volstead Amendment.

167
00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:30,920
Speaker 1: I didn't know this until I started researching for this podcast,

168
00:08:31,040 --> 00:08:34,280
Speaker 1: was that Woodrow Wilson actually vetoed it. And UM, it

169
00:08:34,320 --> 00:08:36,720
Speaker 1: was interesting to me because I I know Wilson in

170
00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:38,720
Speaker 1: history are sort of a progressive. He was one of

171
00:08:38,760 --> 00:08:42,800
Speaker 1: the most progressive um uh presidents in the United States,

172
00:08:42,880 --> 00:08:46,640
Speaker 1: and prohibition was a progressive movement. But um, apparently some

173
00:08:46,760 --> 00:08:51,239
Speaker 1: story would say that Wilson found it unnecessarily authoritarian basically,

174
00:08:51,320 --> 00:08:54,760
Speaker 1: and you can make that case because um, the idea

175
00:08:54,800 --> 00:08:57,439
Speaker 1: of enforcing the Volstead Act became a huge headache, and

176
00:08:57,480 --> 00:09:00,720
Speaker 1: obviously it showed how how authoritarian the law really was,

177
00:09:01,440 --> 00:09:04,960
Speaker 1: and it was progressing the nation in a strange direction.

178
00:09:05,200 --> 00:09:07,360
Speaker 1: And today I don't know if there are still people

179
00:09:07,440 --> 00:09:10,560
Speaker 1: who advocate prohibition, or at least there are people who

180
00:09:10,559 --> 00:09:14,880
Speaker 1: probably do promote temperance. But prohibition led to some really

181
00:09:14,960 --> 00:09:18,800
Speaker 1: nasty stuff. And it's again, like we were saying at

182
00:09:18,800 --> 00:09:21,040
Speaker 1: the beginning of the podcast, if someone tells you can't

183
00:09:21,080 --> 00:09:23,240
Speaker 1: do something, you're going to find a way around it.

184
00:09:23,280 --> 00:09:25,440
Speaker 1: And usually the way around it is going to lead

185
00:09:25,480 --> 00:09:31,120
Speaker 1: to breaking some other rules. And organized crime took off exponentially.

186
00:09:31,160 --> 00:09:33,520
Speaker 1: I can't even begin to, you know, describe how bad

187
00:09:33,559 --> 00:09:35,199
Speaker 1: it got. You know, you look at someone like al

188
00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:38,040
Speaker 1: Capone and the speakeasy said he ran, and all the

189
00:09:38,080 --> 00:09:41,000
Speaker 1: gangs that resulted from this, and all the bootlegging, and

190
00:09:41,240 --> 00:09:44,600
Speaker 1: even European rum flights, like people would ride out to

191
00:09:44,679 --> 00:09:47,240
Speaker 1: the different bodies of water around the U. S and

192
00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:50,199
Speaker 1: and meet European ships that had rum waiting for them

193
00:09:50,200 --> 00:09:53,000
Speaker 1: and they would bring them back. And speaking of speakeasies,

194
00:09:53,200 --> 00:09:56,080
Speaker 1: obviously those were there was you legal bars during the prohibition,

195
00:09:56,520 --> 00:10:00,000
Speaker 1: um they actually surged and if you look at the numbers,

196
00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,440
Speaker 1: there were more speakeasies during prohibition than there were legal

197
00:10:03,480 --> 00:10:06,760
Speaker 1: bars before prohibition. And that just boggles me. It is.

198
00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:08,920
Speaker 1: And so you look at all this crime that came

199
00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:11,840
Speaker 1: about as a result of prohibition, and when the depression

200
00:10:11,960 --> 00:10:15,720
Speaker 1: on set, people started getting really ticked off because you

201
00:10:15,760 --> 00:10:18,280
Speaker 1: know that the money that came from the legal taxation

202
00:10:18,280 --> 00:10:21,720
Speaker 1: of alcohol could have been supporting the country's economy, and

203
00:10:21,760 --> 00:10:25,120
Speaker 1: instead this money was going to gangsters like al Capone

204
00:10:25,160 --> 00:10:27,319
Speaker 1: who were making a mint off something that was a

205
00:10:27,400 --> 00:10:29,240
Speaker 1: link all. And it's interesting to look at the money

206
00:10:29,280 --> 00:10:32,160
Speaker 1: aspect of this. I actually had researched, um the I

207
00:10:32,320 --> 00:10:34,520
Speaker 1: R S for an article I was doing, and the

208
00:10:34,559 --> 00:10:37,880
Speaker 1: I R S was actually charged with basically enforcing prohibition.

