Prohibition Dbq

Words: 782
Pages: 4

According to various documents regarding prohibition, I believe Prohibition should be considered a failure. Many people before this such as through the tempest movement were trying to make people aware of the dangers of alcohol. And during this time was after World War I, people were looking for an escape and chose to spend their money and time on alcohol. Then the Volstead Act was passed, which thus, put the idea of Prohibition into phase. Although the banning of alcohol did help improve American economy, it should be considered a failure due to the lack of power and lack of effectiveness trying to enforce the ban which was demonstrated through repealing the amendment in the 1930s. Drinking alcohol is a social behavior which cannot …show more content…
According to document 8, “actual corruption has existed in the prohibition enforcement until from the day it was formed” (Doc 8). Public officials were easily fooled and bribed and there we instances in which the gangsters would buy police and political authorities. Therefore, they had more power and control over the cities without the law in the way. That can relate to idea of bad law enforcement as mentioned above. This also relates to the idea from document 6 which is a picture of men hand in hand with Prohibition being the leader (Doc 6). It is believed that Prohibition was the catalyst for all of the gang violence from gangsters and selling or purchasing drugs. This makes sense because it brought all of the gang violence to public’s attention and became more evident then from the decade …show more content…
According to Document 4, there was a report for the drug war which occurred during the 20th century (Doc 4). It increased during the time of Prohibition, but according to some, that was destined due to the increase in technology after WWI. Gang wars were there way before the Prohibition but during the Prohibition it gave them a cause and a purpose. According to document 5, “ Two or three billion dollars yearly were turned from the destructive channels of drink to the constructive channels of legitimate business” (Doc 5). People such as Andrew Carnegie would agree with this because it reflects the idea of Gospel of Wealth. It helped improve the economy as well as profits for certain businesses. This was seen as a good thing because it reduced inflation and was able to teach people to spend money that helps improve the society. Though the idea has valid point, Prohibition was not effective enough to change the social