Prohibition and the rich

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Prohibition and the rich

Unread postby bourbonv » Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:42 am

I have always said that prohibition came about for many different reasons, but that if the rich people of the United States thought it would have actually prevented them from drinking, it would never had passed. Proof of this is found in the Taylor-Hay papers that I am cataloging at work. In 1930 there is a letter about the outrage caused by the police raiding the Pendeniss Club here in Louisville. The outrage is caused because the police should have left them alone and went after some speakeasy instead. Then there are the letters describing the wedding at the U S Grant Hotel in San Diego, California describing the wedding and reception afterward in 1931. It was an elaborate affair for the son of one of the Hotel owners who was also a race horse owner. After the wedding there where "cocktails and highballs served" to the guest and Taylor Hay states he had about 3 cocktails and 5 highballs. The rich would have their drinks while the poor suffered with cheap illegal booze or none at all,

Mike Veach
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Unread postby bourbonv » Sat Apr 08, 2006 12:42 pm

Prohibition is a very complicated subject. We have discussed it some before now but I thought I would elaborate a little more now that I have some time.

The Temperance movement starts in the early 19th century and really grows out of the religous revival movement that was so strong in the United States in the first two decades of the 19th century. This "camp meet" movement was very strong in the south and is really the foundation for what is now the "Bible Belt" in America. This religous fervor gave birth to three main social reforms - Abolition, Temperance and Women's Sufferage. All three movements were struggling for attention at the same time, but obviously some of these causes were stronger than others in different parts of the country.

By the 1840's there were Temperance Societies being formed and members were encouraged to sign the pledge to moderate their consumption of alcohol. There was also heavy social pleasure to make the final step and to totally give up the use of alcohol and sign your pledge with a big "T" next to your name and become a "T Totaler". This movemnet at first was simply a social movement but became political when Maine became the first state to pass total prohibition of the sale of alcohol in the 1840's.

Temperance was overshadowed by the Abolition Movement in the North before the Civil War. The result was that it gained very little political support and most states either remained wet or experimented with prohibition only to repeal it shortly afterwards. After the Civil War it became one opf the two the major social movements with Women's Sufferage. The two often worked hand in hand with the leadership being the same people in both movements. Reconstruction and the uncertainty of the Hayes election kept much from being done until the late 1870's.

By the late 1870's the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was formed and speaking publicly against the evils of drink. In 1893 the Anti-Saloon League was formed in Ohio and this was a turning point for the prohibitionist. The Anti-Saloon League believed all politics was local and the key to a dry America was to win the local elections for dry politicians. This would cause a "trickle up" effect as the parties became dominated by dry politicians. Temperance had become political.

It took more than simply alcohol prohibition to win these offices. The Anti-Saloon league painted the saloon as a place of political corruption where immigrants and foriegners came together to force their ways on God Fearing. true red blooded Americans. This played upon two major issues that were dominating America at the time. The first was the growing power of the cities was changing the politcal power from rural to urban America. The second was the fear of the foriegn born immigrant.

There were regional issues as well that helped the prohibitionist. Henry Ford was a big supporter of prohibition because he thought if the poor were not allowed to drink, then they would be less likely to miss work and be more productive for him. In the South it was seen as a way to keep blacks from drinking for basically the same reasons as Henry Ford wanted his work force dry. Nobody really wanted to prohibit alcohol from anyone other than the poor. One Southern politician told Henry Watterson that it would keep the blacks in line but not hurt the plantation owner or business man. He tells him something along the lines that their chance of keeping him from buying bourbon was about the same chance as a "ni--r" has to vote.

The alcohol industry was not idle while all of this was going on. The saloons for the most part were owned by the breweries. The breweries played up on the Germanic heritage of beer and stated that attacks on beer was attacks against that white, European heritage. The distillers were trying to address the issue but they were not a united front. There was a huge rift between the straight whiskey distillers and the rectifiers over what was whiskey. There was conflict as to how the Temperance movement should be fought. Most distiller wanted self regulation to clean up the worst of the abuses in the industry. The problem was that the staight whiskey people saw the rectifiers as the worst abuse that need to be eliminated. Rectifiers made about 75% of the American whiskey of the time and had more economic power, but there were enough rectifiers that deserved the bad reputation that this did not translate into political power.

By the turn of the 20th century the prohibition movement was gaining power and many local counties were becoming dry which often led to states becoming dry. The final step that allowed prohibitionist to seize power was the United States declaring was on Germany. The attack on Germanic heritage closed the saloons and allowed the prohibitionist gain power.

Prohibition officially starts in 1920, but the Congress had passed a "War Time Prohibition" that would take effect in 1918 prohibiting distilleries from making beverage alcohol. They instead had to sell their high proof alcohol to the government for the war effort. The law effect about two months before the war ended, but was carried on the records even after the war ended. You will not find a bottled in bond tax stamp for whiskey made in 1919.

