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... ion law was so unenforceable that most disregarded it and disregard for this law led to disregard for other laws such as stealing, breaking and entering, violence and so forth. This also led to an upsurge in crime levels, people, especially those who opposed the Prohibition Law, became rebellious and felt a sense of injustice and resentment for taking away their civil right to have a drink. Now that alcohol was illegal, the price of it went up and because of that, gangsters got involved, and because they are gangsters and alcohol is illegal, disputes can only be settled by violent means.
Perhaps the most famous gangsters are Al Capone and John Torrio, who operated mainly in Chicago as a result of Prohibition. Torrio led an Italian-American gang which had notorious Mafia connections. Single-handedly he managed to get Chicago separated into gang territories to reduce tension between rival gangs. He bought the protection of the current Mayor, Mayor Bill Thompson and ensured political support for him by rigging elections. Torrio's main business however was bootlegging and speakeasies from which he made a huge profit, which he enjoyed at leisure when he retired to his home-land of Italy in 1925 (the reported sum being $ 30 million! ).
Al Capone was his successor but he was altogether far more violent than Torrio. Capone was not fussy when it came to illegal happenings, he was famous for being a part of any criminal activity that existed. He employed professional gangsters, predominantly Italian men who were renowned to be reliable. Those who were not trained in gang warfare were used as ropers (those who pulled punters into the speakeasies), frisker's, (those who frisked for weapons inside speakeasies and when going to a meeting with important clients) or bankers (those who worked on the gambling circuits, which were nearly always rigged in favour of the gangsters). Capone was also renowned for organising rackets or raids on shops and shop owners of rival gangs or those who owed money.
A public face thanks to his continued work of protecting Mayor Thompson whilst extorting millions of Chicago's citizens dollars, making a fortune in speakeasies, brothels and drug trafficking as well as openly indulging in gang warfare, the relatively peaceful reign of Torrio was long gone. In just two years Capone's criminal capers had east him over $ 27 million. Big businesses like Rockefeller, cast a blind eye to the illegal nature of his gangs in order to benefit from his gang. Capone however was not unaware of the people who hated him. As an example of his wariness, he travelled around in an armour-plated Cadillac.
Many ask how he was allowed to continue like this. Although most feared him, the main reason Capone was allowed to continue was that the law enforcers had no power over him whatsoever. Judges and police officials were frequently on the payroll of the gangsters. Not only did he partake in criminal matters to do with money, there were also 227 gangland murders for which no one was ever convicted. The Valentines Day Massacre is an infamous example where four members of Capone's gang dressed as police officials, trapped and shot seven members of a leading rival gang (The Irish-American Moran gang) in the back. Such levels of violence were horrific but it seemed that nobody could touch him until 1931, where Capone was finally arrested for tax evasion rather than the four hundred murders he was alleged to have committed.
In short the gangsters thrived because they had enough money to be in charge of huge money making businesses like the speakeasies and bootlegging and they also had enough money to bribe the under-paid, over-worked police officials. Corruption also played a huge part, the police, the judicial system and even the President were known violators of the Prohibition Law, providing no role models for the average American citizen to look towards. Other effects of Prohibition include the boost of soft drink sales and an increase on smuggling on the Canadian, Caribbean and Mexican borders. Soft drinks, especially Coca Cola, had been steadily growing in popularity since the early 1900 s. Coca Cola was being branded, The Grand National Temperance Drink as early as 1905.
By the time Prohibition had been abolished, Coca Cola and Pepsi Cola where household names, increasing their annual output from 17. 4 million cases to 182 million. Smuggling also increased dramatically with the most famous story being that of President Kennedy father being a known smuggler. In conclusion the effects of Prohibition were generally very negative. The Temperance Movement pushed for Prohibition because they thought it would stop drinking altogether, which would then lead on to the end of domestic violence and an increase in productivity.
What they actually got was a huge increase in drinkers across America and an upsurge in crime and corruption which is certainly not productive! Why was Prohibition abolished? There are several reasons why the Prohibition Act was eventually abolished. It was an unenforceable law for a start. One of the main reasons which could be seen from the start was that it was appallingly under funded.
The Bureau of Prohibition was only given a budget of $ 4, 500 to work with a year and a handful of agents sent to enforce this ambitious law. It is reported that each agent had over 2, 000 square miles to cover. Also these agents had very low morale and self esteem because they were enforcing the law everybody loved to hate. These people were seen as taking away their right to have a drink and as a result they were hated.
This was also the reason that there were so few agents, because the job was so unattractive. One argument behind why it failed is that the immigrants who made up an astounding proportion of Americas population, were used to drinking as an intrinsic way of having fun and socialising. Not drinking seemed alien to these people as drinking was almost part of their culture and /or heritage. For the Puritanism Americans however, temperance was more of a way of life. Another reason for the repeal of Prohibition was that in the late 1920 s Americans priorities began to change. Individual freedom became more important than individual morality.
The Democratic Party picked up on this fact very quickly and in the next campaign for the presidential election in 1928, Alfred Smith promised the voters to abolish Prohibition, but in spite of that, he lost to a landslide victory of Herbert Hoover of the Republican Party. The small town mentality group of voters did not like the fact that Smith was a wet Catholic who supported immigration. The final nail in the coffin for Prohibition was the Depression which followed the Wall Street Crash of 1919. The return of the brewery industry promised more jobs for the masses of unemployed workers. Businessmen also supported the idea because it may have boosted taxation which would take some of the burden off of themselves. By the 1930 s a strong argument for repeal of the Prohibition Act was present.
Also at this time people started to move into the cities from the town, reducing the rural dry vote and boosting the urban wet vote and when Franklin D. Roosevelt stood as a Democratic candidate, promising repeal he was soon voted to victory with the aid of groups like the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA) who were rival groups for the slowly weakening Anti Saloon League (ASL). These factors together forced the Congress to pass the Twenty-First Amendment, a repeal of the Eighteenth Amendment which had imposed Prohibition. This was not the end however. Even though Congress voted to repeal Prohibition by 73 % the state governments still had the power to introduce their own versions of restrictions on the manufacture and distribution of alcohol. Inevitably after the act had been passed the consumption of alcohol increased but it was significantly lower than in the Nineteenth Century, when the Prohibition Act was first discussed.
In conclusion Prohibition was abolished because of lack of funding and support from the government and because it was too ambitious. It was almost impossible to enforce and if anything there were more drinkers than ever before. Even the sentencing for drinking alcohol was not that intimidating, a mere $ 1000 fine or six months prison sentence and that was only when the law enforcers were not corrupted by the gangsters. Peoples attitudes changed, they wanted freedom and prosperity like they had had in the early 1920 s. Roosevelt promised a New Deal for the American people suggesting it was about time Americans sat down and had a drink.
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Research essay sample on Allowed To Continue Coca Cola