209
00:10:37,920 --> 00:10:39,640
Speaker 1: And I was really interested to learn this because you

210
00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:42,120
Speaker 1: would never think that. But it was the idea of

211
00:10:42,360 --> 00:10:45,640
Speaker 1: there was revenue passing hands and and um, it was

212
00:10:45,679 --> 00:10:48,200
Speaker 1: not being taxed, and that was the main way that

213
00:10:48,240 --> 00:10:52,000
Speaker 1: we could track down the government could track down illegal transactions,

214
00:10:52,080 --> 00:10:54,720
Speaker 1: was the idea of money being around in it and

215
00:10:54,760 --> 00:10:57,240
Speaker 1: there's no proof of taxation. And so that was the

216
00:10:57,280 --> 00:11:01,199
Speaker 1: way that obviously al Capone was called right exactly after

217
00:11:01,240 --> 00:11:04,000
Speaker 1: all the murders that he oversaw and all the gay activity,

218
00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,840
Speaker 1: it was on the tax fraud essentially or tax evasion

219
00:11:07,320 --> 00:11:10,480
Speaker 1: that he was he was canned essentially. Yeah, and sorry,

220
00:11:10,480 --> 00:11:14,240
Speaker 1: it's it's interesting that, um that also the dangerous things

221
00:11:14,240 --> 00:11:17,360
Speaker 1: that came as a result of prohibition was that, um,

222
00:11:17,440 --> 00:11:21,640
Speaker 1: this whole atmosphere of criminal activity actually exposed more people

223
00:11:21,679 --> 00:11:24,520
Speaker 1: to dangerous drugs. People like historians look back and they're like, oh,

224
00:11:24,559 --> 00:11:28,520
Speaker 1: these people are hanging around uh, illegal crowds, basically criminal crowds,

225
00:11:28,559 --> 00:11:31,679
Speaker 1: and and so it exposed everyone to more dangerous things.

226
00:11:31,720 --> 00:11:33,920
Speaker 1: And one thing that got me as well was the

227
00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:36,880
Speaker 1: idea that there was still liquor around that needed to

228
00:11:36,920 --> 00:11:41,520
Speaker 1: be used for industrial purposes during the prohibition, and so, uh,

229
00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:45,080
Speaker 1: the the government started contaminating this liquor and and so

230
00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:47,679
Speaker 1: that people wouldn't drink it. And and I guess they

231
00:11:47,760 --> 00:11:49,880
Speaker 1: didn't get the word around enough because it resulted in

232
00:11:50,200 --> 00:11:54,520
Speaker 1: lots of deaths. I think adulterated liquor caused fifty deaths,

233
00:11:55,040 --> 00:11:58,080
Speaker 1: isn't that wild? Yeah, with more people trying to manufacture

234
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:00,560
Speaker 1: their own liquor or sometimes to be made really really

235
00:12:00,640 --> 00:12:05,600
Speaker 1: dangerously and so ingesting it could mean death and bethlub Yeah,

236
00:12:05,679 --> 00:12:08,000
Speaker 1: And that was one of those strange things about prohibition

237
00:12:08,040 --> 00:12:11,439
Speaker 1: is that for every pro there was a con So

238
00:12:11,559 --> 00:12:14,080
Speaker 1: the number of deaths related to services of the liver

239
00:12:14,280 --> 00:12:17,160
Speaker 1: from drinking too much alcohol went down, but like you

240
00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:20,080
Speaker 1: were saying, the number of deaths from drinking contaminated liquor

241
00:12:20,280 --> 00:12:24,520
Speaker 1: or home manufactured liquor went up, and oddly enough alcoholics.

242
00:12:24,520 --> 00:12:26,840
Speaker 1: The number of alcoholics went up as well. Yeah, so

243
00:12:26,920 --> 00:12:31,880
Speaker 1: more alcoholics, but pro less people drinking alcohol. And so

244
00:12:32,000 --> 00:12:34,520
Speaker 1: finally people could see the prohibition was not working, there

245
00:12:34,600 --> 00:12:36,400
Speaker 1: was no way to enforce it, and so in n

246
00:12:37,120 --> 00:12:40,240
Speaker 1: three the amendment was overturned, and so far it's the

247
00:12:40,280 --> 00:12:43,960
Speaker 1: only amendment in the Constitution to be overturned later again

248
00:12:44,240 --> 00:12:48,520
Speaker 1: by another constitutional amendment. And it's interesting also the the

249
00:12:48,559 --> 00:12:54,840
Speaker 1: amendment that overturned prohibition, UH made sure to make allowances

250
00:12:54,880 --> 00:12:57,319
Speaker 1: that states could at the local level, you can ban

251
00:12:57,679 --> 00:13:00,800
Speaker 1: liquor as much as you want, um and one story

252
00:13:00,840 --> 00:13:03,400
Speaker 1: and noted that there's only two ways for an individual,

253
00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:06,559
Speaker 1: just a single person, to aviolate the constitution. One is

254
00:13:06,600 --> 00:13:09,280
Speaker 1: to enslave someone and the other is to bring alcohol

255
00:13:09,320 --> 00:13:12,199
Speaker 1: through a dry county. And that's to think about the

256
00:13:12,360 --> 00:13:18,120
Speaker 1: opposing and the spectrum and ideas of temperance continue to

257
00:13:18,280 --> 00:13:21,439
Speaker 1: pervade our national culture, especially in places in the South.