The distilleries were closed and only a few companies were allowed to sell alcohol for :Medicinal Use". The government found out very quickly that they needed to guard the whiskey in the warehouses and created "Consolidation Warehouses" where legal whiskey could be stored and guarded from bootleggers. If you owned a distillery before 1920, you had to close the doors and dismantle the still. You had to send your agiung product to a consolidation warehouse to be stored. If you wanted to sell it, you had to sell it through one of the companies selling Medicinal alcohol.

The companies selling medicinal alcohol were as follows: American Medicinal Spirits (AMS), who later became National Distillers. They were the largest company with the most whiskey. Schenley Distillery was the second largest company. The others were Brown-Forman, James Thompson and Bros (later called Glenmore Distillery), Frankfort Distillery, and A Ph. Stitzel Distillery, who also let W L Weller and Sons use their license to sell whiskey. These companies could sell to pharmicist, based on the demand (the largest market for the distilleries), Doctors and Dentist could purchase 12 pints a year for office use and bakers could purchase 12 pints of 100 proof brandy or rum a year. This was the limited market for spirits. This also fortunate because with the distilleries closed, the limited market meant that they could stay in business with their limited supply of whiskey.

Prohibition hurt the nation's economy. The fact is closing down the alcohol industry hurt not only the brewers and distillers, but also the farmers who sold them grain, bottle makers, label printers, coopers, the railraods who shipped the products and the newspapers and magazines were the products were advertised. This is not to mention the people who worked in saloons and liquor stores and people hurt by their closing. Before the stock market crashed, farmers saw a fall in grain prices that started to force many of them to sell their farms starting in 1925. This is the real beginning of the Great Depression.

No alcohol was allowed to be made before 1928. The companies selling whiskey for medicinal use were pretty much out of their own product and were putting whiskey purchased from other people with barrels in their consolidation warehouse in their labels to keep a brand alive. Stocks were over aged and getting worse. They were also drying up as the angels kept taking their share. It should be noted that not all of the whiskey in these warehouses and being bottled in bond was not really straight whiskey. Most of the whiskey on the market beofre prohibition was being sold as rectified whiskey. Many of these rectifiers made their blends and than put it back into the barrels to age for a while before it was sold, and these aging barrels also ended up in consolidation warehouses and was sold to put into the bottle as a medicinal whiskey.

In 1928 stocks were being depleted and the government allowed 3 million proof gallons to be made a year to fill dwindling stocks. The end of prohibition had begun. After the election of Herbert Hoover, the economy fell apart. Violence and the complete disregard for the law turned many against prohibition. New York State had already repealed the prohibition admendment and refused to let state or local law enforcement enforce prohibition. This taxed the already strained Federal Enforcement further. Organized crime was winning the war, smuggling more and more illegal whiskey into the country and making more and more illegal distilled spirits in the country. By 1932 the country had had enough and with the election of FDR the process began to repeal prohibition. At 5 o'clock on December the 5th 1933, Utah passed the repeal admendment, becoming the last state needed to end prohibition. The nightmare was over.


Mike Veach
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Unread postby bourbonv » Mon Aug 14, 2006 12:43 pm

Gary has mentioned elsewhere that it is often forgotten that Prohibition and the Temperance movement were strong in Canada at the same time as they were growing in the United States. Several of the books I have read infer that prohibition would have hit Canada just like it did in the United States except that the Canadians saw the money they could make by selling to bootleggers heading for the U.S. This saved their Canadian Whiskey Industry from a fate similar to the that of U S distillers. Maybe Gary could clarify this a little here.
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Unread postby gillmang » Mon Aug 14, 2006 4:40 pm

Well, the industry did survive here and despite periods where liquor could not be sold in Ontario and other places, I understand distillers were allowed to operate, for legal export and sale to parts of Canada where liquor was allowed, e.g., in Quebec. Canadian Club even by the 1920's had a world sale and therefore it wasn't just to wink at sales into the U.S.. Without question distillers here sold whisky and must have known some of it, one way or another, would end up in illegal hands but apparently at the time this was not illegal as such. They sold whiskey in Canada and others arranged to bring it into the States, they were the law contrevenors. I will have to consult the books to get more information. But Prohibition was quite strong in parts of Central Canada and rural Canada in general and many areas even before WW I were dry under local option.

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Unread postby bourbonv » Mon Aug 14, 2006 4:46 pm

Gary,
This is a more realistic picture of Canadian whisky during prohibition than is usually painted by American writers on the subject. I look forward to seeing what you find out.
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Unread postby gillmang » Mon Aug 14, 2006 4:49 pm

Yes let me dig into the books, I have some materials on this.

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