Repeal Day Anniversay

This post ran last year, but it’s something we should remember so I’m sending it out again.

Next Monday represents an important day in cocktail history, as it marks the anniversary of the official end of Prohibition.

Efforts to outlaw alcohol in the U.S. began in the late 1800s.  They were heavily supported by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union,  whose members believed that doing so would put an end to drunkenness, crime, mental illness, and poverty.  Certainly they had supporters in the federal government, but at the time liquor taxes represented almost one-third of federal revenues - too much to give up.  By 1919, however, the recently enacted federal income tax system had become lucrative enough that Prohibition was politically feasible.  The 18th Amendment to our Constitution was passed, outlawing the sale of alcoholic beverages.

Over the next thirteen years a sophisticated infrastructure of organized crime developed to meet our demand for alcohol.  Violence and drunkenness actually increased while federal revenues and beverage quality decreased.  Confidence in government reached an all time low.  It appeared that Americans’ tolerance for alcohol was greater than their tolerance for social engineering.  The “Noble Experiment” that Prohibition was supposed to be was losing steam.  (Next time you really foul something up at work because of some lame idea you had, try explaining it away as a “noble experiment.”  Let me know how that works out for you.)

In 1932 Franklin D. Roosevelt ran for and was elected President on a platform that included repeal, and on December 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment was ratified.  It’s final wording was direct enough…”The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.”  Oddly, this language won out over the more descriptive proposal, which was something like “We’re keeping the income tax and organized crime, but you can drink again.”

And so by act of Congress, our right to enjoy cocktails was restored.  This doesn’t mean we can consume them irresponsibly, of course.  If anything it returns the responsibility for our associated behaviors to us as individuals, where it should have been all along.

This weekend I plan to raise a toast of thanks to President Roosevelt, and to hold a good thought that we take to heart the lessons of our past mistakes.  I hope you’ll join me.

Your favorite bartender,

-Dan

This entry was posted on 1. December 2011 at 09:49 and is filed under Bartender's Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.