The United States pioneered several social reforms in the 1920s, including the Prohibition of alcohol, one of the most controversial topics in that era that lasted its influence until today. It was considered a failure as Prohibition was the only major reform “decisively and deliberately repealed” during the Progressive period in America (Burnham 51), and substantial unintended consequences arose while the measure was in effect, including an adverse health effect, fostering black markets, and injustice in law enforcement, bringing lessons to future legislations. This social experiment, expected to bring reforms to the U.S. society, failed to carry out desired functions, resulting in chaos and an overall negative impact.
The public’s expectations of Prohibition that anticipated a decrease in the overall death rate and violence in society were ultimately disillusioned. Instead, Prohibition brought unexpected consequences to society, highlighting the negative influences of the policy. One of the reasons for the public to support Prohibition was a belief that it would bring positive health effects. However, Warburton’s studies in 1932 showed no statistical evidence that Prohibition would ever influence public health (221). Similarly, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work, the upper-class society evidently ignored government regulation. They consumed alcohol regularly, making the policy ineffective in health management and disease prevention. Moreover, the impact of Prohibition did not stop there; it ultimately turned to the opposite as evidence of adverse effects gradually emerged. As illegal alcohol supply primarily existed during the era, industrial-grade alcohol, as a cheaper source of liquor, was often stolen and resold to households. The effects of industrial alcohol consumption took nearly a hundred lives during the Christmas week of 1926, and hundreds more died in the following year (Burton). The health benefit of Prohibition was excessively below expectation, which was disappointing after the trade-offs of compromising freedoms and knowing that the potential danger of an individual’s consumption of alcohol was much higher than the time before the ban was in effect. In addition, evidence showed that the ban may not bring potential security to society. According to Physician F. E. Oliver’s report in 1872, “several studies showed that consumption of opiates and other narcotics increased dramatically when the price of alcohol rose or when prohibitions were enforced (Morgan 49–50).” His assumptions suggested that Prohibition was a severe factor of social unrest. As the alcohol ban eliminated the use of a less harmful recreational product, there would be a much higher risk of violence as more of the substances that cause delirium were consumed. Those two influences caused by Prohibition generated a complete disillusionment of the effect of the policy expected by its supporters, causing severe consequences to society and finally resulting in the bill’s withdrawal.
The absence of legal alcohol in society bred the black industry with strong demand at the cost of job opportunities for law-abiding citizens, which ultimately decreased the national revenue from taxation, bringing benefits to smugglers and criminals. Before Prohibition, the budgets of many states relied on excise taxes from liquor sales. The New York State lost almost 75% of their revenue, and the federal government lost $11 billion in taxation and added over $300 million in spending to enforce the law (Lerner). The economic inefficiency was also reflected in the job losses as the industry declined. Blocker believed that the distilleries were reduced by 85% during the period, and the amount of malt, rice and hops used to produce full-strength beer was less than a tenth (236). Prohibition, as a result, damaged the economy of both sectors of society and the entire liquor industry. Although it was not an economically beneficial policy for ordinary people, with reduced state revenue, increased social funds for enforcement and countless job losses for employees, it brought mass interest to black market manipulators. The character Jay Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work vividly demonstrates the phenomenon that happened during the period. Gatsby was discovered to “buy up a lot of side-street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter (141-142)”, explaining his rapid accumulation of wealth and the rise to be a New Money. The astonishingly huge money flow in the black market brought by the Prohibition of alcohol made merchants like Jay Gatsby willing to take risks and disobey laws as more and more criminals benefitted from smuggling. Their wealth did not appear out of nowhere but could be traced back to the money of ordinary people lost due to Prohibition, pushing people to endure a harder livelihood. Those factors, collectively, strengthened people’s dissatisfaction with Prohibition.
The Prohibition of alcohol brought about severe social unrest, including a rise in organized crime and corruption, which ironically was the challenge that it was supposed to address in the first place but finally led to the opposite. As the first wave of depression hit rural America in the mid-1920s, a significant upsurge in crime appeared. From F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work, the organized crime performed by Jay Gatsby and Meyer Wolfsheim, which caused their success in illegal alcohol sales, clearly demonstrated this trend. The increase continued until 1933, the final year of Prohibition, and then it “mysteriously reversed itself” (Pandiani 349). However, although this trend happened during the Great Depression, it is hard to attribute crime to this event as it continued for several years after Prohibition. Thornton, therefore, concluded that as Prohibition destroyed legitimate jobs, fueled violence on the black market, took resources away from enforcing other laws, and dramatically raised the cost of alcohol, more crimes were committed. However, only those explanations cannot explain the appearance and flourishing of very stable, long-lasting black alcohol markets shown in the Prohibition era all around the country, as funds were considerably put into police enforcement after all. Another major factor that contributed to this was the widespread corruption in the country during this era. Ruggiero and South considered the “members of the police, military and judiciary accepted bribes in exchange for protection, property and pleasure” as a cultural template that proved the widespread corruption bred by Prohibition (qtd. in Blackman 847). As a result, gangsters, smugglers and criminals were de facto protected by the authority that was supposed to enforce the law, contrary to what was expected by the public. The fact is that the corruption brought by Prohibition and organized crime played a central role in the trend of the dramatic increase in the crime rate of the mid-1920s and the subsequent “mysterious” fall, causing lasting security damage to society. The rise in crime rate and the widespread corruption generated concerns about Prohibition, leading to the repeal of this measure. The concerns raised due to corruption kept their influence even after Prohibition, focusing on the integrity of the police force and the scope of government power, contributing to social progress.
In conclusion, although the Prohibition era was initiated with reformative intentions, the policy it brought finally generated widespread chaos and social unrest, and the overall negative impacts finally ended the era. Although many factors contributed to Prohibition’s failure, the unexpected rise in organized crime and corruption was the most significant. Since Prohibition served as one of the direct influences of the effect, it completely reversed the public’s perception of this policy in the years before Prohibition. The Prohibition of alcohol, in effect, led to more crimes and violence than what it solved. Towne and the Association Against the Prohibition Amendment (AAPA) warned of the consequences in the early 1920s when they noticed an increasing trend in “arrests for all sorts of crimes” in twenty cities after the passage of the Volstead Act (159). However, Prohibition continued to exist for about ten years, with people believing in its theoretical benefits without noticing its potential danger to society. If a bill has significant unintended consequences, it necessarily means that lawmakers and the general public do not make enough considerations before implementing it in human society, a system known for its complexity. Prohibition, as a radical social reform attempt, highlighted the importance of governments thoroughly considering the pros and cons of policies, aiming at reducing errors in similar legislations to solve social issues.
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