258
00:13:21,600 --> 00:13:25,640
Speaker 1: We see that temperance is really strongly advocated, and you

259
00:13:25,679 --> 00:13:28,559
Speaker 1: see that most dry counties are in the South today.

260
00:13:29,240 --> 00:13:32,320
Speaker 1: And something interesting that I was reading, um I love

261
00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:35,200
Speaker 1: Love of Love, Leticia Baldredge I think she's a great writer.

262
00:13:35,280 --> 00:13:38,360
Speaker 1: She was Jackie Kennedy's social secretary during the Kennedy years

263
00:13:38,360 --> 00:13:40,800
Speaker 1: and in Camelot, and she was recounting in one of

264
00:13:40,840 --> 00:13:44,040
Speaker 1: her memoirs that there was a big formal event that

265
00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:46,199
Speaker 1: Kennedy was hosting. It was one of the first ones,

266
00:13:46,320 --> 00:13:48,920
Speaker 1: and she was, you know, helping a planet, and she

267
00:13:48,960 --> 00:13:51,320
Speaker 1: didn't think anything of it. But she had little station

268
00:13:51,440 --> 00:13:53,360
Speaker 1: set up in the ballroom where people could go over

269
00:13:53,400 --> 00:13:56,439
Speaker 1: and and mix their drinks. And everyone looked at the

270
00:13:56,480 --> 00:13:59,600
Speaker 1: White House and they decried Kennedy as someone promoting you know,

271
00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:03,200
Speaker 1: revelry and alcoholism. It was just a mess, and Kennedy

272
00:14:03,240 --> 00:14:05,360
Speaker 1: got really mad and he was like, Leticia, next time

273
00:14:05,400 --> 00:14:09,520
Speaker 1: you mixed the drinks. In the back day, it might

274
00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:11,320
Speaker 1: not be as big of a deal, but you know,

275
00:14:11,760 --> 00:14:14,360
Speaker 1: during that time, it certainly was because, you know, think

276
00:14:14,360 --> 00:14:17,640
Speaker 1: about it, only a few decades had passed since prohibition

277
00:14:17,640 --> 00:14:19,800
Speaker 1: have been overturned, and people were still learning how to

278
00:14:19,840 --> 00:14:23,480
Speaker 1: be temperate with alcohol. And that's that's the main thing

279
00:14:23,560 --> 00:14:26,120
Speaker 1: that people have to do. I think in our cultures,

280
00:14:26,160 --> 00:14:28,360
Speaker 1: you know, you set your own levels for temperance, and

281
00:14:28,520 --> 00:14:31,080
Speaker 1: there are laws that dictate the legal drinking age, and

282
00:14:31,080 --> 00:14:33,040
Speaker 1: you know which counties are dry, but you know, it

283
00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:35,560
Speaker 1: really is a personal choice in the end. That's true,

284
00:14:35,600 --> 00:14:37,800
Speaker 1: and it makes sense now this local level. I wanted

285
00:14:37,840 --> 00:14:40,680
Speaker 1: to give a shout out to Maryland, my home state, UM,

286
00:14:40,800 --> 00:14:44,080
Speaker 1: because during Prohibition it got the name of free state

287
00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:46,240
Speaker 1: and nickname is free state because they weren't they didn't

288
00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:49,880
Speaker 1: really like enforcing prohibition and it's sort of ticked off

289
00:14:50,120 --> 00:14:52,120
Speaker 1: the government at the time, and in Maryland is known

290
00:14:52,160 --> 00:14:56,440
Speaker 1: as sort of free liquor place. Oh, lady Jane Goodness,

291
00:14:56,680 --> 00:14:59,000
Speaker 1: that's where I get it from. Well, if you want

292
00:14:59,080 --> 00:15:02,800
Speaker 1: to learn more about prohibition and temperance and alcohol in general,

293
00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:04,880
Speaker 1: will be sure to check out how stuff works dot

294
00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:09,280
Speaker 1: com for more on this and thousands of other topics.

295
00:15:09,520 --> 00:15:12,360
Speaker 1: Is it how stuff works dot com. Let us know

296
00:15:12,440 --> 00:15:15,360
Speaker 1: what you think. Send an email to podcast at how

297
00:15:15,400 --> 00:15:17,440
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. M